Boards›Tips & Tricks

Tips to Playing Bard

mjack33·3/12/2015, 11:54:11 PM·8 votes·24,219 views

I felt like making this because of all the bad Bard players I've been seeing. Some basic tips that have worked really well for me today when playing Bard.

Tip #1: You do not have to get every chime that your passive spawns.

Take a deep breath. Breath in. Breath out. Breathe in. Breath out. Now don't go into the middle of your opponent's jungle at minute 8 because a Chime spawned there. Don't dive for that chime under the enemy tower. And no, it's not worth traveling up to the enemy's second tower to get a chime if you haven't taken the first one yet.

Basically, if a chime is really dangerous to get to, DO NOT TRY. You get a new set of 2 on the map every 50 seconds I believe. For better or worse, you aren't going to be able to reach all of them anyways, unless you are ignoring other important things. So wasting large amounts of time going deep into enemy territory really is not worth it.

Tip #2: Chimes last for 10 minutes. You can come back later.

For Jungle Bards, this means to keep up your clear and get the chime when you are back to clearing that side of the jungle. If you try to get every chime as soon as it appears, you will be under-leveled and have much less gold than you should. The exp gain from the chimes really is not that much, and you need to farm your jungle creeps like everyone else.

For Support Bards, it's even more basic. Don't leave your lane frequently. Wait for a good time, leave some health packs for your adc, and go on a roaming spree all at once. This way, you will still get decent gold from your support item AND you won't lose lane like you would if you just left randomly. This is one of the worst things I frequently saw Bad Bards doing today. 10 minutes is a long time, and the speed boost from each chime lets you collect a lot of them really fast once you have Boots of Mobility (btw buy this reguardless of which type you are). Wait until your lane is pushed or your opponents have backed or you just died or something else where you would be willing to leave lane if you weren't a Bard.

Tip #3: Jungle Bards. Get in the habit of laying down W's while you are clearing camps. You will not regret it. Also, remember to use E to traverse the jungle faster. Your clear time fighting wise is bad, and your E is what makes up for this.

^^ This sounds like common sense advice, but a lot of Bards jungling today have not done this. ..... So do it.

Tip #4: Level your W and Q before your E.

W is better for jungle Bard, and Q is better for lane Bard, but both are better than your E. E does not get enough from a skill point boost to justify putting more than one point in it. Effectively, each point in your E makes allies travel through it 10% faster. ...... That's it. No other benefits. It's basically a non-issue for most of what you are going to use it for, and the times it is useful are , while not nonexistent, not enough of a factor to justify leveling this before your other skills.

Tip #5: Your ult is best used when at least some of your allies can move afterward.

Whether it's you and a couple other people trying to save someone, your allies trying to run away from someone, or just re-positioning in a team fight.... don't freeze all of your teammates with your opponents. It's basically a waste of your ult, since Bard by himself can't really do enough to warrant that kind of thing. It may look cool, but freezing 9 other people in a team fight doesn't really do anything.

These have been some basic things I felt like getting off my chest, since I keep seeing bad Bard players today.

15 Comments

Nameless Hero3/16/2015, 11:32:03 AM3 votes

Tips to use Bard's ult

Escape Tactics

  1. When your team mate is escaping, ult the enemy chasers. Even ulting half of them will help him immensely.
  2. When your team is in a losing fight, ult as many of the enemy team as you can. Your team can escape. This is the most reliable use of your ult.
  3. When your team is escaping. Use your ult to deny an area to prevent an enemy team from chasing you. This is the most common scenario with pro players.

Engaging Tactics

  1. Your team is chasing a far away jungler. Ult the jungler. Your team has time to position themselves for the kill.
  2. Your team is engaging a spread out enemy team. Ult half of the enemy team. Then focus your team to burst the main damage dealer. It works only if you have a lot of burst.
  3. Your team is in a melee fight with the enemy. You COULD ult your team and the enemy team at the same time. Leaving your Lee sin to burst the enemy carry who was not affected and kill him instantly. Leaving you at an advantageous 4v5. But this is risky.
  4. When a low heath enemy team is under their tower. Ult the tower then kill the enemy. Safe tower diving.
  5. When 4 enemies are under their low health tower. Ult the enemy, kill the tower then escape.
  6. You can repeat 4 and 5 with Dragon and Baron too, leaving your jungler to steal Dragon or Baron.

Saving Tactics

  1. Your team mate is targeted by an ashe arrow, ez ult? Ult your team mate. They will be saved and they will thank you. Don't bother saving them from a Nidalee spear as Nidalee will use this time to come close to them.
  2. Pantheon, Twisted fate or Shen are going to use their ultimate on you? Ultimate them before they jump.
  3. You can stop Vi's ultimate too if you time it just when she knocks you in the air but not when she is travelling.
  4. If the whole enemy team is ganking you. You can ultimate yourself with ALT + R. then flash away at the last second, saving yourself and trapping the enemy team.
  5. You can use your ultimate to save a tower. Either you ult the tower or you ult the attacker to gain time for your team mates to show up.
  6. You can ultimate the super minions who are attacking your nexus. It can buy you a few seconds before your inhibitor is up, saving the whole game.

