Bard, the Wandering Caretaker, revealed[]
The celestial vagabond known only as 
Bard dwells beyond the physical universe in realms unknown to man. Manifesting when others threaten the cosmic equilibrium, the ancient caretaker acts with speed and intent, only returning to his endless watch once he has steered Runeterra from catastrophe.[1]
- Abilities
- Traveler's Call
Ancient Chimes: Bard's presence causes sacred chimes to appear on the Fields of Justice. Collecting a chime grants Bard a brief burst of movement speed, experience, and mana.
- Cosmic Binding
slowing the first enemy struck. After Cosmic Binding hits an enemy, the burst of energy continues through, searching for secondary targets. If it hits a wall, it 
stuns the initial target; if it hits a second enemy, it stuns both targets.
- Caretaker's Shrine
- Magical Journey
- Tempered Fate
stasis. Frozen units are immune to all damage until the effect wears off.- Gameplay
Bard is League's first support to gain advantages solely from moving around Summoner's Rift. By constantly collecting his unique 
chimes, he covers plenty of ground at all stages of a game, and offers his team both solid sustain with his health 
packs and unrivaled team mobility with his long range 
portals.
- Laning
Even if he is a wandering spirit, Bard first has to identify the best windows of opportunity to roam before he runs off - he can't just abandon his marksman whenever he pleases. By making runs when his lane's pushed or when his marksman has 
recalled, Bard can successfully roam without placing his teammate in imminent danger, then return to lane by the time he's needed.
And while Bard roams around collecting his chimes, he has plenty of tools to support his allies. Laying down a Caretaker's Shrine or two near friendly turrets gives Bard's teammates the sustain to recover lanes that are losing, or overwhelm ones that are winning, and all without the Wandering Caretaker staying in lane. Bard's Magical Journeys cover long distances in specific locations, too, gifting friendly fighters and tanks quick access to the enemy team's jungle, and mages easy access to their own 
blue buff. The portals needn't propel just Bard and his pals through the jungle, though - coordinating them with allied movement means Bard can quickly move his damage-dealing allies into lane ganks and toward objective control. That said, Magical Journey is best used when his enemies are both seen and distant - they serve little use when enemy assassins simply follow Bard through the portal before claiming lives.
Bard offers more than pure sustain and mobility, though, and fires out solid poke whenever he's in lane thanks to 
Cosmic Binding. Though it deals meaningful damage on its own, the slow (and if procced, stun) give Bard surprising ganking potential, particularly when used in conjunction with Magical Journey. Enemies will have to think twice about escaping through the bottom and top lane brush when Bard can pin them to the nearby wall with a well-placed Q.
Once Bard hits six, he gains countless opportunities to secure and protect objectives across Summoner's Rift thanks to the incredible versatility of 
Tempered Fate. If the enemy team's tower diving a stranded ally, casting the ability over them grants them a few precious seconds of invulnerability while Bard's team comes to the rescue. The ability has offensive uses, too, like freezing a lone enemy while Bard's team closes in for the kill, or freezing an enemy turret while Bard and his allies get to work on diving their suddenly unprotected targets.
- Teamfights
The Wandering Caretaker has plenty of ways to control areas of the map come mid game. Even if his team arrives late to a 
Dragon attempt, Bard can cast Tempered Fate over the dragon before creating a Magical Journey into the beast's pit. Suddenly what seemed like a simple dragon kill turns into a contested 
dragon buff and a full-scale teamfight. Here, Bard's role changes to backline utility support. By planting a few Shrines around his team's objective, he gives his team an automatic sustain advantage - allowing his frontline tanks to temporarily pull back to top their health back up, or squishier allies to recover if they get chunked down. Cosmic Binding becomes increasingly useful in tight areas, too - without large spaces to escape to, it's much more likely to tether against a nearby wall or second enemy, stunning both units while Bard's team secure valuable kills. Provided he's collected enough of the chimes through the course of the game, even Bard's 
meeps offer solid utility, slowing and damaging fleeing enemies once the fight is over.
Finally, Magical Journey offers Bard the chance to bring copious amounts of mischief to Summoner's Rift. Baiting the enemy team into following him through a portal before stunning them with Cosmic Binding can bring about a quick and brutal ace, or drag them out of position, letting Bard sacrifice himself as his team emerges elsewhere from the fog of war to tear the enemy's defenses apart.
- Synergy
| Works well with: | Struggles against: |
|---|---|
 While other Marksmen might suffer on their own, Caitlyn has all tools she needs to survive while Bard roams Summoner's Rift. Her |
 The quickest way to kill a wandering support is with an aggressive jungler, and none see further than Rek'Sai. By using |
 Udyr's a beast once he gets to his target's face, but traditionally has trouble getting there in the first place. That's where Bard comes in - |
 Bard can only comfortably roam when his Marksman faces up against opponents who favor sustained damage over burst. Draven, with his brutal early game |
 The Sad Mummy has one of League's strongest team fight initiation combos, but |
 Similar to Draven, Leona exacerbates Bard's weaknesses by being a classic lane bully. In a favorable two vs one lane, Leona's all the more likely to activate |
Champion Insights[]
Bard, game design by Rabid Llama
We've looked at the idea of roaming supports before. 
