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Let's Talk Meta Flexibility, Supports, and Junglers

Hyrum Graff··5 votes·1,534 views

#For a tl;dr, read just the section headers. Then read the sections you're interested in.

Premises:

  • As long as it's not oppressive for the other team (looking at you, lulu top), playing champions in different lanes is fun.
  • A more flexible meta is fun.
  • It sucks to feel less useful than the rest of your team even when you're doing well.
  • The ability to successfully play champs in different lanes opens up more possibilities for the meta.
    • That is, if every champ could only be played in one lane and role, the meta becomes significantly less flexible.

I think most people will agree with those, so I'm not going to argue them. f you don't, make a new thread and link me to it and we can discuss it there.

I think that a significant source of inflexibility in the meta right now is gold distribution between roles -- where junglers and Supports get less gold than their CSing counterparts. Why?

  • In order for a support/jungler to be useful when they're so behind in gold, they need to have overloaded kits.
  • This means that they can't have good scaling, because good scaling + overloaded kit = oppressive and OP (see: Lulu top).
  • Since they have poor scaling, they can't be taking into lane to cs with, because they can't use that gold well.
  • Therefore those champs can only jungle or support.
  • Therefore the meta remains inflexible.

How to solve this problem?

Give all roles equal gold, by buffing support item gold generation and adding jungle camp / increasing jg rewards. I'll talk about my specific suggestions for how to do this at the end of this post.

Riot actually tried to do this, in the last preseason, to supports, by adding support items. And what did we see? A bunch of mages who had previously been restrained to the mid lane, moved into the support role. This is a good thing -- diversity!

Obviously, this creates a bunch of issues, too.

  • When burst mages moved bot, they pushed out a lot of traditional supports (remember the annie/thresh/leona meta -- Where only thresh/leo could compete with annie? Yeah...)
    • The reason for this was that supports didn't have the scaling to make use of all this gold
  • Remember FF? When you make it a strong strat to farm the jungle, it just feels bad -- that the enemy jungler can farm in safety, without being harassed, and then come out and solocarry the game.

So, what's the solution to traditional supports not being able to use their gold well?

Give them scaling! I'm talking strong scaling. 1k janna shields, +100% MS lulu, etc. Let's do away with this concept of a 'support,' who's doomed to be a second class citizen, yelled at for KSing and not warding literally the entire map, and introduce the concept of a utility carry.

A pure utility carry (because champs fall on a spectrum between damage and utility) has no damage scaling on their abilities (that is, ability damage scales only with level) and instead has utility scaling. Personally, I think it'd be cool to have items that gave utility scaling, but I'd be fine with utility scaling with AP on utility carries, as well, as long as their damage doesn't also scale well with AP, because then you get the Lulu problem.

"But Riot already gave supports utility scaling in S4 preseason, and that didn't exactly work as intended!"

Well, sort of. When RIot gave supports utility scaling, they took a step in the right direction. Yes, there was a time when botlane was pretty terribly balanced, but that was just Riot adjusting. By now, bot lane has settled back into balance. However, the same issue of supports needing overloaded kits still exists, because gold is still imbalanced; it's just not as bad as it was. (remember S3, the season of the walking ward machine?) So I'd argue that the S4 changes did work as intended, they just weren't enough, as evidenced by the state of Lulu.

If we were to make these changes, would each utility carry need their stats to be rebalanced? Of course. So saying, "but that would make lulu supp super op!" isn't a good counter-argument, because if lulu supp is OP, that's because lulu is OP everywhere and needs nerfs, not that the system is a bad one.

But, if support items let you get as much gold as if you're csing, why bother csing?

Because the support items, in early levels, won't give the same combat stats, so you won't win all-ins. It's the same reason not many adcs buy a LS + 3 pots, even though it gives you better trading and a jump start on your build. See the following section:

So, what were those support item changes you were talking about earlier?

I'd like to do to support items, basically what Riot is doing to jg items this preseason: give them each a base, based on your playstyle, with several enchantment paths based on what stats you want. Bases (playstyles):

  • Spellthief: Poke
  • Coin: Sustain yourself
  • Shield: Sustain your csing partner

Enchantments:

  • Warrior: AD and lifesteal
  • Magus: AP and CDR
  • Juggernaut: HP, armor, and tenacity

Each of the base items will not grant any direct combat stats (ap, etc), and the passives can be tuned to compensate, until the items are each in a good position.

The jungle is the other area with a gold imbalance problem

So let's buff jungle gold, too.

But as we saw with FF, it sucks when junglers feel as strong as laners, without any of the associated risk.

