It's not even that Bard is a bad champion.
It's that people who're playing him in solo queue are poor at communicating or working with the team and doing silly stuff like:
- Leaving their partner unattended for extended periods of time to collect Chimes. No warding, no trying to set up a gank with a jungler, just Chimes.
- Acting like he's an aggro based support like Leona entirely when he has only one damaging ability outside of his passive.
- Aimlessly wandering.
- Pro-actively fucking over their team with his ultimate rather than using it as a setup tool. I'm even guilty of that for ulti'ing Talon in the middle of the enemy team after he popped his.
- Building Bard like AP Support Sona. You have, again, ONE OFFENSIVE ability. Sona has MULTIPLE and she has lower cooldowns which leads to more Lich Bane procs. Stop it. Right NOW.
Not building the best item in the game
is situationally useful for its slow and a bit of waveclear which Bard sorely lacks.
is better for him early game so he can sustain his income if he gets the chance to roam. If, a little later, you want to bypass the coin and go straight into 
, that will do better for him.
Following his income item, a mana fixing item is a must. I reccomend 
or 
depending on your needs. Personally, I prefer the book because I think he can do exceptionally well with the poke.
Another GREAT item that seems really made for him is 
. It has very desirable stats for him in the movement speed boost and the high AP, coupled with the extra damage from proccing the passive with his Meeps or his Q. If you can't afford it (or, alternatively, something to run in tandem), 
can be exceptionally effective for helping to root out opponents while you roam, and, again, providing extra speed and AP with CDR.
if you need siege or lane pushing power. Bard scales hard off of base stats, and gets real damage from meeps and chimes, not so much AP.
could work too if going full ham.
.
... though I haven't once been able to afford all six items in a game. The first four I consider core -- Mobi and Sightstone speak for themselves, Righteous Glory like the guy below mentioned, for helping catch fleeing or ulted enemies but also it gives tons of HP... and Twin Shadows is amazing on him because MS, CDR, and its active makes roaming safe.
(You can do this or get the vision totem and 
, your call)
Q, Auto becomes insanely good for seige and harass prior to team fights. Bonus shield for team, plenty of move speed to boot.
? I'm sure there are others, but all of these waste the mana stat if they build frozen heart.
) and leave it there, frozen heart is usually my second or third item, and I play him like any other roaming support. I don't roam when I wouldn't normally roam and I usually only collect the chimes from my tri-brush to the entrance to dragon pit and the ones in lane between my tower and the bushes. Doing this I can usually get 10-15 chimes by the time I start roaming.
in the midst of a team fight and you cast your R and see how low the enemy is.....
and then 
ults you, your team but none of the enemies. Goodbye karthus ult, good bye team fight and game.
ulted my computer into the wall.
