Disclaimer: This is not an exhaustive Bard guide. This article is here to teach you about some of the most fun -- and surprisingly meta -- Bard items that you can base your build around as you experience the joy of collecting chimes and LP. To learn how to play Bard, here are a few resources:

• Feviknight's Bard Guide Videos #1 and #2
• Lathyrus' and Flayless' Guide

[I cannot recommend giving Lathyrus' and Flayless' guide a full read-through enough. It is very thorough, and although it lists Omnistone as the keystone of choice, it also has detailed explanation of of an Electrocute rune page and covers Guardian builds as well.]

Introduction

Bard is a unique champion, in a number of ways. His kit resembles that of no other champion, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a champion whose dedicated community uses such a wide variety of runes and items. Why? Bard's kit is extremely well rounded, in terms of the elements it incorporates. Bard has an enchanter-y sustain and heal, allowing him to build healing-utility items very well. Bard is less squishy than the typical mage or enchanter, allowing him to build tankier despite not actually being a true tank. Bard has decent damage, although it will not amount to much if he doesn't choose to invest in offensive stats. His kit allows him to roam very easily, but he can also be persuaded to assert his pressure in lane if he is doing well or if his botlaner can't manage without him. His ultimate and mobility allow him to set up picks, but he can also save his ultimate to turn teamfights.

Bard allows you to play just about any kind of support you want to play. All that is required is to emphasize the parts of his kit which speak most to you. That is why there are so many viable items and overall builds on Bard. This is why, rather than suggesting complete builds, I would like to recommend items and themes to you. Before we get into that, however, I would like to give a brief mention to Bard's four keystones. Yes, four. That is many keystones for one champion. Is this why he synergizes so well with Jhin? These are the four most common keystones used within the Bard community, although people have played Bard with other keystones in the course of human history. (Have Bards ever taken Summon Aery? Yes. Will it be covered here today? No.)

Prototype: Omnistone

Why settle for one keystone when you can have all the keystones? For Bard, the kit that has everything sometimes calls for the keystone which also has everything.

Electrocute

Electrocute is your one-stop shop for pummeling squishies in lane. This is the classic, enduring Bard keystone. You will almost never go wrong with Electrocute, and it will serve you well on every build.

Hail of Blades

There exist Bards who prefer the Hail of Blades approach. Many like the attack speed it affords them both for lane, allowing them to sneak in auto attacks they would otherwise have trouble going for, and for later in the game once they've built themselves something really shiny (like Rapid Firecannon). This is the hybrid safe and offensive lane keystone.

Guardian

Looking at the offensive capabilities of the other keystones, Guardian at first glance may seem like a cop-out keystone. However, its protection can allow you to breathe a lot easier in certain damage heavy lanes -- and of course, synergizes with tankier and healing builds. Guardian is the go-to keystone for Bards looking at the Nautilus matchup.

Gotta Go Fast

I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention Boots of Mobility in an article about Bard. Mobis are about the closest thing Bard has to a definitive core item. Bard is designed for roaming, and that’s just what Mobis do. Even if you don’t find too many good opportunities to roam, the extra speed from these boots will help you get in range of your opponents, given most of them probably outrange you. (It's never a crime to forgo Mobis depending on your situation, especially if you're in a game where you cannot afford to lose movement speed in combat. Boots of Swiftness are a great substitute.)

I Need More Flashes [Theme: Damage]

Hextech Protobelt-01 has everything Bard wants. More survivability, more AP for more Bard-ing -- and the stats aren’t even the best part. As previously mentioned, Bard has a short range. Furthermore, if you’ve built Mobility Boots, Bard will lose a lot of movement speed once he engages. If only Flash had a shorter cooldown…

But wait! That’s why the Protobelt active is so useful on Bard. The dash makes up for a lack of range if you need it to. If you use Protobelt to cancel the Q animation, you’ll get more effective range out of the spell -- or, it can help get you out of sticky situations. It’s a useful item that builds out of useful components. You really can’t go wrong with this item.

Consider building with:

“Rapid Firecannon is a support item” [Theme: Damage]

Ah, so you wish to play Damage Bard? So do a lot of people. Rapid Firecannon is part of the certified high ELO Bard main way to do it. If you wish to play Bard as an excuse to build RFC on a support (and honestly, why wouldn’t you?), I’ve got a couple of tips.

1. Build Hextech Protobelt-01 alongside it. There’s this very strange phenomenon with Bard builds where you get more bang for your buck if, instead of building one full item, you build two half items before completing a single one. You’ll build the Kircheis Shard from RFC alongside a Hextech Revolver. Thank me later.

2. If you decided to go Hail of Blades, you’re almost obligated to build around the idea of attack speed. While this item and the build concept it suggests is viable on any Bard keystone, this is the darling of Hail of Blades Bard players, so you might as well give it a go.