This issue is specific to junglers who just powerfarm, because they don't have anyone to contend with in their own jungle. Wait. "No opponents in their jungle." There's a pretty easy way to fix that -- **we also need to make invading easier. **

The S5 preseason jungle item changes do this, somewhat, by giving Riot a lever to tune how powerful invading is. But I think that if we fixed the gold discrepancy issue completely, just making the counterjungle item stronger wouldn't be enough. We also need to make invading easier and, more importantly, safer. This would require reworking jungle pathing so that counterjunglers have safer exits.

A rework of jungle pathing is highly unlikely, given the release of the new SR, so I don't think that jungle gold is something we can fix completely, right now. But I do think the new jungle items will allow us to lower the discrepancy a little bit.

#Wrapping up: What would this meta look like?

I still think that the dominant strategy would be similar to live.

  • You'd put a utility carry with a damage carry in botlane.
    • I think that combo results in the most effective damage and safety.
  • You'd probably still want a jungler. Although the jungler can get as much gold in lane,
    • He'll be getting less XP.
    • You won't have the same objective control.
    • You won't have the same gank pressure.

The point, though, is that a duo top, double jg, or double adc bot strat wouldn't be as blatantly bad. The popularity of support (as distinct from utility carry - support is now a role, defined by being in lane but not csing) and jungle roles would hopefully increase, because, at long last, support karma will stop feeling like she tickles compared to lane karma.

Thanks for reading. Thoughts?

24 Comments

MEMEME6704 votes

Two big things here.

1: If coin makes solid amounts of gold, and the playstyle it promotes is 'do literal nothing in lane but heal yourself', then it can never be powerful. Because, were it to be powerful, bot lane would stagnate and nothing would happen.

2: Riot can't remove damage scaling on most supports. There are many players who love playing Sona//Janna//Lulu in solo lanes, and removing damage scaling would remove that from the game. In the same vein, Leona is INSANE with any sort of utility scaling.

Hyrum Graff2 votes

1: If coin makes solid amounts of gold, and the playstyle it promotes is 'do literal nothing in lane but heal yourself', then it can never be powerful. Because, were it to be powerful, bot lane would stagnate and nothing would happen.

Agreed, but disagreed. Coin in its current form promotes literally doing nothing. But I think you could make changes to it. For example, one thing I can think of off the top of my head would be to keep the gold generation the same, but move the sustain onto a spellthief-like passive: regen hp each time you damage an enemy (or mitigate enemy damage in some way).

2: Riot can't remove damage scaling on most supports. There are many players who love playing Sona//Janna//Lulu in solo lanes, and removing damage scaling would remove that from the game. In the same vein, Leona is INSANE with any sort of utility scaling.

I don't think solo lane Sona/Janna/Lulu would die if they lost damage scaling, as long as their bases were good enough.

Furthermore, that's why I said everyone is on a spectrum. Sona, for example, should have less utility scaling and more damage scaling, IMO, than Janna.

If Leona is insane with scaling, you've got two options:

  1. Give her poor scaling. Now she's an early game bully who falls off later, which is perfectly acceptable.
  2. Give her decent/good scaling but a weaker early game. I think this is also acceptable, although perhaps less true to Leona's current identity. Also, if she's building AP for utility scaling, she's not building as tanky, and she likes to dive into the middle of the enemy team. I think it's a decent tradeoff.

In general, though, this falls into the class of argument of "Champ X would be OP." The solution to which is "change the power level and/or kit of champ X," not, "rework the whole system."

MEMEME6702 votes

1: If coin becomes spellthiefs but with less gold gen and a less aggressive passive (Aka: Coin wants you to be aggressive to get benefits that non aggressive supports want), then nobody will ever buy it (not that anyone buys it now, but still).

2: You aren't a solo lane Sona player then. The people that play these solo lane supports aren't trying to cc the enemy for ridiculous amounts of time. They want to kill whole waves with Tornadoes and kill people with a Sona rotation. Utility scaling requires you to take damage scaling away from them, significantly nerfing what they want out of the character, and then giving them essentially nothing in return (Because they don't really care about the utility as opposed to the damage).

It's not just Leona though. Alistar is also probably OP if he has any sort of reasonable cc duration scaling. You make Taric able to scale the amount of AD//AP he gives with his ult while scaling his stun duration and suddenly he's amazing too.

All tank supports are broken if they can scale their cc durations up reasonably. Which brings us to my next point: Having utility scaling on only traditional supports means Riot specifically defines what is a traditional support and what isn't. Does nautilus deserve utility scaling? Nunu? What about Karma?

