Has Anyone Made The Old Offtank Bard Work Lately?

For the first year or two after Bard was released I played him quite extensively with an offtank style build. Max CDR and get as much Health/Armor/MR as you could. Your damage/healing were pitiful and you definitely weren't close to as tanky as say, Alistar, but just tanky enough that you could safely deep ward and not massively worry about getting caught out. You could wade in as a min-line champion and setup those sweet stun angles for your allies without instantly dying or getting focused. You could go on risky flanks to catch out their back line for an assassin, etc. to clean up. Etc. In a nutshell he felt like a more utilitarian/less all-in version of Thresh which I very much liked. The only other champion that really comes close is Rakan and he still feels much more "all-in" akin to Thresh.

Anyway, I'm just curious if there's any rune or item combination you've tried that comes close to the old ways? Everything I've tried lately falls short. I'd wager part of the problem is nearly every champion doing too much damage rather than Bard not having enough defense, but I'm very much curious on you outlook. Thanks!