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@Riot, as Bard main with 300+ Bard games across different accounts, he needs buffs.

Bard Is Broken·7/6/2015, 3:47:17 PM·9 votes·1,335 views

I hate to admit it, but Bard is really weak still right now. I've played him for 300+ games and am barely maintaining a 50% winrate with him across all accounts. His numbers are poor and to be honest, he just can't compete with Blitzcrank Morgana Leona and Thresh. They are picked almost every single game as well. Albeit, he has seen some good play in the LCS (Or so I've heard), but so has Vel'Koz, and he is as forgotten champion at the moment. Riot, please dont let your efforts go wasted and buff Bard before he becomes a forgotten champ! Here, I'll even spell out for you what his problems are:

His W is a sup-par heal that costs a ridiculous amount of mana, has enemy counterplay, and is outclassed by every other heal in the game.

Nidalee, who is not a support, has a much better heal than Bard, while it is on the same cooldown and it does not have to charge up, and can not be counterplayed without greivous wounds, which there is not much of nowadays. Lets look at their abilitie, shall we?

Primal Surge | 12 Second Cooldown | 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 / 120 Mana

Heals for 45 / 85 / 125 / 165 / 205 (+ 50% AP) AND GRANTS BONUS ATTACK SPEED FOR 7 SECONDS.

Caretakers Shrine | 12 Second Cooldown | 100/105/110/115/120 Mana

Heals instantly for 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 20% AP) and grants a tad bit of movespeed, or you can wait a whole 10 seconds (Putting this on a 22 second cooldown no CDR) and it will heal for 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 45% AP), which is worse than Nidalee's heal considering she builds ap and Bard does not.

"But you can place down 3 health packs! That makes up for it right!"

No riot, it does not. With no scalings, his max rank W will heal for 230 health each. Considering a good Bard player will only have about 100 AP throughout the game, if you bought a Ardent Censor and have Baron, it will heal for about 280 each. Thats a total of 800 health if all are used, and I'm being generous. You have to wait for them to charge up over 10 seconds to heal that much, while nidalee can use her heal 3 times by then and heal someone more than that. You failed to take this into consideration, Riot.

My Solution

Bard's kit is heavily emphasized by chime collecting, but the only thing it does is make his autos slightly stronger. His heal should also heal INSTANTLY for 4x the amount of chimes collected. Before I get told this is OP, I'd like to point out that a normal game lasts about 45 minutes. I usually only have about 60-90 chimes at the end of a game, so that would total to be an additional 240 - 360 additional instant heal at the very end of the game. This is usually half of what an auto attack from an adc is worth at that stage in the game. Fully charged, his heal would then heal for about 500 health, which would be amazing for late game teamfights. This also would require proper placement of shrines, because enemies can stomp them.

Hopefully this will make him playable, please upvote for all the bard mains

10 Comments

Abyssphere7/6/2015, 4:15:54 PM7 votes

Unfortunately I don't think even Bard mains ARE meant to do well with him. He's good, he just requires huge coordination and unless you're playing ranked 5s you just can't access that. Bard isn't meant to be good in solo q, he's probably the single most LCS-oriented champion in the game.

The Loveless7/6/2015, 4:29:07 PM2 votes

"He needs buffs"

No shit lol. Not dissing you, OP, but it didn't take a lot of us 300 games to realize we didn't like his position among the roster. We can only hope your resume swiftens Riot to action in helping our magical friend.

RainStorm0077/6/2015, 5:12:33 PM2 votes
  1. Isn't there always going to be a "worst heal". Bard can at least gain mana from chimes to place more, and he has lots of utility.
CoolKnightST7/6/2015, 5:12:15 PM1 votes

He's just to team depended. It's because lcs he's fine right now...

UPfreely7/6/2015, 5:21:51 PM1 votes

Honestly I really like the idea of chimes increasing his heal but he really doesn't need buffs right now. His heal isn't that great, but that's because you can drop them off where ever you want. He's an amazing roamer and has great lane pressure. You would probably have better luck with him if you had a proper rune page, masteries, and build path for him.

Ability Order: Start Q, max Q, it's by far your best ability and gives you the best lane pressure.

RUNES: Get that last quint, flat AD is great for harass supports but you really should have a full rune page for ranked. You should be using your armor yellows and MR blues though.