There's no non-arbitrary way to define who should get it and who shouldn't, so regardless of if it's balanced or not, (and it seems relatively impossible to balance on tank supports without being useless) the playerbase will be up in arms because X champion who they think should've gotten them didn't, or Z champion who shouldn't have gotten them did.

Jungle Lux God4 votes

I feel like the point that you made about champs in the support and jungler roles having overloaded kits with poor scaling is actually false with quite a few champs, most notably tank supports/junglers.

There are quite a few tank junglers that go jungle not because they don't scale well but because their early game is weak, preventing them from going into a solo lane. A good example of this is Rammus: Rammus gets really tanky for the late game, but his weak early game and his mana costs restrict him from the solo lanes, leaving him to play in the jungle, where he can use his mobility to work and turn into a ganking beast. And Rammus is not the only tank jungler like this, as just about every tank jungle works like this: too weak to lane, strong enough late to be picked for it, and has enough early game presence to justify a jungle pick.

There are some supports that work like this as well. A good example is Leona: her solo laning isn't quite the best, but she makes for a good duo laner with her passive and CC offering a lot of lane pressure, and she scales well because of how tanky she gets with her bonus resistances off of her W.

Hyrum Graff2 votes

I feel like the point that you made about champs in the support and jungler roles having overloaded kits with poor scaling is actually false with quite a few champs, most notably tank supports/junglers.

There are quite a few tank junglers that go jungle not because they don't scale well but because their early game is weak, preventing them from going into a solo lane. A good example of this is Rammus: Rammus gets really tanky for the late game, but his weak early game and his mana costs restrict him from the solo lanes, leaving him to play in the jungle, where he can use his mobility to work and turn into a ganking beast. And Rammus is not the only tank jungler like this, as just about every tank jungle works like this: too weak to lane, strong enough late to be picked for it, and has enough early game presence to justify a jungle pick.

There are some supports that work like this as well. A good example is Leona: her solo laning isn't quite the best, but she makes for a good duo laner with her passive and CC offering a lot of lane pressure, and she scales well because of how tanky she gets with her bonus resistances off of her W.

You're correct to some extent, but I have a few counterpoints:

  1. How many tank junglers are strong at high elos/competitively, right now?
  2. I would argue that their abilities actually do scale poorly with gold (but have strong bases) which means their lategame revolves primarily around how many ability rotations they can get off, and how long they can disrupt the enemy carries, which scales with tankiness and cdr -- stats with a different power curve than AD or AP. The way these power spikes happen compared to when those champs get power spikes compliment each other in such a way that they stay strong.
  3. I would argue that these champs actually do have overloaded kits, but that they've had somewhat kit limitations placed on them that prevent them from being effective solo laners (this is good champ design, but not good systems design). If rammus's q allowed him to move through minions, or if Leo could proc her own passive, I think they might become oppressive, in lane.
Jungle Lux God2 votes

  1. Rammus is actually a really strong junger right now, and was even picked at worlds. Other than that, I agree, not to many, but then again the meta in seaon 4 has not been kind to tank junglers.

  2. The abilities of a lot of tanks don't scale well, but I distinctly mentioned Leona because her tankiness does scale the resistances on her W, and Nautilus and Braum, also have similar defensive scaling on defensive abilities.

  3. These champs actually don't have overloaded kits. Rammus a movement speed boost and a knockup, a resistance buff with spike damage, a taunt, minor AoE damage that can damage turrets, and an AD boost. That isn't very overloaded, especially when compared to some laners. Same with Leona: stun, resistance buff, gapcloser/interrupt, AoE stun/slow, and a passive ally damage boost. Not overloaded.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

  1. Agreed on all counts. I also acknowledge that the jungle is way more complex than 'just a gold issue' and I don't think that fixing the gold issue would fix the jungle. I do think it would be a step in the right direction, though.

  2. Yes, Leo has scaling with her W, but it doesn't do that much in terms of threat level. You're not like, "Oh, man, leona got a randuins, now she's gonna destroy me."

  3. You're right, I misspoke. Although I do think they have a lot of base power in their kits, and that leona in particular would become oppressive in mid if she had better offensive scaling, I think they're primarily just well-designed champs. They have strong enough strengths to do well even without gold, but clear enough weaknesses that even though they have decent scaling, they're not oppressive in solo lanes. However I'd argue that this has more to do with defensive scaling being healthier overall than offensive scaling, than with gold income disparity not being an issue.

Lowvyr3 votes

I mean, any champion can be played anywhere. Nothing is stopping you. They may just preform better in certain lanes/roles, but that doesn't mean that you are absolutely not allowed to do it. I played Janna mid, and no one complained. I actually did really well. I played Talon jungle, and did decent. I played Fizz jungle, and did ok. People won't really complain that much about you breaking the meta so long as you do good.

