Bard's W feels unsatisfying and underwhelming.

Píllow·Feb 18, 2018·2 votes·489 views

I've been pretty actively playing Bard since his release and I've always felt like his Shrine is just underwhelming. The heal is basically non-existant if you don't let it fully charge (and half the time your ADC just stomps over it within two or three seconds anyway...), it costs an uncomfortable 90 mana, and the speedboost feels pretty meh too, probably because it decays over time.

I realize that thematically it's a fitting ability, since Bard is, well, a Wandering Caretaker. It makes sense for this roaming cosmic nomad to be able to leave healing shrines in places for his allies to make use of later when needed, and it's a pretty nifty idea - but I would rather take an actual, proper heal any day over what he has now, or something else that's just as unique but much more serviceable/usable in more situations.

It doesn't really help that the heal barely feels even worth using lategame if you don't have a Mikael's Crucible, because lategame you can't really plop them down in teamfights and expect teammates to wait 10 full seconds to get the full benefits from the heal, let alone survive for those 10 seconds if they're actually on low HP.

At this point I'd be fine with the charge time on the Shrine being halved or something, or increasing the amount of active shrines from 3 to 5 or something. Just something so this ability feels more worth using than it does now.

8 Comments

PotchikirFeb 18, 20181 votes

U can use it to acrivate ardent censer passive

TheWizardMFeb 18, 20181 votes

True, but it's a burst heal on a long cooldown - not particularly the type of heal that is effective with ardent.

TiltoverEnforcerFeb 18, 20181 votes

His Q, E, and R are all incredibly valuable abilities when in the right hands. Unfortunately his W wasn't given much of his power budget, as I think it's a nifty idea for an ability.

Personally I think a decent buff would be to increase the base healing (not the scaling) by 1% for every 2% missing health.

PíllowFeb 18, 20181 votes

{quoted}

His Q, E, and R are all incredibly valuable abilities when in the right hands. Unfortunately his W wasn't given much of his power budget, as I think it's a nifty idea for an ability.

Personally I think a decent buff would be to increase the base healing (not the scaling) by 1% for every 2% missing health.

If nothing else, it'd at least be nice for the heal to get buffed to a base amount that feels reasonable for a whopping 90 mana. If I need Revitalize + Mikael's Crucible to even feel like the heal is doing something... well, at that point it feels like it exists more for the burst of MS than it does for the heal.

Baron BarianFeb 18, 20181 votes

It's not really meant to be a consistently reliable heal. It's kind of meant to just be a small gift to your team while you're off doing Bard things, so you can still kind of support while away.

It really isn't much, but it isn't meant to be that much. Imagine Bard with his famous cc AND good healing.

PíllowFeb 18, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Baron Barian,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uvMe5bQP,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-02-18T09:14:35.101+0000)

It's not really meant to be a consistently reliable heal. It's kind of meant to just be a small gift to your team while you're off doing Bard things, so you can still kind of support while away.

It really isn't much, but it isn't meant to be that much. Imagine Bard with his famous cc AND good healing.

I wouldn't want the heal to rival Soraka or anything, heavens no. All I'd really like is a bit more effectiveness out of it for the amount of mana it costs. I know I said things like halving the charge time, increasing the base heal by a bit, etc, but I'd honestly be happy if the mana cost got lowered even by a bit. 90 mana is a ton for one of the weakest heals in the game.

TheWizardMFeb 18, 20181 votes

As a fellow Bard main, I absolutely agree. If you don't max your w first (which, let's be honest, is not worth doing) it's heal is non-existent after about lvl 5. If you're very lucky it might just about save someone from ignite, and that for 90 mana! that's way expensive, as actually using it in the early game means you have to leave lane for chimes more often, which then results in your adc taking more damage, and you end up with a useless or even counter productive spell.

Dorans PantsFeb 18, 20181 votes

item 3174 can greatly improve u W by adding a flat amount of healing to it. u deal enough dmg anyway, cdr is nice and if u go "bitch support bard" and go for things like item 3107 you get even more value out of it.