My thoughts on Bard (a lengthy analysis)

[sorry, I didn't realize how long this was until I'd typed it all up. anyway...]

First off, I want to say that Bard is incredibly fun to play. I can't believe I waited even a week to try him out. Thematically speaking, I think that Bard is one of the best designed champions. When I play Bard, I really feel like I'm some mystical wanderer, roaming around the map, and the sound effects really add to this effect. I think that few champions actually achieve this effect, where you are completely immersed in your character.

However, having said that, it pains me to say that Bard is not great at winning. I think this much is obvious (if you check out his 40% win-rate). It makes me sad to say it, but Bard does not fit into the current meta, and he does not fit the support role very well, although I wish he did because I would love to play him more.

So what about Bard's kit isn't working? Well, most of his abilities are double-edged swords (that is, they aren't simply.... use ability --> be useful). Most notably, his ultimate can be used to help his team, but also to his team's detriment. It's harder to use than, say, a Sona or Leona ult. I mean, imagine if Sona's ult could stun her own teammates: would she be nearly as good? The fact that you can affect allies as well means that Bard has the potential to make sick plays, but it also simply adds an unnecessary amount of difficulty in using Bard well. Also, it doesn't seem to synergize particularly well with any champion. Maybe if had more synergy with other champions, Bard could be a good situational pick, but without it it's hard to justify picking Bard when you can pick someone like Sona with a much better teamfighting ultimate.

There's also the fact that his 'Magical Journey' can also be used by enemies, and the fact that enemies can deny his health orbs by walking onto them (thus limiting where Bard can place them). There seems to be a lot of counter-play imbued into Bard's kit. In fact, it seems like there is just a little too much double-edgedness to his abilities. I think we're all just used to op-uncounterable-champions that just wreck face, poke you out of lane, cc you to death. But Bard is so balanced that.......he is actually underwhelming.

I think another thing that really surprised me about Bard was his ap ratios (or lack of, that is). He has one damaging ability besides his passive, which is his Q. It has a .5 ap ratio. Now, his passive causes his auto-attack to do .3 ap, and around midgame he might have two charges to use. That means that his entire burst is 1.1 ap ratio. To put that into perspective, Annie has 2.4 ap ratio burst altogether. But it's not intrinsically bad: other supports have low ap ratios but make up for it with a heavy poke pattern. Sona only has a 1.4 ap burst, and Kayle with two autos has 1.1 as well, and Lulu with two autos has 1.2 (and just for fun, Leona has a full burst ap ratio of 1.9 o_0). But the problem is that Bard doesn't have a good harass pattern like the others. Usually, when a champion has low ap ratios, it's because they have great poke which makes up for their not-as-good all in. But Bard has neither a good harass pattern nor good burst ap ratios. This means that the team that designed Bard didn't want him to be good at laning. Which is fine, that was a design decision to give him power in other places such as roaming. But currently in the meta you have to be good at laning or CC in order to be a viable support.

Having said that, it makes me wonder why I would pick Bard over another support like, say, Sona or Kayle. Both these supports have healing, but they can also win lane for their adc, and are amazing once they hit level 6. As it stands, Bard is always going to lose his lane if he is against an aggressive support (the easy way to beat Bard is simply to pick a support that can win lane). He and his adc only really stand a chance if they are against a more docile, defensive support, like Brahm or Janna, in which case the Bard pick can work. But losing lane is such a big deal that I think Bard might need some changes to be relevant. If you lose lane, you lose your tower, the enemy adc can roam, it's altogether really snowbally. The only thing that is keeping Bard from being completely useless is the fact that he has a heal. This alone alleviates some of pressure of having a bad laning phase, and is what allows Bard to be viable.

