Please reconsider your stance on Bard as a support.

Tuckerr·2/25/2015, 10:13:28 AM·5 votes·864 views

Hi, my name is Tuckerr, and I got to play Bard on the PBE recently, and I took him jungle and firmly believe that's where he belongs. Let's review in order of ability.

If his abilities were different, I would say that his passive is the strongest argument in favor of keeping him out of botlane, but his E and W exist so I can't. The chimes that spawn around the map really spawn everywhere. Everywhere. When I let too many of them sit around, they began showing up in the enemy jungle, in the dragon pit, and in the other lanes. In fact, I ganked top specifically because of how many were up there. They increase your movespeed and give you exp to compensate for the fact that his clear is relatively slow.

His Q is probably his most useful overall ability. You can stun Gromp, the raptors, blue buff, everything with it. It helps to make up for his relative lack of sustain (I'm getting to his W in a minute, don't worry), and in ganking it means he has a decent initiation, and is even resistant to invades so long as your team responds.

His W is fantastic in the jungle, but it doesn't keep him at full health, which, imo, is good. It means there is some risk and that the enemy team can actually deal with him. As a slow but reliable jungler with lots of utility, this ability really adds depth in that if you can predict an invade, you can be prepared and trick the enemy into chasing you, whereupon you'll stun them and go to town.

Now, even with his passive, I would definitely say his E is his strongest argument for making him primarily a jungler. He has better gank paths than Zac and Lissandra if you somehow combined their E's into one super broken ability, and it opens up escape routes without entirely eliminating the danger posed by invading or being ambushed.

His R is an ability I'm still wary of, and it needs to have its range brought way down, but you've basically given the best tower-diving ability in the game to someone who you've insisted should be confined to the lane least likely to be dove on at any given time.

Now let's talk about botlane mechanics. An ADC is the squishiest person on the team. They're the only class that gets penalized for building defensively early, even when they're losing. A carry has to be supported throughout the entire game, but especially so during the early-mid game. The only elo where it's actually viable for the support to frequently roam at is essentially the LCS level, where both supports will leave lane for extended periods of time, and that's only when the enemy bottom lane is actually in the top lane, as far away from eachother as can be. At every other level of play, a roaming support means a headache for the entire team. If he goes mid and misses his stun, or gets ganked along the way, that's a huge loss not only for him but for his carry as well. Once you've given up an advantage like that, it's very rare that you come back from it. And if he stays in lane, he's penalized for not getting his chimes. It's the worst possible combination. If he leaves lane to roam, his carry could die, he could die, or just as bad, he could waste everyones time.

But in the jungle, he'd be rewarded for collecting chimes, his E would actually have practical applications aside from escaping from a bad fight, and there would just simply be more depth in gameplay.

At the very least, please, please don't do to him what you did to jungle Alistar. If you're going to push him as a support, at least try to leave the option of jungling available. I promise you, people are going to have more fun and enjoy playing with, as, and against him as a jungler than as a support.

7 Comments

pE4CbxDPQO2/25/2015, 10:22:21 AM2 votes

Ah you made the Alistar plea before I could say "inb4 alistar treatment" Pretty neat. Will keep my eye out for this.

DynamiteGazelle2/25/2015, 10:26:06 AM1 votes

That's what I thought when I saw him, too. Seems like much more of a utility jungler, but then again roaming supports are kind of a new thing and it seems like he would fit that role too.

If I took him jungle I'd probably want a support who can do damage (annie/vk) and a tanky top.

Tuckerr2/25/2015, 6:40:31 PM1 votes

Bump