How About A Support Class Rework At The End Of The Season?

MXXXXXL·May 11, 2016·148 votes·7,947 views

To make the Support role much more fun to play, so Dynamic Queue has a more equal amount of people queuing with each role and half Support mains don't stop queuing as half Support because at the moment being a half Support means you will never get your other main role.

EDIT: Should've put 'Update' instead of 'Rework' in the title, slipped past my mind.

EDIT 2: Now i'm thinking of a Support item update, it'd like to see some brand new Support items with really cool and fun actives.

221 Comments

OleandervineMay 11, 201638 votes

I think support itemization needs some dramatic changes, but as for the champs, I think almost all of them are in a very healthy spot. Barring Blitzcrank; Soraka unfortunately may need a full rework again, as she seems to be having a Ryze moment where the design team just cannot seem to get her to a playable state and keep her there.

Hullabaloo907May 11, 201632 votes

I love playing support, but the itemization really sucks.

Supreme Senpai69May 12, 20164 votes

Itemization and we haven't had a new champion in forever. Kindred was jungle, Ilaoi was top, Jhin was ADC, Aurelion was mid/jungle, and it looks like Taliyah is gonna be mid. It's getting stale seeing Janna, Thresh, and Blitz every game :/

Hullabaloo907May 12, 201616 votes

Bard and tahm were both pretty recent, though we are due another one.

Rook LouxMay 13, 20162 votes

aurelion is a better supp than jungle and taliyah is a control mage so she works well as supp from what i've seen. however, i agree they probably should release a new supp soon

Troll for TrumpMay 12, 201611 votes

I kinda feel like Blitz doesn't have a particularly good build... All the builds he picks are always bad, but, because of the way his kit works, he's still impactful.

(Give him better build options and make him more itemreliant, make his kit itself lesstoxic)

JacctheInsomniacMay 12, 201624 votes

[deleted]

SoliceMay 12, 20165 votes

The strong get stronger, and the weak get weaker...until the strong completely die out then the weak come out of hiding as OP as they were always meant to be.

Until that day, sleep with the fishes, my love. Nami

Rip my dead love Zyra

RoranaMay 12, 20161 votes

zyra is stronger support now, she is completely busted

SoliceMay 12, 20165 votes

But she's just not the same Zyra I once loved, where once burst and skillshots were, there are now plants being the actual champion instead of zyra. You literally do nothing. She is so unsatisfying to play, to me at least. I filed a divorce.

Sad TyrantMay 12, 20165 votes

"We think these changes will help diversify the roster even though all they do is complicate champions and frontload their power onto a single ability or passive making them OP and forcing us to steadily nerf them in other places until they're nigh unplayable, because we refuse to remove dumb things that we added for no reason".

That's Mordekaiser's and Skarner's story right there

Heckin SupportMay 12, 20163 votes

I honestly feel as if Sona needs a rework. Her kit is very old, and you can tell just by reading about it and comparing it to kits of newer champions. She has untapped potential of being a really good musicly gifted champion, rallying her allies in teamfights, and weakening her foes with her music. She could be so much more, and healthier, if she wasn't held back by Riot.

only zhuleMay 12, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I honestly feel as if Sona needs a rework. Her kit is very old, and you can tell just by reading about it and comparing it to kits of newer champions. She has untapped potential of being a really good musicly gifted champion, rallying her allies in teamfights, and weakening her foes with her music. She could be so much more, and healthier, if she wasn't held back by Riot.

I think the two most interesting ways to move forward with Sona would be to either make her cooldowns longer but while the spell is active it provides a constant buff to all allies affected. Focus more around her ability to power up allies within a small space for limited amounts of time. And provide a skill floor, based on how people weave their spells. Can splice all three abilities together but then have a really long down time before you can cast another spell, VS let one run it's course then move to another, finishing off with the third ability. If all abilities run for full length the first ability should be off cooldown by the end of the third abilities duration.

The other idea would be to make Sona a very double edge'd champion. HUGE boosts in power when abilities are active but they all leave serious debuffs once they wear off.

BastionKrossMay 12, 201612 votes

Itemization needs to be fixed. Supports shouldn't feel like half a champion because they don't have the gold income of other roles. The problem is that if you make support items too good or too cheap, other roles will abuse them. So you have to make those items conditionally good:

The item grants damage, HP, resists, CDR, whatever at a great price... but you lose that stat temporarily if you CS. Think the Tribute passive from the first and second Frost Queen items that gets disabled if you take minions. Now solo lanes won't abuse the item since they can't farm or risk losing gold value in the process.
The item specifically interacts with abilities that are frequently used by supports. Think the new Athenes here, where it's passive can only be triggered by healing or shielding someone other than yourself; something that rarely happens outside the support role. Increasing the MS of allies or preventing damage to allies in some way are also conditions that could be used.
Gating power behind the condition of having an ally close to you is an acceptable power restraint, but not as restrictive as the others. Solo lanes get quite a bit of visitation from allies, especially mid lane, in the form of roaming supports and junglers. When teamfighting starts to break out and the laning phase ends, the condition is almost always not restraining the solo champ unless he's constantly split-pushing or wandering the enemy jungle looking for assassinate targets.

