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The Mage Support Situation in Bot Lane

sKz Aaron D·12/7/2017, 8:19:46 PM·2 votes·912 views

https://gyazo.com/c064cabdc92b36c926c9172f7edbd136

There are 10 mages and 1 caster ADC that currently hold the top 11 spots for damage dealt in the support role. The top one averages 24K damage per game (henceforth DPG) while the lowest averages 16K DPG. Compare that with the top rated real support on the list - Morgana, at just under 14K DPG and the two lowest damage dealing supports, Soraka and Taric, averaging less than 6K DPG. This doesn't mean supports need more damage - that would be bad for the health of the game, but something does needs to be done about the prevalence of mages in support.

http://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.totalDamageDealtToChampions&order=descend&roleSort=Support

http://champion.gg/champion/Xerath/Support http://champion.gg/champion/Velkoz/Support http://champion.gg/champion/Zyra/Support http://champion.gg/champion/Lux/Support http://champion.gg/champion/MissFortune/Support http://champion.gg/champion/Fiddlesticks/Support

These first 6 have much higher win rates for games ending between 0-20 minutes - they're poke heavy casters and are simply crowding out bot lane right now. Normally, these champions would have to focus on farming creeps, and often their mana and cooldowns are used to aid in CSing. But when played as support, they can simply focus on poking the entire time. This is particularly difficult to deal with in cases where they run the Sorcery Tree's Arcane Comet, Manaflow Band, and Scorch.

http://champion.gg/champion/Teemo/Support http://champion.gg/champion/Veigar/Support http://champion.gg/champion/Brand/Support http://champion.gg/champion/Zoe/Support http://champion.gg/champion/Annie/Support

Obviously, damage is not the only stat that matters, which is why these 11 champions don't simply have the 11 highest support win rates in order of damage dealt. In fact, 8 of them occupy the bottom 8 win rates. Most do not have good tools to escape engages (only 5 movement abilities total, with only 2 being reliably useful as escapes), and all but 1 do not have any way to buff friendly champions. The problem is the anti-fun play pattern they encourage as supports. High damage, with most offering either relentless poke or high impact crowd control - or both in cases like Lux.

12 Comments

Metal Janna12/7/2017, 8:28:33 PM5 votes

And yet the 5 highest winrate supports (Leona, Taric, Blitzcrank, Alistar, and Shen) are all tanks. That should tell you that mage supports in general are not overpowered. So if they aren't overpowered then what's anti-fun about them?

Titanium7012/7/2017, 9:03:07 PM3 votes

Well for starters - you could allow Mages to once again Scale wth Gold and give them their mid lane back. This way a mage would actually think it's worse playing from Supp instead of Mid.

sKz Aaron D12/7/2017, 8:51:23 PM1 votes

I didn't say they were overpowered. I even pointed out counters and the fact that 8 of them occupy the bottom 8 support win rates. I stated the reason they were anti-fun - they are mages that are supposed to be focusing on CSing, but because they are played support instead of mid, they just poke the entire time. 6 of them have win rates for 0-25 minutes that are anywhere from 5-20% higher than their mid-late game win rates in bot lane. That is proof of it being an oppressive laning experience - i.e. anti-fun.

Overpowered is more that numbers are simply too strong. Whereas Riot has stated that anti-fun is when an element of play feels very bad to play against.

sKz Aaron D12/8/2017, 1:10:56 AM1 votes

The analyst desk and player interviews at All-Stars just talked about this exact thing. Sneaky always banning MF in ranked, desk wants to see Xerath support. I have been vindicated.

VIDEOGAMER4412/8/2017, 2:08:02 AM1 votes

Funk supports with mage tht 1hit adcs with a sight stone :CAnnie Zyra Karma