New in 2016: Support

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!