Lets talk Supports

tl;dr There is no tl;dr, enjoy.

Now Riot has already made a thread about this but I think its a good idea to talk a little more in depth here and go into some heavy detail about possible problems and solutions involving Riots Support problem

To give a small idea of my experience in support I've been a support main since I started playing League all the way back when Kha'zix came out I'm at roughly gold/plat skill level and my favorite support is Sona (And I'm still damn salty that the rework killed her identity but I'll refrain from demanding a revert outside of this sentence) so I've seen most of the evolution of supports and their problems

For the few that might not know the support problem is that...nobody wants to play support or if they're forced to they do it begrungingly, this has resulted in longer que times since the pool of supports is so low and frustration among players who are autofilled as support.

So lets look at the evolution of supports from when I started playing and see how the support role has changed to try and get an idea of just where it went wrong (Support mains from Season 1 feel free to say how things were there).

At its core the concept of support never changed between season 2 and most of season 6, a utility focused champion goes bot lane with the ADC, has to work with very little gold, does the brunt of the warding and gets items benefiting the team more then themselves.

Season 2 & 3: The ward mules, the Aura slaves, the role that got such pitiful gold they needed to buy items which increased gold generation and maybe even a few rune slots at the same time, this was the support before the rework, back when the only champion with a hook was Blitzcrank, back when the scariest combo bot lane was back when Leonna was the CC terror in bot lane (and was hilarious seeing a Leonna and Alistar duke it out) and back when supports could go mid and actually do well

You heard me

Janna mid was a thing and was a thing which worked well, sometimes even Sonas went mid (Though due to her auras she was more often put into support) and if a support was doing well they could build full AP as opposed to wards or items which benefited the team, Junglers, supports and top laners shared the burden of items which benefited them such as Top and Jungle taking the Runic Bulwark (The old OLD locket) and Frozen heart to use the aura so the support could spend their very low gold on the sightstone, wards and maybe a component part for another item (not Zekes though, Zekes was horrible back then)

Season 4: The promised day, the day which Riot said no more would supports be forced to have little gold, no more would they become ward mules, no more would they have to depend on their base stats, the Support rework arrived.

The most notable thing with the support rework is that yes it did let supports buy more items, yes it did stop making supports ward mules but it caused a massive shift in the support meta and even mostly snuffed out another thing, Supports going mid as utility mages.

With a supports AP now applying more to their utility then their damage like before Supports now had lost their ability to go mid and over the years the few which were able to do so in defiance of the rework ( ) they eventually got nerfed again and again until they only worked bot lane or weren't even a good pick in bot ether.

In addition the flood of items brought prominence to a certain class of support, the Tank support, before the rework there was a rather good support triangle, if they had a squishy utility/poke support( ) you would pick a CC heavy support ( ), if they had a CC heavy support you'd pick a peel support ( ), if they had a peel support you'd pick a Utility/poke support, but with the new support items heavily favoring tanks Alistar, Leonna and especially Thresh became the holy trinity of supports, the only none tank support worth taking back the was Janna and even then that was for the Protect the Koggles comp, suddenly the list of viable supports plummeted, Nami wasn't the powerhouse she is now, Sona was reworked to have the one thing you got her for over other supports (Her Auras) removed, Janna was only picked for the Juggermaw comp or protect the carry comps, Blitz just couldn't compete against Thresh's vastly superior kit and Bard didn't exist yet

Season 5 & 6: The invading seasons as I call them, not because the jungle was invaded more but because other champions from different roles began to come in as the support, now this was already a thing with for example Morganna, who was meant to be a mid laner but is now more known as a support but now we were seeing more and more champions pushed from their lane into support and doing better then the "Traditional supports"

Annie Support Nautilus Support Trundle Support Brand Support Zyra Support Velkoz Support

These became the norm as more and more normal supports got shoved away, even Janna the most consistent support being a rather high pick for over 5 years was beginning to be unable to match them, only Nami and Bard through extensive buffing (In addition to a few good wombos such as Bard Ashe) kept their heads above the water, even Thresh the support that a lot of people blame for outright killing the chance of picking squishy supports was starting to find his kit unable to match these invaders.

And now we are here at the Pre-season to Season 7

So the big question is where did it go wrong, where did the lack of support players come from? There's a few reasons here and I'll try to explain best I can the reason i think why

The new supports are too feast or famine Now this is the flaw of bringing a champion which has some utility but excels with damage items to the support lane, in the past if a traditional support fell behind it wouldn't be as bad, their utility didn't scale (or didn't scale as well depending on champion) so they would still have a way to help their team, in addition before the support rework a support was expected to buy sightstone (When it was released), wards, 1-2 gp10 items, Oracles elixir and that was it, the burden of supporting items was given more to the top laner and/or jungler, but now, with supports utility scaling with AP, with supports pressured to build these items as opposed to junglers and top laners and these champions who aren't really supports but are used as them anyway if they fall behind they are out of the game, they are not going to catch up and just become another minion for the enemy to kill, unless they get lucky and get a bunch of kills they won't be able to keep up.

