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New in 2016: Support

Riot·1/18/2016, 7:10:56 PM·1 votes·34,199 views

If the 2016 preseason was the time of the great AD carry overhaul, then last year was the time of the supports, bringing them gold generation items, Sightstone wards, and other tools we've come to know and love. Subsequently, Patch 6.1 doesn't bring as many changes to the role as the other bottom lane role, or the rest of the changes in top, jungle, or mid -- but the updates it does bring are profound.

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Trinkets

"The biggest change for supports [in the preseason] is the vision change, because they nerfed Sightstone and removed Sight Wards," said NRG support Konkwon. Whereas Sight Wards used to be freely available for purchase, and lasted three minutes, they can now only be accessed by Sightstones, an item that most carries avoid purchasing due to the lack of strong combat-oriented stats. Furthermore, Warding Totems no longer upgrade to Greater Stealth or Vision Totems, so most players now only have access to a ward that lasts just one or two minutes, greatly reducing how much of the map teams can reveal at any time.

"So it's really hard for supports to get decent vision now. I think [the meta is] mainly going to be support champions who can bush-check – tanky, I guess. Getting vision is really hard, so it's easier if you have tanky champions that can facecheck bushes," says Konkwon.

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In contrast to the previous season, the preseason changes to trinkets have centralized vision control responsibility onto the support player. Now that other laners can’t get Greater Stealth Totem, Supports are usually the only ones that can put more than one Stealth Ward on the map at a time. According to Renegades' support Remi, "Unless the jungler goes Tracker's, you're pretty much the only source of vision. Now that people are getting Farsight at level nine, you no longer have the free wards from mid lane and top lane. So you're pretty much responsible for controlling objectives and making sure your team can navigate safely through your side of the map."

Luckily for support players, Patch 6.1 brings a little relief to that burden. Not only is Farsight Alteration less useful early on, with its initial cooldown increased from 76 seconds to 92, but the basic Warding Totem's also gotten buffed. Though it still starts the game with a three-minute cooldown, it now has a more aggressive cooldown reduction. At level 18, it's gone from a 120 second cooldown to just 90 seconds.

Items

Along with the Patch 6.1 trinket changes, Sightstone's received a buildpath extension. It can now be fused with second-tier gold generation items, like Frostfang or Nomad’s Medallion, and gain an additional ward. Yet its reception was lukewarm at best -- a consequence of its lack of cooldown reduction compared to completing the "normal" buildpath for gold generation items, like Talisman of Ascension or Frost Queen's Claim. According to TSM Yellowstar, "I rarely do the Sightstone items, because I want to cap my cooldown reduction as fast as possible."

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"Talisman and Frost Queen's Claim have 10% CDR, so now we're putting them on even footing," said Player Relations Specialist Patrick "Scarizard" Scarborough, admitting that they had the stats wrong for the "Eye-stone" items in their initial release.

Eye of the Oasis and Eye of the Watchers will now give that 10% cooldown reduction support players would've otherwise missed out on -- at the cost of reduced mana regeneration. But according to Scarizard, so many support items give mana regeneration anyhow, that the old 150% bonus was in many ways excessive -- even after removing mana potions from the store.

As for losing access to Frost Queen's Claim and Talisman of Ascension's activated abilities -- that trade-off is deliberate. "In theory, the person with the 'eyestone' is going to be one of the only players who can buy [Vision] wards late-game." Which is not to say that Frost Queen’s Claim stops being good. Despite losing some of its slow duration in 6.1 (down to two seconds when used at close range), Scarizard expects there to be a greater diversity of support items purchased with the improved Sightstone buildpaths.

"You can finish Mikael's Crucible or Zeke's Herald much faster if you go with one of the 'eyestones.' It's possible some people will do what they do now: keep the tier-one [gold generation item], build Sightstone, and keep going. But my hunch is that the gold generation upgrade on finishing [eyestones] is good enough that people will go the extra length to do so."

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"I'm crossing my fingers for Ardent Censer," said Scarizard. "That item was always really good, it's a little more stat efficient now. And Windspeaker's Blessing gives you so much value on shields and heals. It's not a bad idea!"

Windspeaker's Blessing is a new Keystone Mastery introduced during the preseason, amplifying the effectiveness of shields and healing effects -- which, in turn, grants extra attack speed and on-hit magic damage through Ardent Censer. With the space freed up by Eye of the Oasis and Eye of the Watchers, its day might have finally come.

Patch 6.1 illuminates a brighter future for support play, and it brings even more changes to every other role. Catch up with the changes to top, jungle, mid and AD carry with the rest of the New in 2016 series!

45 Comments

RemembertheHole1/19/2016, 12:43:54 AM18 votes

Yet another braindead article intended to delude players into thinking that the item changes are anywhere near satisfactory or balanced.

Mandino191/19/2016, 1:44:25 AM10 votes

Didn't Riot post something about how everyone should be warding last year? So to alleviate that I guess they made it harder to ward for everyone.

