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Should a seperate stat be created for support abilities

Demented Lemur·6/26/2019, 8:31:11 AM·2 votes·2,369 views

So throughout my years of playing this game I have seen various champions in the role of support who are pretty much only slightly different from the midlane role. Biggest examples that i can think of are brand and lux. There also support champions who end up going to other roles and end up more powerful in thay role than their support role remember pre rework soraka midlane or top lane lulu. But what is the cause of this and is it problem.

Imo this can be problematic as supports champions may have to balanced around the idea they could potentially go mid top or wereever. Making balance difficult. Ie you cant buff mid lane brand because they may become opressive in the bot lane and vice versa

The cause of this problem i believe is that ap is used for scaling on alot of support abilties and there is no distinction between ap for damage and ap for heals and shields. A distinction could help to make balancing these champ easier.

What i purpose is a healing/ shielding stat that support abilities would scale off of instead of ap allowing support champions to make their buffs stronger without also strengthining their damage output. Support items could have this stat instead of ap. Making support truly a support role rather than a second damage dealer.

I dont know what the specifics would be but tell me what you guys think

4 Comments

KFCeytron6/26/2019, 8:34:17 AM3 votes

"Increased heal and shield power" on Redemption et al. was introduced to address this.

ÅsheOneTrick6/26/2019, 8:41:42 AM2 votes

This would require a huge overhaul of every "support" item. There would be grey areas around a few items, including Randuin's Omen as an example. A simpler way to achieve what you're asking would be for Riot to cut the AP scaling on every single Damaging ability on every single "support destined" champion. After gutting their damage, then Riot would have to actually increase the Shield and Healing scaling in a way to make "support Champions" HAVE to focus on their supportive role.

This would cause issues with champions like Lux and Nautilus. By buffing shields and heals to match the debuff the damage is taking, you'd have cases where certain shields would be TOO good, Karma ult E, Lux W, and Lulu's... something.

Or better yet, just have AP items not give disgusting amounts of AP

Posui Gart6/26/2019, 8:47:16 AM2 votes

There is no problem in picking support champions for solo lanes
There already is a stat for +heal/shield power
You can buff midlane Brand without buffing support Brand. They did something like this when they added a mana refund on killing ignited minions. Other ways include adding some level scaling, improving waveclear, exchanging some utility for damage or exchanging base damage for scaling.
Not every support has shields/heals as their main tool of supporting. AP, however, affects almost every support, except tanks and Pyke

The Kombinator6/26/2019, 10:54:00 AM1 votes

The current problem is the fact, that most supports are not designated supports. Beside Yuumi, and Soraka any support can go to any lane, and beside Leona, Janna, Braum, Taric, and Lulu all of them work on peak efficiency.

Leona can't use her passive alone. Janna gives AD with her shield. That AD worths more on an ADC. Lulu shield gives her passive. That passive is best used with champion, that has big attack speed. Braum's passive is stacked by teammates. Stacking alone is less efficient. Taric's W gives the rest of his abilities more efficiency, but it requires an ally.

On the other hand with the serious cost reduction, and base strength the poker champions are equipped with they can go to support easily. Tanks also can go support easier, because tank items are nerfed under the metro, and tank champions got better survival on their own.

There are 3 solution for this, if we want to solve it.

Remove the gold difference somehow. Such as making gold spread between players on last hit. In return botlane would get more minions, and gold items would be removed. This would allow any champion to go support.
Make supports more designated to their role. Reduce base values for most champions, and increase ratios instead. While do the opposite for supports so they make up for the lack of extra gold.
Give more support designated items. Better warding stone that allows more wards to be placed, and carried, cheaper teammate helping items, but without stacks to each other. Such as a lesser Iron Solary, Mikael with, and Redemption less stats, and the active, but for much less gold so you can build easier. In lategame you could still upgrade them to full items.