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Make support a more desirable role. Increase the power of assists.

Gare Jordans··51 votes·25,732 views

There are many ways to do this. They seem to all be based on assists. Here are some of my ideas. Feel free to chime in.

  1. Start tracking and announcing assist sprees. Supports, from the opinion of the majority of LoL players, aren't supposed to have any kills. This could really help because it gives supports recognition for not dying, and helping get kills. (EDIT: The main counter-logic used against this idea has been that it would be spammy and annoying to hear after every fight. I never said how many assists in a row you'd need to get an assist spree. I'm not in love with any set number, but if I had to name a number off the top of my head, it'd be around seven assists in a row without dying. That's roughly two team fights worth. If a support can help win about two team fights without dying, that's commendable.)
  2. Start adding Assists where wards were placed, which granted vision of an enemy and led to a kill. Supports are often though of being "warding mules". They often are the only one on the team giving vision on the team through wards.
  3. Increase the amount of gold that is given per assist. This would increase the amount of gold income the supports would have, making it easier to get items to help the team. (EDIT: I understand why doing this would be a bad idea. These were just thoughts off the top of my head to kick this discussion off. Riot wants to eliminate snowballing, and these would be counterproductive to that cause.)
  4. Make it so item auras give assists. For example, say a support has a frozen heart. The said support deals no damage in the fight, but slows every enemy's attack speed during the fight with the aura. That support should have received an assist with every enemy that was slain because he directly effected the enemy's fighting potential. (EDIT: Of course, global or passive auras should not be included in this mix.)

EDIT: I'm amending the main post so people reading this get the point of this thread. Supports have very few choices of what to do outside of laning phase and even during laning phase their choices are very few. They can't farm, or take kills. They're expected to set their adc up to farm, get kills, and stay alive. During grouping phase every support on low income is expected to ward, keep the carries alive (even all teammates if possible), and set their team up for success by acing the enemy.

It's very easy to say that supports have the most demanding job while having the least amount of gold to do it. This isn't just an advocacy campaign for more gold income for supports. Sure, it'd be nice, but it may just introduce unwanted mid-laners down there for the gold.

The real goal here is making supporting seem more appealing, whether that be through announcements of assist sprees or by some other means. What can we do to get more players interested in learning this role? Is there a way that we can encourage positive development for players trying to learn this role?

212 Comments

AhhShucks22 votes

You get plenty of gold for assists right now. The issue with supports is that in low kill games, or games where you are behind the support falls behind much faster than everyone else. The support can't farm up and play safe, and while everyone else is trying to do that the support is just falling even more behind. They aren't getting minions, they aren't getting gold from harassing, they are spending gold on pinks, and risking death to try and play a vision game to keep their team safe, but they are gaining nothing.

Its not fun spending 15 minutes twideling your thumbs hoping someone else on your team gets strong enough to make the game work. I don't want ways to get more ahead when I'm getting assists and am already ahead. I want something meaningful to do when behind aside from praying for someone else to get strong.

GanksLikeGast0n15 votes

I actually really like the idea of giving assists to a player if the kill happened within the vision provided by their ward(s). I feel this would not only help supports but also encourage other players to actually help with warding.

RiotRoboLions12 votes

But wait, you forgot to make the case for support being undesirable in its current state! I know I'm biased, I love playing support, but we've also discovered that ~1/5 of players identify themselves as a support main (the same number of supports needed for a game of LoL). Also, this season, supports are earning more gold and buying more items than ever before.

I'm not trying to knock your assertion, really I'm trying to understand what it is you want to solve for. It seems you want supports to get more assists and get more recognition for assists. But is that because supports are still gold starved or because supports need higher KDAs to stay satisfied with their role?

When we have a better understanding of the problem we can do a better job of working toward the solution :)

junglerboy165 votes

Not so much to help KDA or gold, but to get your team to finally realize that you as support are not feeding when you go 2/10/26. When I play support, I feel like I get plenty of gold and am plenty helpful, but I still hate playing it. Why? because supports get the butt end of every single remark about KS or feeding or being a n00b. Having the assist spree part (the part I think would help most) would really help non support players realize that their support deserves respect, not toxicity.

