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Bard - An Example of Ability Design Cowardice

BRBGTGBOWFLEX·4/9/2015, 10:43:32 PM·16 votes·2,668 views

I want to preface this by saying that the Aesthetic Design and the Champion Concept for Bard are amazingly well executed. He has a unique identity and the concept for the champion is fundamentally strong.

That said, Bard has the lowest win rate in the game. When win rate is this skewed against a champion and this far from the norm, there is something particularly wrong with the champion that explain his 40% win rate. Namely, his abilities are a demonstration of complete design cowardice.

Every ability is so afraid that it might be useful, powerful, or satisfying, that it decides to limit itself and add disadvantage. Irrational fear that motivates this design and it's been a trend of League design lately.

Let's take a look at specific examples and where they demonstrate this lack of integrity and the fear of actually making a champion "good".

Q: Cosmic Binding - Okay, so its a stun. But it only works if it either hits a second target or a wall. And it can't go through minions. Why does he get this limitation when Taric, Leona, Blitz, Thresh, Nami, Annie, Zyra-- nearly every other support, gets a stun that doesn't just stun, but is either AOE, adds displacement, adds gap-closer, or adds damage with much less ridiculous requirements (hit the target/land an aoe)? So not only is his ability less powerful, but the requirement conditions are more difficult.

W: Caretaker’s Shrine - So, you have a heal that you spend a ridiculous amount of mana on. But wait, it doesn't heal! It has to sit and charge first! And during that time it can be run over by enemies and all of your mana can be lost for nothing! And if it does heal the value is tiny! Compare this to Taric, Nami, Sona, Soraka, Kayle, Nidalee, Gangplank, Alistar-- they all have heals that just work, that are multi-target, or low mana, or add attack speed, or provide shields. Bard's just has high counter-play and minimal benefit. And the benefit it does offer is sort of illogical, except as a retreat item.

E: Magical Journey - I'm struggling to find the value add here. If you use it to engage a teamfight, you funnel all of your team through a clump to be destroyed. If you use it to escape a teamfight, the other team goes through the portal with you and in the end you moved your death through a wall. It's infinitely inferior to all movement abilities and doesn't seem to have a great purpose other than baiting enemies into team fights, which is not really as empowering in practice as it sounds in theory. The problem is-- the built in downside. Would Bard be a great champion without this downside? No, his other abilities have too many issues. But, this downside is entirely not needed. Ezreal does not pull pursuing Darius's with him when he uses E to escape. No other character has this high of a penalty associated with their ability.

R: AOE Zhonya - The king of double-edged swords. If you use it outside of very narrow use cases you are basically rolling the dice with helpful/harmful. While Sona, Annie, Soraka, Zilean, Taric, Zyra, Thresh, Blitz, Leona-- nearly every champion in the game get an ultimate that can basically help them to some extent, Bard's just has complete potential to be useless, ruin a fight, or make things worse.

Basically, the designer was so afraid of making an ability just good that they added a whole bunch of downsides and special conditions. We are paying mana for these abilities. Or we're paying energy. Or a cooldown. We expect to get a Benefit for the ability and for that benefit to be obtained for the price of our resource. There is already a downside to them in that they incur opportunity cost. But Bard is getting more costs for no reason.

This trend started with Zac's contestable globules and has just gotten progressively worse ever since. Adding huge disadvantages to abilities does not mean you are adding counter-play-- it means you are removing and limiting actual play.

So, my advice is, uncripple Bard. Just take away many of these downsides and see if they were even necessary or just designed out of fear. My bet is on the latter.

53 Comments

Deep Terror Nami4/9/2015, 10:45:47 PM9 votes

They released him with different expectations than other recent releases; normally you get an OP champ and they nerf it down to average. This time they released him weaker and are buffing him along the way. He just got some nice buffs, but that doesn't mean they're done with him.

Cindikle4/9/2015, 11:03:05 PM3 votes

Q needs a range increase. I'm fine with it's requirements, the slow can be strong enough. But it isn't all that fast moving and the stun is easily avoided in most cases.

W should grant a Meep when an enemy steps on it. This means it can be used to generate Meeps and gives the enemy a reason not to step on it just in case.

Provengreil4/10/2015, 1:17:18 AM3 votes

OK guys.

