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balance thoughts: supports are causing the current balance issues

Eryy··2 votes·1,037 views

So as most people know that has played the game in the last few months it currently revolves around bot lane most of the time. This contrary to what some people believe this problem doesn't stem from adcs being overpowered. It comes from the dilemma that there is 2 carries botlane currently, and no real "support" role existing currently.

Before people take this the wrong way let me explain what I am saying. In other e-sports and real life sports there is always someone that takes less for the betterment of their team. Let me use Counter-Strike GO as an example. There is always a player on every team that in tough economic situations use a lesser gun, and buy utility grenades(think of these as wards in this situation) so their team has a better chance to take control or hold control of sites. Riot sort of cut out the economic punishment that it took to buy wards(sightstone) and gave it to them for free therefore in my opinion "eliminating" an economic support role from the game. Along with shoehorning tons of support items that are too gold efficient and overpowered into the game. While I believe it was some what needed to do one or 2 of the actions they did (gold generation items,support items,free sightstone) some of them were unnecessary and pushed the actual "support role" out of the game.

I believe the current state of supports are kind of like shield carries because they offer so much that it's not a realistic sacrificial role. Now they are left with a balance disaster where they either have to take away what support players enjoy or leave the game revolving around botlane constantly,and not indulge in the constant change that made league so special for a long time.

tl:dr removing free sightstones/gold generation item's extra passives would add back a real "support" role to the game making it easier to balance

18 Comments

saltran3 votes

Supps are a problem because they are real champs now, that fact increases botlane's strenght way more than adcs being weak or strong.

Is fine that supps are now strong or should they just be relegated to ward dispensers as once they were?

I honestly don't know, if someone has an answer please tell me.

ModWulf Helhammer1 votes

Exactly. It's not an easy solution.

Did supports need improvements so they were actually picked and not walking ward bots? Absolutely.

The problem is that it has created a situation where when the support is together with the ADC, that ADC becomes unkillable (the intended easy counter to marksmen, that they are squishy as hell) without too much effort from that support.

Buuuut, if you nerf ADCs, you will likely be stuck in the same situation, as they are still going to be unstoppable when they are with that support, while making it massively less satisfying to play as ADC as they are even easier for everything to kill (so if you move barely away from that support, you get one-shot with no chance you your interaction in it)

And on the other side, if you nerf supports, then they go right back to obscurity and negligent play rates.

Eryy1 votes

What I am suggesting is not a flat out "gut" of supports. Simply adding sightstone back and removing them getting it for free would be a great start because they have to spend 800 gold before they can build the OP support items, or risk not having vision.

SammyDayspring1 votes

{quoted}

What I am suggesting is not a flat out "gut" of supports. Simply adding sightstone back and removing them getting it for free would be a great start because they have to spend 800 gold before they can build the OP support items, or risk not having vision.

What OP support items are you referring to? It’s not like the Ardent Censor meta days. It doesn’t feel like any one single item is super OP.

It takes me longer now to get a refillable ward item than it did when I could buy it separately. Finishing the gold quest usually takes longer than earning 800 gold.

Eryy1 votes

it's not about the amount of time it takes it's the fact that you have 800 pure gold more going straight into the super efficient problematic support items. lets use redemption as an example " 97.82% gold efficient, without the passive and active effects." nearing 100% gold efficiency with the super useful effect which in my opinion is probably worth up to 750-1k gold on it's own. Then as you mentioned your self ardent censor " is 108.34% gold efficient without its passive effects.". The point is they get too much gold for how cheap and efficient their builds are. The removal of sightstone allows them to get these items 800 gold quicker also

Eryy1 votes

I don't think they should be ward dispensers but currently they have everything. Free wards, decent gold, decent xp, great items with easy build paths. They need to lose something, and I firmly believe removing the free sightstone and not adding and compensation would be a great start. I think the support items(redemption, locket ect) adds to the role's fun factor so even though they are broken wouldn't be my first point of attack.

Gabresol2 votes

There is currently a complete inbalance between how eaasy iti s to protect high damage over getting rid of it. ADC are dealing massive amount of burst on their basic attack, which means it is a consistence burst output with switchable targets and supports can easily protect with their current tools, making it almost impossible to get rid of a fed ADC without some really well planned ambushes or huge mistakes by them. But taking away the power of the supports will just set up burst mages to take over the role entirely.

Instead there should be a champions that can exploit tiny mistakes to bring chaos into the enemy team and forces supps to quickly react to that chaos to keep the ADC alive.

Zac 's old ultimate is a great example for that. It turned the whole enemy group into utter chaos and gave opportnity to assassins (example) to get the carry.

