I'm called Gurrarr and I'm a "pisslow"-ranked "unable to choose a main"-main and an EUNE abomination with a spare 70% win rate Thresh account on EUW. I created my first account in 2012, played for a month, came back in 2014 played for a week, then began playing in Season 9 and have continued playing ever since. I am a jungle main but enjoy support more because I find the jungle role very frustrating and the support role a lot easier.
I chose I'd make a Bard guide because I think he looks funny. I am no bard main, but he is always in my heart. This guide will not be the best thing you can find.
About Bard.
He is a mage-support of the class Catcher, like Neeko, Zyra and Morgana. The Catcher class is a sub-class of the Controller class and unlike the Enchanter class, it specializes in locking down and zoning opponents so their teammates can damage the target(s).
Bard however is a very special champion for many reasons;One of those being that he is the only character able to force teammates and enemies to be in a state of Stasis. Immobilizing allies is special in and of itself but Stasis in particular is unique because it also makes them invulnerable during the time they're frozen(which is 2.5 seconds).
Another thing that makes Bard so special is his build path. According to Gurrarr, Bard can be picked no matter your team comp. Sure, in some cases some picks would be more beneficial or useful. However Bard does not give a shit. We'll talk more about this later.
Bard's Runes
Lathyrus's Fleet Footwork Bard
Probably the best runes for the moment. Go check out Lathyrus streams at: https://www.twitch.tv/lathyrustv (but you can do that after the guide ^^)
Gurrarr's AP Bard
It deals damage
Top Bard
Bard but you play it in the toplane, deals less damage but same amount of fun.
AD Bard
Do not.
Anti-Burst Bard
When you're up against a lot of burst, like Blitz or Tristana, I like this.
Mosquito Bard
No.
Jungle Bard
Works every now and then in unranked.
Lathyrus's FF Bard
Gurrarr's AP Bard
URF/ARAM Bard
Top Bard
AD Bard
Anti-Burst Bard
Mosquito Bard
Jungle Bard
Honor Bard
Passive ADC
Summoner Spells
Ignite is when the enemies heal or when you need more damage in laning phase.
Recommended against Soraka, Sona, Nami, Pyke, sometimes Samira, sometimes Twitch, fairly often Aphelios and Kai'sa.
Exhaust is when the enemies will probably out-damage you in a fight. Recommended against Draven and Tristana.
Heal is for when your ADC is being a grumpy wannabe streamer.
Bard Spells
Secret Bard Spells
Skill Path
If Iron-Gold, go to toplane, place W, to mid, place W, to wherever jg starts and place W he can take after camp, now your team is happy and if you need W in lane, just place it cause your jg will have taken one so you have one slot open, if you need two you can do two and your toplaner who doesn't know what bard does will just think the shrine expired.
(THIS WORKS ONLY FOR SUPP BARD)
Anything above gold
Iron-Gold
Bard
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Item Builds
When it comes to jungle or support, just build whatever you feel sounds good. :)
AP
AD
TOP
SUPP
JUNGLE
MOSQUITO
Counters
Bard Favoured
Synergies
If Sivir gets into a fight, we can use our ult to help her, because she can shield herself from it. Making for a good escape or a nice regroup.
Caitlyn can place her traps under your ult target which makes for great chai cc.
Twitch is good when you're roaming, he can come with you and you can bait the enemies into thinking you're alone while in fact you have an invisible rat next to you.
Tristana has great follow up on your ults and can push in waves really quickly making for good roams. She can also push the enemies against a wall, making it easier for you to hit your Q.
Vayne has lots of mobility and can follow up on your cc very easily.
Bard's passive ability is called "Traveler's Call" and spawns chimes across the map(About 2.37/minute and the first three will always spawn close to your current location and before the minion wave arrives, usually you don't get enough time to get the third if you're leashing unless you're lucky) which can be picked up by Bard which in turn grant him stacks. After each 5 stacks Bard's empowered auto attack gains twelve extra magic damage along with the starting 30 damage and 30% of your ap. Meaning, an auto attack at five stacks will do 45 magic damage + your current AD in attack damage. At 125 stacks(after about an hour) you'll do almost 350 damage per empowered auto attack and that's assuming you're still level six without items. If you're level 18 with full AP build by then you'll be able to do about 2000 damage in just two auto attacks! This sure sounds like a lot but you should remember it's a very unrealistic scenario and most enemies will have more magic resist and armour by then. After five stacks every empowered auto will slow the enemy, after 15, they will damage enemies behind the target and at 35 they will damage enemies further behind the target. Roaming for Chimes is not the most important job, but they should at least encourage it. Picking up Chimes while roaming is great, not only do they give him stacks like we talked about earlier but also movement speed(10 + 14 * recently picked up chimes, max 5), mana and experience meaning you'll be ready to fight when you reach the roam target.This works a lot like Thresh passive does. Not many people really understand what Bard passive does. Almost everyone knows Sion's passive stacks grant health, Veigar's passive stacks grant ability power, Nasus's passive stacks grant attack damage. When it comes to Shadow Isles souls not a lot of people remember. Thresh and Senna both collect souls, in Thresh's case he gains armour for each stack and his W shield scales with each stack and his E has a passive that makes his autos do magic damage based on his stacks. Lots of people know Senna gains attack range with every 20 souls but did you know she also gains attack damage? Every soul grants her 0.75 attack damage and every 20 souls gives her 10% critical strike chance. If she goes above 100% critical strike 35% of her excess critical strike chance will be converted into life-steal.
