The first step to a solution is admitting there's a problem.
Bard has a problem.
Despite the "buff" he received his win rate is actually going down. There is a reason for this.
He's a victim of terrible design. When push comes to shove, he doesn't have the tools it takes to do the job he's being shoehorned into. A net increase of 25 damage to base on his Q doesn't address the real issue: at all stages of the game, his AP scaling is terrible. At all stages of the game, he doesn't have the damage output to duel against any other support EVEN WHEN HE'S FED because he is too dependent on a mechanic that drowns him in an eternal rat race. Not to mention that Veigar received a buff to the range of his Q that was "underperforming" even though Bard's Q travels slower, goes a shorter distance, and doesn't get the full distance of the original skill shot if it hits something too soon. Oh, and half the AP scaling, lower base damage, and a mediocre slow if you don't land the stun.
The trouble is his signature trait: Meeps and Chimes.
The chimes demand that at critical junctures of the game he is forced to spend time gathering chimes instead of supporting, and even when gathered his meeps give him little to no genuine lane presence. The meeps are often wasted on an autoattack against lane minions because the player missed hitting the "s" key once, with a meep explosion serving as a signal that has a glaring visual effect to the opponents on lane: "free kill nao." The chimes being on a 10 minute timer before expiring and vanishing means that there typically ISN'T an option to wait because anything above wood league means there is pressure on your lane almost constantly. The spawn locations being identical for both teams means that chimes invariably spawn deep in enemy jungle if you aren't turret hugging, and if you ARE, frequently under the cover of the damned enemy turrets, or along the blind spots of the most natural jungle paths for either side.
Now, all of this is for Summoner's Rift, the map he was designed for.
When you take in other maps, you see how he REALLY underperforms. Especially in ARAM. Playing Bard in ARAM means you have a 73% lose chance. Let me write this out to emphasize: SEVENTY THREE PERCENT. Bard loses his team three out of four ARAM games. The numbers for his success continue to plummet despite his buff (pronounced "bug fixes") in the latest patch because people who have played him realize how toothless he actually is, and that the only danger a Bard poses is if paired with a really good partner. A solitary Bard is a free kill. Always. I have seen several times where the hapless Bard attempts to chase someone down who has less than half health, catches them away from enemy turrets minions and champs, lands two meeps and the stun from his Q, then is forced to flee as he gets overwhelmed by enemy attacks that do damage (All other champs, ALL of them, have at LEAST 2 active skills that deal damage, without exception) or is unable to flee because after shooting his bolt, E on cooldown, feeds a kill to an almost dead opponent.
Hard counters to Bard: Damn near EVERYTHING. Don't even think of playing Bard if the enemy team has a Morgana, a Shen, a Trundle, a Maokai, a Malphite, a Nocturne, a Sivir, Annie/Zyra/Lux support, or a Caitlin. These are the hardest counters I've seen so far, and damn near guarantee a loss, although admittedly I haven't seen all possible lane opponents. Janna laughs at him, Taric ignores him except to stun Bard for the free kill fed to his ADC, Soraka's zone of silence may not stop meeps but it certainly stops everything else, Sona out sustains him in lane plus clutch shields, and every other support not only have better support tools but have a way to fight back in engagements that don't involve trading autoattack pokes.
What Bard counters: Nothing. He underperforms against every lane opponent, only to be made up for by lucky chime spawns after placing two shrines and sheer dogged determination. Skill can only make up for so much, as evidenced by the fact that you almost NEVER see him played intentionally above silver. Occasionally you'll see him played during a featured match. Every one of the five games I've seen featured on front page that had a Bard, was a win for the team without Bard. Bard lost his team the game, EVERY TIME, because as soon as the team fight phase rolled around the fights were 4v5 because Bard has no tools useful in a melee scrum, and his ult has such an obvious visual indicator and slow travel time it was a non factor unless turrets were involved. The closest he comes to having a champ he counters is Xerath, because half of Xerath's kit requires him to reduce mobility to use. This would be heartening, if it weren't for the fact that the other half of Xerath's kit has faster cooldowns and does more damage than Bard's entire arsenal.