Consider building with:

The Whole Package [Theme: Damage, Tank]

The above two items have synergy, but if you wanted to you could incorporate either of them alone into your build. You could incorporate this one alone into your build as well, but if you want to experience the "I’m A Bard Main And I Build Whatever Looks Like The Most Fun Even If It Wasn’t Designed For Me" package, throw a Dead Man’s Plate on top.

This item allows Bard to position in ways he’d otherwise be hard punished for, just auto attacking and stunning at will. Really, this shouldn’t be allowed. Read the item description. This clearly was not intended for Bard.

Consider building with:

Look, 4 Whole Spells! [Theme: Support]

Building things like attack speed, armor, and health can be fun; but at the end of the day, if you've invested in all of that, your healing will fall rather flat. Well, not if you build Athene's Holy Grail! Athene's is the Bard item for investing in rounding out your entire kit, so you can feel like you have access to your full range of abilities. Incorporate this into just about any theme of Bard build.

Burn, Baby, Burn [Theme: Damage]

Ah, Liandry's Torment: truly a staple in the builds of mages played as support. This survivability-granting damage item synergizes extremely well with Bard, given its passive burn damage increases on immobilized and slowed units, making extremely good use of Bard's stun and passive slow. To make things even better, once you have a number of Meeps following you from your chime collecting journeys, the AOE cone of damage applied on your autos is a wonderful way to spread the burn to multiple targets. Pair this with the increased Rapid Firecannon range, if you're feeling particularly bloodthirsty.

Consider building with:

Bardian [Theme: Tank, Support]

Everyone in this game does too much damage. You're here to survive, use your CC, and occasionally ulti. Sure, Knight's Vow was designed for melee tanks, but since when has Bard ever been dissuaded from building something that wasn't designed for him?

Make sure you have a solid foundation before building Knight's Vow, likely Redemption and Locket of the Iron Solari. Your marksman probably doesn't do enough damage for you to trust them with a Knight's Vow until after these items, anyway. In exchange, you get to spend teamfights focusing on preventing as many people as possible from moving, and you're healing your carry just by the nature of your existence.

Consider building with:

Bamboozle Bard [Theme: Bait, Support]

What's the easiest way to know you won't mess up your Bard ultimate? Catapult yourself into the enemy team, and lock everyone into place with your ultimate as your team makes use of the time you've bought them to get in place. Then, as your enemies are released from your magical stasis, your team devastates them from their advantageous position while you extend your stay in stasis with Zhonya's Hourglass.

Zhonya's Hourglass, like Protobelt and Liandry's, gives Bard those really appealing mixed damage and survivability stats. Opposed to those two items, however, Zhonya's fits more easily into just about any build theme -- and despite being a go-to mage item, Zhonya's on Bard almost implies a bit more utility than damage.

Consider building with: Redemption's health and utility works well with this concept.

I’m an Enchanter, but Better [Theme: Support]

Perhaps you laned against an enchanter and made their life a waking nightmare. Congratulations! But now you look around your team and you see damage everywhere. Good job spoon-feeding your marksman, but building damage this game isn't really going to make you feel special. What shall you devote your life to with all that cash, then?

How about healing more than the enchanter while continuing to deal more damage than them, just because you're Bard? Just take over their territory. Build Redemption for the health and Athene's Unholy Grail for the damage and synergy with your heal. Shurelya's Reverie will boost your heals and survivability and make you faster -- after all, speed is one of the prime joys of playing Bard.

Consider building with: Locket of the Iron Solari works great with this build, especially if your team has a lot of burst to worry about (if you're building to neutralize burst from champ select, you can even select Guardian to synergize with this build if you're willing to give up the lane pressure). Elements from this theme also work very well with the Zhonya's bait.

Breaking All the Rules [Theme: Damage, Vision Control]

This is a little out there but hear me out: Umbral Glaive. Do not try building this unless you are fed out of your mind, and it's not really worth it if you didn't bring the rune Zombie Ward along with you. Bard has the potential to build a little AD given how much he's designed to auto attack, but your healing will be extremely useless until you get some AP onto your build. However, if you're just crushing lane and living on top of the world, consider building Umbral Glaive. Marksmen die a lot faster at the hands of lethality, and if you're this fed early on, chances are the enemy support is similarly squishy. The true benefit of Umbral Glaive on Bard is pressing your advantage with both damage and devastating vision control. The enemy team is not allowed to have vision on the map, and every attempt they make to ward their map converts their vision into yours.

You'll squash their dreams of contesting objectives and turn their map into a very dark, foreboding place.

Consider building with: Really, if you're building damage like this, the sky's the limit. However, it would be nice to throw some healing in there.

Go forth and conquer! I would like to give a special thank-you to Bardsexual, Season 9 Master Tier Bard player and fixture in the Bard community, for allowing me to pick his brain on many of the Bard items recommended to you today.