Everyone complaining about bard has completely misidentified his strengths and applicable situations, and the strangest thing about it is that you can barely go 5 threads without seeing "But riot has its LC$BIGPLAYS". The thing is.....that's exactly who this champion is for. Not necessarily LCS only, but for people who can communicate better than text while attempting to CS, and rely on each other to do well. Let's look at his kit again, this time highlighting some strengths:

Passive. How many times have we seen an LCS game where, say, an annie double jungles and ganks the level 5 midlaner at level 2? Bard would do it at level 3 or 4, and can get in position for it a lot faster. he can make a deep ward run others would never succeed in because he would get in and out so much faster. As for the weakness? it's the same as Kalista's ultimate, really. It's totally reliant on your lane partner to paly safe, which is much more likely to happen when you guys know you can rely on each other.

Q:Cosmic Binding. For every other stun you named, it typically requires: flash, hitting a slow and predictable skillshot, or is single target point and click. This is a skillshot too, and while it won't stun if it only hits the one target and no walls, it's a fantastic counter engage tool if their team is charging in with a front and backline, or as an engage followup after they've begun to get knocked out of position already. As for lane, where I susect you're doing most of your considerations, bush control can be huge, but if they're in a bush down there, then nearly any angle will get the wall stun for some poke or even an all in. However, you allies also need to understand why it's being used sometimes, which works better on voice comms.

W: Caretaker’s Shrine. Ok, first off, yes. It's weak for its mana cost. that said, clearly either you or your bard allies are doing it wrong. These shrines aren't dropped midfight on the front line except as a last resort. They're placed where the enemy will have a difficult time getting to them. First to dragon pit for a coming fight? ward the entrances and drop a shrine in the pit, as well as one near the entrance to your own jungle. let the charge and they're ready to refresh allies who aren't at full HP coming in for the fight, or after the fight starts. Going to collect a few chmes or deep ward? leave a shrine under the tower so if the laner gets poked a bit, he can heal right back up. But you need to trust your laner to handle the 2v1 or both of you will suffer for it: bard gets no chimes, laner has a weaker support.

E: Magical Journey. totally teamwork dependent. It can pull you out of a bad spot in a deep ward run if you're lucky, but mostly, you can set stuff up you never would pull off with other characters. If the enemy follows you...just bind them! they move slower than you, stun them as they come out and run/kill them as appropriate. Again though, and more than ever, your teammates need to be in line with your idea here or it just won't be that helpful.

R: AOE Zhonya. While it does have that effect when it hits, I dislike that description because zhonyas is more of a panic button most of the time, while this has a decent travel time and would come too late to deal with certain surprises. The real thing holding it back is that it can screw with your own team as hard as theirs, and in solo Q I've seen way too many teams just throw all 40 abilites into the pot as fast as possible and hope. If bard's team has the better teamfight, that might actually hurt his own team more. Use it to tower dive, it'll work like an ohmwrecker. Use it when their team splits up and goes 2 on drag, 3 stop your team: freeze dragon squad, murder the 3, mop up the dragon squad, take drake.

All in all, I suspect bard's low winrate is less a testament to him being bad, and more a testament to the fact that most of the team needs to understand him to win. And that's just not something solo Q can expect.

Snes C4/10/2015, 1:02:47 AM3 votes

Your analysis of Cosmic Binding is full of misinformation. It doesn't go through minions because if it went over their head you couldn't use the minion as the second target to stun the champion you hit, allowing you to engage on an enemy hiding behind their minion line. It also has the potential to stun two enemy champions at the same time, a trick you conveniently forgot to mention.

Caretaker's shrine heals more health at full charge than any other supportive heal ability. The advantage to the high mana cost, the need to wait for a charge, and the requirement that it sit on the back line where an enemy can't step on it is that it sits there until you need it, allowing Bard to leave the lane while still giving his ally some sustainability while he's gone.

Your inability to find uses for his last two abilities speaks more toward your lack of imagination than to their viability. So because Bard doesn't have an ultimate that is amazing if you throw it down in the middle of a teamfight, it must be useless? It never crossed your mind to use it to engage a teamfight? Or slow an escaping enemy? Or slow a pursuing enemy? Or turn off one nexus turret while your team kills the other one? Or save an ally from a Karthus/Caitlyn/Zed/Ezreal/Jinx/Fiddlesticks ult?

