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Will Utility Mages Become More Common Supports?

P3rro·11/6/2015, 10:42:31 PM·4 votes·1,130 views

Currently the most utilized AP Utility Mage is Lulu, flexible in 3 Roles and does well in all. Seeing as how the new changes are going to make Marksman and several AD champions much stronger, I'm thinking teams may want supports to be more reliable and well rounded, as opposed to the current prominence of Tank Supports. The talent trees aren't filled with too many small increases and now offers much more versatility in builds. This begs the question if AP Utility Mages can now be strong supports? The utility tree, contains talents, the come to mind. Intelligence is a 5% increased CDR cap & +5% increase to CDR. The other is Windspeaker's Blessing, a 10% increase to shields and 15% resistances on shield target.

Four Utility Mages that may become stronger with these changes are Karma, Sona, Orianna, and Lulu. All are broadly labeled as Utility Mages. While Karma and Lulu are flex picks typically Mid and Support, Orianna and Sona are typically confined to one role each, Mid and Support respectively. Although Karma is used as support, she isn't a particularly popular one, seeing as how Lulu overshadows her. I'm wondering with these changes, how Karma, and now Orianna, will fare in the bot lane as support. Orianna and Karma fill a manipulation niche, in that their abilities involve controlling the battle by hasting/shielding allies or ccing and zoning enemies with damage. With these changes Orianna and Karma will gain a boost in utility with low CD on their shields and CC.

11 Comments

Spoofghoul11/6/2015, 11:47:07 PM2 votes

Lulu flexible in 3 roles? Nope Lulu has the same role in 3 flexible positions.

Dominick Destine11/6/2015, 11:14:52 PM1 votes

Orianna support was pretty legit back in the day.

But back then the range on her Ball was much higher and her damage was much lower... so I doubt we will ever see the return of SuppOrianna.

delonix11/6/2015, 11:12:41 PM1 votes

I think they will. In addition to the increased power of ADCs, traditional AP items are getting nerfed. Utility mages can help increase the magic damage from a team, which forces the opposing team to pick up both armor and magic resist, instead of just stacking armor.

Kitten of Evil11/7/2015, 2:41:08 AM1 votes

Mana regen buffs to the Frost Queen line of items will help them immensely.

Partholonian11/7/2015, 12:54:56 PM1 votes

Not as long as they are so easy to 100-0. Especially with CC heavy marksmen like Jinx combined with an engage support on the other team, there's just no way for Sona Soraka Nami to have even a slight chance to get out alive.

The buffs to FQC line are great on paper, but don't help when you're dead.

Erockandroll11/7/2015, 3:58:23 PM1 votes

for the sake of the argument, I'm going to assume Utility mage means "Utility that scales with AP." Though I think Oriana hardly qualifies, as the only utility scaling is on her shield. I don't think the speed up/slowdown on her W scales. (Though she's still good all around with her ult.)

Utility mages in general, Should never really fall behind, because their utility is always with them regardless of how fed they get. (assuming their utility is strong enough to begin with.) This becomes important for supports, as they don't have the opportunity to build a ton of AP. Though supports do get a lot of CDR, which does increase that amount of CC they can dish out in the extended fight. My question how ever is, "is it worth giving up the damage potential?"

{quoted}

Not as long as they are so easy to 100-0. Especially with CC heavy marksmen like Jinx combined with an engage support on the other team, there's just no way for Sona Soraka Nami to have even a slight chance to get out alive.

The buffs to FQC line are great on paper, but don't help when you're dead.

That's pretty kit reliant though. Sona Nami and Raka really don't have reliable CC (save for some of their ultimates.) But other utility mages like Lulu and Karma have enough speed boosts and slows to kite their opponents. And it's not that likely they will just go 100-0 instantly unless the opponent was an assassin. Utility mages do have kite and escape tools.

Rico Nasty11/7/2015, 1:16:45 AM1 votes

Seeing as mages are going to suck ass in any lane this season that's not bottom lane, yeah, I could see them overshadowing tank supports. Also the fact that AD based champions are going to be in every role.