6.22 - Pre-season - Support changes analysis

So, a new pre-season, another complete overhaul of every jungle rules, a shift in the balance of power and a tremendous amount of posts being made regarding the patch. However, this post isn't about the removal of Draft in normals, nor is it about assassins and it certainly isn't about Marksmen. No. This is about the massive changes made to support with a massive itemization overhaul and new masteries. Changes that seems to be mostly ignored by the community aside from the occasional Redemption and Knight's Vow post.

I'll cover most of the items and the couple new masteries and give my honest opinion about it. Just remember that this post is SUBJECTIVE and should be considered as such.

Also, if you haven't noticed from my summoner name yet, I am a support main and have been for a long time now. Which is why I took the time to write this post.

------[Items]------ ---[Legion items]--- [Aegis of the Legion] Great change. The removal of the aura was necessary, the health can be acquired from other items like Sightstone, FOTM, the new Redemption, etc. No complaints here.

[Locket of Iron Solari] Just like Aegis, great change. The active power increase more than makes up for losing the Aura and Locket is now a safe way to gain a lot of Armor and MR quickly for many a support.

[Banner of Command] Now regarding Banner... AP supports just lost one of their items in their already low item pool in benefit of tanks that shouldn't be using Banner of Command in the first place. Tank supports are more likely to buy a Frozen Heart for their mana or Locket for their quick Armor/MR boost rather than buy a Banner of Command. Why did you strip an item from AP supports when you just gave tank support Knight's Vow? This simply doesn't make any sense. Let me quote the patch notes here:

With the number of caster support items already available

There should be more caster support items than tank support items! There are much more sub-classes for caster support than there are for tank supports. Tank support mostly uses the same pool of items while a caster support item pool heavily depends on its gameplay. Banner of Command was one of the very few items a caster damage support could build without going into the full AP pool of items like Rabadon, Luden's Echo, Morello, Zhonya, Abyssal, etc. Those full AP items cost a fortune when you have a support income, Banner of Command was a very good Alternative. Not anymore.

---[Enchanter items]--- [Chalice of Harmony] WORST change of all the items by VERY far. And this change affect all of Chalice build path items. This affects a LOT of champions in a VERY negative way. Let me quote the patch notes again for this one:

Chalice’s old passive was confusing. Is extra mana regen really worth it if you spend it all healing back to full? For all that complexity, it wasn’t having enough of an impact on the game, so we’re updating it to be clearer. Healers who invest in mana regen now get to spend less of that mana topping their health bars off.

NO!!! Absolutely not! This is WRONG! Completely and utterly wrong! Healers invest in mana regen so they can SPEND MORE mana for topping health bars off. It's the whole point of buying mana regen, to be able to dump more mana into doing what your champion is intended to do. Healer supports are supposed to heal, it's their bread and butter, that's how they protect themselves from ganks, apply pressure, suppress poke and exploit a failed all-in from the enemy bot lane. Health Regen doesn't help your ADC and is too slow to allow you to do the rest of your job Mana regen allows a healer to: Heal themselves, heal allies, use other abilities. Health regen allows a healer to: Heal themselves... without controlling said heal. Chalice basically just lost 100% base mana regen and gave nothing in return but a useless SCALING health regen. Scaling! On a support! And let me repeat that one word again just to make sure it is clear: S-C-A-L-I-N-G Do I need to also explain why scaling on a support is, with few exceptions, bad?

So to answer your question Riot:

Is extra mana regen really worth it if you spend it all healing back to full?

Yes, it is more than worth, it is ESSENTIAL to the healing Support. It's probably their number one priority in fact. To reach a point in mana regen where you can safely cast your heals almost on a CD without fear of running oom in the middle of a fight. You wanted to make Chalice less confusing and more impactful? You should have removed the health regen from it and made it a flat 100% base mana regen. That way we would have gotten: More mana and actual control over how we regen our own health.

[Athene's Unholy Grail] Just like Chalice, losing it's 100% base mana regen hurts... a lot... especially for Sona, whom signature item has been Athene ever since 6.9 when they added its new passive. From 175% base mana regen to 75%... Because let's be honest... you rarely ever have more mana than health on any healing support. Sona was already heavily dependent on mana, now it's just a complete nightmare to deal with.

