- Riot announced several changes that will make the champ a better roamer
- These include a massive increase in his passive’s charges as well as changes to his W
- This might have a rippling effect on team compositions that include Bard
Bard has always been a great secondary jungler, but following Riot’s changes, this might even become his primary role.
Riot Announces New Changes
As we all know, each League of Legends champion is best suited for a particular role in the game – jungler, mid, etc. Many of them, however, have a secondary role and it is not uncommon to see players deviate from the expected role in an attempt to outflank the enemy or help their team members.
Such is the case for Bard, the Wandering caretaker. Although a support character, best utilized on the bot lane, the champion also has a skillset that allows him great flexibility, resulting in players often using him in the jungle as well. However, he is on his way to becoming a full-time roamer thanks to an upcoming update that developers Riot Games are planning.
Maxwell “Yelough” Perlman, a member of Riot’s League dev team, posted a detailed list of changes on August 29 regarding a future update of the game. А lot of these tweaks focus mainly on Bard’s passive and W ability, which will most likely give the champion a lot more options to roam, catch enemies off guard, and fully embrace the identity of the champion.
Following League’s next update, Bard will see his passive being increased from five to 10 stacks and it will now last for a full 20 seconds. Furthermore, his Caretaker’s Shrine ability will have two charges from the beginning, although its cooldown will last longer. However, this is counteracted by the fact that the ability will charge up more quickly, and it will be more of a scaling ability because it is getting AP scaling ratios.
The League dev team hopes that thanks to these changes, players will be more motivated to use Bard in the roamer role, encouraging them to go Meep-hunting when the bot lane turns bad. Considering the champion’s W gets AP scaling ratio bonuses, we might see whole new builds being developed for him after the changes go live.
That being said, Bard’s changes will have a domino effect on the strategies teams will have to use if one of their players chooses the champion. The AD carry of the squad will have to be able to fend for themselves, as it’s likely Bard will be off somewhere doing who knows what in the jungle for long stretches of time. Therefore, it’s likely we will start seeing more of Ezreal, Lucian, and Ziggs in matches with Bard in them.