I my opinion, the meta is as flexible as you allow it to be. If you despise Katarina jungle, then that lowers the flexibility of the meta for YOU. The way I see it, the meta is different for each person. I see Zed and Talon jungle as viable roles, and if I had Zed would actually play it quite a bit. Each person has their own mind-set on what the meta is and isn't. If you don't like Riven jungle, then don't play it, but don't complain about it when other people do, because that is their form of the meta.

Again, every champ can be played anywhere. No one is stopping is you. Go to blind and autolock that Fiora support, people will get mad, but if they want to win, they will listen to you and compensate for your idea. Just go out and break the "meta". Whatever you want to play, play it. No one is stopping you.

Narasimha1 votes

There is a slight flaw in your logic. Especially in the support and jungle roles, it doesn't matter how well you know your champion, but rather how well your team knows how to work with that champion. You could be AMAZING at Katarina support. But it won't do a whit if your laning partner isn't sure when to go all in, poke, or disengage with you.

Lowvyr1 votes

I wasn't trying to say anything like that, I was just saying that nothing is stopping you from playing Katarina support. Unless they dodge. Then you just try again. I see issues can arise like that, I never said they wouldn't. My idea is that you can play whatever you want. It may not be an optimal or even viable choice, but you can do it. I've seen Lucian jungle work, I've actually done it myself.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

The value of communication..

When I play kat support, I let my adc know that if they get caught, I have no cc to save them, and just to stay in range so I can jump to them, to safety. play one of two ways, depending on the lane matchup:

  • If they have a lot of sustain, this is a kill lane (because sustain supports are squishy -- focus them). Ask for an early jungle gank (lvl 3), and do a lvl 2 all-in with your jungler coming, too.
    • This is pretty similar to other kill lanes, so you don't need to give your adc special instruction, just ping when you're going in.
  • If they don't have sustain, they're usually a disengage or all in lane that's strong vs me, so I'm a poke lane, where I harass with bouncing blades and use shunpo to get to safety / prevent them from engaging on me.
    • adcs aren't used to this, but they do well if I ask them to play like it's a 1v2, with me doing my own separate 1v2 that happens to be in the same lane.
Hyrum Graff2 votes

I can and do play whatever I want, but it's fun to feel strong, and there are some picks which are objectively stronger than others (janna mid not being one of them, unless you've got a team comp build around that). I'd like to change it so I can feel strong enough to have fun when playing a greater variety of picks.

Worgslarg1 votes

I can accept the value of diversity; personally however, I am very much against a lack of/weaker a meta. The top/mid/jg/adc/supp meta keeps league in enough of a standard state that solo or duo queue are playable.

Consider your average team: Little/no teamwork, champion picks that do not complement each other(assassin jungle, ap top, ap support, etc), frequent infighting and raging. It is my belief that were there no meta, league would become painful to play; even in blind pick you have an idea of what you will face, and by level 30, people generally have enough compliance to form a team. Drop the meta, and you have 4 people along you all coming up with different ideas on how to deal with the 3 man midlane, or the triple jungle. Because each game would be different and no one would be able to strategize in game, raging and quitting would increase.

If league got rid of the top/mid/adc/jg/supp meta, I'd honestly quit for some other game before the chaos erupted.

That said, I am all for champion diversity within meta lanes; Want to vlad* support? Go for it.

*Random champ, don't mean to offend anyone who would play vlad support.

EDIT: One other problem with the increased gold income would be that a double spellthief apc botlane would have the same gold income as an adc who's csing, but the double apc is a much earlier powerspike.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

Most of your post -snip-

I agree that complete chaos isn't healthy for a competitive game. However, as I said in the "Wrapping Up" section, I don't think these changes would actually shake up the meta that much. Because I still think that DPS (adc) + utility is the strongest/safest laning pair.

I also think that teams that followed the meta, especially in soloq, would have better teamwork and perform better, so I think the meta would stay, even if there were other strategies that were just as viable.

EDIT: One other problem with the increased gold income would be that a double spellthief apc botlane would have the same gold income as an adc who's csing,

I don't know exactly how I'd do it, but I'd add in some mechanic to make csing a requirement. 1-1-3? Should be do-able (but bad). But there should always be someone csing in every lane. Maybe it's that someone needs to be csing nearby in order for the gold generation items to work. There would be a limiting mechanic to prevent this, though.

but the double apc is a much earlier powerspike.

True, but they also scale harder with levels, so they're still stronger in solo lanes. I'd expect duo adc lanes to be more common, actually, because they care less for levels than for gold.

