I hope that this Guide will help someone to get a better Bard Player.

Pros & Cons



Pros

Extremely strong teamfigting
Great mobility for roaming and warding
Very good damage for a support
Super versatile as a champion
Super fun to play
Can make camping bot lane as easy as it can be with E
He looks so goofy its impossible to tilt while playing him




Cons

Relatively weak in laning phase
Extremely skillshot reliant
His E bugs out rather often and is sometimes hard to click
Difficult for newer players to wrap their heads around
Short range on Q and autoattacks
Can accidentally tilt your ADC by roaming too much
Very low base manaregen and high mana costs compared to other supports
Ult is very easy to mess up as a new players

Lich Bane: You will get even more Damage to poke your enemys and it also give you some cdr and movement speed.

Solari: Every Bard should buySolari as 2nd or 3rd.

Boots of Mobility: Good for roaming but you can also buy Boots of Swiftness instead.

Frozen Heart: A great defensive item that gives you armor, maan and 20% CDR which is a huge amount for a single item. Its a great option when the enemy team is AD heavy or has many attackspeed reliant champions like Master Yi, Jax, Aatrox or most ADC champions. Very good buy on Bard if you dont already have Lucidity boots and you need Armor.

Zeke's Harbinger: Lost a big chunk of its usefulness with the ADC item rework, most ADCs hit very high numbers of crit chance very early on so Zeke's Harbinger took a hit. Its no longer an item I would buy because I think Redemption for example is even more viable.


Knight's Vow:A new Item which came in the Preseason. Its a tank item that redirects some of the damage your partner takes. Its not something I have tested enough times to say for sure if the item is worth taking or not, Its something I could see working as a 5th or a 6th item after you have some other tank items already.You also need a good playing adc on your side because if you have a bad adc who is just running into enemys and takes much dmg you will get 12% of this Damage as True Damage!



Zz'Rot Portal: Got nerfed quite a bit in the 6.6 patch and is now significantly weaker. It still could be used to help you get Baron by being placed on the other side of the map from Baron or by placing it down on the other side of the map from the lane you are sieging. Its now a lot weaker but can still be used as a gimmick. Dont buy it if you dont know how to use the active, there are more useful tank items to buy.

Mikael's Crucible: Got changed along with most support items and is now essentially the same thing as before but without the small healing component in the active as well as slightly lower price. Its basically a get out of jail free card for your carry of choice. You use it to save them from a CC and if you manage to do that they get a speed buff. It is most useful when there is just one fed carry on your team who you need to protect and keep alive from a single CC that is used on him every fight. For example Leona ultimate, Nocturne fear, Rammus taunt, Nasus slow. This item is almost always a decent option to consider.


Randuin's Omen: Is just a straight up tank item for when Frozen Heart just isnt enough and the enemy has fed multiple AD threats. I almost always prioritize Frozen Heart over Randuin's Omen and buying both is pretty rare but it does happen, especially against full or almost full ad team comps.

Cosmic Binding is Bard's bread and butter, which is why we take it at level 1 and max it first, the cooldown of it goes down and stun duration goes up. It is used for stuns, damage, a slow and checking brushes. It stuns enemy champions, lane minions and jungle minions when Cosmic Binding passes through the enemy and hits a wall, enemy champion, lane or jungle minion. It is one of the strongest stuns in the game and you NEED to learn how to use it properly. Try spamming it when you start playing Bard so you get the hang of it as soon as possible. Here are a few examples of how bugged and weird the stuns can be.


There is also an important aspect to Bard Q Cosmic Binding which is edging the stun. It is basically using the very edges of the stun bitbox to trigger the first part of the stun. For example this stun would stun. Here is a video where i show off a couple of those stuns.





Caretaker's Shrine is Bard's healing ability. We max it last yet skill it at level 2 in lane. We max it last because maxing it offers only VERY slightly stronger heals. Minimum heal goes up by 30 HP and maximum heal by 40 HP per level you put in it and the cooldown is unaffected. You can consider giving W a second level if the lane is rough but any more than that is really a waste. With Caretaker's Shrine Bard can place a healing shrine on the ground that will power up in over 10 seconds. He can have up to 3 shrines on the map at once but can still instacast W on himself or teammates and have those 3 shrines stay up. Caretaker's Shrine is a really small heal for a rather long cooldown and high mana cost compared to other supports. It should mainly be considered as a speedbost as the game goes later because the healing you get from it is so small. Here is an album that shows the differences between the Shrines that are charging and fully charged.





Magical Journey is one the most underrated yet one of the most strong abilities in the game. We max it second for just the fact that it's cooldown goes down and the bonus speed goes up, compared to what maxing W Caretaker's Shrine gives. It allows you to save seconds of walking time for your whole team and allows for great rotations across the map. It also allows for great ganks, you can just portal behind the enemy team and catch them off guard very easily. It can also function as a slow dash over pretty much any wall. A great Bard player will use any and every opportunity to use E and save even the smallest amounts of time for himself and his team. Keep in mind that pretty much every portal can be used both ways, for example if you use it to get out of base you can place another portal to get back into base. Here is another album that shows some of the more useful Bard portal spots. Key word here is trial and error.





Tempered Fate is Bard's ultimate ultimate ability. It is ridiculously underrated and is one of the strongest ultimates in the game. It allows Bard to decide the flow of teamfights, it allows for easy picks, it allows you to save teammates from DoTs or for example Karthus ultimate. I would suggest everybody who is just starting to play Bard uses it exclusively on picking off enemies who are alone or engaging fights with it. When you get a hang of that then try to use it for more complex things. We level it up whenever possible.

Like I have gone over before I feel like Bard's laning phase is rather weak and not quite up to the other champions right now. That leads me to go for Ignite which is the more offensive and the more useful summoner earlier on. It helps you massively since you have much more kill pressure and makes you much more of a threat in the lane than Exhaust. There is next to no chance of snowballing a lane with Exhaust on your own, you rely on the enemy to make a mistake and go on you in a bad situation or mess up their positioning. Even though mistakes happen at every ELO we dont want to rely on that.




Flash is for flashing. We all know what it does and its just as necessary on Bard as everybody else. Take it, dont question anything.


Alternative summoner spells






I personally dont take exhaust on Bard, might be because I am very confident in my Q and R hitting the important people and I value Ignite more as a way to snowball the lane. With changes to exhaust in 7.5 it will be less worth it to pick it up and should only be used against specific picks that A. Have an easily spotted burst rotation. B. Are low range enough that you can use it easily. Picks like these would be Zed, Katarina or Kennen to name a few.