Let's Talk about Bard...

Hello Boards, it's been a while since I've posted anything, but today I just wanted to take a point to talk about Bard. I would like to preface my statement by simply stating that I am not professing to be some pro or anything like that. I'm just an average player making some observations.

Bard was a champion that I was excited to see released because he sort of harkened back to earlier days in League where roaming supports were the way to play (here's looking at you Alistar and Taric). He seemed like an opportunity to further "break the meta" and introduce new ways to build teams and strategize. His kit seemed so perfect for the role of roaming that I thought that Bard could be the beginning of a new era in league. Based on the polarized opinions of his viability at all levels of play, that assumption was not entirely wrong.....

Now, I have been playing a lot of Bard lately, and though there is much to be desired, his thematic feel makes playing him enjoyable for the most part. He's even my go to support right now in Solo queue. Still working on getting to Mastery 5 with him but I just wanted to talk about some points as to his playstyle and place on the Rift. Fair warning, this will be kinda long.....

1. What made/makes Roaming Powerful?: Not sure we can have a proper discussion without first discussing why Roaming was and is so powerful. First and foremost, it presents an opportunity to not only set an enemy behind, but to scale oneself and an ally. I'm sure we've seen how a good roam can completely swing the tempo of a game (Hi Kat, TF, LB, etc..). As a support, this provides a chance to advance your already modest budget. Second, map presence wins games. Good roams lead to enhanced control over objectives, deep warding, and the list goes on. We've seen that plenty of Supports can already pull off some really devastating ganks, so that begs an important question, what will this new "Roaming Support" bring that will cement him in this role in ways these others cannot?

2. Design Feasibility: As it stands, Bard is an extraordinarily team-reliant champion. Being more powerful in a coordinated environment is not a bad thing in an of itself, however here's Bard's problem....He doesn't scale at all with the Team's success. What do I mean by that? Let's take a look at other supports. Leona is incredibly tanky and brings mountains of CC. She gets ahead and suddenly you team is spending more time stunned than mobile. Soraka brings god-like sustain to her team. She gets fed and suddenly her team just stops dying. Annie brings insane amounts of damage to the bottom lane and her team in general. She gets rolling and suddenly teamfights end when Tibbers comes down. Taric is considered subpar at the moment, but if he gets ahead, good luck killing him and enjoy having no armor. So what about Bard?

I've tried all sorts of rune pages, mastery setups, and item builds on him, and he never feels threatening. He never feels like a force to be reckoned with, a target worthy of priority, or anything of the sort. Sure, he can get his team going with a few good roams and brings some unique tools to the table, but you can literally replace him with any other support and you are probably better off. Not saying he's outright bad, but it doesn't feel right that you can play smart, make solid plays and still be seen as just Bard.

3. Chimes: This brings me to my next point. Chimes are Bard's only real way of scaling and a major means for him to roam, yet they are anything but consistent in their appearance and effectiveness. Some games, you will have chimes spawn close together and in very safe areas where you can just grab them all in quick succession and dart into a lane like a bat out of hell. Others, they are just all over the place that there is no real way to efficiently pick them up. This sucks because even if you do well with Bard as far as team fights and laning. If you cannot efficiently pick up chimes then you literally go nowhere over the course of the game. On top of that, the bonuses you get for nabbing a chime are so meager that it's more detrimental than anything else to go pick them up. If it was just some little icing-style mechanic to make an already powerful champion amazing, that would be one thing. As it stands now, Chimes are central to Bard's kit and he cannot rely on them....

Those are my main points. Thank you to those of you still reading. Now, I would like to talk about some changes I think will not only improve quality of life for Bard, but actually make him relevant in his supposed roale as "Roaming Support".

Changes/Tweaks/Ideas/Etc.

I. Meep Count and Cooldown normalized for levels 6/11/16: As a major major mechanic in Bard's playstyle, Meeps really should not be so heavily reliant on how many chimes Bard can pick up, for reasons stated in point 3. Rather, let Bard start with 1 meep and then at levels 6/11/16 he gains an additional meep, some reduced CD, and a few more points of damage. Some of the damage can still scale with number of chimes collected, but normalizing count and CD allows Bard to remain threatening at all stages of the game, enhanced even further if he is making the effort to go chiming.

II. Chime "Gifts": In addition to the increased slow and AoE capability gained by collecting Chimes, I think Bard's abilities should be enhanced when collecting them. So, I propose that at at 35 and 70 chimes (the number can be tweaked) the ether grants Bard a "gift" which enhances one of his abilities:

-_ Cosmic Binding (Q):_ Can now potentially hit 3 targets.

• Caretaker's Shrine (W): Maybe grants some large defensive boosts akin to Soraka's old heal.
• Magical Journey (E): Can now store up to 2 charges
• Tempered Fate (R): Maybe it can reduce the duration of the stasis on affected allies or get a significantly decreased CD

Of course, these are just ideas, but the point is to make chiming feel like it is making a solid, okay champion into a powerful one. I think it would be cool if Bard starts as this run of the mill support with basic abilities that turns into this really ominous, powerful champion if he is able to effectively pick up adequate numbers of chimes. Not that Bard will only ever get two Gifts, which adds some choices to his play (will need to tune each individual gift to make sure they are all worthwhile).

III. Chime "Explosion": Bard's major weakness right now is that he does not scale well with the team's success. Sure, he gets some items, but they are almost always better served on another support. Collecting alot (emphasis on ALOT) of chimes does do respectable base damage. Why shouldn't Bard get to those big meep damage numbers more quickly if he is doing well? So I propose:

• _Kills/Assists cause fallen enemy champions to "explode" into 2 or 3 chimes. _

Those are probably the big changes I would make to Bard. However, if those are out of the question, there are a number of smaller tweaks that could go a long way.

- W increases the duration of the Chime MS boost by 1 sec: Simple and to the point. Give Bard the ability to eek out just a little more speed to get to that next chime before stacks fall off.

- Q range and hitbox modified to more accurately fit the animation: Pretty cut and dry. It is such a pain when it looks like I hit a target and they don't get affected and I imagine it is equally frustrating when a player thinks they dodged it but still get slowed/stunned.

-_ Chime MS stacks go into stasis while on a Magical Journey:_ Just another change to enhance the flow of picking up chimes and roaming.

- Give Q either a higher AP ratio or bonus damage when proccing the stun on targets: As his only reliable damage source, it needs to feel better using it, whether it can stun or not.

Goodness that was long, but I hope it was an alright read. I really love this champion, especially from a thematic point of view, and I would love to see him really step into that unique niche he is meant to feel in a bigger way. He doesn't have to be tearing up the pro scene or anything like that. Just that when it comes time to select a champion and one asks "Why pick Bard?", they will have a meaningful answer.

Thanks for reading those of you who stuck around through my diatribe. Please feel free to discuss the points I have presented or introduce your own. Let's talk together about ways to make Bard less of a joke pick. I look forward to hearing from you!

TL;DR: Though I think I did well formatting things in such a way that the reading is easy....

• Bard is not really the "go-to" for roaming support, even though that is meant to be his niche.
• Bard does not scale with team's successes due to reliance on chimes
• Chimes as a mechanic are too inconsistent to be the core of Bard's play style, as such they need to be move to be "icing"
• Tweak Bard's play to keep him okay in games where he's not fortunate enough to make good plays or get a bunch of chimes, but becomes very powerful if he does get those chimes