EDIT: Support is really fun to play and it can feel super rewarding making clutch plays, but it is toxicity towards supports that makes it not my number one choice for a role.

ShadowKnight122413 votes

You still get treated like absolute shit by a surprising amount of players, you don't get any recognition for your hard work, and most of the stuff you do is functional and boring rather than flashy and awesome-looking (guess why Thresh is so popular no matter how much you nerf him? It's because he does a lot of very flashy things for a support).

Support mains like myself like the role because we know that we're crucial to victory and that we can turn the tides of a teamfight. There's also a special kind of pleasure to be had when you have the "support Cold War", as you sabotage and get sabotaged by the enemy support in a quiet little war that nobody else notices. It's this private duel of wits with the enemy support that often decides the outcome of bot lane or a teamfight (or an objective). It's you and them, pitting skill and intelligence against skill and intelligence. It's the Howling Gale against the Zenith Blade, the Dark Binding against the Death Sentence, the warding and dewarding, the Tidal Wave that turns the teamfight.

The problem is that only support mains see this. And it's not just the players themselves that are clueless, the game itself seems to forget us. We don't get any recognition for the things we are supposed to do (warding, dewarding, assisting). When someone gets a kill, the game proudly announces it. Killing streaks are celebrated by an increasingly awed announcer. When a jungler takes Baron/Dragon, there's a message in the screen and a sound announcement in spectator mode. We don't get any of that.

Gare Jordans5 votes

I read this...And smiled out of respect. You get it. Supports affect the outcome of the game far more than anyone else imagines. A little recognition somewhere couldn't hurt.

Ninja Kami3 votes

What about something like Ward discovery and destroy stats along with the already tower kills and minion kills? It would give recognition to HOW MANY WARDS I FOUND THIS GAME as a support.

Seems like a small added number onto some charts but it will give recongnition to map and vision control based on supports performance. Its understandable that at higher level play like in diamond and higher the team ends up selling trinkets for oracle trinket later in the stages of the game. But it might encourage lower levels to play at a more goal orientated state of mind.

Or maybe some new support champs that give a "meaning to be seen and remembered in a game"

^_^ I like that last part.

Lwnt3 votes

I know what you mean. I had so many situation where the adc will get a quadra kill or a penta kill and the other three of our teammates has already died. Then everyone goes great job vayne or great job ezrael or great job tristana. I am like hellooooo I help too like wtf. If it wasnt for me that adc would of died or never got a speed or power boost or have a weaken enemy by cc which allows the adc to survive a little longer. Then at the end you do not get teamwork honour and in my head Ill be like I hate them all.

ShadowKnight12242 votes

Yeah, that's the sad reality of the support's job. We are the invisible helping hand.

HowPlayGAEM5 votes

But wait, you forgot to make the case for support being undesirable in its current state! I know I'm biased, I love playing support, but we've also discovered that ~1/5 of players identify themselves as a support main (the same number of supports needed for a game of LoL).

My question is to your data then: 1/5 of players identify as a support, but did they choose to identify that way, or was it out of necessity?

For example, I mainly play support. It isn't because I like the role, its because I got REAL tired of playing the "race to call role" game.

I think out of 300 total games played, I played ADC maybe 10 times, top maybe 7 times, Jungle 3 times, Mid 15 times. If we don't count fighting for roles, then I would have NEVER played top, and only played mid about 3 times.

Perhaps it's different in ranked, but in normals, there is absolutely no way 1/5 of players choose support.

RiotRoboLions7 votes

Most people won't identify themselves as being a thing unless they're opting into that thing. For instance my dad loved taking me hunting when I lived at home but I didn't self identify as a hunter just because I was forced to go hunting. You are correct that this data point deserves more scrutiny, and it is no guarantee that someone on your team will always be chomping at the bit to play support. It is however, an indicator that there are folks that are satisfied with the support role!

