As a Main Support, I REALLY miss Frost Queen, Talisman of Ascencion and Face of The Mountain

Glauciane·Aug 17, 2019·85 votes·19,783 views

I understand that in professional scenario are superior to due to their vision power. However, I have my reasons to believe active-support items should get a chance to get back in the game.

1 - For a whole season they had both coexisted. Active-support items are not redundant in comparison to ward-support items since they have different objectives.

2- Less than 4% of playerbase is above Diamond. I'm quite sure that the **great majority **of your playerbase would make better use of over , since their and their teammates abilities of properly using great amount of map vision is inferior to their abilities of using shields/movement speed/movement debuffs in the right situation. Which takes to number 3,

3 - When both and coexisted was clearly more popular in most tiers.

4 - Excluding , that got replaced by (Several season ago was replaced by , what an irony), doesn't have similar replaces in terms of attributes. became an item. became an one. is not really that usefull unless you're , meaning only reached a stable position among supports.

5 - Support itemization became expansive since supports need to buy 2~3 items to early-game impact tfs instead of one . It's rare to see a being used by non- supports anymore. And it should be a core item in the heavy cc meta. But games got shorter and supports don't usually have time for buying it anymore.

6- No one really upgrades the ward item nowadays. It's not worthy. lvl3 ward support items are a total flop, everyone stops at lvl2.

130 Comments

preternaturalAug 17, 201941 votes

every core support item is underwhelming now, and their redistribution of power items aren't for supports. sucks. so now i'm solo laning again lol.

Death by GlamourAug 17, 20196 votes

Most support players would count item 3107 as a core item and arguably one of the strongest items in the game.

BugogAug 17, 20199 votes

item 3107 is the most overrated item on the boards. The fight is usually well beyond won or lost before the active hits, and the crap stats that are on it are what riot has to put on support items to keep solo laners from taking them.

Der LindwurmAug 17, 20191 votes

{quoted}

is the most overrated item on the boards. The fight is usually well beyond won or lost before the active hits, and the crap stats that are on it are what riot has to put on support items to keep solo laners from taking them.

Every now and then it snatches victory from the jaws of defeated with its active. But it's amazing that it actually made a significant difference when it does. I mostly just get it with ardent and/or Mikael's to further boost shield/heal power.

BugogAug 17, 20193 votes

I get it often enough, but it's more because "it's something I can afford" and not "OMFG THIS IS AMAZING EVERY GAME!!!".

I've had games where it makes a difference, but it's not like getting a gunblade on akali or something. It has stats, it's better than nothing, and supports can afford it.

Tuition FeeAug 17, 20191 votes

{quoted}

every core support item is underwhelming now, and their redistribution of power items aren't for supports. sucks. so now i'm solo laning again lol.

Issa burst meta. I'd rather go full AP Lux than utility Lux in almost every scenario, unless you got a mad carry on your team and you're still somehow behind on gold, which to be frank, doesn't happen too often.

preternaturalAug 17, 20193 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tuition Fee,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8fQme1Ni,comment-id=00000002,timestamp=2019-08-17T20:27:56.434+0000)

Issa burst meta. I'd rather go full AP Lux than utility Lux in almost every scenario, unless you got a mad carry on your team and you're still somehow behind on gold, which to be frank, doesn't happen too often.

face of the mountain would be really useful as an answer to a burst meta.

LordGeovanniAug 18, 20191 votes

Not really without hp on other items for Face of the mountain to scale off of and saving 1 person doesnt do much when the other ones get instagibbed by the aoe (i guess you can save an adc and they shred everything in revenge then we go back to unkillable adcs that near insta everyone and people crying that supports are op when its that dps is too much damage in too short a time. and burst is too short down time and too easy spells to hit for how much damage they do)

preternaturalAug 18, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Not really without hp on other items for Face of the mountain to scale off of and saving 1 person doesnt do much when the other ones get instagibbed by the aoe (i guess you can save an adc and they shred everything in revenge then we go back to unkillable adcs that near insta everyone and people crying that supports are op when its that dps is too much damage in too short a time. and burst is too short down time and too easy spells to hit for how much damage they do)

sightstone = hp so yeah in a world where the old support items were brought back they already had all the working pieces there.

