Support: the role that nobody talks about (not even Riot)

Hey Summoners,

Heads up apology for the lengthy theoretical analysis that is about to follow. Im a huge league nerd and I think that I should contribute to the forum community as well (pls no hate first post xD). Keep in mind that I will try to analyse the way supports are today also based on Riots concept of "strategic diversity". I think the philosophical change in perception that they made at the beginning of this season has already shown great results in diversifying the meta. Also, Ill use the word meta more broadly than most people use it, by meaning anything that is popular at a competitive level (I watch all major, top tier teams in NA/EU LCS, LCK and LPL). To me, meta means any popular team strat/champ/ playstyle for a specific role. Without any further intro, heres my take on what it means to be a support right now (5.4 patch).

Ive been playing this game since ealy season 3 and I definitely believe that Riots and the player`s view of the support role has improved. When I first started playing, support was basically the one guy/gal that ended up chillin in teamfights, just healing around or trying to drop a stun or two. Additionally, supports used to be the only ones warding and the only ones expected to think about the way the team is supposed to win the vision war. Basically, supports used to do 2 things:

1. Sustain carries
2. Vision utility

Over time, other support strenghts became more potent as well such as hyper-bursty lane pressure (annie, fid), picks (morg, thresh) and hyper-utility protect the adc comps (lulu, nami). Due to the release of new champs/mechanics, we began to look at other winning conditions that a support can bring to the team- which caused the support meta to explode at the beginning of season 4. However, since then Riot has paid little to no attention towards what supports do in the game. We gave everyone some warding trinkets, and we stopped yelling at people who try out weird picks in norms because we know Rito wants to diversify the champ pool so x/y unpopular champ can be a new secret meta for the support *COUGH Brand....- good effort Rito.

With that being said, let`s look at the 5.4 meta for supports:

1. Reasonably diverse meta (saying this with a grain of salt)
2. Supports are still just good for providing random utility to the team
3. Most people still don`t want to play the role (hell imagine maining it)

The reason why people dont want to play this role is because its boring. False. Its arguably one of the highest skill cap roles during the early to mid game, and a good support will always know how to have presence in the game and make good plays that can save the team. However, most people dont see the support role this way and for good reasons. Riot has been bad at creating a game environment where supports can shine and actually FULFILL GAME FANTASIES for support players. Interestingly enough, a popular reason for not playing support is because it can`t carry games (and for most of the scenarios, I think this is a legitimate concern- for solo q and competitive). I think part of the reason is because we associate carrying to doing tons of damage and deleting people off the map. Most players fail to understand how to carry/win outside of killing an enemy (rotations, vision war etc.).

Unfortunately I think Riot is also responsible for why people see the support and carrying this way: its because balancing always comes down to logistics and numbers, rather than taking a different theoretical approach to the situation in itself (which is also something Rito has been getting better at). So, the question becomes how can Riot create a better environment for the support meta? First, I think the idea of "strategic diversity" should be applied better to the support meta. But Riot cant just balance supports the way they balance other roles because it is BY FAR the most extraneous playstyle (in relation to the other 4 roles). Here are my suggestions for how Riot can consider tinkering supports in the future:

1. NEW ITEMS- holy crap I cant emphasize this enough. Youd argue that supports have a reasonable amount of buildpaths but do they really? Ancient Coin hasn`t seen much competitive play lately (although the rise of Veigar might change that- thanks GE Tigers). Targon is fairly solid, and most people build just Frost Fang and let it sit like that (or sometimes not even bother to upgrade it) BECAUSE OF 2

2. Rework gold ratios for support items- seriously, if you (Riot) dont expect/want supports to have a high income and afford decent builds, then how about you make all the support items cheaper? The only good response to this proposal is that other champs that arent made to be supports are going to get the item really fast in lane and abuse it. The only way I can see a way for the Game Design Team to get around that is by creating an environment where its advantageous to only buy these items if you are in the support role. Suggestions? Maybe increase the utility of active items and nerf the numbers- just so that the supports can get their 1-shot cool utility (like we currently have shields, mov speed buffs etc)... I feel like this is another area where Riot overall can work on- create new forms of utility within the game; and theyve also tried this as well *COUGH Banner of Command....- good effort once again. The problem remains that Rito has been unsucessfull at creating this appeal for utility over raw numbers, and I hope this changes in the future.

3. Redefine the role. Just as how you can diversify the jungle in two ways (strat/ champ diversity), you can also diversify what a support could do. Again, the major problem is that support players (in addition to everyone that "hates" the role) feel like their gameplay isnt impactful and they cant carry. Looking at Bard, I can tell that Riot is getting the right idea as to where this new support playstlye should go. Bard is made for roaming and that is something that supports have been doing in the competitive scene for a while. SO WHY NOT GIVE THEM MORE OPTIONS? For example, what supports do in most LCK games now is that they roam with the jungler until 6-7 min ish (depending on whether or not they lane swapped), and then they either continue roaming with the jungler to create pick scenarios in solo lanes, or they meet with their adc/top and they 2v2 the enemy support + adc/top. By doing that, Riot could encourage early jungle roaming by creating a support-friendly utility package in the jungle (like a small item that would give you exp if nearby allies kill neutral monsters or something).

Ultimately, I think Riot created a game complex enough where elements like these can be added- and more importantly, they can also be COMPETITIVELY GOOD- which is huge because if Riot would know how to shift the support meta more radically, the entire game would change (literally). And hey, if supports get a little love, maybe most people wouldn`t avoid playing the role in soloq/normals either.