But by asking why folks think it needs to be improved we learn more about why they find it unsatisfying and gain greater understanding of how to make it better. That is why I'm much more interested in why OP wants to improve support than I am in his solutions, because I don't yet know what he is trying to solve for O_O

Once I have a better understanding of that, I can really get down to understanding his efforts to address the problems.

HowPlayGAEM4 votes

It is however, an indicator that there are folks that are satisfied with the support role!

Oh, that much is certain. I was just quite surprised at your data that 1/5 of LoL players identify as support, when in my anecdotal experience (300 normal blind games), it's not nearly that many. I can only assume your data was taken from higher elo ranked games.

But by asking why folks think it needs to be improved we learn more about why they find it unsatisfying and gain greater understanding of how to make it better. That is why I'm much more interested in why OP wants to improve support than I am in his solutions, because I don't yet know what he is trying to solve for O_O

Once I have a better understanding of that, I can really get down to understanding his efforts to address the problems.

I can only speak for myself, but personally, the support role is perceived as unpopular not because its not flashy, or unappreciated (those certainly contribute to the problem) but because you can't actually CARRY the game. A well placed Sona ult can be gamechanging, but only if your allies are fed enough to take advantage of the window you provided them. There's no point in raising Braum's shield up for a 0/12 teammate with pitiful farm. Force-feeding allies some gold by doing kill-lanes (blitz and thresh for example) are probably the best way to carry, but you can't do that with Soraka.

I don't really have an answer to your question "why do you want to improve supports, they're fine!"

Yes, they're fine, but nobody really knows that. There are endgame stats for damage, kills, assists, and healing, but supports do more than that, and there's no record of it.

  • no CC duration stat
  • no shield amount stat
  • no ward stats
  • no buff stat etc.

For example, when I use Sona's Q, I have absolutely no idea if I'm even contributing. Do my allies use the buff? Nobody knows. Is Janna's AD buff better than Sona's Q or Nami's E? I want to know these things, but that information is hidden. Did I ward enough in-game? Dunno, have to check the website to find out (I like the website in-depth stats btw). How much damage did I mitigate with Braum's shield? That's a mystery.

It's stuff like that that makes me want to play a different role.

Another example: Now that Soraka is healing focused and healing is a visible stat, you can actually see just how much she healed. Even if you lose, everyone saw her healing 50k; it feels satisfactory as Soraka, and the rest of the team can see your contribution as well.

EnvyDragon3 votes

I suspect it might have something to do with ingame feedback.

When you get a kill, there's an incredible rush, especially if it's from something like a clutch Jayce Q or Darius ult. The health bar goes to zero. Your gold count goes up. Ingame announcements proclaim your glory from the high heavens.

When you're a support... Well, you don't tend to get kills. So you don't get any of that.

I'm a support main, and most of my satisfaction comes from things like landing perfect Thresh hooks or nailing someone with an angled Vel'koz Q. It's the individual abilities that make me feel good. But frankly, there's no rush for a support player even remotely on par with a good Yasuo pentakill.

Non-supports can have that awesome "I took on their whole team and won" feeling. Supports can, at best, get an "I helped somebody and that let them take on the enemy team and win."

I admit that I don't think "assist sprees" are the best way to do this, since a support will naturally get a ton of assists whether they're doing well or not, but I think the problem of satisfying support feedback is a solvable one, if perhaps not an urgent one.

Idea: this was kind of inspired by the Vision mechanic from Xenoblade Chronicles, but what if supports were given credit for clutch heals or shields? If, for example, a person is left at less health than you healed/shielded them for, and survives for several more seconds, there could be a global announcement to reward that. "Savior!"

Lwnt5 votes

Ill give you a problem

Our itemization choices is terrible especially when it comes to ap utility support ( Lulu, Nami, sona soraka, Janna). You give us ap utility scaling on our skills but you give us terrible items that gives low AP (sometimes even none) to scale our utility. Its not fair that tanky supports like leona, braum and taric have wide variety of items (that also have utility) to scale from because they either scale from health or resistance stats. Just look at sightstone it only gives health why cant you build an AP sightstone. On top of that if you do want a lot of AP you got to get it from expensive ap items like rabbadon death cap, which takes forever for us to buy due to our small income. Honestly, solo lane of these support can scale their utility better then duo lane support which doesnt make any sense, because they are suppose to have stronger utility which was the whole point of season 4 changes. Example look at solo lane Lulu who got nerf like crazy.

