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Sooooo i'v noticed the large amount of changes to support items lately...

Zerenza··1 votes·328 views

Since the assassin update last year, the support role has had A LOT of focus from riot. New items coming out pretty frequently, new changes, buffs, gold decreases the works. On the PBE right now A LOT of support item's are being changed and Zeke's is being changed considerably, so i have a small question.

Has anyone stopped to think about the impact support's have had this year? What with Redemption, locket, the many other buffs to their itemization, and honestly getting auto filled to support doesn't bother me anymore, that's nice. But the thing is, i'm an assassin main, i notice these changes and how they impact my champion's abilities to perform. Many ADC's are already extremely difficult to kill, even more so now that Death's Dance has become a problem item on them(cause they've never abused an item before). Now what i'm getting at is that all these changes to support among a couple other changes, have caused ADC's to be completely dominant, used to such as with the Lethality update, assassins could come in and help aliviate it, but when Twitch is one shotting assassins from three times their range and getting out with full health, something is wrong, what makes it worse is the massive healing/shielding supports can give them now. You used to have to counterpick the assassin to protect your ADC, now you just build Locket+Redemption on all Support's and chances are you'll be fine. Now don't get me wrong, yes assassins can still do their job, but right now in order to do it they have to be EXTREMELY far ahead, and that makes their playstyle Feast or Famine, which the entire point of the assassin update was to prevent that. Yet it's been canceled out because of all the changes that go against them lately, i think they could definitely use some love, new items or something like supports have gotten to help them do their job without having to get 6 kills in 10 minutes. No buffs, no nerfs, just some new items to balance out the scales again.

6 Comments

GinoSoldier1 votes

The reason why Riot's working on Support items is simple; Zeke's Herald and Athene's Unholy Grail were so damn bad that Enchanters, the class they were made for an belong to would go ahead and buy Locket and Redemption who were unconditionally more powerful. Both are Warden items, not Enchanter though i suppose outside of AP, Redemption actually gives out stats Enchanters want.

Ardent Censer got buffed into viability for healers/shielders a couple of patches back, and essentially the only other good item for any and all supports outside of gold income and Locket/Redemption was Knight's Vow. For the rest? Might as well go Sunfire rather than Ohmwrecker, Randuin's instead of Banner, Lich's Bane instead of Unholy Grail. You'd pay more for them, sure. At least you had some decent items instead of the absolute crap supps were given.

Now, looking at Zeke's and Grail next patch i'm thinking i actually want to buy them. Zeke's on Leona? Gods yes! A Grail that ramps up faster, and gives up to 70-90AP depending on how much you buy mana regen? Goddamn right!

Supports are almost finally not feeling like the dregs of the 5-man teams. All they need is more income that doesn't drain on the team's and we can ramp up their power to actual decency.

I don't feel any pity for Assassins. The ability to 100/0 a champion in less than 2 seconds is, as far as my not-so-humble opinion goes, absolutely terrible. I believe their full combo should deal at most 60-70% of a champion's health within that time, implying they actually have to either target weakened enemies or work with their teams to weaken them first. I'm not against them being more mobile in exchange.

Zerenza1 votes

You see, many ADC's at the moment are doing the same thing as assassins, the ability to 100-0 a champion is needed because nothing else in the game can defeat an ADC, an ADC given enough time to life steal back up, it doesn't take very long by the way, will simply shred through an entire team in less than 5 seconds! Twitch being the most common abuser of this, however due to the fact that assassins have had to deal with support's getting constant buffs, adc's are basically unbeatable now, assassins are there for balance, their needed, you NEED to have someone that can 100-0 a champion when they mess up.

chipndip11 votes

I mean...I like your vigor, but a few things:

  • Redemption was always an enchanter item. Heal/Shield power? Hello?

  • Supports don't need more income more than they need better items in their budget range, which is what Riot is doing now.

  • Knight's Vow sucks even now, but only because most supports have no reason to need it. Coming next patch, assuming Locket/Redemption is FINALLY put down a bit, the item may become more valuable by proxy.

GinoSoldier1 votes

Point 1; To me, ANY item that does not provide AP is not a straight up Enchanter item. Enchanters are more than shield/heals bots, and do many things that shield/heal bonuses do not enhance, but AP does. Redemption's stats work just as well with Alistar and Taric as it does with regular enchanters, if you think about it. Even more, because THEY actually need the health.

