i have played over 100 games as bard and have decided to take him top

he's actually amazing if you start with AD marks, 1 ad quint 9 flat cdr glyphs, 1 flat cdr quint, and 9 scaling hp per level seals.

go q first, stun him repeatedly while auto attacking him too. i have around 70 AD+ meep at level 1 with the solid base damage and stun of his q.

EARLY PHASE CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH- collecting chimes is incredibly easy to do at top lane as bard. there's only one person to intercept you most of the time, so you have half the risk. your portals make any return trip quick as there's lots of big walls to portal through. you honestly can't stop a bard from freezing the lane by himself and be able to farm effectively under turret, so as long as your top isn't already at your turret, any time is a good time for charms. just be sure to save your e.

first buy for me tends to be cloth armor 5 health pots as most tops are melee, and being deceptively long range with cloth 5 hp pots keeps you in lane for quite a while. just last hit minions and q stun+2-4 aa's on his as much as you can. 2 if his whole wave is attacking you, 4 if you're getting no minion resistance.

by first back(assuming you last hit well, and/or got a kill) you should buy x2 and. come back to lane and rinse and repeat. you'd be surprised how much bard's damage adds up when he's freely harassing a melee. leaving them the choice of risking getting poke down to death for farm, or missing out on farm out of fear of dying.

1st and 2nd items are going to be

The reason you want gauntlet is because it gives you a very good damage spike to go with your meeps and also offers an aoe slow on top of your q/meeps. the second you get this farming becomes a little quicker if you want it, but also makes freezing a lane much easier too.

the mobi's are the only option for bard because they give him such a massive amount of speed, that after two charms you're going to be able to get into good position for anything with all the move speed you have. its what makes setting up your q's often even possible. not to mention roams are much quicker with them.

2nd and 3rd items are going to be typically unless you get pretty far ahead(it's really easy to get ahead too)

randy's and banshee's because eventually you're not going to be able to cheese everyone down with just obscene slows and sub-par late game burst. they keep you alive to transition into your team's utility tank.

4th 5th and 6th items tend to be very situational. tanky enough and still chunking squishies? together turn you into a stun-dealingest anti tank damage monster. you also get quite a bit added to your heal, and a bit of bonus hp from liandry's. or if you just want to be come an unkillable emote spamming bard you can just take

all in all i think bard gets a bad rap for being so noob unfriendly. but in reality he can do almost anything he wants and still be successful because of the sheer cc, mobility, and heals he has.

TIPS FOR USING HIS ULT bard's ult has so many uses. it takes a fast thinker to find which one is the best course of action to take with his ults.

sure, there's ulting teams and seperating carries from tanks. but that's the obvious stuff. is there a minion wave and champion hitting your turret? don't ult the turret! it does nothing but delay damage. instead first check to see if Champion X is seperated from the minions enough to where you can just ult the minion wave. this forces your turret to prioritze the champion, and cause them to take damage and stop attacking the turret. you can also always 100% of the time ult just an enemy turret. for top lane just ult on the edge of the map so that only a small part of your ult actually hits the turret. same thing with bot. for mid, just ult slightly into raptor camp/wolves area depending on what team you're playing on.

that's all i have to say about playing bard top for now.