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My Opinion on Supports: How to stop things like solo lane Soraka and Lulu

PBnJams·8/6/2014, 5:02:10 PM·4 votes·1,172 views

Around when season 3 was beginning, Riot wanted to help make supports feel more impactful in the game. We got Sightstone, better Gp5 items, and supports were getting kit enchancements such as scaling on utility (build AP for better shields!). All seem pretty well.

But of course, good things could not last forever, Lulu and Soraka benefited so much from the changes to utility scaling that they could leave bot lane and go into the solo lanes. They could match up against formidable opponents such as Renekton, Orianna, and Leblanc and come out unscathed. At the same providing a lot of damage and utility for their team.

I feel for Season 5 Riot should take a look at Leona (and maybe the new soraka rework depending on how it turns out) and wonder why I think Leona is the "ideal support."

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Leona I have posted a link to the league of legends wiki, and with that I ask you a question, "What is something that you notice about Leona's kit that isn't the following: gap closer, cc, armor buff?"

If you said anything about her high base stats, high base damage, low scaling, and reliance on others in order to get off more damage. That is exactly what I was thinking while looking at her too.

Basically, what I am hoping for in Season 5 is that Riot makes supports the kings and queens of the early game. Their base damage for the first 3 to 4 levels of the game should be higher than any other champion, however their scaling would be absolutely abysmal. Where by Level 5, the other classes of the game start equaling their damage or better. I also think it would be funny that during early jungle invades that people would be saying, "Peel for Janna!"

tl;dr Riot should make supports have the best base stats and base damage in the game, but make their scaling on spells and scalings on base stats awful as they level up, that around level 5 they are already getting heavily outscaled.

9 Comments

Serpents Embrace8/6/2014, 5:07:09 PM3 votes

First, solo lane support champions isn't necessarily a bad thing. Lulu and Soraka are problems because they deny reaction from opponents.

Second, why make it so all supports are strict early have champions? It would totally remove power curve diversity from the class.

Knight SoIaire 8/6/2014, 8:03:42 PM2 votes

1 thing, make supports get less power when they support themsefves soraka was able to live on solo lane cause she healed herself ap lulu lives cause she can shield ult and speed up herself instead of adc

who needs an adc when you can become a monster yoursefl and you dont lose anything

ArnMagnussson8/7/2014, 11:13:21 AM2 votes

The problem i have with this is who do you define as a supp, I've seen a gragas, vel'koz and malphite used as a supp in the LCS within the last year. So do we nerf them to, what about karma would you call her a mage or supp.

Champion Classification: Karma: Main- Mage Secondary- Supp Leona: Main- Tank Secondary- Supp Alistar: Main- Tank Zyra: Main- Mage Secondary- Supp Morgana: Main- Mage Secondary- Supp

Here are a few of the champions that are commonly used as supports in the LCS, and all these were not, when released ment to be a support, do we nerf them to due to their high AP ratios also.

If we changed the classification of soraka and lulu to mage as a primary classification would you be happy with that?...

The meta is constantly changing you might realize already that lulu is no longer a priority pick in the solo lane's anymore within the LCS and this will eventually influence the how we prioritize lulu. Deal with the fact that Lulu is strong at the moment, play her, enjoy her in her moment of popularity because in a years time she'll probably be replaced by someone that does the job better or with the changes in the meta.

Great Justice8/6/2014, 9:27:41 PM1 votes

Honestly, Riot tried to innovate with the support role, and I applaud them for that. I don't want to deter Riot from the idea of changing the game! Even when a change which was intended to help doesn't end up panning out, Riot can learn from their mistakes and move on, but one thing I don't like is when a mistake has a sizable negative effect, and Riot doesn't role it back.

When Riot gave the supports "utility scaling", they nerfed the base values to compensate. While that was a logical and sensible decision, Riot made the mistake of not changing EVERY support. This effectively created a class of supports that were far above the rest (read Annie,Thresh,Leona). If anyone here looks back on early S4 competitive play, there were only 3 supports that were seen as competitively viable that were so reliable and so powerful that there was no reason to take a niche pick. ex. Yes, your team needs a TON of disengage and peel and ONLY disengage and peel, but why take Alistar or Janna when you can take Thresh who does all that, but DOESN'T have a significantly weak early game, as well as having other tools that Alistar and Janna don't have.

Support Scalings were a cool and unique concept, but resulted in two seperate issues. Supports going into the solo lane to shut out counterplay, and engage supports (being untouched by the early game nerfs) having a very dominant presence over the rest of the champ pool. While the support role in it's current state has the most diverse recurring champion pool in competitive play, Riot needs to really get to tuning so that certain champs don't crowd out the others. Support role is the closest to having a perfectly "balanced" meta if Riot takes steps to not tone down the over-bearing champs , but give people a reason to pick the niche champs when the team comp calls for it.

TL;DR Thresh and Braum aren't the problems, other supports just can't compete with their reliability, as well as not being good enough at their niche(s)