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Bard Build Guide by

How to BARD S14 by an OTP (+ 1.6 M points)

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2 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author IGaRRaS

Bard Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (2) More Bard Guides

Runes: Guardian bard (noob friendly)

1 2 3 4

Resolve

Guardian

Font of Life

Bone Plating

Revitalize

Domination

Zombie Ward

Ingenious Hunter

Bonus:

+8 Ability Haste

Spells:

1 2

Standard

Flash

Ignite

Items

Electrocute standard Bard

Starters

First back (1375 gold)

Core build

Overall good

Situational

Example build

Aery standard Bard

Starters

First back (1100 - 1350 gold)

Core build (choose one mythic item)

Overall good

Situational

Example build

Guardian Bard

Starters

Nice first items

Core build

Overall good

Situational

Build example

One shot them

Starters

First back (1400 gold)

Core build

Overall good

Build example

Ability Order

Bard Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Thresh

Extreme

Thresh and naut are the biggest counters of bard.

Jhin

Ideal

AA with meeps mark the enemies so jhin can W on them :D. Also it is possible to ult the blockers when jhin ults.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Jhin

Ideal

AA with meeps mark the enemies so jhin can W on them :D. Also it is possible to ult the blockers when jhin ults.

Champion Build Guide

Electrocute standard Bard

Who am i?
I am a EUW player who managed to climb to plat at season 9 with Bard. I am also a member of Bard lover community who adores this fat and cute dude. Right now, i own 800k points on Bard.
Why play Bard?
Bard is not only a champion, it's a religion that divides LOL players. There are Bard haters that will ban Bard if you show them as a prepick, those players deserve hell for not loving our beloved Bard.
Do i love Bard? Why?
Yes. Because no other champs looks like more Bard than Bard.

First back (1350 gold)

PROS: 1. A lot of people disrespect bard's early dmg 2. Fits almost any team comp 3. Possible carrying teamfights 4. Enables going for big and beatiful plays 5. High mobility
	CONS: 1. Hard to master 2. May be troll if it is not used properly 3. May throw games with wrong ults 4. Have to leave your adc alone so you can scale your passive 5. Bad at long trades or fights

Overall good

Electrocute is a huge rune on bard. As said before in runes' notes, makes it possible to easily kill at lv 1 if getting help by your adc. Since counts as an extra hit, landing (stun) + aa will deal surprisingly big damage, sometimes forcring them to back.

This rune is so usefull when you land and stun the enemy. If so, the next trade will be won almost for sure. This rune makes that trade more efficient.

This just gives us a bit of extra AP. Once reached late game, helps dealing more dmg with and .

Gives us extra mobility. It is extremely usefull to rotate before the enemy team and ward objectives or to roam to midlane during mid game phase.

This is a controvesial one. Indeed it is possible to replace it with . Anyway, i still prefer to deal extra damage in early game or punish the enemy a bit more if they keep face checking bushes.

I remind you one more time that meeps DO count as an ability, so hitting an aa activates ; this way, we deal more damage by poking.

Example build

Long or most used tunnels:

General use of portals:

Since does not have huge fight spells, we need to take prio using other techniques like . Tunnels are great and can be used to engage, follow engages, run away, roam, return to lane faster, bait... Their utilisation is an art. Still the alcove is one of the greatest and it is the reason of why bard can avoid ganks so easily (works on both sides).

Blue side botlane (base at the bottom):

Red side botlane (base at the top):

in lane phase is most used to avoid ganks from river by alcove or roaming mid by using on the wall behind the drake. Also, it is possible to scout or red in case that the enemy jungler is invading ours.

Red side is better at enabling us to make plays with tunnels. The longest on the map is right next to our turret as shown as in the image before. We can use that for helping our jungler gank by surprise too! Also, we can overextend warding the river because we always can go back to our tower safely by using ; if a crazy warwick dares to follow us from there, we can simply use Q against the wall and the turret will hit at least twice, which by the way, that's pretty lethal in early game.

Starters

REDEMPTION TRICK

Are you tired of low hp enemy somehow escaping? I got the perfect solution for you! This is both for humilating or hunting low hp enemies when is on CD. Bard's ult places all units in stasis mode for 2.5 seconds. Guess what... yes, cast time is also 2.5 seconds! All we need to do is cast the right in the center where the enemy is; even if he uses flash, he will still die because of the large area of the . There are a few exceptions like , however they really need to play fast if they want to escape :D.

SAD HERALD TRICK

players are the worst nightmare of an enemy . This trick is well known, but I write it down anyway. When the charges a turret, he will not deal any damage to it if the turret is in stasis mode thanks to . This is so handy if the enemy team decides to trade a for a , since they will not get any advantage. As soon as hearing the death sound, try to keep available, try to follow the enemy who has the so you can avoid losing a turret.

SPOT COD PLAYER TRICK

In case that you have been playing League of Legends for a while, probably you know that a whole enemy team could be waiting for you in a bush. does not really like being smashed by 16/0/5 darius over and over again so, us the players know that the W gives vision for a short time. Still that should be enought to spot the enemies in there. Another way to use is setting it in the enemy jungle and noticing when an enemy steps on it (good junglers may just avoid stepping on it, low elo players for sure do not usually think about that though).