But I have to say these support items are not terrible when it comes to utility and their cheap for a support income. I wish their is a way to scale our utility skills (to their maximum late game) but also buy cheap support utility items. Sometime I would go to bot game once a day just so I can buy a lot ap and actually feel what its like to having strong utility, because you cannot build something like that in normal or in rank game. I have to say having utility that scales and becomes stronger makes it so much more satisfying to play as a support.

Last support item you did was Ardent censar and I have to say stop giving us the same stats over and over again but all you did was change the unique passive or active. We need more variety in our items. I want to be able to help my teammates in many different situations either by cc, buffing, shielding or healing.

In conclusion your problem is we need more variety of support items and there needs to be a way to scale our skill's utility.

Gare Jordans6 votes

Hey! Thanks for stopping by! I had no clue this discussion would become this popular. Now back to the discussion!

I think everyone needs recognition for something they do during a game to stay happy with their job. For instance, (I'm going to use two examples, a real-world application and a LoL one to explain my point.) in the workplace, workers who excel at their respective jobs do get some sort of recognition. There may be that one worker who never uses his sick days. There also may be, possibly at a store, a reward for the worker who sells the most items, or scans the most items within a certain period of time. Being recognized at the workplace isn't something the employer is required to do, but they want to set the example to the other workers of what other workers should be doing and how it should be done and also encourage positive working habits with the recognized person.

In League right now, it's true to say that everyone has their own playstyles. However, supporting doesn't give too many options for playstyles outside of laning phase. "Do I pick a poke support or a peel support? Do I play aggressive or passive?" And to do a good job outside of laning phase is often times even harder. It's pretty stressful trying to make sure keeping my team alive, warding with little to no vision because it's "my job", and making sure we ace the enemy. Supports take a lot of heat. I figure if we're under that much of a microscope we deserve to be recognized for doing well.

When I see supports do a great job, the first thought that comes to mind is, "Hey! This dude deserves some sort of recognition for what he did." Then I look, and all I can do is honor him, which has little to no value anymore. Riot, you have a chance to not only encourage support mains who excel at their job to keep up the good work. Not only that, but you can encourage a healthy playstyle with people learning the role through assist auras and assist sprees. That'll lead people truly wanting to learn the role down the right path.

RiotRoboLions10 votes

There is definitely a lack of clarity as far as what measuring stick to use when gauging a support's contribution to the team. Assist streak call outs will definitely improve visibility into that aspect of support play.

As some have mentioned, there are other unsung support duties as well, such as lane presence (helping ADC get farmed). I think we could definitely do a deep dive on how to measure actions like this and communicate them to players. I do know we are interested in leveling up how we celebrate good stuff. The cool thing is, identifying these measuring sticks and celebrating them would bolster both support player's and non-support players!

Gare Jordans1 votes

There is definitely a lack of clarity as far as what measuring stick to use when gauging a support's contribution to the team. Assist streak call outs will definitely improve visibility into that aspect of support play.

As some have mentioned, there are other unsung support duties as well, such as lane presence (helping ADC get farmed). I think we could definitely do a deep dive on how to measure actions like this and communicate them to players. I do know we are interested in leveling up how we celebrate good stuff. The cool thing is, identifying these measuring sticks and celebrating them would bolster both support player's and non-support players!

