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As a support, I think this season is okay but it could be better for everyone.

Hemulen Magi··31 votes·12,083 views

As a support player, I'm generally enjoying the game. I feel like I have more impact than in previous seasons, but I would appreciate if riot would separate support power from ADCs. I feel like support synergizes too strongly with the marksmen and ONLY marksmen, rather than support simply being too strong in general. I would rather support the whole team than feel like I am a travelling ADC buff. If everyone shared a bit more equally from the support's strength, then people wouldn't feel like bot lane's impact is so unfairly weighted.

item 3107 item 3110 are okay examples of items that can support the whole team but I don't think every support item should be AOE/aura either.

item 3050 could be turned into an item that the support binds to a tank/fighter in order to summon two melee range storms that are stronger when converging so that you buy it as a support tank and coordinate to engage with your bound melee ally.

I also wish there were more bot carries than marksmen and I wish that there were item equivalents to item 3504 that I could buy to support the team's mage carries.

item 3905 could be an item that you bind to a mage ally, and when you activate the item, 1 ghost travels from each of you and you both gain bonus magic pen against enemies slowed by the ghosts.

item 3001 could also be made to work better as a support tank item to amplify allied mages' damage output.

item 3174 could also be updated to grant allies temporary AP when consuming blood charges to heal them.

I think those items would open up bot lane diversity, but they could also be purchased after laning to augment the mid-lane mage. The support and marksman combo is naturally powerful together, which is why it's been the meta forever, but that might change with 3 new options specifically to support an allied mage. item 3905 would be the option for supports like Morgana who deal decent magic damage themselves. item 3001 would be best on support tanks. item 3174 would be the option for enchanters to support bot magic damage carries.

If this happened, I would personally take Kayle Janna Lulu support with item 3504 item 3174 item 3905 item 3091 to support a Azir Teemo Corki Kennen on hit magic damage carry.

I'd take Alistar Blitzcrank Braum Galio Nautilus Maokai with item 3001 and maybe item 3905 item 3109 to protect and engage for a hypercarry or artillery magic damage carry like Cassiopeia Karthus Veigar Xerath AniviaViktor Ziggs , and I'd CC the enemy so that my mage ally could land skill shots. I'd also take item 3050 on these supports to engage with the team's front liners if it was strong, so that would help spread out the support's strength to help the top/jg players too.

Morgana Malzahar Fiddlesticks would be good counter supports against magic damage carries in bot lane thanks to black shield and silences. Morgana's black shield would likely make her the ultimate counter, and she'd also work well supporting all kinds of magic damage carries, so she'd need almost definitely need nerfs with the suggested meta shift.

18 Comments

flibitydoo10 votes

As a raka player, if item 3504 gave movespeed instead of attackspeed on heal/shield, it would still help adcs kite but it'd be way more universal and helpful to the rest of the team. Not only that, it would make the item a strategic choice that changes your abilities and how you look at them "oh look we're getting ganked, let's try to out run them, I'll start healing" or "Let's haste our darius so he can go in and land a good apprehend".

Instead it's been reworked SPECIFICALLY with Janna in mind because it was reworked by a janna main who also reworked Janna at the same time. Making the item feel super "we gotta enforce da adc meta".

PokladnicaZla4 votes

It would also be more cancerous.Sure, ADCs like Ashe,Jinx,Varus woild benefit,but do we really want Vayne,Lucian to have even more mobiliy?

Maybe if you made the MS-buff specific like only towards ememies ( really good for melee) or more MS towatds your or/and other allies.

cyprien25094 votes

{quoted}

As a raka player, if item 3504 gave movespeed instead of attackspeed on heal/shield, it would still help adcs kite but it'd be way more universal and helpful to the rest of the team. Not only that, it would make the item a strategic choice that changes your abilities and how you look at them "oh look we're getting ganked, let's try to out run them, I'll start healing" or "Let's haste our darius so he can go in and land a good apprehend".

Instead it's been reworked SPECIFICALLY with Janna in mind because it was reworked by a janna main who also reworked Janna at the same time. Making the item feel super "we gotta enforce da adc meta".

I think the premise of an item granting an ability that already gives you stats (effective health) even more stats of different kinds is entirely flawed. I honestly wish they just deleted Ardent Censor from the game. Maybe this is just PTSD talking, but it is my honest opinion.

woodvsmurph1 votes

Not so much adc specific, but aa champ specific. Works well for yi, kayle, trynd, etc. too. But since melee have to worry way more about cc - which reduces their dps time, it's mostly best for ranged aa champs. So I mostly agree - but you can definitely share the love with your melee aa champs too and not feel bad if they aren't getting chain cc'd.

rtbf2216514121 votes

{quoted}

if item 3504 gave movespeed instead of attackspeed

Instead it's been reworked SPECIFICALLY with Janna in mind

Uh...

Okay.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Ardent Cancer just needs to be removed. Such a statchecky item is just.You buy stats to get more stats on top of more stats. For 2,3k gold you get what? 5k gold in stats?

Athenes Lulu1 votes

While that's a good idea, it would basically render Shruleya's Reverie/Talisman sorta useless.

Votable Jester1 votes

Issue with that is Soraka giving a global, teamwide movespeed boost.

Metal Janna3 votes

Brilliant. I haven't the words.

FilDaFunk2 votes

I never thought of supports as travelling buffs - I always preferred their utility and ability to save allies. Although the idea you \re describing looks ok, I seriously don't think we should push supports to be focused on providing buffs.