DO NOT WAIT FOR HIM TRICK

Everyone has seen a player using and by the time the stasis time ends, 4 enemies are waiting to smash him, sounds familiar right? Those situations are perfect to make a big play using , our ally will not be affected by the new stasis state since he is already in stasis; on the other hand all enemies inside will be affected by it. This means that our ally's stasis time will expire sooner than the other ones' , sometimes that 1 second is enough to save him!

WHY DID THAT HIT ME? TRICK

This is maybe one of the most pro moves by a main. Since increments its range in case of hitting a minion, monster or champion, people don't usually expect such a long range. In lane, melee support champions are usually afraid of 's poke so they tend to position themselves behind the ranged minions or in between the melee and ranged minions; same with enemy adcs, who tend to be behind their ranged minions (unless they are winning and freezing the wave). So, hitting a melee minion with and then one of the enemies is quite beautiful as and it sure is unexpectable for many players. Landing this stun will probably win you a favourable trade, which can evolve later into a kill if they have no as much sustain as in lane.

Core build (choose one mythic item)

EARLY GAME

is one of the supports with most damage in early game. gives so much burst damage at early levels. For example, when playing red side, i like to wait for their botlane in their tribush if the adc has also good damage in early leves like . Landing on both enemy botlaners or one of them and the wall activates and the first aa with already activates ; adding your adc's damage and the before their , it should be quite an easy kill (sometimes a is needed).

In lane, has small range so positioning well is a must to poke as much as possible. I tend to set up 2 near ally turret where enemy can't cancel them; another one goes near minion wave so it can be easier to reach it in case of getting ganked by enemy or a bad trade. There are 3 basic trading combos i use with :

Q ( Cosmic Binding)(stun) + AA ( Electrocute) + AA
Q ( Cosmic Binding)(slow) + AA ( Electrocute)
AA (slow with Traveler's Call) + Q Cosmic Binding ( Electrocute) + AA

MID GAME

This is the phase where usually is looking for skmirmishes, mispositioning of the enemy, picking up kills... The builds above are focused on , this makes it possible for to be independent from his ADC and roam a lot; perhaps with roaming this much is not the most succesful strategy, instead try to help your ADC to set up vision around his farm and help him rotate faster with your . When playing , setting up smart vision in both sides of the jungle is crucial since this champion is way stronger at jungle fights. Reasons you may ask? It is easier to stun enemies against walls with (even if you miss the second enemy, probably you will stun the first who was hit by landing Q on enemy and wall); can be so good to chase enemies down or to disengage; is way easier to land too!

LATE GAME

Late game may be the trickiest part of playing because it is possible to throw an already won game with a wrong . As , we need to control key areas such as river entrances with vision and initiate teamfights with or . After that, heal allies up with and away if needed. Most of the situations, we want to engage them in an area with terrain so we can be more effective. Also, remember that sometimes it is better to hold until we have an opportunity to stun 2 enemies with it.

Here some results of the full AP bardie :P

Situational

PASSIVE: TRAVELER'S CALL

Collecting chimes is 's hobby, he loves it. They grant him 12% max mana, movement speed up to +80% if stacked 5 times and EXP. They empower our meeps too (as shown in the table below). For obvious reasons, we have to try to collect them without risking the game. Using this extra mov. speed at rotating or warding enemy jungle usually (not always) is a good idea. Meeps scale with 0.3 AP of and their basic damage scales picking up chimes too.

HOW MEEPS SCALE (expand to view)

The caption below shows how 's map looks like. The yellow dots represent where chimes are. Chimes despawn after 10 minutes and chimes marked in red mean that they are about to despawn.

Q: COSMIC BINDING

is 's most useful spell because it provides a huge stun potential and slows the enemy if missed anyway. Sometimes people don't understand the hitbox of this spell, so here goes the explanation: once you hit the first objective (minion, monster or champion), marks it and keeps going following the direction you casted it. If it hits the second objective (minion, monster, champion or terrain), it stuns both of them, even if they are not on a straight line on 's pathing anymore. That is the reason of why the hitboxes look so weird on this spell.
It needs to be mentioned that once you hit the first objective, the second part of 's range is always constant: does not matter if the first objective hit was melee or max range. Also, here is an image which shows max stun range of (it is possible to hit both enemies from the entire marked area):

W: CARETAKER'S SHRINE

I will call Small heal if has NOT been charged fully and Big heal if it has already been charged after being standing on the floor for 10 seconds. It can be casted instantly if tapping on an ally, this action would count as Small heal. Small heal scales with 0.3 AP whereas Big heal does it with 0.6 AP ratio. also grants the affected ally with 0.5 second speed boost and grants vision during a small cast time, which can be used to check objectives as shown below. It is possible to place a max amount of 3 of them all over the map, so i place one of them near the wave and the other 2 near our
turret so enemies can't destroy them.