How Bard heals: Terrible. Low base heal, low AP scaling on that heal, exorbitant mana cost. Shrines mature into something noticeable and impressive when you chain 2-3 of them together. This requires thirty seconds of preparation time, aon a prepared battlefield, and is easy to neutralize because the presence of a shrine spot can be a) walked over to destroy- there went 300 plus mana, sucker! Even Rek'Sai's tunnels require you to STAND for a second on them. b) Retreat a small distance so that the adc must travel 1+ seconds to get to the shrines. c) Overrun the shrines position, and LEAVE them there so the enemy Bard chooses between laying no more shrines to avoid having wasted the mana, or lay a shrine down that, if the battle presses further ahead, will be too far back from the fighting to be useful.
How Bard enhances team mates mobility: Mediocre at best. While his tunnel offers a frequently interesting travel potential, and available to the whole team, its limitation of being used only on intervening terrain means that certain maps (cough HOWLING ABYSS cough) get little to no use out of it. Its utility is further degraded by the fact that it provides no protection to the travellers, and can be easily farmed by a Blitz with a ward for easy kills. Oh, and for extra lulz? Drop Event Horizon or Wall of Pain in the path of the journey. And have you seen what Azir's ult does when you drop it directly on the exit? Hilarious.
Tempered Fate: Oh, this ult. Such potential. And such poor real term utility. Even experienced users of this ult are stuck with a tool that is still weaker than any other ult in the game. Yes, it is. It relies on bad positioning of enemies to be effective, and while it can split an enemy team in a fight if they're somehow blind (or playing Xerath) most of the time the battlefield is changing too quickly for the slow travel time of the ult to affect. Add this to the fact that Bard doesn't get assists for targets he doesn't hit with the ult, in other words, the ones your team actually kills, and this ult underperforms YET AGAIN.
Which brings us to the NEXT failure in Bard's kit: Experience and gold.
Experience: Chime experience bonuses are a joke. They do not make up for the experienc lost to even a single wave of minions if you collect them in batches of less than 15. Given that the chimes have a spawn rate of 1.4 per 50 seconds that means he has to wait for 500 seconds to get 14 chimes to spawn (count them) or EIGHT MINUTES. That's assuming optimal spawn locations (lol) where you can collect all of them in 30 seconds. The amount of time between minion waves.
Also, if your ADC gets lucky and catches them out while you're gone? (Happens OFTEN, because people are learning to attack while Bard goes chime hunting to replenish his abused mana pool) Too bad for you, Bard. You lose out on the assist. Oh, and your gold farming item? Useless while chime hunting. Want to land your stun on the midlaner? Good luck with that, buddy! Most open section of terrain on the map, so hope you somehow manage to avoid the bush ward yet still get an angle to land your stun against a minion WITHOUT landing directly in the middle of the minion wave. Did I mention that the distance travelled by your Q after it hits the first target is obscenely short? Yes, in fact, by my guess it's no more than 350, although that's an eyeball estimation and I'm pretty sure it's shorter than that, despite whatever its max range is. So if you pointblank a target, you lose out on the rest of the range Q would have had after that short distance. In short, the most favorable lane to help with stunning a target is top lane, which has the longest travel time, gives the enemy team plenty of warning when you wander through mid (unless you take a 30 second journey through your own jungle to get there, followed by a thirty second journey afterwards, 1 full minute of not gaining gold or experience) unless you take teleport.
The net result: Bard ends up with the lowest gold and level on his team.
Most useful item on Bard: Weirdly enough, I've found Z'zrot portal to be a useful item on him. With it, he can actually push a lane. Without it, of course, even the lane minions can ignore him for extended periods of time, given his ridiculously low damage output. Can't afford to use your Q to thin out lane minions in case their Jungler shows up to stop your push. "He's not meant as a split pusher" Answer: He's sure as hell not good at any other role.
My reccomendation: Rito, this champ you dun goofed. I mean, bad. If I were dev I'd have scrapped him in the PBE. Go back to drawing board, get some new ideas. The character you have here is a lot like Viktor was on release, except more so: Too hard to use, to little reward for succeeding, and in need of about 2 years R&D to make into a champ that's attractive, fun, and useful. Since this is not a viable solution for what is obviously a throw away release, my advice is to refund the RP/IP paid for him on request. Give everybody a free refund, or something. Won't help me, of course, because I've already bought another champ since then (ironically, with the IP I earned in the 6 day binge I spent playing Bard trying to figure out his planned niche and how to use him) but other players may be mollified by the gesture.
/rant