Bard needing some TLC

Let me preface this with- Bard isn't "bad". He packs a lot of utility, his ult is a gamechanger, and that low cd Journey traverses the map at incredible speeds. He works pretty well in pick team comps because of his ability to enhance or followup cc, but that's about it. I've been wanting to like bard so much, but he's literally burst utility and that's it- his independence as a roamer and his build effectiveness leave much to be desired.

Namely- his kit and scalings lack enough strength and power to make his builds (Tank or AP) effective, and going a cross between both doesn't bring out the best of both builds but accentuates the worst.

Tank- His strength as a tank is that he can get up in the enemy's squad very quickly with his mobility and journey, and start dropping some cc to hope to set up a pick. That's about as far as he goes. And all his utility/cc is in burst. There is no effective way to reset his chimes during a teamfight, and in the chaos of a teamfight, it gets fairly difficult to actually hit targets with his q to keep them peeled off of squishies. His heal has no hp scalings like most other tanks. And buidwise, he lacks scaling MR to assist and identify him more as a tank. Without any hp scalings, defensive power, and uploaded CC, his effectiveness in any extended engagements past initiation results him him wet noodle-slapping the enemy team.

AP Damage- Bard's strength here lies with ensuring his burst initiation actually hurts at the cost of his danger of being bursted in return. Here though, his effectiveness is sorely limited by his scalings. As a mage, he requires committal to a fairly "intimate" autoattack range to exercise his full potential, and even still, the reward of how much damage he deals isn't worth the risk. His heal has one of the worst ratios of a single target heal heal in the game. Showing itself to be much worse than many multi-target heals, AND it doesn't have a clutch mechanic (restore a bonus amount on low hp characters) to boot. And again, as with the tank build, given his full effectiveness is uploaded to burst, after he drops his initial damage, he's doing little more than wet noodle fighting while he waits on his meeps (with exception of lichbane to crank out more damage from his fairly low CD q). Finally, his problematic damage makes him trouble at clearing/pushing lane without expending resources, limited his utility as a roamer late game.

While these problems make Bard difficult to find a build to identify with, he does bring several things I can identify him as. Namely his powers as a utility roamer and a ganker with full-uploaded kit power (much like Zac). If his power could be tweaked around to push a build/power identity even more (Tank, Mage, AP bruiser) I would love to take him around in more games than his narrow spectrum of team comps/games he can work in.

TL;DR of problems: Tank -Lack of continual/reliable peel -Heal has no HP ratio -damage is fairly low -no scaling mr

Mage -Low ratios -Weakest single target heal -High risk/moderate reward play pattern -Uses lots of resources to clear waves/Siege/splitpush

All Problems -Heal has no clutch mechanic -too much of his power/utility is loaded into his meeps