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Bard Build Guide by

The ALP Guide to Bard Jungle

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Bard Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (1) More Bard Guides

Runes: Sustain

1 2 3

Precision

Fleet Footwork

Triumph

Legend: Haste

Cut Down

Resolve

Conditioning

Overgrowth

Bonus:

+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10-180 Bonus Health

Spells:

Flash

Smite

Items

Jungle Pets

Red Pet

Blue Pet

Green Pet

First Back

APard

Situational

First Back

ADard

Situational

Tank

First Back

Tank

Situational

Ability Order Standard

Bard Passive Ability

More Bard Counters

Champion Build Guide

About Me

Hello, my name is Average Lillia Player (or ALP for short) though ingame I go by Yoon. As the name suggests, I main Lillia and prefer to avoiding laning as a whole, often queuing for Jungle or Support (but mostly Jungle). Almost all of my time in the game is spent making extremely strange picks in the Jungle work out, anything from meta to borderline throwing, I'm determined to make it work.

Champion Introduction

Abilities

Items

Bard, the Wandering Caretaker
Catcher, Support, Mage, Mana, Ranged, Magic

Clearing: Below Average [4:00+]
Ganking: Average
Speciality: Supporting Carries
Why Jungle Bard? Bard is quite a versatile champion, being able to build a large variety of things that are each good in their own ways. He can do a surprising amount of damage with his passive when building AP and his tankiness, although not the best, is still noteworthy when being built properly. His clear speed is nothing to brag about, but he has a very good kit in general for ganking and securing kills.

Pros and Cons

Pros

➺ Good All Game
➺ Versatile
➺ Bad Clear
➺ Good Ganks
➺ Great Roaming
➺ Easily Underestimated

Cons

➺ Hard to Master
➺ Situational Ult
➺ Short Range
➺ Can't Solo Carry
➺ Bad at Objectives
➺ Weaker Early

Builds

ABILITY POWER

This will be Bard Jungle's main build, providing him ample damage with his passive and Q, much more than an enemy would expect in the middle to late game. He certainly can struggle to solo-kill and do things on his own, but when paired with teammates he can be a true supportive powerhouse.

ATTACK DAMAGE

Bard auto attacks to do damage anyway, so AD Bard isn't played any differently than AP, that damage dealt is just in a different color, lol.

TANK

This is the more supportive build and one best suited for players who might not know how to position well or survive in weird situations with weird builds. He scales decently well off of tank and doesn't struggle too often to get out of situations with his abilities to begin with.

Skill Order

Q
Cosmic Binding
1 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 9
W
Caretaker's Shrine
2 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 13
E
Magical Journey
3 / 14 / 15 / 17 / 18
R
Tempered Fate
6 / 11 / 16

> > >

begins with Q for obvious reasons, as it is his only damaging ability and the most useful in most combat circumstances, including with monsters. Afterwards we get a point in W to heal with between camps, then a point into E for mobility around the jungle and escape routes, as invades are common for off-meta picks such as this.

Ability Usage in Jungle

PASSIVE ABILITY

Traveler's Call

➺ Ancient Chimes: 's presence causes chimes to appear to appear at random locations on the map, lingering for a long while. Collecting one restores and grants bonus out of combat, which stacks up to ten times and continuously grants more and more bonus .

➺ Meeps: Bard's presence attracts Meeps, which are small spirits that come to his side. While he has Meeps, his basic attacks are empowered to each consume a Meep on-attack to deal magic damage.

At 5 Chimes, Meeps slow damaged enemies.
At 15 Chimes, Meeps deal AOE damage in a cone.
At 35 Chimes, the cone's radius increases.

Meeps spawn every few seconds and can have up to 1 − 9 (based on number of Chimes) of them at a time.

➺ In the Jungle, the stacking is much easier to do as you are already in the location of a majority of chimes. The bonus helps you get from one objective to another. There is a great deal of damage in the stacks of your passive, as well.

➺ This scales off of .

Cosmic Binding

➺ fires an energy bolt in the target direction that deals magic damage to the first enemy hit and slows them. After hits an enemy, the bolt continues behind them. If it hits a solid surface or another enemy, it stuns both of the enemies hit and deals damage to the secondary target as well.

➺ In the Jungle, this is used as assistance with your ganking. When paired with E and the from your passive, you can easily stun enemies against jungle walls.

➺ This scales off of .

Caretaker's Shrine

➺ conjures a shrine at the target location that gathers power over 5 seconds, giving vision of it's surroundings momentarily and can be consumed by champions walking over them. by walking over them, the champion is healed based on how much power the shrine had gathered.

➺ In the Jungle, this keeps from being too low hp to clear the jungle fully. He can also leave this in lanes he passed through to help out his team from afar. Thirdly, can use it to give that little bit of survivability to himself or others in team fights.

➺ This scales off of .

Magical Journey

➺ opens a one-way magical corridor through a piece of terrain in the target direction for 10 seconds. A champion can pass through it by selecting it.

