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@Riot Utility support itemization lacks rewards

ErteonMagus·8/16/2015, 7:29:38 AM·9 votes·834 views

It's been a while since utility supports itemization suffers from the lack of worthy stats. Indeed the actual utility supports dilemma is :

  • do i have to buy real AP items, but with the lack of gold and the mediocre utility ratios, it may be not relevant before the very very late game?

  • or do i have to buy utility supports items, but still with the mediocre utility ratios, my kit will be anecdotal, and i'll just become a stupid champ with items worthier than my entire kit, except maybe one CC?

Yes, if utility supports had good utility ratios, they would probably become overbearing on solo lanes, and if Riot made good and cheap AP support items, midlaners would surely abuse them. But it is probably possible to pass through this problem. Junglers in particular have really good and cheap items to offset they're lack of gold, but in counterpart, these items needs Smite and provide some junglers-focused only stats (That's right some other champions tried to abuse this, but it's more a balance problem than a core issue). With Devourer, junglers even have the right to purchase items which converts the counterpart of what you're supposed to do (i.e. jungling) in useful stats later in champions fight.

Supports haven't the right to own this kind of item. They stay in lane contrary to junglers, don't need a particular summoner spell, and the great differences between them and classic laners are "they don't CS, and they're assist a laner, so they're rarely alone in lane". So Riot gave them items that bring gold if you're not CSing, or if you're two in lane, but these items cannot be really strong, because everyone can stop CSing or go two in lane. But here, Riot attacks the medium (gold) and not the result (supports cannot itemize well without sololaners abuse it).

But in fact, tank supports and burst supports are, from my point of view, relatively fine. Tanks need to itemize quickly, their items are cheap, so supports can buy them easily. Burst supports have high base damage and reliable CC, they don't need items to blow opponents in lane, and if they're ahead, they can buy AP items and do tons of damage. However, utility supports suffer. If their kit base stats are high, they can control everything in lane, and if their ratios are, they will be overbearing in sololanes. So utility supports need to be not so strong in lane to let counterplay, and not so strong in lategame otherwise they will go on midlane and bring crazy utility earlier.

So can Riot make an utility support item which stacks like Devourer? It'll give a smooth and not too early power curve! But it need to be support specific in order to not offer midlaners a better utility-power item.

What are utility supports do ? They help an ally, and gave him shields, heals or buffs. And that, no midlaner can do it alone. LoL owns a wonderful item for utility+moderate power, it's Ardent Censer. So here's my proposition:

New item :

Radiant idol (just to give a name) Amplifying Tome + 415 golds (just to keep the Aether Wisp price) +25 AP Unique Passive : Each time you cast a defensive utility spell (heal, shield, arm/mr buff, damage reduction) on at least one allied champion, you gain a charge of will. Unique passive : Each charge of will gives you +0.25 AP

item 3504 Ardent Censer: Radiant Idol + Forbidden Idol + 650 golds +10 % CDR (unchanged) +35 AP (+40 before) +100% base mana regen (unchanged) Does not grant MS anymore. Unique Passive: Each time you cast a defensive utility spell (heal, shield, arm/mr buff, damage reduction) on at least one allied champion, you gain a charge of will. Unique passive: Each charge of will gives you +0.25 AP Unique passive: Your heals and shields on allied champions grant them +15% attack speed and +30 (+0.2 per charge of will) on-hit magic damage for 6 seconds (this does not include regeneration effects or any effects on yourself).

And we have an utility support item which is unusable by solo laners, grant good amounts of AP late game and isn't overbearing early. The only problem i see now is the duo lane utility midlaner+utility support, and still, the AP amount is not so big, you better have to build another AP item if you have gold.

3 Comments

Aeolian Melodies8/16/2015, 1:35:07 PM3 votes

One solo laner to screw this idea over:

Nidalee

Leaf of the lake8/16/2015, 8:34:32 AM2 votes

Your premises are sound, but your conclusion needs work. Your proposed solution encourages mindlessly spamming buffs for the sake of spamming buffs, similar to how tear encourages people to throw out abilities as they walk back to lane for the explicit purpose of stacking it faster. Further, this would need a cap of some sort, since infinite scaling on items has already been determined to be A Very Bad Thing(TM). The numbers would need some tuning, too (.25 AP sounds pretty low), but that's not important right now.

I think the ideal situation is to have the three main support items build a resource (what you called "will"), without actually using it themselves. The resource would be gained passively over time, but also from kills and assists (so as not to punish supports for securing kills), or possibly from using the support items' gold generation effect. This resource could then scale the passives and actives of various support items, one of which could include an AP conversion passive. This locks the resource into support itemization without confusing the use-cases of support abilities. In effect, it's creating a new stat that allows anyone that wants to itemize as a support to be a support. Since it is chiefly utility supports that itemize this way, it serves the purpose of primarily buffing utility supports.

Valderis Vandala8/16/2015, 8:09:58 AM1 votes

Being able to gain stats from aiding allies sounds like a cool idea.

As long as you can start to stack early on some very cheap items.