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How To Make Supporting FEEL More Rewarding Than It Does Now

SilverSquid·3/16/2017, 3:08:28 AM·8 votes·1,678 views

Say what you will, but this guy has a point.

To summarize quickly, goldbay99 gbay99 states, that it is hard to both feel & show off your success as a support. The KDA isn't really as indicative for supports as it is for other classes. For sololaners and ADC's kills are usually hard earned stuff and CS needs to be mindfully grinded. But supports don't need to CS, they get an assist whether they flashed forward, landed the hook, locked the enemy down and walked away to give the ADC/assasin the kill.... Or whether they threw in a lantern in the last second to shield an assassin who would've gotten the kill anyways.

See what I mean?

Mindlessly shieldspamming is just as good at getting you a nice KDA as is solocarrying the game. And yeah, this won't get you as many net-wins, but it doesn't feel as good as it should. Which is probably why people don't enjoy supporting as much. It's a space with little glory and lacking thankfulness, all while you are expected to be altruistic non-stop. No wonder people like to play secondary AP carries in bot now. Because you can actually FEEL your impact by killing and you can SEE it afterwards by how much damage you dealt (hi there, Zyra). And no matter your stance on those supports; you gotta admit it feels mindblowingly awesome to top the damage leaderboards as a support.... even though a different playstyle would've probably helped your team more.

But what if there were other leaderboards to top other than damage? What about "time stunned"? Or "damage blocked"? Why are those stats that supports are supposed to shine in, completely left out? I am convinced that we need a better representation of the non-damage-contribution supports have to the team. I took the time to write down a few suggestions that I would like to see after the game, implemented as bars that show subsections if hovered with your cursor (see damage values for an easy example).

#Active Damage done

  • Magic damage
  • Physical damage
  • True damage

Example (and showing off paint skillz) http://imgur.com/mGw6ezj

#Indirect Damage caused

  • Proc damage Leona item 3504 Kalista
  • Stat/damage enhance & resistance shred Janna Nunu / Vladimir & item 3001

Damage prevented

  • By shielding Karma Sona
  • By granting resistance/damage reduction Taric Alistar JarvanIV

Healing Done

  • By damaging item 3072 item 3146
  • Selfheal DrMundo Gangplank
  • Allies healed Janna Nami Fiora

Buff Time

  • Time shielded Lulu Thresh
  • Time sped up Jayce item 3069
  • Time enhanced Nami Ezreal

Lock Down Time

  • Slows Ashe Karthus
  • Displacement Yasuo LeeSin
  • Disables Annie Amumu Fiddlesticks

Those are just some things that I could come up right now. There is probably a lot I missed or that could be improved. But I honestly think that stats like these could increase the.... positive feeling a support player could have after a successful game. And the occasional "dude look at how much damage she blocked, THAT'S INSANE" would suddenly be possible too. And additionally I have been wishing for those kind of hover stats for a long time anyways. The after-game stats have always seemed a bit.... unorganized.

If you agree, please upvote. If you think I missed something or if you would like to add some thinks, let me know!

Thanks for reading, SilverSquid

13 Comments

The Sword Saint3/22/2017, 8:36:35 PM2 votes

I'd like to see a 'damage facilitated' stat that tracked how much damage allies have done to targets during and shortly after the duration of hard cc you have applied to enemies. It would accurately track the difference between meaningful cc laid down to set up kills and using stuns just to save yourself or try and duel someone.

Maybe also a 'damage mitigated' stat what combines healing done to allies with damage that your shields and resist buffs on allies have eaten up.

While were at it 'time enemy has spent revealed by your wards' and or 'instances of an enemy being revealed by your wards' would be nice to keep track of not just how many wards you spam, but how often you place them correctly so that they catch someone roaming or camping in a bush. Number of wards placed and ward uptime can easily give undue credit to players who just spam wards in safe places on cooldown, but these other stats would only reward players doing useful things with their wards on a regular basis.

Chaos Milk Tea3/16/2017, 4:19:46 PM1 votes

There are three other factors I feel are contributing to the disatisfaction with the role 1: Lack of levels and items making you feel weak. Because you have to spread out your team as much as possible to maximize gold and XP, someone has to be the "poor man" on the rift.

2: It is called support. When the role has a name like this, it's hard to get respect. "Just a sup". ADC is called bot, just like every other position. Support sounds like a subsidiary of bot. Speaking of which..

3: There is some idea that the sup "belongs" to the adc. People often say "my sup."

IxtaliKing3/22/2017, 1:08:38 AM1 votes

Hey SilverSquid, haven't seen you around in a while. I think it would be good to have these additional stats available, but I can't imagine they'd make the role much more appealing. I think the role itself needs major work, and I don't see it without an Enchanter update.

PQ SuccEmDry3/22/2017, 9:11:38 PM1 votes

I think it be really cool if the support role got a sort of "Save" indicator. Assists show when you helped get a kill, but why can't I see how many times I just barely prevented a kill. This could probably become an actual shown stat for champs with heals, sheilds, and gems/invincibility giving, with the game calculating how much damage was done to that sheild/ heal, and calculating whether they would have died or not without it, but I'm not sure how it'd be shown for champs like Tahm Kench or others though.