Talk:Bard/@comment-25741259-20150501163157/@comment-6281696-20150502081341

The point is that because his passive improves in Range, AoE, CC, Damage, CD and ammo you get a very weird curve because the first 5 chimes have a very very different effect on his power than the second five, or the third five, and so on. It makes it so that at times you need 5 chimes for the next big improvement, and sometimes you need 25 because say that extra 10% slow isn't going to help much on top of the 60% you already have, but that extra meep is. On top of that a couple of unlucky chime spawns can mean that for 10 minutes you can't pick up any, and then suddenly you pick up 10 at once because the fight moved to a different area. Which means that for 10 minutes you didn't improve at all, and then suddenly you get a massive powerspike.

It makes it so that his passive is all over the place throughout a game. By comparison, Tresh's souls can be reliably picked up. On top of that the souls always provide the same bonus, instead of sometimes improving utility, sometimes damage, sometimes CD etc. Because of this there isn't a difference between each soul, which makes him much much smoother.

Anyway, the point isn't that he's underpowered or bad, in fact he's one of the most powerfull supports when he gets going. The issue is that he's increadibly inconsistent thanks to that weird curve. Fall behind, get a couple of bad chime spawns, and you're now basicly useless. Get ahead, have some luck with the chimes and you'l be able to 1v1 a lot of opponents, even as a support. Add to the general support issues and you just end up with a champion where when you lose it doesn't feel like you've been outplayed, but like you never even got to try anything.