Interested in Playing Bard Jungle?
Oh boy oh boy! I've been having a lot of fun with this guy ever since the Runeglaive changes recently. Now this is still experimental (haven't tested in ranked, but have in normals) but I think it has very real potential and am willing to carry this further.
The essence of this playstyle is to turn a mobility/based support into a reliable tanky mage and objective taker, make his greatest gameplay conflict a non-issue, and generally mess with people's heads. So with this in mind, I'll share what I've learned so far.
Beginning the Game To begin, you'll want pretty typical jungler runes such as seals of armor and quints of movement speed. I also use hybrid penetration marks and magic resist glyphs, but what you use is up to you. I also take 0/21/9 for the utilities and sustain.
When you begin the game, you'll want to approach Bard as a tanky jungler when you start due to his high natural sustain but low damage, and will transition into a spellcaster through items. I start with Caretaker's Shrine (W) and place 3 shrines down by Gromp, Blue Buff and Wolves immediately. This will give you a bit of time to go warding and chime-collecting.
At 1:55, use Smite on Gromp to help him clear while placing shrines and waiting for them to charge. Move on to the wolves, taking Cosmic Binding (Q) at level 2 and keeping your health up by kiting and healing. Kill the Scuttler Crab to regain some health and mana and move on to Blue Buff, taking another level in Caretaker's Shrine at level 3. This is a slow process, but will get much easier as the game goes on.
The Laning Phase and "Ganking" At this point you have some options depending on the status of your lanes. If everyone is in good condition, you can recall and buy Ranger's Trailblazer to make your clears at least decent and help with farming. With Ranger's Trailblazer, you can move on to the Red side of the jungle and farm normally and in your order of preference.
If however a laner is already about to die, you can start doing what Bard does best! Bard isn't a typical ganker because his utilities replace ganking power, but he's still a powerful roamer and can last very long playing a certain way. To help a laner out, you'll want to sneak shrines into a lane without being seen by the enemy (usually by the tower or in a bush). You can alternate in and out of the lane, fighting the occasional monster while your W is recharging.
Make sure to share the love between the lanes! Staying in one lane too long usually results in uncollected chimes, unattended teammates and unwarded jungles. You may be tempted to not ever recall, but the occasional shopping trip will do wonders.
If the lane is ahead, you can gank for real by using a Magical Journey through the larger terrain, often from a tribush, and lock down enemies using Cosmic Binding and Tempered Fate (R). Here you'll be using shrines for the speed boost rather than the heal, so cast it directly on allies/yourself.
Build-a-Bard! Now for the meat of how he builds! The important thing to note is that Bard's meeps are considered a single-target spell for the sake of building, so Runeglaive is the enchantment you want to add chunk damage to your kit. This will, again, make your clears better and power up your spells just a bit, and greatly improve his already ridiculous sustain. Remember to time your spells at least 1.5 seconds between each other to get the most effect out of Runeglaive when clearing camps. Even Magical Journey lets him do more damage through Spellblade, so feel free to cast it!
Next, items that offer Ability Power, Health and Cooldown Reduction are all good options. I usually build Boots of Swiftness, then Rod of Ages for its stats. Since all of Bard's damaging spells already impair movement at this point, Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a waste compared to RoA. Next, if you want to do damage, you can build Liandry's Torment, or Sightstone if you want more vision. Typical items you can consider include:
... All depending on what you want to do for your team and your playstyle.
End-Game Finally, in the mid-to-late game, Bard should have almost all of the chimes he can have up to that point and has great vision and map control. Dragons will usually require teammates to clear, but since Bard can ward and heal teammates easily, they often have time to help and dragons pile on. You can force lanes with Banner of Command and Zz'rot Portal, and still be by your teammates racking up assists and chimes. Hopefully the game will end soon at this point by seiging and split pushing, but you can drag the game on to gain more power for yourself and teammates.
If you ended the laning phase behind, what matters is warding vital points and keeping your less fed teammates alive by healing and peeling for them. Use these opportunities to help your teammates get assists and eventually a gold advantage, and try to collect the few chimes you can until it's safe.
Luckily Bard can potentially turn any game around for his teammates, and no matter what you have some chance, however small. So if you're ever behind, not giving up and playing smart is the way to go!
In Summary I hope you enjoyed this guide on how to play one of my favorite champions in an unconventional but intuitive place! If you have any ideas on how to improve his gameplay and want to try this yourself, feel free to share what you know or learned!
Also, if this guide is too long I'll post a TLDR version.