Reflection of playing VK support for 4 years. And the current state of mage botlane.

So since there is a large post about "mage supports" I thought of making a post of my own. I think regarding the core problems of why mage supports are regarded oppressive, we must discuss about how did this happen in the first place. And why picking mage supports is such a viable tactic.

Episode1: The exile of "independence". Yes, so. I started to pick Vel'koz support around season 4. Starting with the posting of this glorious video by our overlord, Sp4zie. (Honored be his name) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wraEz6kKgcQ This was the age of "migration" of mages, support items were buffed to generate gold more efficiently, and the addition of trinkets gave you a pass to not buy these too often. Midlane was dominated by assassins, and it became extremely frustrating to play certain mages in midlane. If you remember, midlane was basically out of these 2 shmucks 100% and this was before the ridiculous reworks and had more direct damage access.

People then started to look at botlane which was a tank/enchanter meta, and thought this was exploitable with disruptor bursts mages and sought out a opportunity with the objective to poke the tanks until they are low, and to burst the enchanters when possible. But this came with a price those days. The top tank picks were these, and they sustained really good with targons and more pots. And one engage was enough to screw the whole game since they "were" tanky. And we "had" mana bars. ( +prerework )

But why were mage supports picked regardless of the high stakes? It was the feel of independence. Gold generation out of skill expression, out of our "short mana pool" making shots count, the liberation from the "babysit", and the "reward of domination" by ward coverage once you pushed in towards the enemy turret was too great. It made winning botlane seem very simple and easy to understand.

Episode 2: The lack of restraint. After season 4, shortly after the "mage update", things started to get very different. Basically all the above terms in brackets were dismissed. Green wards, manabars, became non-existent but still with the high gold generation. We were now suddenly allowed the freedom to spam our spells. BUT with additional CDR 20%. You might remember Morellonomicon. The all-mighty must buy item for mages. We were able to buy this cost efficient stat block at fast as ever. This was the start of the "snowball meta" where damage became top-priority. And I will quote a word i remember from that age, "The mage who can spam their ult faster wins the game by demolishing the entire enemy team". A lot of CDR nerfs were made but some mages, still prevailed months and still now.

You might remember +○○○(3 spheres) + which was not only impossible to dodge, but was also a impenetrable defense that knocked back your tanks every second while bursting your carries with a lawn mowing 3 ball stun. This was the epitome of duo mage madness.

Episode 3: How Brand "support "changed. - The nuke fallout. During this mage update, something really, "awful" happened. Brand, the exiled from midlane- a detested pick upon all other support players since a autofilled Brand can still do ridiculous amount of power had a major kit change. He was geared entirely to be a support just as Zyra once was. His passive and ult interaction meant that the more the enemy there are, the more efficient he becomes. So the only logical reasoning of picking him was to go bot. But as you guys know, this update made him not only overpowered but stapled him as "support" even if he has one conditional CC. As Riot was promoting this pick from season 4 and even had a rioter present it. To counter this pick, nerfed tank sustain was meaningless, enchangers evaporated, and brand supports were countered by hypermobile junglers, or mage supports turning into a nuke war disregarding ADC performance.

So which comes to the question, what shall we do to create a more healthy mage support meta?

First is to decrease mana regen to make shots count. And ESPECIALLY cut CDR all across the board. Before the mage update, this stateline was a RARE stat. Most of the time it was only obtainable on pre-pre rework morello. But now CDR is literally slapped on everything. On runes (cosmic insight, ult hunter, transcendence), frost fang, lost chapter. This was NOT a thing and was never supposed to. Currently Mages in general are able to spam ults and demolish targets with ample opportunities. And mage supports are the biggest culprit to this balance fail. Even kill-misses means the targets are heavily damaged to recall. This can result in towers, or plates which are extremely valuable in the current patch. This inflation of CDR turned league into the high paced damage race as it is now with cdr attached to EVERY item since the mage update.

Second, is to tone down assassins. Now don't get me wrong, assassins SHOULD be mobile. And they SHOULD do damage. But not through free to access damage through runes and bogus lethality. They should do damage through complicated outplays and combos. "Oneshotting" was only a result of that fantasy, never the "core" element. For example do you remember when Zed's build was something like this? + + Then transitioning + + (All hail 3rd item LW.) Yes pressing Bork, Hydra ignite and hitting all shurikens was DIFFICULT that you were worshipped as faker incarnate when you pulled it off right?

Third is to buff tank sustain and decrease enchanter "babysitting". They need more skill expression and love from the dev team. NO more unfair "Item" bogus buffing like ardent. Make those picks meaningful once again. Although the mage supports have the upper gain in trades, they SHOULD able to win in the long run unless the mage supports yanks kills out of them.

...And yes nerf Brand. Seriously. Nobody wanted it to happen.