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Can we please just skip the part where we have broken support items for another 2 years?

Josh Sand·11/24/2019, 9:17:42 PM·32 votes·14,887 views

I don't know how much longer we have to live with this design problem, but it's been going on for years now, while ignoring the issue's root cause.

The entire class of support champions are 100% dependent on items that are balanced against abuse cases first, and role usefulness second

I think it's safe to say that when you are designing an item that has to be pre-balanced against solo lane or jg abuse, while also delivering the core functions of a role, you're already setting yourself up for creating a sub-par item, right out of the gate.

This is a problem that has been literally solvable since the first Sightstone replacement was created, and I don't understand why Riot is so focused on trying to perfect an over-engineered strategy that has been failing support players for years now.

This preseason, Riot can make the choice to add 5 or 6 items to the shop that only support champions can buy, and solve this problem once and for all.

Or they can just continue to pursue the dream of the perfect innovation, by continuing forward on an unnecessarily complicated design path.

Riot pls remember that** "Done is better than Perfect" **

70 Comments

Woodakoodashooda11/24/2019, 10:38:53 PM5 votes

What is a support champion? Who would get to decide?

There are some obvious choices, but others are not so black and white.

JPlayah11/25/2019, 6:07:51 AM4 votes

On one side, you have ADC players, junglers, etc. who feel harassed by a support they feel has too much raw power and kill potential. On the other hand with the item changes, you have these support players who suddenly feel powerless because their gold income falls off late game, and gold is the resource in League that lets you buy cool items. I don't really care what the solution is so long as there is one. As someone who plays support, I don't necessarily need a ton of damage. I just want to have fun by having SOME form of power to contribute to my team's success in a clearly visible way. And right now I don't have that.

TheDelighted11/25/2019, 6:19:09 PM4 votes

Pre Season 11, Dragons are now minions that spawn granting a dragon soul each time they are killed. When one champion hits 100 first a cataclysmic ray is shot towards this lane instantly killing and destroying anything it touches. - "you obviously lost laning so gg ez scrub" - Some Dude 2020

Also supports are deleted "They proved to be toxic to the gameplay of league not enough damage lol and protecting their allies? OMG" - Some other dude 2020

Assassins are reworked to have at least 5 jumps in their kit, each one refreshing when an other one is used and when you purchase a starter item you get 100 lethality. "Enhancing flashy moves, git gud scrub, not my fault you cant hit a skill shot.." - Some other other dude 2020

ALso at 15 minutes the game is superurfed meaning all damaging champsions get 1000% damage and 1000% more attackspeed, if the game is not ended in 1 minute the winning team gets 5 times that. "The game is already lost, so no way of comebacks" - 2020

This may seem too trolly, but think that a while back a marksman support was thought to be a troll pick. Awaiting those dragon soul minions. <3

WoonStruck11/24/2019, 9:36:39 PM4 votes

There's no support exclusive summoner that's somewhat detrimental to other users in the way smite can be, as far as opportunity cost.

How would they pin items exclusively to support? By further restricting which champions can succeed in support or even other lanes by tagging items as champion exclusive? By receiving the "support" role? What if you swap with someone because you got autofilled?

The problem is that Riot allowed supports to have a power fantasy (having gold and purchasing stats), and that power fantasy doesn't work. They need to be moved back to ward bots, have buffed base stats/damage (thus early agency that no other class has), and REMOVE the large majority of offensive stat scaling. In order for this to work, however, free damage from items such as Liandry's needs to be removed as well to prevent significant scaling on non-scaling champions (brand, zyra, etc).

AP and AD were never supposed to be stats that were given freely to supports, and it has messed up the balance of every support, from enchanters to tanks, to even assassins and mages.

People might not like it, but that's how supports are played in strategy games. You don't get massive utility (vision and other forms) without giving something up in return. If this happens, vision utility needs to be reduced from other roles, however.

Look at a game like DotA. People don't mind playing support in that game. They have just as much agency as any other class, if not more at certain stages, but very often lack direct kill potential, or give something up in exchange for it. And you DON'T get gold as support. You get like 1/3 the gold of carries and spend the majority of it on wards.

Riot needs to overhaul itemization in general and give each class of champions specific goals, and give items specific use cases instead of general stat buffs and universal damage increases.

This game is going to die, at least to western audiences, and itemization is going to be the reason why, because Riot refuses to overhaul itemization and scaling as a whole.

Go ahead and downvote me for saying it.

GigglesO11/24/2019, 10:47:37 PM3 votes

At this point, they should just remove gold gen. Make all gold and exp evenly distributed to the team...

Fucking done...

Modnar Erom11/30/2019, 7:32:15 PM2 votes

They don't even have to create support only items. All that needs to be done is offset the potential gold gain on gold gen items with a permanent proportional reduction in CS gold while the item is in one's inventory. Then anyone, in any position, can buy a gold gen item, and it won't break the game. Unfortunately, it requires high school level math to do the proper calculations, so I wouldn't count on it....

Brutalitops0111/24/2019, 10:12:21 PM1 votes

The problem comes into play when you realize that items that previously gave gold generation and weren't balanced for supports were so good, people reported you for trolling if you didn't buy all of them. If you make the items "support only," well, I ask you, what constitutes a support? There are many champions who can be played support or in another lane/role. Vel'Koz, Brand, Lux, and Senna immediately come to mind, just to name a few. If you limit it to the champions who generally play support, they'll be picked in other lanes more and the items will still be abused in a roundabout way. If you limit them to people who are selected as the support in champion select by the system, what happens if the support and another laner decide to lane swap? There is no official system in place for that, though I think that there should be. And even then, what about picks such as Miss Fortune support that the pros used as a counter pick to Zyra a few years ago? Locking them to support leaves them with a wide variety of "what-ifs" that easily can come up, not to mention that they would have to add in an exception for each of these items in the code to allow a new champion designed for support to take them. Supports have a wide enough range of champions that they can't just make them melee or range only, and a wide enough variety of summoner spells that they can't just limit them to if you've taken exhaust, and on top of that, champions in middle lane also frequently take both exhaust and ignite. Unless they designed a summoner spell for support specifically that was detrimental enough for other roles that they wouldn't take it, but still appealing enough for supports to want to take it over all of their other options, similar to what Smite is for junglers, there just isn't a way to limit them to "the person who's playing support role." Balancing the items to be detrimental enough to other roles, in the current case, their gold generation over the course of the game, is the only real way to even attempt to make gold income items work. They could remove gold income items entirely and just bring back Sightstone, 800 gold for some HP and 3 wards that refilled when you based, but that would also be counterintuitive, as the supports would then no longer have gold income, and support items would have to have their costs lowered as a means of making them cost effective from the support's perspective. Which would make them abusable for other roles because now you have items that are 150-200% gold efficient from the perspective of another role. Then all of support itemization would have to be balanced with the other roles in mind to make sure that the stats they give can't be abused. See how this keeps looping around? No, making them balanced from the perspective of the support by limiting the gold that other roles get using the item is the only balanced way to make it work. And yes, they will take some time to balance out just right. But increasing gold income is a risky thing in a game like League of Legends.