Dead flag blues1 votes

Enchanter supports mostly. And make them have more AP scalings with less base scalings, because fed or not, their purpose and power will always remain the same. Also make them harder to play, Lulu takes 2 brain cells even if "Lulu mains" claim that she is "mechanically difficult and require decisions to take" (my ass...) Janna only does 2 things during the entire game

Eryy1 votes

Enchanter supports are a issue sure but it's not just them all supports. Braum,Tahm kench,Leona, Ali ect would just be the meta if they only nerfed enchanter supports. They have to nerf the role as a whole or it will leave the tank supports extremely strong.

Step Sis Lux1 votes

Removing free wards and free golds would just kill them, they already make less gold than any other role, also why everybody are so mad about shields. Support is for PROTECTING adc or someone else. Its called support not Engage or somethig for reason

Lost R1 votes

So bring back "real supports" by taking even more away from them? Supports already have more than too much shit to do in order to allow every other role to focus exclusively on their mad rush to get all of the pentakills ever and become the killfastest killfast of Killfastia.

Eryy1 votes

Which role should take the hit in your opinion? Jungle has already lost 30%+ of their gold generation since season 6, and reduced xp rates so I doubt jungle needs to be any weaker. If top lane got weaker the top side of the map would be useless and there would be no reason to go there until baron respawns. Midlane could take a hit but I don't see how that would work.

Lost R1 votes

It isn't about any one role taking the hit. It's about actually realizing that this isn't a 1v9 game and that you shouldn't just pass the buck to someone else or focus so much on getting all of the killfastest pentakills in the omniverse.

Having a team full of ADCs and AD melee assassins is not natural, nor is treating the utility support mage who is grossly underlevelled and underfunded like a frontline tank. The community behavior is the thing that has destroyed the game's balance, which is why you have less than 1 support for every 50,000 players of every other individual role even in the largest, most generous bracket, and why the support players themselves have to be much more aggressive and skilled than any other role.

Go read up on helots in Sparta to start to get a grasp on what I am talking about.

SammyDayspring1 votes

I wonder how many people who complain about supports actually play them? It seems like people just want to be able to blow everyone else up without any counter tactics.

All supports have limited windows of either being able to engage safely or protect their teammates. It is up to you to recognize these windows and play around them. Players want to all-in all the time. It would be impossible to play ADC if that were allowed. Easier shields like Janna’s or Lulu’s only work on one champ at a time. That leaves everyone else open. Adjust your tactics. Bait out shields and wait for them to expire before you dive in.

Eryy1 votes

i've played quiet a bit of support because its simply put the easiest role. Whenever I have to play decay games because i'm taking a break from league or just simply want some easy wins ill hop onto the support role. I understand the game at a pretty high level(this season having a 70% winrate in plat) and being diamond in season 6. I currently have a 100% winrate on soraka with literally no practice on her. It's just a fact that one of the roles has to take the hit, and it only makes sense for it to be the support role that needs to give. Jungle has already taken a giant hit in the last 2 seasons losing massive xp/gold which I don't mind but I do not believe the role would make sense to lose more. If top lane took the hit the role would be demolished and useless. It sucks but that's how league has been balanced in every season except this one. my account that i played ranked this season: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=eryy

SammyDayspring1 votes

{quoted}

i've played quiet a bit of support because its simply put the easiest role. Whenever I have to play decay games because i'm taking a break from league or just simply want some easy wins ill hop onto the support role. I understand the game at a pretty high level(this season having a 70% winrate in plat) and being diamond in season 6. I currently have a 100% winrate on soraka with literally no practice on her. It's just a fact that one of the roles has to take the hit, and it only makes sense for it to be the support role that needs to give. Jungle has already taken a giant hit in the last 2 seasons losing massive xp/gold which I don't mind but I do not believe the role would make sense to lose more. If top lane took the hit the role would be demolished and useless. It sucks but that's how league has been balanced in every season except this one. my account that i played ranked this season: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=eryy

I would hardly call it the easiest role. Sure, you can call it easy if you are sitting back and let the rest of your team carry you, but then you aren’t really playing support. Having a high win rate like that really doesn’t mean anything.

Playing support is already a thankless job. It is still the easiest role to get by far because it is not as exciting to play. My fear is that rolling back the buffs to gold income and warding is going to lose what little ground was gained for people who main support. Yes, the other roles have been nerfed at one time or another, but they have also been buffed a lot more often. Supports usually don’t get that much attention either way. I would also worry about changing supports before the latest ADC changes have a chance to settle down. Nerfing supports usually affects the rest of the team in a larger way than changing any other role.

Blu 11 votes

supports aren't making ADCs 2-3 shot people, but they are making them unkillable

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