Puffing Daisies1/19/2016, 1:54:03 AM7 votes

Damn, Remi is atttractive. Like seriously, How could you resist someone that can carry your bot lane and look beautiful while doing it?!?

Magnum Mack1/19/2016, 1:55:30 AM4 votes

Want to do something USEFUL for sighstone? Extend my range to drop them. THAT might make me want one, but even then it's just not worth it. Frost Queen's claim is too useful. Even a 2 second slow is a long time when you're up close and you know you'll kill them. It's either burn a summoner spell like heal or flash to get away or they get eaten. And when it comes to face of the mountain or the eyestone you've got to be kidding me. A shield on my adc or one extra ward?

Let's be fair though, most people don't even use their free ward, but less BUY a goddamn vision ward. oh no, we'd never do that. It used to be you could blame a lack of vision on the support but I didn't have enough before and I DEFINITELY don't have the wards to cover ALL of the map now.

Maybe THAT'S why they tried to push warding so much. They were trying tog et us into the mindset to buy them to prepare us for the new vision meta. Start buying vision wards ya pansies.

Gräce1/19/2016, 2:13:35 AM3 votes

The "upgrade" to the sightstone and support item isn't even worth it! Why the heck would I want to give up a great active for one more ward? I don't know who thought up this supposedly "great" advantage for supports, but it just nerfs the active item we use and gives us one more sightstone charge which I find very lacking and not at all worth the "upgrade". It's truly frustrating, though, that sightstone is now nerfed just to try and entice supports into using the new build paths.

JetpackKatt1/18/2016, 8:58:11 PM3 votes

[deleted]

NA is MI1/19/2016, 4:52:05 AM2 votes

Yeah, the only role that got straight fucked this year.

V3S1/19/2016, 6:53:17 AM2 votes

come on guys the warding system is fine, I main support and I find that now the whole team wards way more instead of last season where basically only the support wards. now when the team roams there's so much more vision because everybody pays way more attention to it and actually drops wards. I'm probably the only person that likes how things are right now in the warding system

100T mitchell1/19/2016, 5:54:45 PM2 votes

Wait wait wait wait....... there's a GIRL in the LCS??

My First Summon1/19/2016, 9:38:15 PM2 votes

As a support main I find these changes very good however the new sight stone items are indeed lacking in value. If I'm going to lose an active combat item then it might be better to include an something such as increasing the number of wards a support can place in total. It would give me more options if I had to decide between 4 stealth wards on the map over an active.

Marlevaur1/20/2016, 7:03:34 AM2 votes

Warding should be EVERYONE's responsibility, with the main responsibilities of support to keep the ADC alive, and support team with stuns/snares/heals/etc later in teamfights. If support has to travel all across the map, support is gonna be way underleveled, ADC is gonna be left solo for a while, and there's gonna be a lot of rage. I don't mind buying as many wards as needed, what's needed though is to take some of the strain out of having to be everywhere at once.

Uubuer4/13/2016, 12:58:53 AM1 votes

Idk if this is the good place to do this but I had an idea for an item for supports. Working on an ammunition system like relic shield/spellthief's blade, it is an item that links with the adc and scales from the adc's attack damage/bonus attack damage UP TO A CAP on the damage and is applied only on auto attacks from the support (-25% damage reduction if ranged auto attack). On the first item (as long as it builds like relic/spellthief) the first item cap would be fairly low raising higher on the second item and EITHER higher again on the third item OR its scaling is lowered to about .5 of the second item scaling BUT, it gains in both ad and ap damage based on the stats of all nearby ally champs. This item could also give something like +25% health and mana regen or flat health or armor make it have a tiny bit of stats but slightly help full other than just the damage. and idea I had would love to see it. Thanks for hearing me out.

EarlNoobington8/15/2016, 11:03:24 PM1 votes

Idea for making support desirable:

Give every support a Kalista like binding utility with one champion. When the support kills an enemy champion with X distance of the champion they are bound to, they both get the kill gold.

SHSLdiva1/19/2016, 3:53:55 AM1 votes

I can't wait to die replacing my wards every few minutes.

MunchLust1/18/2016, 9:16:09 PM1 votes

Chogath {{summoner:17}} item 1043

alfavhunter1/23/2016, 4:26:55 PM1 votes

Supports were starting to get respect from the community

Riot couldn't have that, so they needed the one thing supports were most respected to do, give vision, then made it so only the support item build paths would offer decent vision options

So now if the map lacks wards (which is always now) it is the supports fault, because they clearly have the role of warding with thier sight stone options...

Riot basically said supports are starting to get respect, NERF the entire role!

The Bard of Avon2/1/2016, 9:25:37 PM1 votes

I'd play support, if i could actually get the role. Almost every game now i get my secondary role. 5 minute wait because i selected mid for secondary and support primary? sure we will let you wait for it.