Thoughts about Bard

I know alot of people don't like the current version of Bard. In fact, many people hate him. I know he has the lowest winrate of any champion in the history of League of Legends.

Having said that, I think he is really close to being powerful when in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing. I played a lot of Bard support while he was on the free rotation, and of the 10 games I played I won 5, so I think I'm starting to get a good feel for him. There are only 2 things in his kit that I think need tweaked slightly:

1. There needs to be more benefit for letting health shrines charge up to full strength, as a way to reward the Bard and his team for planning ahead and playing intelligently at all stages of the game. I think the rank 1 shrines have an appropriate immediate heal and full-charge heal; 30+20% and 70+45% respectively. However, at rank 5 the shrines immediately heal for 150+20%, or full-charge heal for 230+45%. At rank 1 the healing increases by 2x if you let it charge; at rank 5 it merely increases by 1.5x. Personally, I think the magnifier should be the same roughly 2x healing for full charge at all ranks. Therefore, I suggest the AP scaling remain unchanged from what it is now, but the base healing value of a full-charge shrine should be increased at rank 5 (but stay the same at rank 1).
2. Bard's ultimate is already incredibly difficult to use, with even more potential to throw a teamfight than Urgot's ult. But when you combine that with the time it takes to land and affect the area when casted at the extremes of his range, his ult is nearly useless. At point-blank range, the travel time from channel to impact is maybe ~0.5s; enough time for good reflexes to flash away, but not enough time to simply walk out. At max range, the travel time from channel to impact is maybe ~1.5s; plenty of time for someone to simply walk from the center of impact out of range, or for a teamfight to move in a direction you didn't expect. This delay makes an already risky ability a total crapshoot to use... While I understand that there should be a penalty for ulting from such distance, I would GLADLY trade a massively increased cooldown for a faster-flying projectile that is more useful and more reliable, resulting in fewer but better bard ults over the course of the game.

Edit: One quality-of-life change that should be added is that the "meeps are recharging" buff and the "meep ammo counter" buff need to be consolidated into a single buff icon, basically the same as Corki's missile barrages. Except it would be on Bard's buff bar, not an ability.