On a different note, I want to talk about some of the things I really like about Bard. Many champions released recently have contributed to power-creep, as is often complained about. What I like about Bard is that rather than being extremely over-powered on release, the design team took the opposite approach and made him over-balanced/ under-powered. I think that Bard is the first champion in a long time that doesn't have absurd amounts of surplus power, and he doesn't invalidate a fraction of the support roster just by having an all-in-one kit. And this is what a lot of us have wanted: for riot stop making more and more powerful kits that leave older supports unable to compete, and instead just make a different type of support that doesn't drastically shift the meta, and this is why I love the design team for Bard. They really made sure to fine-tune his strengths and weaknesses, so that we end up with a champion that, instead of breaking the game, simply adds variety. They were really careful with his kit and I love that they chose to do it that way.

As a second point, they made him with a theme in mind rather than the meta. Ok, so it's obvious that he doesn't really fit into the traditional support-meta. Lots of supports have been made specifically with the meta in mind. Lulu, Thresh, Brahm, they are all made to be a support for an ad carry. It's hard to pick a champion that doesn't fit this--rather stale and boring--mold of a support since there are so many champions there were designed to do well with this meta and are really great at this type of supporting. However, the design team of Bard completely threw this mindset out the window, and said, "we're going to make a champion based on a theme rather than the meta." I and have to commend then for it. Bard, thematically, is one of the most brilliant champions. It truly feels like you are this storyteller from the mountains, with this mystical and calming feel as you roam around the map. No other champion achieves this as well as Bard, where you really become immersed in the champion you are playing, and has such a unique and fitting play style.

So, overall, i would call Bard a success, based on what he was designed to be. He was designed with a specific theme in mind rather than the meta. They really made a fun champion to play, and I am glad that he exists just for that reason. Unfortunately, because of the fact that he was not really designed to be a traditional support, he will have a hard time achieving a higher win-rate. If you want a roaming support, you could pick Alistar or Blitz. If you wanted a support that can set up ganks for his jungler, you can always go with Thresh. When you are picking a support in champion select, you ask your self, "I need to pick a support who can ______" (disengage, poke, heal, cc). It's hard to phrase that question so that the answer is 'Bard', since what his kit does is non-standard. Still I hope that people can learn how to play Bard properly in the future, how to utilize his kit, because he is immense fun and I would love to see him make great plays.

OK, and that wraps up all my thoughts about Bard. I know I had a lot to say, but Bard is such an intriguing champion and there is much to say about him. In the next paragraph are some extra thoughts I had but wasn't able to fit into the post so I will add them below in case people want to read it.

[So Bard's passive with the meeps is kind of clunky. I tested it out in a custom game and you need to collect about 120 chimes and a lot of ap for it to actually start feeling impactful when you auto-attack. To put that into perspective, it takes 43 minutes to collect 100 chimes, and 64 minutes to collect 150. This is way too much time. Even though chimes last for 10 minutes, it can still be hard to collect them if they are in the enemy jungle. Overall, Bards passive really just doubles-down on whether or not his team is winning: if his team is already winning he will be able to collect more chimes, but if his team is losing he won't really be able to as much. But besides that, it takes way too long for his passive to become impactful, even when Bard dutifully spends hit time collecting chimes. I often feel like I just shouldn't even bother collecting chimes since they don't really do that much unless you have a ton of them at 40 minutes.

Also, I appreciate the amount of fine-tuning his Q has in order to not be overbearing, since it can possibly stun two people for two seconds, which shouldn't be downplayed. However, it's short range and need for a second target or wall at the proper positioning makes this skill highly situational, and in fact maybe it is just a bit too unreliable. I'm not sure if his Q can be buffed without becomming overbearing, but it's obvious that something about his kit needs to be 'umph'ed up a bit.

There are some ways that Bard's win-rate could be improved. We could add an ap ratio to his ult for enemies. This would be a rather artificial way of upping his win-rate, but effective none-the-least. I've thought of increasing his attack-range to 550 from 500. I don't think that he would become overbearing in lane, and it would make it easier to use your meep-procs on the proper targets, which it can be hard get near the person you want to autoattack in teamfights.]