[Ardent Censer] Nothing to say here, the changes are minor for the most part and the item kept its niche. Losing 5% healing/shielding hurts, but the addition of Redemption and the tweaks in gold cost and other stats covers for it.

[Mikael's Crucible] I don't even know how I feel about this one... Angry I guess? Losing the heal from the active is what hurts the most. Especially when Mikael suffers from the same fate as Athene, being a Chalice item, it pretty much just lost 100% base mana regen... wait no, 150% base mana regen because the flat base mana regen was also reduced. I understand why this change was made... it was made to put more emphasis on the CC removal of the item instead of just being used as a heal. But then, why increase the healing/shielding for it? The item doesn't interact with healing/shielding increase anymore, unlike Ardent Censer and Redemption which does. It's simply counter-intuitive for an item like Mikael to have 2 strong focus on 2 completely different aspects. It reduce it's overall impact by splitting the power of the item. I would have rather preferred losing the CC break on the item to focus solely on its instant healing or to lose the healing/shielding increase in benefit of higher base stats.

Mikael is now nothing more than a walking contradiction.

[Redemption] The only redeeming factor for sustain supports... The irony of the name isn't even fun. Everything on it is perfect. Sustain champions needed at least one item that gave them a boost in health to not die from getting sneezed at and Redemption does just that. All of the stats as well as the active itself fits perfectly for the role it was intended for. If the item ends up being too strong however, the health regen or removing the "after-death" part of the active should be the first things to get hit.

But well... now it feels like every sustain support needs to rush Redemption.

---[Warden items]--- [Knight's Vow] Erm... well I don't know what to say aside from... its too good? Don't get me wrong, this item WAS needed for tank supports, but 12% damage transfer and 12% ADC lifesteal to the support? That just feels like too much to be honest... I'm even thinking of building it on ranged support because 6% is still insanely good on champions like Lulu or Soraka when it also gives you a massive amount of flat stats and a sweet movespeed boost when protecting your ADC.

[Face of the Mountain] Good change, FotM felt a little weak and this change definetely gave it the extra Oomph it needed.

---[Other items]--- [Zeke's Harbinger] No changes done to this item. That in itself is a problem. It provides near to no benefit to the support, is too random and specific to be useful for an ADC. Since you introduced Knight's Vow, why not make a pass on this item to bring it up to speed at the same time?

[Ohmwrecker] Same as Zeke's, no changes. Instead of stealing Banner from AP champions, why not changing Ohmwrecker? Or why not making Ohmwrecker into Knight's Vow? This item doesn't have much reason for existing... Unless it gets changed or removed, it will stay the least used item in the game.

---[Additional comment(s) on items]--- The gold cost reduction on the majority of items is a very good thing.

------[Masteries]------ ---[Ferocity]--- Overall, the changes in the Ferocity tree are great for several poke champions. Nothing to say here really.

---[Cunning]--- [Greenfather's Gift] I don't know how to feel about this one. I like it but hate it at the same time. I still can't decide whether I want to use this new mastery or keep the bandit mastery on certain champions. I'll see about this one as time goes.

---[Resolve]--- [Siegemaster] I like this new mastery. Though I'm not sure how impactful 8 Armor/MR can be, it serves it's purpose for the right champions/compositions.

[Fearless] I love. It helps engages for tanks a lot without being overbearing. Keep it that way.

[Courage of the Colossus] Broken as F... I don't even know what to say here aside from... what the freaking hell? Engaging on 5 enemy champions means a MASSIVE 35% max health + 10 + 10 x level shield. This is way, WAY, too much. Especially considering that bot lane has 2 champions which mean a guaranteed 14% max health shield on any CC you land. This is absurb! Engaging on 5 enemies shield for more than DOUBLE a Nautilus rank 5 Titan's Wrath shield. Like what?... If it was just a plain 7%, no extra for additional champion, okay sure... but this? This isn't only affecting supports, it is downright broken on champions like Sejuani and Zac whom can stack upward to 5k+ health. It's a massive ~2k+ shield for them on a five-man engage in late game.

-----[TL;DR]----- Tank supports are now the go to, sustain and AP supports got shafted. I am utterly confused by most of the changes, a lot of them just doesn't make any sense from a support PoV... And honestly? I'm quite frustrated. I welcome changes with open arms, but all I received here was a swift kick to the junk.