LordGeovanniAug 19, 20191 votes

has hp =/= has good enough hp to make hp scaling items and skills worth it. (Thats akin to saying 30 ap item it has ap so its the best item for burst mages) which is the state of every tank item in the game at the moment.

preternaturalAug 19, 20192 votes

{quoted}

has hp =/= has good enough hp to make hp scaling items and skills worth it. (Thats akin to saying 30 ap item it has ap so its the best item for burst mages) which is the state of every tank item in the game at the moment.

it has HP so it negates the mages.

TsukoAug 17, 201910 votes

I really don't want the hype-carry mage support meta again.

Being outclassed by a Annie Karma Lux Velkoz Veigar Zyra Xerath is really unfun when I'm playing a carry role. These champions weren't really supporting at that point when Frost Queens was in the game, they were just going for kills and would make the game impossible for the ADC to even function in lane.

Half the time, people would just pick these champions when they were autofilled and carry the game off the support role because of all the free gold they were getting.

Yordle XayahAug 17, 201910 votes

New "Support" Items: item 3285 item 3041 item 3089 item 3116 item 3165 item 3151

FarahadAug 18, 20194 votes

Technically Mejai's was originally designed as a support item

Yordle XayahAug 18, 20194 votes

{quoted}

Technically Mejai's was originally designed as a support item

Well... Leviathan was the same thing but for tanks, except that item is gone, and same goes for Sword of the Occult. Imagine that on current Pyke. For some reason Mejai is the only one of that trio that is still alive.

mmoran5554Aug 17, 20196 votes

I agree with mostly everything you stated above, very nice analysis. However, it is good to encourage increased use of wards and map awareness. And yes I totally agree that level 3 support items never get built and that's a shame. Hope they fix that soon.

Freeza with an IAug 17, 20196 votes

I miss Ruby Sightstone, the Item CDR was so nice to have :((

Der LindwurmAug 17, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=Freeza with an I,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8fQme1Ni,comment-id=000b,timestamp=2019-08-17T20:14:10.747+0000)

I miss Ruby Sightstone, the Item CDR was so nice to have :((

And 400 HP on top of what you might get from your other support item.

WimbledofyAug 18, 20193 votes

but so many other items have 400 hp, so it's not really "on top of what you get from other support item." You're losing an entire slot.

ShijanoAug 18, 20196 votes

Riot should make support items have stats that only supports would want. I believe that Supports can have a separate class of stats that other roles would not abuse and make the supports scale with those stats. Utility stats could be like the already existent shield and heal power, bring back item active CD, ability percent increase, defences, mana and health with the regens, CDR, number of wards on map increase, ward time increase, ward CD decrease. Also, honestly I think supports should not have scalings with AD and AP. Make their base scalings better and remove damage scalings so that their items will not need AD and AP so that other roles will not abuse their items because they get no power from it. Just a small piece of my mind, I'm too lazy to fully type out the details of how the game could be balanced around this when Riot isn't going to care about these post or much of any thing we support mains say.

BugogAug 18, 20194 votes

I disagree with supports having more wards. As it is we carry the lions share of warding, but it is suppose to be a team activity. As for the ward timers it wouldn't really matter, since we already use sweeper trinkets and the wards in our support items don't regen over time.

Enchanter and tank supports already have some of the lowest ap scaling in the game, but I think removing it completely is going too far.

I am all in support of removing CDR for all non-support items, and being able to cast more spells that are less potent. I floated the idea a while back, but all the top laners threw a hissy fit because their build requires 40% cdr and if they didn't get 20% from black cleaver it would be the end of days. Still think this is the one stat that can be support items specific, and the game would be better for it.

ChaddyFantomeAug 18, 20193 votes

I am all in support of removing CDR for all non-support items, and being able to cast more spells that are less potent.

This. So much.

Back in the day, that was the cool thing about playing support. You traded damage but got more uptime than other roles. But Riot caved and slapped tons of CDR on every class because they botched and moaned... The state of balance durto CDR creep alone is justification for nerfing it on other classes tbqh.

