Welcome to my Bard jungle guide. Bard is usually considered a bad pick in the jungle. That is mostly not true. I think the recent jungle buffs that came in patch 10.8 really help him out a lot. Now he no longer gets **** on by early game junglers like Rengar and Elise. He has even BETTER scaling into the late game. Bard Jungle is an extremely fun pick. It's something new and interesting and can be a great addition to your champion pool if you learn him and play him to his fullest potential. I'm glad you're reading my guide, now let me show you the ropes.

On your first clear you should start blue buff every game. In fact the first clear will be ONLY your blue side jungle. This means it is extremely important that you don't get invaded. having proper vision in and around the jungle and river is extremely important on Bard. You need to know where the enemy jungler is most of the time. This is a skill that will get better as you play the game. Place down a few W 's and make sure they charge up while you wait for Mr. Blue to arrive. While your kiting you can use them to heal up. The leash should only go to 800 or 900 health left. Move to your gromp after blue is finished. W is your main sustain and it takes quite a lot of mana so that's why blue is first. Gromp take the most time, so you should smite it after the first 2 auto-attacks. Use you W to heal up and your Q to bind it to the wall. This lets you finish gromp with around 50%-75% health left. Go to you wolves and start off with a Q, then kill both the baby wolves first and then the big one. You should use both your health pots while you clear wolves. When you finish you will be level three and have another smite charge ready for the scuttle. Make sure you bind the crab to the wall with Q and Smite it after, for the extra damage. You can use your W to place small amounts of vision around the river (Three Charges), so you can stay prepared for an attack. This is a great way to tell if you might be getting collapsed on. The first clear usually takes Two minutes and you will have full health at the end.

Chimes are a VERY important part of Bard jungle as the help you scale extremely well. Bard doesn't have good AOE clear in the early-game, but once you get 15 chimes, your meeps get the AOE effect that help you clear raptors and krugs almost instantly. Once you finish the first clear, you need to focus on ganks and collecting the 15 chimes. Once you get 15 its a huge power-spike for you and lets you take 1v1's easier as well. The most challenging part of Bard in the jungle is knowing when you need to roam and get chimes and when you need to farm or gank. This is what separates a great Bard jungler from a decent one.

This is where Bard really shines. His team-fights are great and he offers tons of utility and Crowd-Control for his team. You should be focusing on making picks and then coming in to take the 5v4 with your team. This is crucial to winning games. Bard doesn't have very good objective control so you need to use vision to try and force team fights off of that. This is the best way to secure dragons and Baron control. I tend to not worry too much about the Rift Herald. If the enemy gets a dragon I will usually immediately try to follow up and trade with the Herald. If the enemy gets it, its no big deal. There's a trick you can do with your ultimate that lets you put your tower in stasis and it wont take damage when the herald charges. That followed up by a smite is usually my response to a Herald.

You want to build AP because its the best option to scale with and the most consistent option. I love Bard jungle because he can play in many different ways. He can be a Burst AP mage like Echo, or he can be a Secondary Roaming support like Ivern. Because of the recent changes to Zeal, and Zeal items, I like to go for a rapidfirecannon after I get Runic Echos and Mobi-boots. The extra movement speed helps out his roaming and rapidfire cannon is a better build when you are behind, because of the low price, and high value from Zeal. Depending on whats happening in your team and in the game you should pick between these two options every game. Build the basic support items like Redemption or Athene's. These are the best options for supportive items. The rest should be basic AP or Ctit items.