The support pool has shrunk considerably As I said in the look back most of the supports Season 2 and 3 were all good picks, and the weakest 2 back then ( ) weren't terrible at all and could still be picked with relative confidence, Then Thresh and a year later the support item changes came, both combined caused the pool of viable support champions to shrink heavily, the list started to grow again as things like Poppy support, Velkoz support and such began to appear along with Champions like Bard getting released and buffed but the list contracted again as these champions were ether nerfed to not even work in bot lane or buffed enough for them to return to their original lane, We're once again back to a small pool, far smaller then before the support rework but larger then the immediate aftermath.

Supports can no longer carry as well as they use to In Season 2 and 3 you COULD as a traditional support go mid and go toe to toe with the enemy and come out even or sometimes even win the lane, Supports were alot more independent in fact sometimes champions spent more time roaming (Hi ) then they did laning and a support who built some items became a genuine threat be it with their CC + Tank or their pure damage now supports are far more dependent on their team, if they come out of a lane even with not a lot of kills then they'll struggle to deal any significant damage or any significant tank, the belief that a support can carry their team is now less of a factor because supports now depend on their team more then ever

Supports are too easy to catch MOST champions now has at least a slow, in fact the last champion to not have any form of CC at all was Lucian, all other champions since Lucian have at least a slow on their kit, in addition many champions now have a large speed boost or a long range gap closer, When I started played the longest range dash (not port) was Nocturnes ult, and none ultimate wise Kha'zix E, Naut Q and Leonna E were some of the longest range dashes in the game, now most champions released have ether multiple dashses ( ) Long range point and click CC when before it was rare ( ) or have very long range dashes (or form of it) ( )

Meanwhile every single support both now and back in the past lack an escape EXCEPT for Bard, Every other support has some CC or some means to defend themselves sure but its very situational so often times if a support is caught they ether blow their flash, fight back and hope to kill the attacker or die, with not only an ever increasing mobility creep and an ever increasing CC creep Supports are finding themselves more and more becoming easy picking and being dead isn't fun

• -Itemization is stagnant Allow me to tell you what was built in Season 6 for supports if you are a squishy it was (Or ) (and a damage item if you got eye of the Watchers instead of frost queen) If you are tanky it was (or ) (sometimes) (if you got Face of the Mountain)

And if you were going "Support" you'd build sightstone then full damage but that's irrelevant

And even then sometimes that 6th slot was filled with Vision wards instead, there is very little in terms of flexibility for a support to build, Meanwhile their lane partners the carries have so many choices some which work better on some champions (granted their itemization is in a awkward spot right now due to preseason changes) while Supports have a "1 set fits all" kind of problem.

So then where did the support role go so wrong? where is the cause of this? well there isn't a point where we can fully blame but personally I think it was the support rework itself.

Now at the time it wasn't a bad idea, most of the ideas were good (Most.... ) but the problem is that after the rework they mostly left the supports alone, they basically pat themselves on the back and looked at other lanes, what happened was that these champions weren't kept up with the times, which resulted in them becoming bad picks, which resulted in the support pool becoming smaller, in addition when it was clear there was a mobility creep problem (and now a CC creep) they didn't factor ether in on the initial rework, there is only one item supports get which only SLIGHTLY deal with the mobility creep ( ) and one which only slightly deals with the CC creep ( ) and both are rather expensive or have long cooldowns, in addition supports don't have anything to protect themselves, any items which they could get are ether engage items or are too expensive for them to buy meanwhile we have Caitlynns able to defend herself with traps and nets and migrate damage ( ), we have Viktor and Syndra throwing boatloads of damage everywhere if they get attacked, we have Reksai and Lee Sin able to dash away and we have Irelias and Poppys tanking up a storm or CCing anyone who comes near them. Supports don't have access to any of these, not even the ones that came down from mid lane, the support role has became the losers corner for champions which have CC but can't work in their lane anymore.

Now as for solutions well, there isn't a golden bullet but I'll throw one

Revert the support rework

Give supports their high utility with little gold back (and revert Sonas rework...Ok I'll stop that now)

Why? because as it stands a support becomes useless if they fall behind, they can't farm up minions because that's their teams job, they can't kill other players except through sheer luck but before the rework if a support fell behind they were still a factor and they still helped, Sona back then (No this isn't a rework rant this is a point made) was so easy to catch and so squishy that often times she DID fall behind but her auras ALWAYS gave a flat boost meaning that sure now she isn't contributing with damage or strong healing and is basically a flash crescendo bot (Kinda like Flash tibbers) but at least shes still helping her team, same with Leonna and her W, before it gave a flat amount, now part of it also scales with armour and MR meaning if she fell behind before those changes she could still tank decently enough.

So how does this help get more people into support? Well nobody likes feeling like a none factor, its not fun feeling like you aren't adding much and a support that falls behind has that effect especially with the more CC heavy supports and more Utility supports no longer being good picks with their utility now depending on items. where as if a supports utility was flat and didn't depend on items the mindset would be "Well Ok I can't do any damage to these guys BUT I can still help my team with my utility" (Again a big mindset of Sonas pre-rework).

Now obviously there's a million and one "What if" and "Maybe if" for what can be done to fix supports but this personally is my thoughts on how to go about fixing it, I know Riot hates to revert reworks but if they partially reverted Koggles...then hey who knows?