Alistar was one, for a while, before he roamed so well you guys transitioned him into a death-dealing jungler thanks to his nigh on unstoppable 
W + 
Q combo and extreme 
tower diving capabilities. So we made changes, nerfed his extra monster damage, and put him back in his traditional support pants. But we still liked the idea, and so started thinking of ways that we could bring a new champion into League that had all the hallmarks of a roaming utility support.
At the same time, one of the champion concept artists had drawn up a really compelling character. He was strange and otherworldly looking, so we started figuring out how we could join these two pieces - roaming support and this character - together. After trying out a few different mechanical hooks (he was, at one stage, a pretty bardy Bard, with a musical theme and an instrument that was more central to his abilities), we ended up with a cosmic character, a caretaker who existed to protect relics and places scattered around the world.
So how's he different in game? Well, Bard's roams to empower both himself and his allies. Each chime he collects soups up his meeps passive, and as he travels, he's incentivized to help out his other lanes and jungler with Caretaker's Shrine. Crucially, they don't require him to hang around, so Bard can pop into mid, drop off a shrine, then carry on towards top on the hunt for more chimes. Each chime gives him a short movement boost (so he can jet around at a decent pace) experience (so he doesn't miss out on too much minion xp) and mana. All this means he's rewarded for roaming, and can (hopefully) leave his marksman during laning without handing them a big fat death sentence.
Media[]
| Bard's Theme |
- Related Music
- Related Videos
- Main article: Summoner icon
Trivia[]
- Bard is Luke 'Rabid Llama' Rinard's first champion. He used to be part of Riot's Engineering team but later switched over to Design.[2]
- Bard was first extracted from the filenames of in-game icons and subsequently from promotional images. He has been called Bard from the very first production names.[3]
- Bard comes from Proto-Celtic *bardos, from PIE *gʷr̩H-dʰh₁os "praise-maker".[4]
- Celtic bards are poets or musicians dedicated to storytelling who either travel on their own or are hired by patrons and are dedicated to singing heroic tales or events past. This is why they often dress mostly in cloth or light leather and have a musical instrument handy for storytelling/singing in a light-hearted fashion.
- Despite the name, Bard's theme was changed halfway from 'musical bard' (he even had an instrument) to 'cosmic being'.
- The remnants of his musical theme can be seen on his flute-like weapon.
- The way bards record history through songs and storytelling can be reflected in the way Bard aims to preserve the history of Runeterra. Additionally, both Bard and real-world bards are commonly depicted as nomads and pacifists.
- Despite the name, Bard's theme was changed halfway from 'musical bard' (he even had an instrument) to 'cosmic being'.
- Meep means an imitation of a high pitched sound used in media (examples being the Roadrunner and Beaker). Meeps however could've been inspired by this video
- 'Bard: Mountain' was animated in Korea by StudioMIR (responsible for The Legend of Korra, The Boondocks, and even the Season 3 World Championship video Road to the Cup)[5] and directed by Seung Eun Kim, as well as written and artistically guided by Riot employees (with Riot Jino as the visual effects consultant)[6]
- In V5.3 five copies of Bard's mask were hidden across Summoner's Rift but have since been removed.
- The first time they were encountered by a champion, they would glow and make a sound.
- In Spectator Mode, they would light up when the camera focused on them.
- The first time they were encountered by a champion, they would glow and make a sound.
- Early in development Bard could decide what colour of the Meeps he got once he had gathered enough chimes. Each colour of the Meeps buffed Bard's spells instead of modifying autoattacks and they followed him around to show enemies which of Bard's skills Bard had upgraded. This was scrapped in favour of buffing autoattacks to increase clarity.[7]
- Assorted sounds from Bard’s kit were created using tiny brass bells purchased in L.A.’s Chinatown.[8]
- At one point in development Bard's ult used to fire a global range wave that silenced enemies it hit.[9]
- Bard has a secret voice over script with genuine lines used to inspire his sounds.[11]
References[]
- ↑ Bard, the Wandering Caretaker, revealed
- ↑ Bard reveal
- ↑ Ask Riot
- ↑ Matasović, R. Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 56
- ↑ Bard teaser trailer creators 1
- ↑ Bard teaser trailer creators 2
- ↑ Meddler's post
- ↑ The stories behind Leagues SFX
- ↑ August's Reddit post
- ↑ /DEV: ON CHAMPION PROTOTYPES
- ↑ Bard secret VO