All of Bard's abilities have extremely strong upsides. Simply "turning off" the downside would make these abilities nearly impossible to balance.

gr8job4/10/2015, 1:57:23 AM2 votes

Move on people-- this fellow is not interested in your opinions and will flame and insult you if you disagree, are not ranked high enough to have an opinion, misinterpret his claims, or behave in a manner he deems unacceptable. This is not a discussion, so unless you want to give him a high-five, peace out.

Zair Umbras4/9/2015, 11:22:22 PM2 votes

His win rate is also low because he's used to troll in many games. You have to understand that he's capable of trolling without looking like he's doing it on purpose.

4nth0l0gy4/10/2015, 12:34:08 AM1 votes

You make good points. His kit does feel very underwhelming despite being unique and potentially powerful. I agree, there are too many stipulations on his abilities to make him a worthwhile pick in most cases.

Svddenly4/10/2015, 9:36:51 PM1 votes

Too bad I can only upvote once.

Meep Man4/10/2015, 1:06:28 AM1 votes

Eh, what he really jsut needs is a Q projectile speed buff and a passive buff on chime spawn rate.

CubedJustice4/10/2015, 1:08:51 AM1 votes

Well, in all fairness, Zac's blobs would always be contested. The enemy would still walk over to them and zone him away, but instead, they get destroyed, so it's not annoying to do.

Sirsir4/10/2015, 1:26:54 AM1 votes

I think part of the reason for his low winrate is trolls. His kit is the best thing to happen to trolls since Anivia Wall. It probably doesn't account for TOO much, probably only 3-4%, but 44% is way better than 40%. (Not to mention the patch came out YESTERDAY so the numbers probably aren't that accurate yet)

Mostly what he needs at this point is a Q range buff. Or for it to reset its cast range if it hits a champion. Maybe a bit more speed on the projectile. And add a bit more base value to the heal and you've got a worthy support!

Profirix4/10/2015, 2:49:44 AM1 votes

I have to say, there are a couple really big issues that stand out and need to be fixed in order to make Bard playable in anything other than normals.

First: his ultimate... when it takes almost 3 seconds for it to land on an opponent and they can visualize it coming - big problem. Speed up the projectile for gods sake.

Second: his q has such a short range and the projectile is so slow! Good luck landing it on a competent opponent. It needs to have a longer range OR a much quicker projectile to be viable.

Third: how am i supposed to build this guy? his kit screams sheen-esque AP with a side of tank but in order to survive you must build almost full tank.

TheI3igDaddy4/10/2015, 3:11:16 AM1 votes

Eh once I heard that they wanted to create a 'roaming support', I figured 'well, they're certainly not going to make Alistar 2.0, because they can't fucking stand Alistar jungle'

So they tried making a roamer that wasn't immediately going to be pick or ban. I can understand if he was very UP when he came out, and they've been gradually buffing him. On release, his heal charges DID blow dick, and he needed his portals to be clicked on more easily, like Thresh Lantern.

His ult is very difficult to time right, so of course you have droves of people who can't use it for shit until a few people make guides for him and explain what to do.

Juicyman4/10/2015, 3:14:25 AM1 votes

Worst part is, if the enemy team note you're missing and have spotted a chime you can be easily punished for going to it since enemies can see the chimes. Not only are you punishing your AD by leaving you're also opening the risk for the enemy jungler to waste your time.

I'm sure once I become more competent at using his E this might go away but even his passive has 'counter-play'

Also building him is a nightmare.

Teridax684/10/2015, 5:40:09 AM1 votes

I would rather see a Bard who has all of the above countering potential while being amazingly strong, than a Bard who's only strong because he gives his opponents fewer options. Zac 's destructible bloblets allowed him to keep the huge lane sustain that was making him a problem until then -- if he didn't have that mechanic added to him, he would've just had to be saddled with numerically weaker healing. He might not be the strongest pick around, but he has a lot of potential to become stronger while offering opponents more options to play against him, and the same applies to Bard.

