How to fix the support role ( damage supports & AP scaling utility) Long thread.
so the support role has been an absolute mess lately, broken items, overbearing peeling, competitive and soloq dominated by non supportive champions that build damage, etc.
Im going to be absolutely truthful with you, I hate these new damage supports like Zyra, Brand and the biggest offenders Malzahar and MF. They are not supports and never will. They are designed to do damage and nothing else. But damage seems to be quite fashionable right now so they are here making our bot lives miserable. Things these champions abuse as "supports": -Get a free pass on safety and sufficient peel with exhaust. Even in competitive I've seen people pick assassins for their team when they see MF support, only to get completely shutdown by her exhaust, and then subsequently one shot by her lethality burst. This needs to stop. A summoner spell shouldn't shutdown champions so hard. So we need to ask ourselves what should exhaust be doing ? It should render champion's ability to harm null and void WHEN anticipating he will attempt to do so. and NOT when we generally feel threatened, we exhaust in hopes of surviving. NO time your exhaust when the enemy is about to significantly harm you. Not when he shows himself in a fight and you go like " well I don't want you in this fight, so get exhausted".
Duration: 2.5s => 1.25s 40% dmg reduction + 30% atk speed reduction + 40% MS slow + reduced MR and armor=> affected champion deals no damage for the duration (1.25s) thats right NO damage, so you can now exhaust master yi, olaf, Fiora, Darius and feel good about it. Also the duration being 1.25s means that you actually have to time it, when the enemy is about to nuke you, or your ADC, and not the moment he closes in. SO exhaust Zed when the mark is about to pop, no when when he ults you. (same deal with kayle ult) etc.
Next up these supports are abusing the relatively high gold income given freely mostly by Queen's frost claim, which is dumb. The passive gold generation on that item needs to go. Buff the gold received when u land abilities to compensate idc, but in any way Supports build very cheap items in general (2000-2200 g items) and they dont need that much gold generation given for free, otherwise we get all these damage champions bot building expensive dmg items and becoming an auxiliary carry essentially, which is dumbfounding. The support role exists (and "support" champions) because they are useful and provide utility for the team with a very low gold income. The real issue is why do they have to be behind in EXP as well? I mean I dont say they shoulnt be, because they are sharing it with their ADC, but why so far behind. We are talking like 3-5 levels behind the rest of the team. So, Give to all the support items a UNIQUE PASSIVE that gives them 5/10/15 % bonus XP based on the item's stage.
Next up we have the rather larger issue of AP scaling utility and the newest bandaid fix to it " X% stronger heals and shields". This is a very big issue that I will have to discuss in another thread, which i will link below, but the gist of my ideas is: create a new resource/scaling type called " Utility Power" that will replace all the AP scalings on champion's abilities that should provide utility like morgana's E, Janna's E and R, Lulu's R etc. Utility Power will be given in very large quantities on the cuurent AP support items like Athene's, Ardent sensor & redemption and more.