The point is that supports need strong, cheap items to feel as impactful as other roles, but won't get those items if they can be abused by those other roles. If you hide that power behind a condition that supports can meet and other roles can't, that's a great solution.

PartholonianMay 12, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Itemization needs to be fixed. Supports shouldn't feel like half a champion because they don't have the gold income of other roles.

It's not just the income that kills them, it's the expenses. Any champion would be weak if they started every game by spending 800 gold on an item with the stats of a ruby crystal and another 75 on no stats at all. Delete all forms of spending gold to get more vision from the game. Replace them with ways of getting vision that don't subtract from one player's ability to build normal items (e.g. buffs or expansion of the trinket system). Gold is not a healthy way to control access to vision because gold is spent by one person and vision is gained by a whole team, which leads to the "someone has to be weak for the team's sake" dynamic that repels people from the role.

Although on the income front it would definitely help to bring kill and assist gold closer together (seriously Riot, damage is not always and not even usually the most important contribution to a fight, why should it be disproportionately rewarded?).

And possibly add a built in CS sharing mechanic (X% of the gold value of a minion is split by all other champions within exp range, does not subtract from the amount gained by the last hitter -- this would somewhat reward group wave shoving, but the main effect would be to make it more rewarding to hang around a teammate who is CSing).

MEMEME670May 12, 20163 votes

which leads to the "someone has to be weak for the team's sake" dynamic that repels people from the role.

This isn't what leads to that. It's the fact that there's 4 gold streams (3 lanes + jungle) and 5 people in the game. You could remove all ways to buy wards from the game and support would just buy other items that help the team (auras, mikaels, etc).

Cookimonster316May 12, 201610 votes

Problem is that everyone wants to be the hero. I don't think you can actually make support as fun as mid to everybody.

Tobias BracknerMay 12, 20165 votes

Not hero, so much as DAMAGE and KILLS. The game does a lot to reward kills and put them up as THE BEST THING EVER.

Cookimonster316May 12, 20167 votes

Well my point is supports get no recognition and other roles when they preform and the same level are praised

SmithneyMay 12, 20164 votes

I believe that's because supports' contribution is hard to notice. People get way too easily put off when they don't see immediate results.

SmithneyMay 12, 20162 votes

I wouldn't say so, objective play in LoL actually is and feels very rewarding, the latest patch cemented it.

From my own experience, the higher you get in skill level, the less people care about singular kills.

Tobias BracknerMay 13, 20162 votes

An Enemy has been slain.

Double kill

Triple kill

QUADRA KILL

PEEENTA KILL

ACE

ROAR

SCREEECH

A tower has been destroyed (also doing these things doesn't have the sexy "I used my abilities" outplay of killing another player)

Regardless of which is "actually" better, one has a lot more bringing it to the front than the other. Game keeps clear track of kills in top right. Tab shows KDA. Final Screen has KDA pretty prominently among the primary numbers. In big font are the kills of either team.

SmithneyMay 13, 20163 votes

That's a good point actually, something that a player like me gets used to after the time. I disagree that the game puts them as the best thing ever (that would be Baron/Elder kills), but they sure are made very visible.

KyrrionMay 12, 20166 votes

Yes yes YES!

Supports should've been the 1st ones to get this done.

Supports have been hit so hard this season with the major vision overhaul. The one thing that the support role brought to the table to carry a game, and Riot took it away. It was a good thing that vision is now a (forced) team objective, but that's where the power of playing support in the past lied. Setting up plays by owning the map through vision. Now that's gone and it's (thankfully) not coming back.

And honestly, I don't think there should be "support" items aside from the core laning ones. Just like with jungling, you have one item to enable the playstyle to work effectively (sharing the lane in this case as opposed to clearing creeps) and then open up the entire shop the player. The difference between Supports and Mages should be the scaling utility via ability power.

Supports should be able to get fed and run away with a game by providing and absurd amount of utility. The fact that a fed support is generally worthless in the game is just plain wrong. In no game should you outplay your opponent and be rewarded less than other roles. This is pretty much the reason so few people play support, because it rarely matters how good YOU are.

GenghisEmoMay 13, 20162 votes

The 'Supp' items with the sightstone built in are pretty much sub par and quite irrelevant. Need to be reworked or removed.

Ruby Sightstone needs a rework or more choice 3 different styles of Ruby Sight would be badass.

Core Supp items are good.

