I was so hoping they'd do something like this some day (that is to say, implementing items which specifically increase the power of healing and shielding). Ardent Censer is like the ideal item for caster supports now, and getting Mikael's won't feel so icky on caster supports due to the lack of AP.
It's gonna make shielding supports REALLY strong. Like Sona, karma, lulu, and Janna.
I was hoping they wouldn't. The existence of that passive means they have to balance Soraka, Nami, Janna, Sona, and anyone else with heals and shields around this effect. They already said Soraka is getting nerfed because of this change, and this means they expect these items to be mandatory on healers, which further hamstrings builds that don't want to use it and bottlenecks support itemization even further. So now a healer like Soraka has to build a gold item, a sightstone, and now a forbidden idol in order to keep her relevance. That's already half her itemization, without the boots. So in reality, Soraka can only build two items that aren't essential to her after this launches.