My thoughts exactly. This could be a way of doing this. :)

Rueian4 votes

We also need to ingrain warding in non support/jungle players I am guilty of this even in my adc/mid/top play

ShadowKnight12245 votes

One way you can implement the audio rewards for multiple assists is this:

  • Make the game check for a support/jungle item first. No assist shout-outs for toplaners, midlaners and ADCs. That way, it keeps the audio from getting cluttered.
  • Only count from 3 assists onwards (double assist isn't worth it).
  • Only shout the biggest assist tally. Don't do "TRIPLE ASSIST! QUADRA ASSIST! PENTA ASSIST!", go straight for the penta. Keeps the audio from getting cluttered.
  • Keep the time window for multi-assists short (around 5-10 seconds), and only do the announcement when the window closes.
  • Always put the assist announcement at the very end of all others, to remind the players who made it happen. Just when they're getting full of themselves with their triple/quadra/penta, you remind them that you were there every step of the way too.
Genreninja2 votes

I like these recommendations but I would almost like it better (as a main support player) If it didn't follow the kill streak suit of "Triple assist! Quadra assist! PENTA ASSIST!" but instead had it's own flavor.

"Vayne Double Kill! Akali " <-- Current Announcement "Vayne Triple Kill! Elise "

followed by

"Brilliant Assist! Karma " <-- New Follow up

Maybe with a Great / Brilliant / Incredible progression. It's not as uppity as the kill streaks, but I don't think that matters. It's the fact that we're getting recognized, not just that we have these big loud obnoxious streak anouncements.

Now this would get spammed since in a team fight 2-3 even 4 people might get assists on every kill. So limit it to whoever's filling the support role. I assume it'd be difficult to code a way to tell "who" is the support. But Team Builder environment is perfect since you get to pick your roll pre-game.

Last note: I think the reason people feel Supports still need to be "fixed" and more desirable to play, is because they're the longest thing to look for in queue.

AbyssionKnight2 votes

There is definitely a lack of clarity as far as what measuring stick to use when gauging a support's contribution to the team. Assist streak call outs will definitely improve visibility into that aspect of support play.

As some have mentioned, there are other unsung support duties as well, such as lane presence (helping ADC get farmed). I think we could definitely do a deep dive on how to measure actions like this and communicate them to players. I do know we are interested in leveling up how we celebrate good stuff. The cool thing is, identifying these measuring sticks and celebrating them would bolster both support player's and non-support players!

I think what needs to be taken into consideration isn't just how many 'mains' a position has, but how desirable it is to play that position as a whole.

It's like champions. I loved sivir pre-rework, and there were a bunch of people who did. We enjoyed her role as this split pusher who could instantly nuke a wave. However, the majority of the community didn't like her. So there was an obvious disconnect between the people who liked her (or who liked any prerework champion) and the people who didn't.

Maybe you're right and 1/5 people love support and main support. When I play ranked, people generally don't want to be the support. When I used to play blind pick, that was always the last role chosen, and when I play Teambuilder, we're almost always waiting on a support player, anywhere from 2-10 minutes. I know personal experience isn't the best tool to use, but from over 1000 games of experience I do think that 2-3/5 players either actively dislike, or simply have no interest in the support role.

I think that's because you don't have as many 'big moments'. As the midlaner or adc you're a carry and you're getting the kills and making plays. Top laners are very similar, but you also feel powerful and tanky. Junglers get to feel like these predators, cruising the map, sniping off unsuspecting people.

For the support, you're more behind the scenes. Sometimes you land those clutch tornado's or sona ults, or heal someone and they just barely survive, and they does feel awesome, but for a lot of people that's not enough. For a lot of people seeing your name appear as a tiny assist portrait beside a kill just doesn't feel satisfying enough.

So I think the idea of assist announcements is a wonderful idea. It highlights your contributions, without having to necessarily buff support gold (and fall back into the mage support meta), and without radically changing things. I personally enjoy the role, but it'd be nice to see others enjoy it too, especially when I want to play a different role and my friends are humming and hawing about who'll take up the mantle of support.

Declined3 votes

I just played 2 games as Anivia support, 3 people added me because they thought I was awesome, yet I didn't get a single honor. So what this all boils down to, is recognition. At least that's my opinion on this.

RiotRiot Morgageddon11 votes

Morgageddon pops in.

*Opinion time!

I do think the vision one is a bit of yea and nay at the same time. Good cases of it would be ambushing someone after they run through a warded bush. Bad cases would be where a fight breaks out next to a ward, there already existed vision, and the ward didn't really provide any positive benefit to the battle. (Say a fight in the middle of bot lane, and one of the side bushes had been warded to prevent poke). Another, slightly iffy case would be if you couldn't quite get to someone in time to get on the kill (spells too short range, on cooldown, or can't auto in time), so you drop a ward as close as possible to get in on the action.