Worgslarg1 votes

I still feel that any changes to the laning meta would be too hard for any solo/duo teams to adapt to ingame, making premade 5's over a skype call the only way to play league and have more than random chance to win.

Putting that aside, it sucks to get stuck in a 1v2 lane, and by reducing the stability of the meta, it's something that would happen far more.

I'd love to see more variety in viable roles though. I've got nothing against nami mid, or zed jungle, etc.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

I still feel that any changes to the laning meta would be too hard for any solo/duo teams to adapt to ingame

I agree with your sentiment, here. I don't think a change to the 1-1-2-jungler meta would be good.

making premade 5's over a skype call the only way to play league and have more than random chance to win.

I don't agree with this conclusion, though. That's because, any scenario where you change the lane distribution, 3 players have to change where they're playing. A duo might go into a game being OK with changing the meta, but they'd need a 3rd person who's also okay with it. Since I don't think many people will be OK with a 1v2 lane, or a 2v1 lane (they're a different way of playing), I just think the meta won't change much, not that it will change and will suck.

So instead of more variety in roles and a less flexible meta, I think we'd see more variety in roles in soloq, with the same meta.

In premade 5's I think the story might be significantly different (and, can we talk about how a safe adc like lucian or trist mid, combined with annie/blitz or veigar/nami bot, is freakin' strong?).

UltraRapidFiora1 votes

I'll be honest, I love seeing champions that can perform "well" in more than one lane.

7ha7guy7771 votes

with the right support (Blitzcrank ) and proper communication, Thresh can actually be played as a marksman. his low range and lack of AD scaling on anything other than Flay can be a problem. i have no idea if it works at higher elos, but it's stupidly effective at times.

Sightless661 votes

I think that a significant source of inflexibility in the meta right now is gold distribution between roles -- where junglers... get less gold than their CSing counterparts.

Is this actually a justified postulate? Riot actually noted that their jungle rework is meant to decrease the resources available to the jungler, because this season they tend to be so strong that they control games to a degree that other roles don't.

Hyrum Graff2 votes

I believe so. As I said, I believe that most common junglers are dominant right now because they have overloaded kits (which is why they are strong enough to control games so much), rather than because the role is strong as a whole.

Granted, these are difficult things to distinguish between on a non-theoretical basis.

Remlap12231 votes

I agree with this 100%. No role gets kicked in the dick harder than falling behind than supports, and there's no role more hopeless to come back from falling behind in than junglers. Basically, if bot gets fed and the carry falls behind, they can farm to dust themselves off and come back. Supports don't get this luxury, and become useless the rest of the game, being depreived of gold and experience.

Junglers have a similar problem. Because laners are so invested in getting fed, unless they already are, if you get an invade happy jungler (I'm looking at youLeeSin and Shaco) you're instantly flatlined. Your ganks are instantly going to be much weaker, you're going to be forced to farm up and stay in jungle, while the ahead jungler gets free roaming privileges. I never get more frustrated than when falling behind as a jungler, because the team can't (or won't) help, and the enemy jungler just camps and I can't engage. It's fun to have a challenging opponent in the game, it's not fun to have to deal with an unstoppable force of nature that is a lose-lose situation no matter what you do.

Fixing the gold generation for the roles will help, but I also think the new jungle will help with this too. If we can allow supports to comeback with their carries, rather than just completely left behind, I think we can improve the support culture as well as the game health (no more going to Korea to finding support mains Murikan teams, when you can improve the culture of supports to find more players that enjoy supporting as much as I do.)

Hyrum Graff1 votes

I agree that the new jungle will help, some.

On the current map, I don't think junglers should be given gold generation on par with laners, because of the gank factor. If junglers were as strong as laners, ganks would become super effective, which would be unhealthy, like alistar jungle.

If we were able to change up the jungle paths to make invading easier, I'd also make ganking harder. This allows junglers to be stronger, without making their ganks as OP.

Lishe1 votes

Riot will never buff supports, specially if they see solo lane play. Every time it has happened they have been nerfed until it wasn't good/ fun to do anymore. See: Lulu/Taric top, janna mid, etcetera. Support champions got scaling on their slows/utility as replacement for extra damage in a lot of cases. They were created to support and that's what they'll do. That's what Riot makes me feel honestly.

Hyrum Graff2 votes

It has less to do with supports not being "allowed" to be in solo lanes, and more about, "When lulu has good utility and damage scaling, she goes and bullies top laners, who can't do anything against her." and "When Janna's tornado deals enough damage, she just instaclears the wave everytime, which also sucks to play against.

If supports could be healthy in solo lanes, which some of them can (see: karma), then there's no reason they shouldn't be able to go there.

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