Been saying the same thing ever since the Mage update.

Veigar should not be casting his E every 5 seconds while still having maximum damage gains from items lol.

I dont think it should be removed from all non support items all together, but the CDR freebie train needs to stop. There should be a tradeoff as opposed.to the 40% cap being an expectation.

enshineAug 17, 20195 votes

They were all kinda broken and easily abused by champions and roles that shouldn't buy them

Manly TearAug 17, 20195 votes

Or they could just...you know...bring sightstone back AND those actives, then you'd once again have more choices to make whether rushing a sightstone or not, going for the supp item active earlier or not, etc. Yea, we all know, vision dominates pro play so much that HUR DURR IT'S NOT FLASHY ENOUGH BECAUSE, THE HORROR!!! But even then, if they're that desperate for forcing pro play to play with less vision so they're forced to take more risks, then might as well slightly nerf the vision for pro play ONLY, or heck.

Constantly removing items, simplying the jungle forcing it into one play-style, spam-gank & more, all in favor of flashy pro play has gotten so annoying over like, the past 2 years now.

Daddy ReTaricAug 18, 20193 votes

As a Old Taric main.. I miss two thing.. This item : item 3309 and old Taric kit that was more front line oriented than the current kit he have. I feel forced to build enchanters item to make my heal worth it when before I could go pure tank /armor and succeed. W armor nerf and base armor nerf really hurted Taric ability to be a real front line tank.

LordGeovanniAug 20, 20191 votes

Shh a short ranged target stun with a long travel time so the enemy could manage easily when the stun effected them was totally broken.

Daddy ReTaricAug 20, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Shh a short ranged target stun with a long travel time so the enemy could manage easily when the stun effected them was totally broken.

LordGeovanniAug 21, 20191 votes

I was agreeing with you because his Old E was so weak that pantheon still has it in his reworked kit with a dash attatched to it they lessesned his damage and made his new E weaker.

Daddy ReTaricAug 21, 20192 votes

{quoted}

I was agreeing with you because his Old E was so weak that pantheon still has it in his reworked kit with a dash attatched to it they lessesned his damage and made his new E weaker.

Oh lmfao. I miss being a tank as Taric honestly xD

LordGeovanniAug 24, 20191 votes

I like him as an off tank bruiser. Granted i used to build the MR stealing Wits End on him along with item 3040 and if the enemy team was squishy enough item 3042 . But now they took 2 damage spells from him and lowered the remaining 2 sources of damage 4 times between the 2 spells and increased it once. Passive- New taric has half the damage per swing of old taric (and cdr effect) New taric has attack speed to make up for halving the damage. The attack speed isnt nearly enough to make up for the fact that old Taric Could animation cancel for his passive so it was faster despite slower attack speed. if you did it well and in the right order.

Q- New Taric Q hard nerfed for the fact that potientially if all the people are Low on health and all sitting in your Q Zones you can potentially out heal your old Q Mind you champions like Ziggs and Talon dont get their spells lowered because they could potentially hit all the enemies. Taric also lost the ability to focus heal himself which was the main reason he even had any tanking capibilites on a supports budget and build.

W- They gave you a really Weak Shield even weaker on Non fully Hp tank targets. while taking away damage and armor pen utility. 2% armor transfer on one person is supposed to make up for 40% aoe armor share 10% each ally In being more realistic 20%

E - Lost Raw damage Lost the distance Scaling increased the Cooldown and added a delay (which would have been Equal to his old E half range travel time) all those nerfs just for a small aoe zone which the enemy team just splits and only one person gets hit making

R- legit garbage ability that you have to rely on the enemy to play into. It takes too long to cast for it to work in an already on going team fight and you cant use it before you engage as the enemy will just run away while its comming down. On his old kit this as a damage spell and a buff spell brought together old tarics kit and gave him real moments of power. on his new kit it actually makes picking taric a liability as a champion with no ult On top of his really weak base spells. the only thing New taric is really good for post fight healing on minions assuming your mage and adc isnt brain dead and instakills the waves.