HellioningMay 12, 20164 votes

Any changes that make the support role more fun to play for non-support players will probably make it less fun to play for support players.

Rico NastyMay 12, 20163 votes

Champions to focus: -Sona -Soraka -Karma -Lulu -Alistar -Blitzcrank -Thresh

CasterGilgameshMay 11, 20162 votes

i would rather not have riot touch my soraka or braum or nami at all.in general i would rather riot just not look at support unless they are willing to put the actual work and DO something riot just needs to not do things half assed im sorry i love riot and all but they do reworks half assed if a rework doesnt help then they best prepare another one instead of just leaving the champion in a bad spot.

ResonanceTheGodMay 12, 20162 votes

I think the only supports that are in need of change are Sona Leona Nami . Nami just feels like a worse Janna / Soraka . Leona, just makes me want to puke. The only champion to date that I can say I've never had fun playing. She, like essentially every champion I've listed needing change is only good if ahead. Sona like I've said is only good when ahead. She loses in late game 9 times out of 10.

I agree that supports need more options and itemization. Essentially every game, I go the same build on every support I play, aside from maybe Sona, Annie, or Lux.

item 2303 / item 3092 item 2049
into item 3009 / item 3158 then item 3060 / item 3190 then whatever i feel i need to win the game.

ChestylapooptraiMay 12, 20166 votes

If I may ask, what is bad about leona?

ResonanceTheGodMay 12, 20162 votes

To me, she feels like a worse version of Thresh . At least when I play him, I can opt out of going in. She doesn't have any disengage, unless you count her ult, which is on a 90 second cooldown. She only has one reliable form of CC, which is single target. Whereas there's better picks like Thresh Alistar Braum Taric . I used to play Leona a lot in Season 4 when I first started playing the game. I quickly stopped playing her when I realized how good supports like Morgana Janna were at the time.

Tobias BracknerMay 12, 20169 votes

Why are you ccomplaining that Leona doesn't have tools to opt out?

She's designed to not opt out.

SHE'S DESIGNED TO GO IN HARD AND KILL MOTHERFUCKERS. I'm pretty sure that with all of her abilities she can put someone on lockdown for the longest time out of any champ.

She does her job just fine. If teams are too puss to use that job that's their problem.[slayer-jinx-catface]

ResonanceTheGodMay 12, 20161 votes

I prefer to play safely, so I typically play Janna, Thresh, and Alistar. If I want to play Leona, I pick Annie. At least then I can stay at a distance.

Leona is just my most hated champion to play, Katarina being second.

Sorry guys, just my opinion.

Tobias BracknerMay 12, 20167 votes

Leona can engage at a further range and can lockdown people for far longer than Annie and more reliably than her too.

Tbh I don't like Annie supp too much since you are like an off-brand Sona.

SpecterVonBarenMay 12, 201615 votes

Touch my fish and I'll cut you mang. Nami is fine.

ResonanceTheGodMay 12, 20162 votes

Lol. I'm sorry man. I just don't feel like Nami is in a good spot in the current meta.

Tobias BracknerMay 12, 20169 votes

Nami is prefectly fine. She is more aggro than Janna and Soraka. You play her if you want to have an aggro Janna/Soraka.

Tobias BracknerMay 12, 20166 votes

Leona is godlike.

Nami is better at skirmishing imo than Janna/Sona.

Sona is Sona. also She's the same ahead or behind. DAT ULT.

Also there is plenty of variety there, it's not Rito's fault that you only build those items every time. item 2301 Is awesome for mage supp to give MORE AP. Supps can have a good reason to build all boots cept for Zerker and Tabi. And there are enough all AD teams to make Locket/Banner silly choices when you look at other options.

ResonanceTheGodMay 12, 20165 votes

If there's an all AD team, like my favorite dynamic queue special Last Pick Yasuo/Zed when you have an all AD team, I simply replace locket with item 3110 .

Really like the new icon for it too. :P

Friendly RamMay 11, 20161 votes

Which supports do you think need a rework?

MXXXXXLMay 11, 20164 votes

Crap, should've put 'Update' in the title, instead of 'Rework'.

But to answer your question, maybe Soraka ?

Friendly RamMay 11, 20163 votes

Raka was recently updated. Sona has a overhaul in the pipeline. Leo braum and ali are all currently good. Thresh coul use some utility shaved off imho. Nami and janna could use some kit changes. Who did i forget?

MXXXXXLMay 11, 201619 votes

I honestly don't think any of them need a rework, i just think the role itself should be reworked to make it much more fun to play so there'd be a bigger majority of players playing Support.

Hullabaloo907May 11, 201614 votes

Itemization is the problem. And cash flow somewhat.

Tobias BracknerMay 12, 20167 votes

Support is plenty fun to play.

Unless you are playing w/ assholes.