Coding wise, vision wouldn't be a nightmare I'd wager, but I can see pros and cons on both sides of it, which would lead to some interesting discussions.

Auras that give assists would be the most natural one for it out of that list, I'd wager. Reason being, there is a tangible reason your Corki may have outdueled their Tristana, if you had Zeke's up and giving him that extra life steal/attack damage (hey, it's still an item, and as far as I know, the aura from it doesn't give you an assist no?)

While I'm not sure this is the right way to make players want to play Support more, or to try and change them away from the opinion of 'ward mule,' discussions like these are great to have, since they may lead to something striking that does end up as a goal or hope.*

RuGu2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Morgageddon,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=beEaEJKa,comment-id=0027,timestamp=2014-10-09T16:39:28.270+0000)

Morgageddon pops in.

*Opinion time!

I do think the vision one is a bit of yea and nay at the same time. Good cases of it would be ambushing someone after they run through a warded bush. Bad cases would be where a fight breaks out next to a ward, there already existed vision, and the ward didn't really provide any positive benefit to the battle. (Say a fight in the middle of bot lane, and one of the side bushes had been warded to prevent poke). Another, slightly iffy case would be if you couldn't quite get to someone in time to get on the kill (spells too short range, on cooldown, or can't auto in time), so you drop a ward as close as possible to get in on the action.

Coding wise, vision wouldn't be a nightmare I'd wager, but I can see pros and cons on both sides of it, which would lead to some interesting discussions.

Auras that give assists would be the most natural one for it out of that list, I'd wager. Reason being, there is a tangible reason your Corki may have outdueled their Tristana, if you had Zeke's up and giving him that extra life steal/attack damage (hey, it's still an item, and as far as I know, the aura from it doesn't give you an assist no?)

While I'm not sure this is the right way to make players want to play Support more, or to try and change them away from the opinion of 'ward mule,' discussions like these are great to have, since they may lead to something striking that does end up as a goal or hope.*

What amazes me the most about this argument, and its counter argument, about supports getting extra gold for ward vision / assists, and how that could snowball other laners (which I actually agree with), is the fact that you have the best way to prevent abuse of the system already built into the game.

You call them "Masteries", or specifically the "Utility" tree. The last couple points in the utility tree could be vastly improved for supports. 21 points in utlity could = 5% discount at the shop or more gold for an assist. Of course they can't be so strong as to sway people from giving up their 21--0-9, 21-9-0, or 9-21-0, but there are certainly ways to give support's more options / rewarding feelings that I think aren't really being utilized.

Gare Jordans2 votes

Good point. I like your logic. That is all. Nice suggestion btw.

DrCyanide9 votes

What if Riot added a "Kill Participation" chart in the post game stats? That way it still has the "Yeah! Kills are awesome!" feel to it, so people check it out and realize that it was the support leading the way. It would probably be a good start.

ValyrianBlade8 votes

If they could attach some of these abilities to the support gold income items that would be better, so other players can't get the same benefit from assists (e.g. jungle ganks or general teamfight becoming more powerful relative to CS' ing and objectives.

RIP Zephyreal8 votes

Just another opinion, but what I find interesting about this conversation is the idea of "feeling" like you have an impact as a support, and what making an impact actually means for people. Most suggestions have been discussed thoroughly, but there are a couple of things I'd like to share from my perspective of playing support:

For gold, I don't really feel poor as a support (I'll expand on this more below). I don't think with the current gold flow of the game supports need a higher injection of gold. Supports don't really have big item thresholds outside of getting that Sightstone and Mikael's usually... so unless the game is a complete stomp or you AFK in base, you'll regularly be completing those items.