MASTERIES: You skip core masteries like intelligence and Inspiration for weak masteries like fleet of foot and meditation. Try this: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/mastery-tree-planner#&tree1=0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&tree2=2-0-2-0-1-3-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&tree3=0-0-3-1-3-0-1-3-0-0-1-1-1-0-2-1-3-1&v=2

ITEMS: Stop rushing locket/mikaels every single game. Save it for games where there's a fed APC early or lots of magic damage on the enemy team. Build something like frozen heart or raptor cloak(into ohmwrecker) instead. CDR/MS is amazing on bard, get as much as you can. Keep in mind that mikeals sets you back ALOT and should only be bought when necessary. Bard generally doesn't want mana regen due to chime mana restore and can peel pretty well already.

Also work on getting your trinket upgraded as soon as possible, vision denial is key to great roams and map pressure.

Kazaashi7/6/2015, 9:27:54 PM1 votes

Why you would take Q over W at lvl 1 is above me. Hell, I level his W to 2nd level before I get my E. You should not be roaming before level 4 anyway.

People who say Bard is bad, severely undervalue his W.

Other than that, just build him tanky and ultility and he is unstoppable.

VentusDragoon7/13/2015, 3:46:37 AM1 votes

Bard is an interesting champion where it's quite impossible to carry games with him. Aside from his ult and to an extent his Q, he can't really set up "big plays" like all of the other FoTM champions. What Bard does do though, is make a good team great.

He can make a bad team manageable, and make a good team amazing, but he cannot do anything on his own, at least in a support role. He's incredibly good at covering weaknesses in teams (not counting 4v5's, goodness they're terrible...) and heightening positives in them.

Grashnim7/6/2015, 4:51:49 PM1 votes

There are certain champions who excel better with proper coordination, Bard is one of them. This is why certain things work a lot better in the LCS than they do in solo queue.

Death by Kayn7/6/2015, 5:09:15 PM1 votes

Oh the irony in your summoner name.

Anyway, you make a good point. Bard is awesome... until you realize that putting points into your W is completely pointless and that you're simply just better off maxing E before you do your W.

I myself have quite a few games on bard, with a 0% WR in ranked (granted, this is only 3 or 4 games), but I do believe I haven't lost a single game with him in Normals, in which I'm mostly just playing with my duo. I find that normals are much easier to win with Bard due to the differing mentality between the game modes.

Now for my ten cents on Bard. Currently, Bard is an extremely niche pick, and brings as much, if not more, utility than most utility supports. Well, at least in paper he does. I feel that the biggest problem with Bard was that Riot had seen how much pubstomping all of their newer champs had been doing, and decided to play it safe. Bard, however, contains major tradeoffs that most other utility supports do not have, nor did the previously mentioned newer champs: His Q requires two hits for a stun, his W requires a chargeup time to be effective, and his E allows enemies to travel through it. Also worth mentioning is his Ult, which can be both extremely beneficial or can set your team back quite a ways. This is one of the coolest things about Bard, he has a MASSIVE skill cap, and the difference between bad Bard players and good ones is quite apparent.

Now, in terms of skill balance, I have a couple of things I would like to say. First off, the most balanced ability in his kit is his E. It can be amazing, or you could just be opening up the door foot a rampaging sejuani into your team. Who knows. His ult is quite well balanced as well, so I don't have any negatives for that.

But for the abilities that DO need retouching. In my opinions, here are the changes I'd like to see Riot make to everybody's favorite hair model:

Increase the slow on chimes, and increase chime spawn rate by only just about 5 seconds. Currently on live, Bard is at his weakest where supports are meant to shine, and actually find a his strong point in the midgame. The problem is that he FEELS like an early game support, but just isn't. I personally would like to have that adressed, but of course I am only one voice and others may disagree.

Decrease the slow on his Q, increase stun duration. Because of his tradeoffs, Bard players should be rewarded for proper management of their abilities. I feel that the slow on his Q should have a large nerf, and for two reasons - the first is that with these proposed changes he already would be slowing more on his passive, and the second is that this would allow for a moving of the power budget toward the stun, which is relatively difficult to hit.

Have any shrine reduce the CD of all basic ability CDs by 1 sec up to 3 sec when fully charged. Obviously, I'm not on the balance team, so I know nothing about these numbers, but healing really isn't part of what I feel is Bards identity. He's there to help you out, not revive you from near death. I feel that giving Bard the power of reducing the CD on allies would make him an actual viable pick, which you don't get flamed for just for wanting to try. Currently on live, come lategame, I find myself not even letting shrines fully charge and just using it for the speed boost. Nobody seems to care about the minimal HP it grants at that point.

Anyway I'm just a guy by myself, and by no means an expert on Bard. If you find yourself disagreeing please feel free to respond, I feel like Bard is really a great champion to create healthy discussion around. Also if you spot any spelling mistakes you can point that out as well. Thank you so much for reading this super long comment! PrayToTheMantis

//Our Legacy Awaits