Support Recognition Ideas
We all know that supports rarely get any recognition at all. Riot's attempts to highlight them are appreciated, but realistically nobody actually checks how much damage the support heals/shields/tanks post-game. At most, everyone just checks the damage chart afterwards before going through the routine of exiting the lobby.
In my opinion, I don't think any amount of new items or passives to existing items are going to help solve the issue. The quest passives that the new support starting items have do not add anything to the gameplay.
The Coin quest is just generally underwhelming, most of the time it isn't even worth picking it up with how much you get harassed in lane. Both the Relic Shield and Spellthief lines literally add nothing new except the passive after achieving the quest. They are both great, but are hardly recognizable to the player (namely Relic's).
The addition of Redemption and rework of Locket add more things for the support to do, but they have become mandatory. One of the greatest things in the game is variation in builds, but the supports are always forced into building their starting item line, Sightstone, Redemption, and Locket. After that, all tank supports generally build the same and all mage supports build the same. I suggest implementing something that not only highlights support play, but generally any roles' play.
Add accolades to kills.
If anyone in the past has played games like halo before, you could probably remember that in multiplayer, you got little pop-ups with creative words describing what action you just did. Ex. Shutting down people with killstreaks = Killjoy
With league, I don't think the accolades would need to be as specific, especially with how many different abilities are in the game. But maybe add ones like Lives Saved, Multi-kills (can have different tiers), Lockdowns (cc leading to kills), Shutdowns, Turret Kills, etc. Either put them in the tab menu in-game next to the K/D/A section, or add them to the initial post-game screen where everyone at least glances at. This way people have more to look at if a player is a support, cc-tank, or split-pusher. Otherwise, supports and cc-tanks only have assists, and split-pushers essentially have nothing.
