Bard top is not a bad thing, and here's why...(Constructive feedback appreciated.)

TL;DR just remember Lulu top, kinda like that...

Pros:

• Powerful laning phase, Not dominant, but his kit abuses the lane, he gets a ton of sustain, slows, and tools to set up powerful ganks for carry style jungle.
• Incentivized roaming, his powerful mobility plus chimes works really well in coordinated ganks for team, Plus he gets around a lot faster than most top laners.
• Many builds, Ap, Tank, hell, even ATK spd bard doesnt lose out on his kit.
• Does not suffer from rylai's nerf at all, along with most AP items, he benefits greatly from CD and MS more than AP, but AP is good too. (there is more CD on AP items than ever!)
• Chimes let him stack into late game fairly well

Cons:

• No "carry" aspect, He's a control character though out the game
• Will lose lane to hyper mobile people as he lacks enough CC.
• Cannot duel, so laning is pretty dull sometimes, and most focus on poking and farming
• Lacks meaningful snowball potential, cannot carry team, so for this to work you need a cooperative team
• Not a ton of pushing power, but its not non excistant.. once you get 25 Chimes he starts getting oppressive

General game style: Start you usually buy something damage related to help farm and poke, survivability is better late so you can actually do controlling. If you have a carry style jungle, invite them top for free kills, as it is very very easy for bard to set those up for your jungler. Roaming is a bit more difficult, because you need to push out, or let them push in and then come back via E with your jungler... His mana and health problems don't really exist due to W and chimes.

Mid game is probably the best point for Bard, his potential to net kills for teams is highest then, Plus he should have some pretty core items(I used to play lichbane and ludens plus mobis/cd boots, made him fast and dangerous, plus extra damage). Really all you have to do is don't fall behind to much in farm and generally be aggressive when your team is around... At this point some survivability items will need to be bought...

Late game is weaker, because most champs get strong at this point and your advantage is going to fall down to your utility... This is one of the downsides because you traded for a tank here for more carries so you are going to have to be careful here, But otherwise if your going full yolo, your potential to mess up cheeky squishies is pretty large, like 1000+ damage in q and auto(which procs thunderlords due to meeps! Next level trading) You also have a lot of peel and your heals are ginormous, so basically you fall back into a support category(ahem, "support")

I think its really fun, and I want some feedback for those brave enough to try it. (and yes, if you OP GG me, I do have 6 games, and I won 5 with a massive whopping 6.62 KDA)