➺ In the Jungle, this is an incredibly useful mobility tool. It can be used to gank "through" walls or escape in the same fashion.

Tempered Fate

➺ sends magical energy arcing to the target location, granting vision of the target location. On impact, everything within it is put into stasis, including towers, minions, monsters, and friendlies.

➺ In the Jungle, this is a very situational ability and used in many versatile ways. For example, it can keep you alive through an ignite (or your teammates). It can stop enemies from running away and give you time to catch up, or simply to freeze towers so you can tower dive.

Objectives

DRAGON

does not do enough damage to solo dragons at the earlier points in the game, but later on he can use his heal (especially when building AP) to keep himself alive. It is still too slow to reliably get a dragon on his own, however.
benefits the most from Cloud Soul, giving him extra movement speed in the jungle and out of combat. This stacks VERY well with his movespeed bonus from his chimes! Being a tricky, hard-to-catch jungler is good for any off-meta pick.

VOIDGRUBS

can solo Voidgrubs, but like other objectives it can be very slow and time-consuming alone. The most optimal way to clear these is to ask for help and ensure you have both of your 's available.

RIFT HERALD

can solo herald but he runs into the same issue as the other objectives, that being he is too slow to reliably take it alone.

VORACIOUS ATAKAHN

This version of Atakahn will be seen more often by . Voracious Atakahn will spawn in lower-action games with fewer kills/damage, taking root in whichever side of the map has the most drama within it. It cannot be solo'd by in the slightest. During both Atakahn fights, takes up a supportive position and tanks the objective damage while remaining safe from enemies. Don't try to kill everything in front of you. Voracious Atakahn grants a free, one-time use of False Life but instead of reviving right in the middle of the fight, you blink back to your fountain.

RUINOUS ATAKHAN

follows the same strategy, but can remain a bit closer for this fight and take more damage for her team due to the different Atakahn abilities. Upon slaying Ruinous Atakhan, you are granted Crown of Carnage which permanently boosts rewards from epic monsters slain aswell as 6 stacks of Bloody Petals.

BARON NASHOR

cannot solo Baron, but should be prioritizing it when it is available. He has.. alright wave clear for a support in the jungle, but when going against super minions (in the event an inhibitor is down) he would need all the help he can get from baron buff.

ELDER DRAKE

does not directly benefit from Elder as he is not much of a killer on his own (but does do great team fight damage and has excellent utility).. but despite that, he is built for stealing with and E. Never give up on an elder if you're in the position to portal to it.

Clearing

RED SIDE

BLUE SIDE

generally struggles with multiple enemies at once, at that shows strongly in the early game. His lack of early game presence and damage shows a lot when starting red side. Don't go here instantly after clearing blue side, go for ganks (or perhaps scuttle, since his clear is so slow..) then go for camps that are easier to grab, like .

Blue side is much easier for to handle, not because he particularly needs the mana, but because the cooldown reduction is decent, and he only has to deal with mostly single-target camps. Start on , then and before looking for fights to get involved in.

Core Items

ABILITY POWER

ATTACK DAMAGE

stattik shiv

CRITICAL STRIKE

warmogs armor

Feats of Strength

Sorcerer's Shoes
's main build is AP, so Sorc's provides a lot of magic penetration (and by a lot, i mean.. not really that much) for the early game. Since his gold intake is very low, this is gonna be what he has to work with for a while.

FEATS OF STRENGTH
Feats of Strength is gained by completing two of three objectives before the enemy team. These objectives include 3 epic monsters slain, first team to three kills, and first tower. For the easiest is first to three kills and first to three objectives. The kills are much easier than the objectives, however, since he is a very supportive teammate and can provide kill chances for all lanes. As for objectives, he doesn't have much trouble AS LONG as he is with teammates to help him with speed.

Spellslinger'S Shoes
Upgrading SS grants you , providing a buff to and . I don't recommend buying this early unless you're against champions with inherent magic resistance, like tank characters, or against people who are purposefully building it for one reason or another. Otherwise, don't upgrade it until you're flooded with gold.

Summary

IN CONCLUSION
-

EARLY GAME: Bard has a stupidly bad early game. His clear speed is abysmal and his ability to kill enemy junglers alone is.. lacking, to say the least. His healing is forgettable, but his portal on E and his relatively easy to hit stun (sometimes multi-stun!) is amazing to have at all points in the game. At times, he can set his team up for very successful and easy kills with just the click of a button or two.

MID GAME: Mid game is where Bard truly shines. This is his make-or-break moment. Choosing what fights to take are vital, but even when behind, it should be remembered that Bard has generally the same impact when behind and ahead. The only difference is that when your team is ahead, you're helping them chase rather than helping them escape. When you have your ultimate, you can help with tower dives as well.

LATE GAME: A fed Bard is great, but nowhere near as impactful as a fed.. anyone else. He's generally always going to be supportive, but he can certainly get solo kills on squishy champions by now.