Chimes & meeps feel underwhelming get the rest of the kit involved.

[Note: This is not about balance, it's about how the character feels. Numbers can be tweaked. ]

Am i the only one who feels they are almost not worth the effort?

I'm not saying the chimes themselves are useless, far from it. That ms boost and mana regen do wonders for your early game sustain and map presence.

However, the stack/meep system feels very unrewarding. Your reward for untold minutes of gameplay and gold/Xp loss spent in roaming the map collecting chimes just for an occasional AA buff (that btw, is wasted on minions, if your attack them) doesn't feel like it's worth the effort and danger of leaving a lane 2v1.

Unlike other infinite scaling champions like or , who's scaling gives them either combat stats or affect integral parts of their kit, Chime count has absolutely no impact on your performance when you have 0 meeps or are outside of AA range, and have no interaction with any of your skills.

The idea of Bard is to create a roaming support, collecting stuff on the way. Since he's giving up gold, xp and lane pressure, his collecting mechanic should give him a more attractive incentive IMO.

Would it be too much to add some functionality to your kit that scales off Chimes / Max Meep count?

Something along the lines of:

Caretaker's Shrine : MINIMUM HEAL: 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 20% AP) + (Chimes) MAXIMUM HEAL: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 45% AP) + (Chimes x 2)

Magical Journey ALLY BONUS MOVEMENT: 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50% + (% Chimes)

Cosmic Binding MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 110 / 145 / 180 / 215 (+ 50% AP) + (Chimes) SLOW/STUN DURATION: 1 / 1.2 / 1.4 / 1.6 / 1.8

TL;DR : I believe chimes should be more rewording than a free scaling IBG proc every once in a while. Considering it's closely tied to his identity as a roaming support, more interactions with his kit would fit his identity much better.