Support item changes
So with the recent announcement on the PBE about the changes to support items, I honestly feel that Riot is making a mistake by somewhat doing the reverse of what I see as might be the right decision here. Now i'm no support main, but I fill most of the time so I might as well be one. What this change does is remove some meaningful choices from the support item kit that some supports find necessary.
helps so much in protecting or saving that one person who the bursted to high hell or as just a buffer to prevent this.
helps with creating picks, preventing ganks both by slowing the ganker and/or giving vision of who is nearby.
helps with escaping a losing situation, preventing ganks through quick escape, or giving your team a form of engage or backup to engage.
All of these items have useful effects that allow for multiple uses and decision making into how to actually use the item, instead of something like
where it's press the button to stop damage in a fight,
aoe heal and damage dealer,
you take damage from your mark and heal from damage they deal. Removing these items creates a bland feeling the the decisions of the support game, what item should I start (I know that on most champions there really isn't a "choice" but this is more due to champion kits, playstyle, and synergy with these items, a
really wont take FQC or Talisman over FoTM), and how to properly use these items.
In comparison the Eye line of items,
, which are literally just stat sticks with a sightstone in it, providing a bland and non interactive item decision.
Now, there feels like there is something that Riot is forgetting to utilize and possibly actually use as the proper solution to this situation:
. Instead of forcing the supports to continue to have a sight stone, causing an item loss, they should focus on promoting totem usage by rewarding it.
Ideas such as: changing the duration scaling of totems, changing the recharge time on totems, rewarding placing wards by reducing the recharge time by placing wards based on amount of wards placed on the map (each placed removes 10-20 seconds on recharge [
wards and ghost wards don't count]), after certain amount of uses, next ward is a mini control (pretty much a normal ward that has the control passive). This way we prevent going back to season 2-3 situations of support being recognized as the "ward bitch" and instead properly reinforces the fact that everyone needs to ward. Now the downside to this can be that people might refrain from using
, in which these items would need buffs as well.
TLDR: Don't remove usable support items, buff totems, remove sightstone
with one of the active support items such as
, but there will always be meta items and builds no matter what you change. I will try to keep an open mind about the intended changes, but I hope that Riot takes a serious look at what they are doing here before they actually implement this.
helped us a lot. Especially