So what exactly is Bard good at?

allenmark00·Oct 28, 2015·1 votes·1,481 views

So I've just had my first match with him annnnnnddd... hate him. Just what are those little yellow things that I have to collect? What exactly do they do?

11 Comments

ShaftyMegeeOct 28, 20151 votes

They are chimes, and I believe they increase the damage of your passive.

The champ definitely isn't for everyone... I thought I'd like him and he just isn't my cup of tea

Away on skypeOct 28, 20151 votes

He's good at baiting team mates into fights and suicide missions.

TehNACHOOct 28, 20151 votes

Map based mobility and utility. He can travel past walls and if done correctly, can travel exceedingly far distances with his Magical Journey. If you collect those yellow things, they speed him up and replenish his mana. This means that if you need to get somewhere fast, you can do so and have mana to fight with once you get there. If your allies are aware of his heals, he can drop one off near a lane and heal his allies with it. His ultimate also has ridiculous range, so if you're paying attention, you can stall out fights and engagements from quite a distance away.

Its LiuKangOct 28, 20151 votes

Bard is a great support but your adc also needs to know how to work with him. The little yellow things you have to collect are chimes, they appear on the map and collecting them gives you a speed boost and restores some mana. As well every 5 chimes you collect giving you a bonus of some sort. He is a very different support but if you learn to play him its really cool because you can have your team appear somewhere from a wall that no one expected.

FowusOct 28, 20151 votes

he's loads of fun in my opinion, he's great at setting up dives, he's also a good roaming support

and those yellow things are chimes they increase your damage output

BoomerangbroOct 28, 20151 votes

Great damage at later of the stages of the game. Longest chain CC in the game. Heals. Best roaming support. Team utility. Team mobility. Great at disengaging.

sswallyOct 28, 20151 votes

He takes a ton of skill/game knowledge, both you AND your team mates need to understand how to play with a Bard.

kJsOct 28, 20151 votes

I usually take item 3301 for when I upgrade it to item 3069 because Talisman of Ascension is more useful for your team than item 3092 .

The playstyle of Bard is to kite/harass with your autoattacks and Q. You have to aim for a stun on Q which makes him more difficult than other supports to pull off. A lot of ADCs will think that you're useless if you don't get a lot of stuns off of it. Maxing W helps against harass but you and your ADC need to realise that it heals for waay more if it is allowed to charge for 10 seconds. His E is used to get to or back from chime collection as well as allowing Bard to bring his jungler with him back to lane. Bard's ultimate is best used to disrupt enemies, by CCing them instead of CCing your ADC most of the time because when you CC your enemy with it your ADC can run away but if you CC your ADC your enemy will have time to aim their skillshots and prepare.

Your passive AAs don't slow until you've collected 5 chimes so I often try to get 5 chimes ASAP, don't just leave your ADC to die or get zoned away from farm though. Bard's ultimate allows for easy tower dives (if you aim right). You can CC the tower so it's non-existent for a bit and if you've aimed perfectly you can also stasis the enemy support so you can get an easy kill on the ADC. Bard is quite strong as he can reset tower aggro with this ability, over all lowering tower damage.

Even though Bard doesn't like tanking all the damage, you have to build him semi-tank support. He's a weird one. item 3143 and a item 3060 against heavy Magic Dmg teams is usually enough for you to survive fights.

Bard's passive and Q have relatively decent AP scaling so you can actually deal quite a bit of burst damage with them if you lean more towards AP items like item 3023 or item 3050 .

Don't underestimate the power of your basic attacks. Your empowered AAs gives a free costless slow and extra damage to boot so you can rely on it (when the meeps are up) for an easy targetted slow to make landing Q easier.

Save yourself some stress and don't pick Bard when your ADC is a helpless glass cannon like KogMaw Varus MissFortune and inexperienced Jinx . It's noticeably harder to roam and collect chimes when your ADC has no forms of easy escape, they won't be able to take care of themselves as well as ADCs like Vayne Kalista Tristana Sivir Kindred . You can make a Bard + immobile ADC work but it's much more difficult and simply not a good choice of pick. Pick a Braum instead.

allenmark00Oct 28, 2015

I actually spent half the match collecting these chimes and wound up underleveled. Remind me to stop reading the in game hints and just dive into the enemy minions....

Its LiuKangOct 28, 20151 votes

they do give you some xp but a lot less, its basically there to help you keep somewhat relevent when you leave lane to collect them

TehNACHOOct 28, 20151 votes

Think those chimes as snacks, not meals.

You want to have them when you need to do more than usual (read: roam as a support), but you especially do not want to rely that heavily on them.