VICHEL CHAOS1 votes

Supports right now are probably the role with the most impact in the team. Diversifying their options without severely removing power from them would only contribute to bot lane being even more of a higher focus than the other lanes. Why would a jungler gank top if ganking their support also helps the toplaner out?

The problem right now is that bot lane can easily 2v3 or 2v4, when they should already have difficulties being able to 2v2 any 2 other players from the opposing team who have full income and experience. The price to pay for having 1 more champion in a lane has always been that those 2 champions would not have the same power as another single champion that has full income and experience until much later into the game, but right now support items in particular are so efficient and supports have so much income regarding that they take so much less effort to gain that income compared to other people that they are not paying that penalty. This is loaded in a class that is by design less item dependent than other classes and much simpler to execute. ADCs are also spiking very early into the game, and their power level is also complemented by support items being insanely oertuned. Add to this that certain supports completely invalidate whole classes of champions, mainly those that can pose a threat to their beast of an ADC, and we have the problem at hand which is that bot lane is by far the most impactful lane.

Take this situation. You see the enemy team pick Kog (an immobile ADC) and your midlaner picks Zed. As a jungler, so could previously decide to camp you midlaner Zed so he gets fed and takes care of the Kog for you. But now the enemy support picks Janna, or Lulu, or Tahm, or Braum. Now you are not only 4v5 because your assassin is never going to be able to kill a target even if he gets the most perfect of flanks on a mispositioned adc, but your efforts and time spent on midlane are wasted. There is a huge difference between checks/counters and completely invalidating a whole classes of champions by virtue of existing. Supports are too good at supporting at the moment, taking a negligible effort to invalidate classes such as assassins, juggernauts or divers unless individual champions are insanely overtuned. And this translates into the game being bot centric to the point that the other laners are just glorified meatshields and robots to get the bot lane ahead. Wanna win game as a toplaner? TP gank bot on cooldown. As a mid? Roam bot. As a jungler? Camp bot. If junglers are viewed as having impact in the game nowadays it is mostly due to them being able to influence bot lane, not because they can get any other lane ahead. A 21-0 darius will never get to land a single hit on any priority target unless Janna, Lulu, Braum etc mess up, so why bother helping him when the bot lane is assured to be good to gank? Say the toplaner tp ganks, gets just 1 kill bot lane for the adc but misses on 4 waves crashing in the turret. Sure, his lane is now messed up and will snowball against him but he is still rewarded because the bot lane will carry harder than whatever enemy he has just completely conceded the lane to. It is frustrating. Supports should have power taken away form them, not given more options to be obnoxious.

EmpressOfBeauty1 votes

Yes yes yes please

Killer of Night91 votes

That's a cool idea but i would like some split (Eg can't buy 2 item that give similar stat). I wished it for redemption/solari (which mean i can chose what i prefer but can't use both). Atene/ardent censar feel too good combinated for kayle/teemo/corki (azir can't proc censar damage so it doesn't matter). Athene/michaelis has a stat which disable other one (athene ap disable the hp regen) so the mechanix isn't strange. I would like a good support item that work like chalice but in a other effect (you can mark an ally, every time you hit a cc on enemy champion you will mark him (with a cd on the same champion) and you and your ally would get a hp regen equal to your ally AP (2+3 for 100 Ap +25% for stack with a max of 4 stack). For build stack you need to use your ability on the marked enemy. This could be good as tank item.

woodvsmurph1 votes

re-tool some supports to be more... diverse in which role(s) they buff the best. Like ivern (jg support) was one of the first real deviations - catering especially to melee champs via the gapcloser he gives them with his root and a shield that also gives a slow - making it ideal to place on melee teammates to both protect them and enable them to better chase or peel via the slow on shield when it pops.

Re-tool some support items to be more beneficial to say... a melee bruiser or... a midlane mage. Ex: amp's a teammate's ability power for the next 4 sec or... halve the cd of a teammate's basic abilities for the next 5 seconds via an item or even grant cc immunity for 2 sec and boost movespeed by 5% via an item.

This type of stuff would help make supporting more strategic... who should I buff? Our mage to better burst a key enemy target? Our frontline divers to force the enemy to focus on peeling and free up my adc to free fire via buffing our frontline rather than by peeling/shielding alone? When do I use this? To start the fight, or do I wait to try to turn a fight at a key point?

That alone is not enough though, because it would still leave supports as mere team enablers based off itemization. Supports themselves should be looked at and some of them re-designed so their kits cater more to a specific team comp or specific classes of teammates besides just mostly adc.

Aptest1 votes

I am against buffs in general. Because buffs transfer power, but also transfer agency. Whereas the fun thing is to have the agency rather than transfer it.

Athenes Lulu1 votes

If enchanter meta were decided by supports who didn't just autobind 24/7 and turn people who used to main such champs before Ardent Censer meta into brainless meta sheep... What a dream.

Okay, personal salt aside, but one thing to note. Any item giving away free stats will create the same kinds of disaster that the Ardent meta made, so Athene's giving free AP isn't the best idea.

Might be a personal standpoint, but I think Athene's direction is actually okay, since it still requires some form of skill expression involved. Instead of blindly shielding (which Ardent encourages before it got changed), or blindly DPS-ing, players have to find a balance in between both to fully utilize its passive potential. People overlooked its passive mainly because of how "little" it healed in comparison to present-day shields.

Ifneth1 votes

You made a thread about Support items... because you want them to help the whole team.

[sg-ahri-2]

Support mains are the sweetest.

Pinkaj1 votes

Agree Agree Agree Agreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee God I've been thinking of this but I'm worried I'll get downvoted to hell Also a support main :D [sg-lulu]

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