Daddy ReTaricAug 24, 20192 votes

{quoted}

I like him as an off tank bruiser. Granted i used to build the MR stealing Wits End on him along with and if the enemy team was squishy enough. But now they took 2 damage spells from him and lowered the remaining 2 sources of damage 4 times between the 2 spells and increased it once. Passive- New taric has half the damage per swing of old taric (and cdr effect) New taric has attack speed to make up for halving the damage. The attack speed isnt nearly enough to make up for the fact that old Taric Could animation cancel for his passive so it was faster despite slower attack speed. if you did it well and in the right order.

Q- New Taric Q hard nerfed for the fact that potientially if all the people are Low on health and all sitting in your Q Zones you can potentially out heal your old Q Mind you champions like Ziggs and Talon dont get their spells lowered because they could potentially hit all the enemies. Taric also lost the ability to focus heal himself which was the main reason he even had any tanking capibilites on a supports budget and build.

W- They gave you a really Weak Shield even weaker on Non fully Hp tank targets. while taking away damage and armor pen utility. 2% armor transfer on one person is supposed to make up for 40% aoe armor share 10% each ally In being more realistic 20%

E - Lost Raw damage Lost the distance Scaling increased the Cooldown and added a delay (which would have been Equal to his old E half range travel time) all those nerfs just for a small aoe zone which the enemy team just splits and only one person gets hit making

R- legit garbage ability that you have to rely on the enemy to play into. It takes too long to cast for it to work in an already on going team fight and you cant use it before you engage as the enemy will just run away while its comming down. On his old kit this as a damage spell and a buff spell brought together old tarics kit and gave him real moments of power. on his new kit it actually makes picking taric a liability as a champion with no ult On top of his really weak base spells. that only really are good for post fight healing on minions assuming your mage and adc isnt brain dead and instakills the waves.

So true and so sad to read... Taric lost so much on the rework and got reworked into a glorified minion...He is more of a enchanter than a tank when before he was more a tank and a little bit enchanter thanks to the heal. Failed rework for me .

Pierce The VealAug 17, 20192 votes

I miss item 2056 and the absence of a ward limit

Der LindwurmAug 17, 20197 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pierce The Veal,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8fQme1Ni,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2019-08-17T18:43:15.290+0000)

I miss and the absence of a ward limit

I can understand the ward limit. But the all out war on vision starting around season 6 has been pure cancer.

Pierce The VealAug 17, 20193 votes

Wards were limited by gold. Spend more on wards? Slow down snowball. Slow down snowball? Longer more strategic games. There was a ward limit, and it was dependent on how much gold you could blow on the wards before you started to hinder your own progress.

ReaversalAug 17, 20195 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pierce The Veal,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8fQme1Ni,comment-id=000700000000,timestamp=2019-08-17T19:09:47.355+0000)

Wards were limited by gold. Spend more on wards? Slow down snowball. Slow down snowball? Longer more strategic games. There was a ward limit, and it was dependent on how much gold you could blow on the wards before you started to hinder your own progress.

So what you're saying is that the team that's already winning has the gold to spare to have vision everywhere, while the team that's behind just falls further behind due to less gold and still having to try and keep up in vision.

Maybe I'm not looking at it right, but vision being "pay to play" just seems like win-more to me. You translate a gold lead to a vision lead, and then to an overall macro lead. A gold lead's already pretty tough to combat if the gold's distributed well, but having to contend with superior vision control on top of that seems like it'd suck.

LeetriAug 17, 20192 votes

That's exactly what happened. The winning team would ward up the entire map and the losing team couldn't even take a step in their own jungle without being ganked.

Pierce The VealAug 18, 20192 votes

That’s an absolutely valid point. However, it’s worth noting that the winning team would have to spend an incredible amount of gold to accomplish that. Wards were not cheap. And denying vision wasn’t done easily or for free via a trinket. You would need to buy even more expensive pink wards to find and clear enemy wards.

The reality is the win more situations really did not change much. The winning team can still use all their wards in the enemy jungle. Now they can also clear the opposing team’s vision for free. They can dominate vision plants and scuttles and get even more vision. Now, the winning team does the same thing they used to do, but for free, and with even less recourse for the losing team. This is just the vision aspect of things. If you include changes to baron, dragon, rift herald, turret plating, and others, it becomes fairly obvious that the game favors the winning team more than ever.