Trapping tactics + Combos.

  1. the easiest way to trap an enemy is when they emerge from a bush or turn round a corner.
  2. Morgana's black shield will protect you from Bard's ultimate. If she shields herself or a nunu they can both channel their ultimate while you trap the enemy team with bard's ult. If you time it right they can drop full damage when the ultimate ends.
  3. People under zhonya are not affected by Bard's ult and can emerge from stasis much earlier if timed right. Both zhonya and bard's ult have the same duration: 2.5 seconds
  4. Bard's ultimate is very good to trap enemies when you have team mates who have a powerful ult but have a long casting time. Example: Fiddlesticks, Xerath, Nunu, Leona. Just be sure to make them hit AFTER bard's ulti has finished.
  5. Team mates who need good positioning or a good position before they start like Amumu, Katarina, Miss fortune, Lucian or a good set up like Heimerdinger's turrets, Jinx chompers, Shaco box, Teemo shrooms, zilean bombs, etc can benefit too.

Timing is everything.

P.s. Not tested yet

  • Technically you can use bard's ult on someone affected by poison or Darius bleed and when they come out, the DOT should have gone away. Not tested.
  • Technically you can use it on an enemy fiora who is ulting your team to protect your team mates AND expose her immediately and she can still be damaged. Not tested.
  • Poppy and Kayle when they activate their ultimate are not affected by bard's ulti? Not tested.
  • Not tested yet but when you land an ultimate on some enemies they are no longer targetable right? So in theory skill shots should go THROUGH them and hit the enemy carry hiding behind. Good for Lee sins and Jayce and Caitlyn
Nameless Hero3/19/2015, 6:15:17 AM2 votes

Heys guys, more tips for using Bard effectively.

OP Healing Shrines - W - **Always **start with your 2 and put 3 shrines for your jungler as soon as you move out of the base. Usually, I just put 1 near the blue buff. One near the mid lane and 1 near the red buff before the fighting even starts AND I'm still in time to leash the gromp. It helps the jungler immensely for the early ganks. PLUS it gives you time to gather at least 2 shrines BEFORE the 1.55 marks and this will recover a big % of your mana. I have to test if it's better to build mana items on bard early.

Always take the time at the start of the game to explain that your healing shrines will heal 2x if they wait 10s for it to be fully charged. Seriously, just as much as you need to learn how to use your hero. Your team mates need to learn how to use your abilities too.

You will want to position the shrines a little bit behind your adc so that they can take it at the second that they take damage. What I have noticed is that some adcs like to save the health packs for later if they are in the lead. It's a smart move and saves your mana. What i have also noticed is that enemy supports are now taking big risks to destroy my shrines. Could this be a potential baiting tactic?

Anyway, the most common complaint is the mana cost of these shrines. Well the bad news is that it is true, these shrines cost a lot and you won't have a lot of mana left for your Cosmic Bind -Q if you spam them. The GOOD NEWS is that collecting just the chimes that spawn in your lane + your magic regen will refund enough mana to spawn 1 health pack + cosmic bind every 60s. In my last 5 games I never had to return to base before lvl 9 because our sustain was stupidly powerful provided that I took 30s to ward in the river and collect shrines at the red south quadrant. For some reason, some adcs insisted on going back to base even though they had full health, a clear lane and plenty of vision. sigh

But the best thing about the shrines is the speed boost. Taking a shrine gives a huge speed boost to your adc which is great if you start engaging. You can also use ALT+W to boost your own movement speed making escapes or flanking easier. In a team fight, boosting your team mates by placing a shrine directly on top of them can save them from these annoying Nidalee spears. What I've seen is that it helps allied Nasuses (Nasii?) immensely. So much that I'm considering whether ardent censer would actually be useful. Your allied Caitlyn could also use them actively by starting an exchange with the enemy adc then using their 20-caliber net to back into a shrine hidden in the bush to instantly recover half their health + gain 50% movement for a surprise boost.

These are some tips for Bard's W. As I said, just as much as you need to learn how to use your hero, your team mates need to learn play with you too, especially since he is a champion that is so interactive. Right now, Bard has brought a lot of change and confusion and people are understandably angry because they don't know how to deal with him. So let's keep this thread alive and hopefully Bard will have the respect he deserves once people learn to tap in his potential.

~ Nameless

mjack333/14/2015, 5:13:37 PM2 votes

This is going to be my last post on this for a while. This is basically just the best things I've found so far:

Masteries:

27 Defense 6 Utility

For better or worse, the offensive masteries just sucked on bard. And the defensive masteries really really help a lot more than anything I could find in utility.

+2 Block +1 Unyielding

Champions do less damage to you. This stacks with the health masteries early game to let you take a notable amount of more damaage (but not too much more).

+2 Recovery +3 Veteran Scars +1 Juggernaut +3 Perseverance

More health = can take more damage. Fun on Bard.

