How to Bring back mage supports

The Problems mage supports have

• They generally have low mobility AND are squishy
• They generally have less reliable CC compared to tank supports
• They bring less sustain than melee supports
• Their items are less cost efficient than melee supports
• In lane they are more vulnerable to ganks (this is a side effect of being squishy and immobile

How this actually effects the game

I am going to use Nami as an example from here on out, vs a melee support, going to use Braum primarily in this example, but Alistar, Nautalus, etc all have similar advantages over Nami / Sona / Janna / Lulu etc.

Braum has much more reliable and consistent CC, as well as comparable damage and much much more mobility, and more survivability. In return if Nami isn't hit at all in a teamfight she will provide better peel, sustain, and damage. Nami will also likely lose lane due to the pressure provided by junglers especially if both teams have high damage mobility junglers like Elise, Lee Sin and the like.

Part of the reason laning phase is so difficult is because ranged supports simply cannot poke melee supports hard enough to have their range become an advantage, and even if you do manage to whittle down an ADC before they have lifesteal, it not only puts you in a lot of danger from jungle and teleport ganks, but you also open yourself up to being stunned by the melee support and be killed in the 2v2. Because of the way runes and masteries are, and the amount of pots bot lane starts with, melee supports can simply sustain through all harass until they hit 6 and then they will generally win most all ins.

This problem compounds in the mid game, lets assume for the sake of argument both sides went even in lane, then during the mid game, the enemy Braum has much more deep warding opportunities because he has higher tankiness, higher mobility, and more reliable self peel to escape a bad warding situation. A Nami player is just going to get chunked to fountain or killed much more often than a Braum player in the mid game.

Potential solutions

Increase mage support poke damage so that melee supports cannot just ignore it. I suggest doubling the charges for the gold generation items but reducing the gold it gives to 3 per hit from 5. This would add 30 or so magic damage p/20 seconds which would help a lot to poke out immobile champs, it would slightly raise its max gold potential as well.

To improve the mid game issues we could add a little more utility the Frostfang T3 active. it could have a 0 second interupt to help vs channeled spells or could offer them a self cleanse(for slows only, otherwise mid laners will build it) or movespeed bonus to ward more safely.

Other solutions would be giving mage supports high base health but reducing their resistances, this would force them to rune for armor to go bot lane but if they do would increase their EHP a lot to make them more durable for early game skirmishes. This would also gives incentive to buy resistance utility items with low health that provide synergy with their base stats and their kits without making them fodder for the enemy jungle and mid laners.

What are some other community ideas?

I'm just one guy who enjoys playing mage supports, I find success on them but I would really like them to be more forgiving mid game and I would kill to see a few of them in competitive play. What are some of your solutions for adding some more type diversity to the support position?