30+ minute comebacks were fairly common until season 4, when trinkets were introduced.

Don’t forget that spending all that gold on vision would curb your snowball. You could and would easily spend hundreds if not thousands of gold on vision back then. Vision wars substantially limited how much money you were spending on items. The only issue, which still remains with control wards, was that eventually you are going to get to 6 items and you would not be able to hold more wards, forcing supports to keep a slot open for tons of wards.

BugogAug 18, 20192 votes

Supports didn't really get to 5 items back then, unless the game went to 60+ minutes.

Sightless66Aug 18, 20194 votes

6 items supports. That's hilarious. I remember 3-4 items, none fully completed, and 2 stacks of wards. That's the way the pros did it, and it's damn well what solo queue expected of supports at the time too.

Pierce The VealAug 18, 20192 votes

Haha that is true.

Usually supports were trailing several items behind and they kept getting picked off first because of it.

ChaddyFantomeAug 18, 20191 votes

Pink wards lasted for ever, u could put as many as you wanted, and they went invisible like regular wards did tho...and they werent that much more expensive either... It was very much a win more scenario

Tim From WorkAug 18, 20192 votes

They did not last forever

Pierce The VealAug 18, 20193 votes

They did not last forever. You’re overlapping all of the forms of the pink ward.

For the longest time they were invisible and lasted as long as a regular ward. Later they turned it into the control ward of today. Up until preseason 4 they were stealthed, had 3 hp, and lasted 180 seconds.

And they were not cheap, costing 125 gold each.

Sightless66Aug 18, 20194 votes

Wards were limited by gold. Spend more on wards? Slow down snowball.

Unless you have the bitch role, support, just buy all of the wards possible. I remember playing games where I won because I was willing to have brown boots and 2 gp10 items up until 40 minutes while the other support had the gall to get 1 item, and that was the sole reason they lost. Hell, do you remember the season 2 CLG EU vs WE series? 60 minutes, and the Janna ends with heart of gold, philo stone, a ruby crystal, and brown boots. That shit suuuuucked.

Being able to buy vision contributed to snowballing. You had longer games because everything was low risk given the infinite vision both teams had, but it was much harder to stage a comeback because the winning team had more money to buy the unlimited vision denial available to them through pinks or through oracle's elixir, and had more ablility to kill the oracle's holder. That map control turned into farm advantages, which turned into wins. Season 4 was much better for comebacks than season 2 because of this, particularly in competitive play.

chipndip1Aug 18, 20191 votes

I'm so tired of people wanting Riot to make intentionally poor decisions because "Most of the player base fucking sucks". Stop using that shit as your justification for balance changes in a competitive game.

Also, the support gold item changes aren't JUST good for pro games. It's good for supports so we don't have to gold sink 800 gold into solely warding, so we can use our gold on other things that are more useful.

GlaucianeAug 18, 20194 votes

{quoted}

I'm so tired of people wanting Riot to make intentionally poor decisions because "Most of the player base fucking sucks". Stop using that shit as your justification for balance changes in a competitive game.

Also, the support gold item changes aren't JUST good for pro games. It's good for supports so we don't have to gold sink 800 gold into solely warding, so we can use our gold on other things that are more useful.

Read points nr 1 and 3. There was a time you could upgrade your lvl 2 sup item into a wardstone or a active item. If you believe it's better for you to upgrade it to a sightstone, go ahead, no one's stopping you.

chipndip1Aug 18, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Read points nr 1 and 3. There was a time you could upgrade your lvl 2 sup item into a wardstone or a active item. If you believe it's better for you to upgrade it to a sightstone, go ahead, no one's stopping you.

FQC was only popular on mid lane abusers. When they fixed FQC, it was hot garbage and everyone took the Eye item. I don't see why you're lying.

And you're talking about "coexisting items" when the Shurelya active and Ghost actives still exist and also existed on other items before they existed on gold income items in the first place. Just buy Shurelya and Twin Shadows if it bothers you that much. These actives STILL exist in the game. They simply removed the noob traps and balance issues.