+2 Tough Skin +1 Bladed Armor

Jungle Minions do less damage to you. Even on support Bard, I sometimes want to kill some jungle minions when there is little else to do, and these make that easier.

+2 Enchanted Armor +3 Hardiness +3 Resistance

It's more armor and more magic resist. Plus evem more from your items. Always good.

+1 Reinforced Armor +1 Evasive +1 Second Wind +1 Tenacious

^^ These 4 things all give you something really good defensively, and they just let you survive longer.

+3 Fleet of Foot

You move faster. ..... This is very useful.

:( I am sure someone else can do better than the above, as for obvious reasons people usually only want to put 21 points in any particular tree and 9 in a second tree.

Runes:

+4 Flat Armor Seals = +4 Armor -> More armor early on since you are going up against jungle creeps or bot lane. +4 Flat Mana Regen Seals = +2 mana regen per 5 seconds -> Let's you cast spells more often and just work real well. +9 Magic Penetration Marks -> I just don't know what to run instead of these....... that's the reason. Out of the marks I own, they all seem to be offensive oriented. +9 Scaling Magic Resist Glyphs -> Basically put, these make you a lot tankier later on while helping quite a bit in bot lane. I just haven't found something better yet, since I don't think AP Glyphs work that well on Bard. +3 Movement Speed Quints -> Freaking awesome. Just..... get these.

As for what Items I've been buying?

Jungle: Cinderhulk Bot Lane: (use Spellthief and sell later) Sunfire cape

Both: item 3117 item 3143 item 3083 item 3512 item 3060

So here's what I've found to best best on Bard so far, although I am sure someone can do better.

First of all, Boots of Mobility, either Alacrity or Homeguard, seem to be core on Bard. I rush them first and I don't know what I would do without them. They are just that useful.

The 3 pure defensive items make Bard tanky. Very tanky. Since he already has quite ab it of cc if you include randuin's..... it makes him tanky and gives him a lot of utility basically. I'm sure people can do better, but I would at least consider Randuin's here to be core.

The last two......

I'm sure other builds exist, but I've personally found offensive items and basic utility items to be not very good on Bard. Due to his insane mobility, I've had a decent amount of success building Portal as my fourht item? Basically Immolate item -> boots of mobility -> Randuin's -> Rot Portal. It makes Bard decently good at sieging without having to build offensive items or really put himself in that much danger, and you get 60 MR and Armor on a single item. I'm not 100% sure if it's core, but it's core for me. By that late in the game, it's hard to build a 5th and 6th item. As stated, I try to build Warmog's if i can. I've never actually gotten to the point where I've built a 6th item entirely, but Banner of Command is so good vs everything else that for right now that is my theoretical last item.

Togekiss243/15/2015, 7:04:29 AM1 votes

Thank you.

Frost the Reaper3/13/2015, 1:10:46 AM1 votes

I'd like to point out for jungle bard: You'll want to leave 2 by your red buff and just drop one by your blue buff. This will help you sustain a lot more because you should have less health at the red buff.

Trucko4/2/2015, 7:22:24 PM1 votes

summoner 3

Kitten of Evil3/13/2015, 5:54:54 PM1 votes

How do you recommend building him? I've been running him Support a lot, and the recommended items just look awful... he roams too much for item 3301 to be useful.

I've mostly gone item 3117 item 2049 item 3023, and either item 3190 or item 3110 depending on enemy team... and that's all I can usually afford to build by the time game's over.

He doesn't scale well with AP (a total of 80% AP ratio on passive and Q), nor AD, and AS doesn't make his meeps respawn any faster... as far as I can tell, the only useful stats on him are CDR, movement speed, and HP/Armor/MR.

mjack333/14/2015, 3:31:47 PM1 votes

A new tip/concern:

I am worried that I might be focusing too much on health on Bard here.

At level 18, Bard has 1980 health naturally. If you include the base health from a Cinderhulk and Randuin's Omen, (which I recommend building both of almost every game), that becomes +850 or 2830 health. If you add in the bonus 25% of bonus health on top of that, you are sitting at another +212 health, or a little over 300 health overall.

You are also sitting at 159 armor between your natural armor and the armor from Randuins.

Let me go a little further. With just a Randuin's Omen and a Cinderhulk, you have:

  • an upgraded smite
  • a little over 3000 health
  • 159 armor
  • 30 Mr
  • immolate passive
  • randuin's passive
  • randuin's active

If you take an extra 27 MR at level 18 from scaling MR (which I recommend), that might be tanky enough from just the two items when it comes to your health stats.

Now if I actually look at other items, the only one that MIGHT be worth it for adding on more health is Warmog's. Basically.... you get +1000 health + warmog's passive. The passive lets you regain 40 health every 5 seconds I think? That plus 40 health may be worth it. BUT anything past the first two and warmog's does not seem to be worth it on Bard.

A disclaimer: I've not been playing him in Ranked for obvious reasons.