Mage supports overcrowding actual supports.

While it's not great to see mages shove supports out of bot lane, I think that's only part of the problem: one issue is that mages are becoming more popular duo laners than members of a class explicitly designed to assist other players, but another issue alongside that is that supports have nowhere else to go. Unlike literally every other class in the game, most supports cannot successfully migrate to a solo lane or the jungle, so if they can't go bot, they can't go anywhere at all.

This is one of the many reasons why supports need another update, as support balance is so isolated and bizzarely tuned relative to every other position that it both limits supports' ability to function properly in other positions, and repeatedly generates balance issues when champions switch over to or from the support position. Malzahar and Brand are examples of champions who are exceedingly strong in bot lane, despite being okay to underwhelming in mid lane, and before that there was the case of support Annie and Fiddlesticks in Season 4, both of whom had to receive balance changes due to their bot lane shenanigans. On the flipside, we also have Lulu, who's suffered tremendously for her presence in top lane, and beyond that there are many more champions who could almost be viable in another role, namely Taric top, Leona jungle, Blitzcrank in both those positions (he used to be a good top/jungle fighter in Seasons 2-3), etc., but who aren't because support balance prevents them from going anywhere else.

Connecting the support class more to the rest of balance should prevent abuse cases like Brand and Malzahar from happening as severely, but if nothing else it should give supports a place to go if they ever get shoved out of bot lane. In fact, it might be useful as a general rule to give every champion at least two positions they can thrive in, so that they can never be completely pushed out of the game by competing picks.

While I believe that mage supports are a bit overtuned, I think a large reason people pick mage supports is simply because true supports just can't carry the game by themselves.

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

Doubt.

The top five highest win-rate supports (discounting Sion since his play-rate is so low it skews the statistics) are: Janna, Blitzcrank, Soraka, Nami and Sona in that order.

The top five most played supports are: Thresh, Janna, Blitzcrank, Morgana and Leona in that order.

Where is this dumb meme coming from that kill-supports are prominent in the game? Is this a turbo-bronze phenomena?

Isn't it time to rework support into something actually meaningful and diverse and lessen that 1 and only identical bot lane strategy that has been there for like 5-6 years, as opposed to forcing mages out of the bot lane through rigged and clearly biased balancing?

I mean seriously, who defines and states that there has to be a marksman and a "real support" in bot lane anyway?

When other lanes and positions have people filling in and out just fine (probably not jungle atm, but it's still very flexible when compared to bot lane), why is bot lane so rigid on the idea that there has to be a marksman and a "real support" so much they want the lane to be balanced around that image to the point only those "qualified" are allowed to be there?

It's also because they have some influence over being able to carry a game if their adc fucks up. If you're a traditional support it's very hard to carry a game.

Just play utility tank, then feed off their tears and rage.

true the only supps that are played currently are Janna, Thresh, Malz and Brand not much diversity now days

Seeing this a lot, but it is gold and lower mostly right?

I'd love to see a brand / malz play vs a good thresh support. All a thresh has to do is get their adc to pop malz's shield every 40 seconds in lane. IT isn't hard.

Why can't mages be supports? Why does a champion have to be a certain role?