Putting aside the fact that we don't even know how the recent buffs affected Bard's success (It's been only two days), and that we're still at the early stages where people are trying to figure him out, there is already a lot of stuff he does that nobody else can. He contributes the most mobility out of any support in the game, and despite the potential for opponents to use his E, he can also counter that with a Q to set up kills. He's the only support capable of healing for 210 health instantly at level 1 (and from the other side of the map, too), and his ult can work like a stun whose range is only rivalled by an Ashe arrow. Despite his low win rate and all the counterability to his abilities, people who play him find him fun. I'm not saying he's perfect (if there's anything Riot was timid about when designing him, it's his scalings, and I think he could afford to have his shrines charge up faster in the late game, along with some AP scalings to the bonus movement on his W and E movement bonuses), but if there's an issue with him, it's not his kit design.

tofutime4/10/2015, 3:51:46 PM1 votes

I agree with you. I don't understand why people keep going "he's high skill cap, you need communication with your team, wait till the pros pick him up." No. Think about the utility he brings and why you would pick him over a different support. Oh he can lock down an enemy in an AOE? Guess what? So can most every support. Leona Ult, Annie Ult, Nami Ult. Need the peel? Janna Ult is much more useful than just putting a fight on pause. Think that his E is useful? No it's just moving the fight to a different location. The usefulness of this is so situational.

His Q is strong but other supports can land CC more reliably. There's too many requirements for the stun to work. Firstly you have to hit the skillshot which is slow moving and short range. Secondly a wall or unit must be also hit. For such a slow moving and short range skill it makes it unreliable and only used correctly when successfully predicting movement. The skill is also slow meaning that enemies have plenty of time to react and dodge it. Given the requirements for it to stun it makes this a low success rate skill.

Everything about him is screaming Riot's new design philosophy. Make skills extra readible and allow enemies to get out of it with plenty of warning. I noticed it with Gnar. His stun show clearly the area of which he will stun you with a red rectangle on the ground with a huge wind up time. His boulder toss also a huge windup, his ult almost always requires him to flash as his jump is so readible and so predictable. Veigar now has a big warning circle when his E will come up. Sion has a big warning red area on the ground when he uses his Q. Champs like this make me bored. It's like they don't want to award zone knowledge so they just give it out as free information. "here's where you shouldn't be standing watch out!" "here's a chime, camp here!" "here's a health relic, step on it!" "A reksai tunnel, step on it!"

Raxicor4/10/2015, 4:47:22 PM1 votes

His kit lacks clear synergy. His Q, E, and R are all engage/disengages and then the ability left is a healing ability. This would still be alright if he was a tank champ to block the frontline in skirmishes and entrances with E, but he's incredibly squishy. So he can't even hope to go through his own portal safely without someone else to send through it first.

Sure, I've seen a couple people use him well, but they have a really hard time in solo-queue situations. For instance, Bard uses E. Is he; engaging on a counter jungle/laner, leaving for chimes, or setting up a distraction to zone the other laners? Only the Bard player knows because he can't type it all out each time.

Puri Puri Taric4/9/2015, 11:59:31 PM1 votes

If enemy players would get some kind of penalty for traveling throu his e he wouldnt be so terrible. im thinking of bonus magic dmg on enemys that use his portal when they get attacked for a few seconds after they left the portal. So enemys would think twice if they rly wanna abuse the free portal gapcloser.

A buff to his initial heal wouldnt be bad too. The charging idea is useless somehow. If anythig his heal should be full value but the ms boost should be charging up so the own adc can use it to escape or dodge skillshots or to initiate while walking over it to setup a fight.

killd0zer4/9/2015, 11:55:50 PM1 votes

I don't really get this post. Basically every complaint was "Bard is UP, such terrible design!" Most of the issues you have stem from the idea that he's a bad champion just because he's weak.

I mean bard would instantly be top pick or ban if we just casually triple the heal from his W, but that wouldn't make a good champion. He's got a great idea going for him, spare his passive, which is easily the most cluttered and random piece of shit ever. It's like 6 lines of text ffs.

kcStranger4/10/2015, 12:33:54 AM1 votes

I actually agree with most of what you're saying, particularly as regards the E and R. (I wouldn't mind a higher base heal and lower scaling on W, either.) Still, I would add one thing in Rito's defense: Bard is an incredibly unique champion. The E and R in particular are very unique abilities with a high ceiling and a low floor. That made it incredibly hard to judge how good he actually is until he hit the live servers. Then within a couple days, we learned he was pretty trash. So, I don't necessarily blame Riot for (severely) undershooting. To be honest, it's probably better to release a severely underpowered champion than a severely overpowered one (although it may be better to release a slightly overpowered champion as opposed to a slightly underpowered one).

They're probably buffing him up about as fast as they can while being careful not to break him. One thing to take note of in this regard is that he does perform 4ish% better in 5v5 than in solo. So if you made him a 50% champ in solo, you might just break him in 5v5.