Talk:Bard/@comment-5172617-20150304183713/@comment-7837708-20150304230918

Probably because you're not supposed to just collect chimes, while roaming you're trying to give your team an advantage, either by killing the enemy, pushing them back or just allowing your teammate to stay in lane longer (all of these favor your team in one way or another). He already gets excellent tools for roaming with few drawbacks unlike most supports. Succesful roaming will still give you more gold than what you would get by staying in lane, this just makes it a little more dangerous if you fail.

And since a lot of supports roam in higher elo, Bard will actually be the one with an advantage since he's the only one who still gets rewards even if he fail.

Regarding the support items, I see benefits in all of them even if you're not in lane as much as the common support. You can either use all of your Spellthief charges on botlane and the proceed to roam while the stacks refresh themselves, or you can use them on champions/turrets in other lanes while your roaming. It also gives you some passive gold even if you don't do anything. Targon's is a bit more tricky, but you can use it in the same way, either kill minions in your own lane or while roaming (I know he's ranged but it's not impossible to lasthit). And by the time you start roaming you will probably have upgraded your Ancient Coin, so it will give you some passive movement speed, which is always nice while running around the map. You could also start the game without a support item, boots helps your roam and gives you extra potions, different Doran's could be nice if you want some extra stats or if you want an early Sightstone you could always get Ruby Crystal.

Sorry for the wall of text, I guess I got a bit carried away.