Since Bard has been out for a few weeks.

What are your opinions of him? Have we seen him played enough to understand him? Will buffing him be like buffing Gnar the patch after his release?

I personally think Bards a bit underwhelming. The buffs on the PBE dont really address his issues from my experience with him. As of right now his changes are:

Base damage increased to 52 from 46 Damager per level growth increased to 3.5 from 3 Base armor increased to 25 from 21 Travel's Call (Passive) Meeps: A new meep appears every 10 down from 12 Traveler's Call (Passive) Chimes: mana restore changed to 12% max mana from (8% missing mana + 15)

I believe Bards problem lies in his passive and Q. His Q is a bit too wide. Its rather difficult to Q someone behind a group of minions because his Q will attach to an adjacent minion, rather than the target behind the minion initially struck. His Q is also insanely slow, I couldnt find its actual speed on the wiki. If feels to me like its about the speed of Nami's ult, which is about 900~. Decreasing his Q width and increasing its speed is my proposal.

Now Bards passive is a bit tricky, I wanna get those chimes for some Meep game. But the set 20xp, % missing mana and stacks to his passive are not really worth leaving your ADC alone. I think making his passive give 50% of current minions (the spawning or the last wave spawned) xp would probably be enough of a change to make hunting down those chimes worth it.

Any thoughts?

Edit: With my suggested changes, i dont think he would need the current changes