New idea to make the support role much more appealing

Miku Lv99··7 votes·614 views

I feel that people shy away from the support role for many reasons.

  1. Doesn't make many shot calls. Generally has to stick with teammates and only gets what objectives they try to get, and with the squishy supports, what enemies to go after as well.
  2. Unimpactfull. That's right, when you're that 5 levels too low Nami or Sona that does pitiful damage and speeds up allies by some pitiful amount, and also has an ultimate you can even safely get close enough to enemies to make much use of, it feels too hard to impact the game in any significant manner and it feels like the other players decide just about everything.
  3. Overall weaker/lower level/less gold than the rest of the team.

So, combining all of these, it seems that there is a solution that would fix them all, but it would be a rather significant change that many might not like, but I think it would make the game a lot better.

What if you couldn't buy a Frostfang? No, I don't mean to remove it, either. What if, there were actually some objective you had to complete in order to get a Frostfang? Say that it was to get at least 600 gold using your spellthief's. Then you'd just get Frostfang automatically and for free. And it otherwise couldn't be upgraded. You might say this is ridiculous, but hear me out. It would give support players an actual objective. And upon completing it, would actually yield a reward. And it's one that they earned. All the current objectives are just ones that the rest of the team earns, and it feels like the support doesn't have enough of an impact on. Not only that, it would allow for really good players that can sneak in tons of trades in lane that they are really good at winning every last one of a way to actually get more than just one or two extra health pots by the enemy team used out of it. And then, this could be taken even further to say that your Frostfang could upgrade to Frost Queen's automatically when you got to something like 1200 gold earned with it. This way, supports would be much more on par with the power level of the other champions (if they're good) since they would have a lot more effective gold than they currently do. And then a good support would have much more of an ability to win or lose the game for the team, rather than oftentimes feeling too irrelevant.

This would present a few flaws, such as the gold income items having to be of a similar difficulty to rank up, but that wouldn't be much trouble to get at least close. Also they'd have to be hard enough so as to not get upgraded by AP mids, but seeing how they currently work that likely wouldn't be a problem, unless you're a horrible mid player that would earn 600 gold worth of missed minions with your coin or something.

Also Ruby Sightstone needs a big buff as it's currently not worth buying if there's literally anything else you can still buy. And the eye items need a buff, too, possibly given them the old inspiration mastery so that those that fall too far behind in experience can at least still remain somewhat relevant.

11 Comments

Maximum Morde2 votes

Delete support, create fifth income/xp stream. That's the only way to fix support. Until then its always going to suck.

Anraton1 votes

won't gonna happen ...

Amelie2 votes

I don't really like that idea. Sometimes you get Spellthief and you can't always proc it safely (depending on the lane), but you can still do your job as the support while playing passively. Why get punished for that by never getting to upgrade it? God forbid you don't finish it before laning phase, because you will have a harder time once teamfights start and you can't consistently stack it up. That would make support even more god-awful to play.

Then there's the opposite side - a great support getting Frost Queen very early, and just snowballing the lane to an easy victory.

Anraton1 votes

your idea about spellthief sounds interesting .. but how do you prefent the abuse by midlaners?

What about the other 2 support items?

M0RDEKA1SER3 votes

Simple. It only upgrades on minion kills by nearby allies.

Same concept for other 2.

Free upgrade for helping your ADC do his job.

Anraton1 votes

Like that idea.

Valderis Vandala1 votes

A good solution to prevent abuse, but a bad solution to make the support feel involved, with the spellthief's line you at least feel like you earned it.

M0RDEKA1SER1 votes

If your a tank, you probably built relic shield. If your blocking and eating attacks so your ADC can farm, your doing your job and staying involved.

Of the few champions who build the last one, usually they have good peel, like Janna. If you're peeling and shielding your ADC so he can farm, you're earning it.

If you're a poke champ and you're keeping your enemies at bay by doing damage and keeping them scared to all-in. You're doing your job, your ADC can farm.

Valderis Vandala1 votes

I know, its just not as directly noticeable or as dependent on your skill as with the spellthief line.

Minion kills by nearby allies still requires allies to kill the minions, you can make their job easier but if they are worthless at CS then you will suffer for it. With spellthief its all you, no need to depend on allies for effect, you harass the enemy to get gold and upgrades directly, you feel in control.

Lady of the Mist1 votes

I like the concept you've got going here, I feel as if the Relic Shield could get it's own upgrade when a certain amount of Minion's are executed with the Relic Shield Passive, and perhaps Ancient Coin could perhaps be when a certain amount of Gold is obtained from the passive too. It seems like a larger idea and would allow supports to stay in lane too and still make fair income instead of having to recall. Though the only issue I see is if this were the case, the Eye of the Equinox|Watchers|Oasis wouldn't be craftable. Though it sounds like a cool idea overall.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

~ Elise Spider Goddess Elise

jmaishere1 votes

I actually don't like the idea as it makes it much harder to focus on actually supporting. I'm a jungle/support main btw. However, I main support because I would rather know that I can consistently support than have a support that doesn't support well. Also, the issue right now, isn't actually that support is behind in game in gold and exp, although a change to that would be nice, the problem is anytime I put support or fill as my secondary, I end up as support. While I do enjoy playing support half the time, I still really do want to play jg as I prefer jungle more than support.

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