Bard's Q ability is called Cosmic Binding, an orb will fire in the direction of your cursor from Bard's current position. The first enemy it hits will be slowed and if you manage to hit a second enemy, structure, wall, monster, epic monster or minion, both entities hit by your Q will be stunned for 1.4 seconds. This can be a little weird around the terrain of the rift, so try and test your luck when you see an enemy walking along the side of a wall. Best case scenario, the spot you hit is so stupid it tilts them into making more mistakes in the future and gives you and your team a kill and potential pressure release. For really quick combos and flashy combos you can Q before Flashing to make sure the enemy doesn't have any time to dodge your Q. This can also be done to line them up against the wall, as your Q will always fly from Bard towards where the cursor was located when you began channelling your ability.
Bard's W places a heal on the ground. It works like Poppy's passive buckler. If an enemy steps on it, it disappears, but if you or an ally take it you'll get health back and a bit of movement speed. The ability will lock to the closest ally if you aim towards an ally or use your F-keys to center one. It can be picked up on placement but if you wait 10 seconds it'll heal more than twice as much as it would before. You can place these under your allies meanwhile they're in stasis if you wanna attempt to save someone(Video example(you can watch the rest of the video later, it's really good!))
Bard's E is called Magical Journey and creates a one-way portal through a wall. This can be taken starting from spawn ending a third of the way into the top/bot lane. It's great for ganks, your ADC looks all alone, submissive and breedable and in through the wall flies Bard and Zed who's for some reason a Jungler disguised as penguins. The enemies are so confused they don't know how to counter play Zed's W R E auto combo and die. Allied champions travel faster through the portal than enemies which gives you a tiny window of time to set up before enemies arrive. Since you almost always get to the end before your enemy you can Q backwards and if you hit the enemy following you they'll get stuck to the wall when they arrive, do this as late as possible for the maximum time to escape. This ability combined with the rest of his kit makes Bard very slippery.
Let's set up an example, Sett comes onto you, you ult yourself, he has to wait for your 2.5 seconds of invulnerability. You have stopwatch, he has to wait for your 2.5 seconds of invulnerability. You have Zhonya, he has to wait for your 2.5 seconds of invulnerability. Sett presses E W. You have half your health left cause you're such a faker you dodged the W true damage area. You press E and go into the jungle, Sett, being the idiot he is, follows you. You Q him. He has to wait for 1.4 seconds. He presses Q, you W yourself, he's close to catching up, you pick up a chime and turn into a Lamborghini Aventador and out run him. Then go back to him to spam Ctrl+4 a couple of times and bait him into your team. Happy ending.
There's one more thing, if you're really pro you can bait using vision. 91% of the bushes on the map have a wall next to them, at least pre elemental rift meaning if you're trying to escape someone you can use vision to your advantage, walking towards a wall when you're being chased usually indicates you're either going to blink it, dash it, leap it or walk through it and in Bard's case it's usually the portal. So enemies will expect you to do this, if you place the portal and walk into the unwarded brush right next to it, sometimes you'll get lucky and they'll just go through the portal.
Another way you may bait them could be tricking them under your turret, or flashing out of the portal half way through. Remember, you're not invisible while in a portal. You can still be hooked or knocked out of it.
Tempered Fate is a ranged AoE ability which puts everyone within the AoE in a state of Stasis for 2.5 seconds. This ability can still be blocked by Spellshields but makes affected entities, towers and wards invulnerable and unable to move or shoot. Not really like wards do either very often. This effect also works on turrets and pets and plants(Blast cone or vision plant). If used on a turret it can block the herald initial charge damage. It only works on things that are targetable however so the second tier turret won't deactivate if the first one has yet to fall. It does also work on invisible champions.
