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Hey Riot, Some Advice From Someone That Has Been Around Since Beta

LifeCyclesTWA·2/14/2017, 6:15:46 PM·1 votes·954 views

The whole "I don't want to support, can I jungle/adc/mid/top" crap has existed since the start of the game. Because of the lack of people that want to play the support position, many people are autofilled into said role and forced into something that is as you would call "antifun" for the good of the team. Many champions have been reworked over the course of this games history because they reduced the overall experience of those playing. I believe the support role needs an overhaul for the same reason, and autofilling people into said role isn't the way to go about it.

Why doesn't the average player not desire the role of support? I believe the answer to that is people agree that they can't carry a game the way a successful top/mid/jungle/marksman can. They don't get the glory of having some eye-popping number of kills. The #1 reason people don't find support to be fun is that its the hardest role to carry a game with. The perfect game as a support isn't nearly as fun to the average player as snowballing and slaughtering teams as a top/mid/jungle/adc. How do you change that?

Well, in DotA 2, without going into great detail, supports actually tend to have some of the strongest abilities in the game to boot but don't scale into late game. They use this advantage to roam the map and provide vision/ganks for their teams/lanes and protection for their hard carries. Supports have the absolute largest impact on the first half of every single game due to their map prescence and power at early levels before the core position players get items.

That said, I'd love to have supports in this game to FEEL like they are having a large impact like they do in DotA. A way to do that would be to make roaming less risk/reward for supports. You give up so much in terms of gold, protection, and experience by roaming in this game as a support if you fail to successfully gank. Allowing them to place more pressure on the map early on without so much risk would be awesome.

TL;DR: I believe that more players would love to play what is now the least-desirable role in the game, support, if it had a more rewarding impact on the game. I think the best way to do this would be to make roaming more effective and an option for supports in the early stages of games.

9 Comments

5050BS2/14/2017, 6:29:54 PM2 votes

DING DING DING we have a winner.

Playing support (like everyone wants you to play) means you are ALWAYS behind. You cant 1v1 anyone (for the most part) and are a ward bot (the thing that I find the most un-fun)

This is what they need to do.

Make Items like Jungler Items that require you to have Heal or Exhaust as a Summoner to buy. They are Items that the ADC would NOT want but give actives that are what a support WOULD want. Allow a Support to get Gold like any other Role. Give them Bonus Warding and Ward placement Range.

This way you can shape the Support builds and play styles without messing with the Mid Lane builds for champs like Zyra, Lux, Malz, Annie, ect

Support items make them tankyer for AP builds and more Utility (longer slows, extra Stuns, Better heals, Shields) Allowing a team fight to last 20-30s is NOT a bad thing to the game. Having a ADC blowup in .2s by a Rengar or Zed at the start of a team fight IS a bad thing for the game.

Aptest2/14/2017, 7:30:35 PM2 votes

As a support player, I have to say I find it easier to carry, from the support position, than from the ADC's position. I can be on the map, get in someone's face, and with the support of my team, force kills or objectives on the other team. I can set up areas for fights, I can catch the enemy team off guard, I can funnel the enemy team into an ambush or direct mine into a fight or a picks.

This has one important caveat. I can only do all these things if I don't have to babysit the ADC. The moment I am forced into either picking a dedicated ADC-protector or playing dedicated to the protection of the ADC, I cant.

This is because the ADC can't fight other classes, and benefits mainly from peeling and reactive, conservative play. The ADC in addition can not easily take opportunities created by the support, because they are so easily turned on and killed by the enemy.

Whereas the mid lane or jungler can take advantage of proactive play-making and shot calling.

This is why cooperation with the ADC is detrimental to the carrying ability of the support player. The support who peels and protects primarily will not be making plays, he will be following on the ADC's conservative, reactive play.

And even if the ADC is bossing it up and carrying hard, the support is still in a second fiddle position.

edit: no disrespect to janna players, I love you all don't kill me.