supports who need starting cdr or who arent poke heavy face an impossible choice

Now that sightstone has been absorbed into the gold items, supports obvi need to buy into one of the item lines. For supps that need starting cdr they have a few options: (not talking about tank supps here since theyll clearly get the relic shield line)

1. start with coin and build coin line pros: they get some cdr, and the best gold passive for poke averse supports cons: the final item is by far the most useless (it is cheaper but spending less money to buy junk is the same thing as throwing money away)

2. start coin and build into spelltheifs line pros: they get cdr, and the gold passive early game, plus the best supp item late game cons: they not only throw away more than 200 gold by having to sell coin but also delay sightstone passive anywhere between 10-30 min depending on how often they can poke enemy champs, gold generation after selling coin significantly decreases, especially for poke averse supps

3. start spellthiefs and build into spellthiefs pros: best final supp item cons: no early cdr, significantly less gold generation for poke averse supps, slightly less gold generation on average

what does all of this mean? In short, cdr focused supps have to choose between a weak early game, a weak mid game, or a weak end game while poke heavy supports and tank supports get a moderate boost starting mid game due to the inclusion of sightstone into their buildpaths.

A major part of the problem is that the coin line itself is complete garbage. Youre getting about half of the stats from the shield line in the final tier for ~80% of the price. This is where cdr dependent starts get shit on since coin is the only starting item that provides cdr. [as a side note, starting cdr was also lowered significantly after new runes came out which makes the current state of coin even more perilous]

Potential solution: place coin line in the middle of shield and spellthiefs lines for stats. I would suggest something like the ranges below for the teir 3 item stats

• 200-400 health
• 25-30 ap
• 10-20% cdr
• 75-125% base hp regen
• 25-100% base mana regen
• +2 gold per 10 secs
• coin passive unchanged
• cost 1700-2000

additionally, coin could start with 10% cdr, or 25% health regen. Perhaps a buff back up to its old efficacy is warranted since the competing lines are significantly more viable.