Point 2; I personally advocate raising every member of the team to a similar income AND power level. This implies augmenting support item costs as well as efficiency, to bring a support that's built only support items on complete par with other members of the team. I want my Support Leona to be as good a tank as the toplane tank Rammus, and i want the Sona building full support to be overall as efficient as the midlane Ahri.

Point 3; Knight's vow at least gives tanky stats for tanky champions as well as a way to self-heal and reduce damage taken by the bonded ally. It's a good item in it's current state. Not it's fault Redemption and Locket crowded out EVERY other support item except Censer.

These are all my opinions, and i sincerely believe that they represent a path towards making league a better game.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

Point 1; To me, ANY item that does not provide AP is not a straight up Enchanter item. Enchanters are more than shield/heals bots, and do many things that shield/heal bonuses do not enhance, but AP does. Redemption's stats work just as well with Alistar and Taric as it does with regular enchanters, if you think about it. Even more, because THEY actually need the health.

Taric is part-way enchanter anyway, and Alistar doesn't really care for the heal/shield. Once the next patch drops, I suspect he'll be building Zeke's + Vow + Locket + FotM. If not FotM, then maybe Righteous Glory. I don't think he'll really care for Redemption save when his team's on the back leg.

Still, Redemption's an Enchanter item more tooled towards Janna/Soraka than Sona/Lulu/Karma. Janna and Soraka can do without ap. They'd rather just not die.

Point 2; I personally advocate raising every member of the team to a similar income AND power level. This implies augmenting support item costs as well as efficiency, to bring a support that's built only support items on complete par with other members of the team. I want my Support Leona to be as good a tank as the toplane tank Rammus, and i want the Sona building full support to be overall as efficient as the midlane Ahri.

The issue here is that supports don't farm AT ALL, and junglers don't farm with a constant threat staring them down 24/7. The fact that this is the case means that you can't give them equal gold value to people that actually farm vs. an opponent.

Also, your Sona and Leona CAN be as effective as solo laners...just not through direct damage dealing and taking. Part of that comes through their utility they bring, as well as the added utility they buy.

Point 3; Knight's vow at least gives tanky stats for tanky champions as well as a way to self-heal and reduce damage taken by the bonded ally. It's a good item in it's current state. Not it's fault Redemption and Locket crowded out EVERY other support item except Censer.

What I meant is that Vow has good intentions and direction, but it's just outdone on the defensive spectrum due to being crowded out. Item's general idea is ok, but the environment doesn't allow for it to be a meaningful pick.

GinoSoldier1 votes

In... season 3? 4? Riot made a pass on enchanters and gave their supportive abilities a pass, weakening them in exchange for AP ratios. Janna's shield and W slow as well as self-speed, Nami's passive and E, Sona's Powerchord W and E, Q damage buffs and E, Lulu's W, formerly Soraka's heal gave AP scaling Armor as well.

These are all things that they do that support allies far better if they stack at least some AP, that remained ignored or too weak for too long. There's a reason why pro Janna players get Mejais, the AP from it is extremely useful. Redemption and Locket essentially turned every support into generic active-item bots while if support items gave more AP, or at least had decent usefulness (Censer, next patch Grail count as 'decent' to me.) to offset the lack of Mage-level amounts of AP, Enchanters would become far more unique in what they do all the while remaining very efficient as supports.

Gold-wise, with the income items supports get early game, a third of the problem is already solved. I propose two solutions to yet again raising the gold they can obtain during a game;

1; Get the game rid of Sightstone. In exchange, expand on the Trinket system so that every player can get two trinkets each, but create different sorts of trinkets for both vision and counter-vision. Take the gold entirely out of the vision game calculation. This way, supports can continue to do their job while no longer having to sink 800 gold into an item that, while it is vision-gold efficient, remains a bad stat slot item.

2; More masteries dedicated to alternative ways of getting gold. Ward killing, champion detecting, objective assisting, kill assisting gold buffs in masteries.

Once these things are done, we can raise the average Warden/Enchanter/Vanguard support item cost from 2200 to 2600 or 2800, and make them far more efficient as a whole.

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