@Riot anybody: thoughts on Bard

It's hard for me to say whether or not bard is in a good place right now. What I can say for sure is that Support itemization changes hurt him badly, the fact that he has lost his efficient means of getting spooky ghosts means that he sacrifices the bulk he NEEDS to survive early in exchange for the very useful active. The result is that if a botlane with bard falls behind (and the enemy botlane is competent), then it feels like there's very little he can do to help his ADC. He can't do much at all without approaching basic attack range of his fed opponents, and his only hard crowd control is reliant on enemy poor positioning, allowing proper play to render him near-helpless to save his own or his adc's life.

As much as I personally love rushing raptor cloak because its passive is amazing, I don't like feeling forced to invest in heavy resists earlygame just to survive long enough to do my thing when other supports can more reliably build their support items and still be useful whilst adding more utility to their already utility-packed kits.

He lacks consistency, which on one hand is fine because when the enemy doesn't know what to do then he can crush them. But typically things aren't balanced around the assumption of enemies who don't know what they're doing. I feel he could use something to make playing properly from behind less frustrating. Or something to make his teamfighting a little stronger so that if he chooses to roam and help force things elsewhere, he can still recover.

Don't get me wrong, I adore Bard. He's my favourite champion in the game. But he just feels like he's in a weird place right now. I feel if he needs work it should definitely not be in the damage department. He does plenty of damage. But I feel like he could really benefit from... something. (Like narrowing and elongating Q so I can weave it through minions and not have it stun the minion who is horizontal to the one I hit first. This would also cut down on the number of stuns that feel like bullshit for the enemy players. Also fix the bug where his portals are like 1 unit long sometimes.)

But I'm very curious to hear what people think, or if bard has even been on Riot's radar since support item changes.

also are there any plans to take a second pass at his chromas to bring them up to snuff?