While Bard's design is very well done, he still needs some number tweaks.

Bard's utility is simply incredible, and we know from seeing Janna in action that supports with almost no damage but massive utility can succeed. However, judging by his sub 40% win rate, he simply isn't working right now, and not just because of his skillcap or team coordination requirement. Kalista was more successful on release than Bard, and she requires just as much team coordination as Bard does.

There isn't one specific problem with Bard at the moment; champions with only one problem don't do as poorly as Bard is currently doing. Instead, Bard has a large set of small annoyances that compound each other and his teamplay requirement to render all but the most skilled Bard players a handicap to a team.

*Bard's kit has extremely powerful tools to enable him to set up ganks, but very little damage. This cements him into the role of a roaming support, but... *...as a support, Bard cannot leaMeeve lane without screwing over his ADC, and cannot afford to buy early Boots of Mobility to better fulfill his niche. *Additionally, while the mana and XP granted by chimes is nice, it's not nearly enough to make the massive XP and gold risk of roaming worth it. *Since his kit was balanced around his powerful roaming ability, Bard has very little power when actually in lane with an ADC.

All of these things together combine to ruin Bard's potential as a support. Balancing him around being a constant roamer who is weak if they stay too long in any one place is a good idea, so long as he actually has sufficient reward for roaming. Right now, I don't feel that Bard gains enough by roaming to pick up Chimes, especially since a good 30% or more of your Chimes are going to spawn out of reach in enemy territory. Since his damage is so lackluster (and rightly so given his roaming potential and utility), he needs to gain more from Chimes in order to be an effective champion.

Here's my proposal for changes to Bard's kit to help dig him out of his current win rate hole:

Passive: Traveler's Call Experience gained upon gathering chimes increased by 30%, OR Experience gain upon gathering chimes increased by 10% for each Chime gathered in the last 10 seconds (stacks up to 5 times, similar to the movement speed buff). Don't do both experience buffs, choose one or the other. Meep spawn time decreased to 10/9.5/9/8.5/8 seconds (same at max rank, shorter at level 1)

E: Magical Journey Cooldown reduced to 22/21/20/19/18 from 26/24/22/20/18. (Allows him to more effectively use Magical Journey tunnels to roam early game, making it actually worth it to take a point in E before the first time your jungler considers ganking). Base Stats Base movement speed increased to 340 from 330.

These buffs are very targeted (they only affect Bard's laning phase) and specifically address Bard's current problems without giving him damage he shouldn't have or helping his regular supporting ability.