Why did we remove sightstone

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Because supports were** forced to buy it** which reduced their agency.

Jungle had trackers knife, which could have been subbed. In fact, they could build both. AND THEY ROAMED. In regards to macro (not bot lane micro) Roaming warders > non-roaming. Jsing.

I built it because I needed the vision and it gave item active cdr.

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Because supports were forced to buy it which reduced their agency.

Riot is really sensitive to the issue of support agency because they want the position to be as popular as other positions. Support has always been the least popular position. The popularity disparity between positions hurts matchmaking and it's one of the reasons autofill is so common. Not only that, but I think as players the design team also wants all the positions to be fun and have agency because they want to have fun playing their own game.

The thing is though that supports were not actually forced to buy it. Sure it was considered the best build path to rush sightstone in high elo, but I would say that the majority of supports in low elo chose not to rush it or even build it at all sometimes and they did perfectly fine in games. Heck, I climbed all the way to Gold 1 playing support last season and I never built sightstone once in my life (because I personally detest the item).

Imo the support item changes that merged sightstone into the starting items were some of the absolute worst changes Riot has ever put out as all they did was limit diversity and force the warding meta on to every support player even if that was not their preferred gameplay style. It quite literally enforced a meta, and it's a large part of the reason I think you don't see as many players enjoying the support role nowadays as you used to.

Exactly this, imo. Supports across all games tend to be the least popular class, and in League they also have the problem of not fitting very well into itemization, with many options historically given to them to make them more functional, rather than more fun. Sightstone is one of these items, and while it still exists in a different form, it's been made into a goal supports can work towards, and fused with the mandatory items supports always build anyway. Personally, I think there's still progress to be made, since supports are still constrained into buying the same mandatory starting items every game, but it's at least a step forward.

Supports are broken, partly because of sightstone's removal. Bringing sightstone back would've solved the funnel strat.

so they enforced a meta of having to buy pots as a support if u buy a support item ? that makes no sense to me, to be fair though i have 0 understanding of what people are thinking when they play this game... the 50g increase to support items puts me in a slump most days

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Saves an extra slot for me as a support main

You know you had two options for a completed support item, right?

If I have 800 gold on my first back, I'd almost infinitely rather spend it on sightstone than a Kindlegem or a Forbidden Idol...

I'm not happy that you have to complete the dumb quest to get your vision online though. The quest was fine for the bonus passives, but to activate your vision is still irritating. Even still I've had games where I've fully maxed out the item, and then it basically "froze" in terms of gold production, and the sightstone never came online.

Removing trackers knife was a war crime IMO. My Lee Sin and Jax plays have never been the same since.

[{quoted}](name=The Highest Noon,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Qlz0qpuy,comment-id=000b,timestamp=2018-08-13T14:43:23.053+0000)

Good news! Every support gets them now!

I wish. You'd be amazed, and horrified, how many auto filled "suports" buy the first item then simply never upgrade it. Even worse they'll even outright sell spell thief for cash post lane so they can CS.