The second point I want to touch on, and it actually expands on the idea of non-reliance on gold, is idea that supports don't get the satisfaction of being a playmaker, or having a significant impact on a fight, being a highlight reel, etc.... This is really interesting because I see a lot of people hate on champions like Thresh and Lulu because their kits are overloaded with utility. UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME, I would prefer supports to have more kits like Thresh's: make abilities that aren't reliant on raw power/item+gold reliant, and it would probably be more appealing to play support in general because you can have an impact on fights as long as you have good game sense. For Lulu's case, we can look at her rise in popularity this season in the LCS. She is appealing as a solo laner because she can lane bully and then scale into team fights with utility. This is especially relevant with the Protect the Tristana comps teams at Worlds are running, because even though she has somewhat diminished lane bully power vs popular picks like Ryze, pros will still pick her for the extra protection. What's funny is that she has that same amount of power in the support role... but hey she can farm as a solo laner and clear waves, so you simply add more protection by putting another champion like Janna in the support. I think at Worlds there was a TSM game where Dyrus was far behind and had a lot of deaths, yet still fit into his team's game plan late game with only a few AP items in hand. That's why I think Lulu is a great champion for support: effective without an ideal gold/stat line. Even without an overloaded utility kit, champions with some level of utility and minimal item reliance are pretty good at support. Zyra for example: all I need is Liandry's and Sightstone, and I can peel, ward, and do the most damage to champions at the end of a game. I'd also recommend Syndra support ;) Support item builds also play a huge role in having significant impact in fights, and you don't need an entire pack of them to be useful late game. Just by themselves: Mikael's is super valuable, and I've had several cleanses that made the difference of us winning the game or throwing it because our carry got caught with a snare. Locket for the shield/aura, Randuin's for the slow (and being tanky as a support is amazing), Twin Shadows for mobility, slow, and an easy way to pop Banshee Veil's shield. Even Banner of Command is great for 20% CDR, and nobody suspects the split pushing super minion! I actually think a very appealing part of support is not having to worry (too much) about builds or farming, and just making plays and enabling your team to do cool things around the map (I think taking a tower for free is cool).

Assist announcements sound cool, but they'd probably have to have higher thresholds than kills to avoid spam/clutter. I wouldn't mind the props though =P

ItemsGuy2 votes

You're actually pretty spot-on with the unpopular opinion bit. One of the reasons I generally stand opposed to the forced AP scaling of traditionally non-scaling facets of abilities (AP increasing Lulu's movespeed boost and things like that), is that supports as a whole should have both the lowest gold reliance and lowest gold scaling among the roles (with carries being the opposite, needing purchased stats and having the tools necessary to multiply their effectiveness greatly, usually seen as steroids--hence why the support/carry combo is the most optimal lane income-wise).

Supports in general should be defined by abilities with high base impact (Thresh's hook and Morgana's snare are scary regardless of whether you have 0 AP or 300), that retain relevance throughout the game and scale primarily off of %CDR, which tends to be a core stat on many support items. Sticking to this sort of design philosophy with supports is a pretty straightforward way of making playing a support feel gratified, without having to pile on more gold or items onto them. Braum has seen multiple nerfs throughout his lifetime. Blocking the Ezreal ult that was about to wipe out your buddy recalling at 10 HP? Still feels good.

Lwnt2 votes

I believe supports like lulu, janna, sona, soraka and nami should have utiltiy scaling. These supports will never give out high damage late game (like morgana) or have the potential to be very tanky (like thresh and braum and leona). These 5 supports only have their utility helping them and their teammates. I promise you having the utitility scale to being stronger is so much more satisfying to play as a support then having the same utility strength throughout the game.

But i have to say that they should not have use the stat Ability power to scale the utility of these supports. Ability power is a very gold dependent stat that is very hard to get a lot of especially on a support income. It should of been a cheap stat that support can afford and usually found on a support items.

Also going back to your point, if they were to remove the ability power utility scaling they would have to remove braum, leona and taric health and resistance scaling which will cause them to be less tanky or have lower damage.

ItemsGuy2 votes

Regarding utility supports not scaling into the lategame through damage or durability, that is mostly due to them primarily scaling through utility--and ideally, utility that requires no additional income to make worthwhile (whereas Lulu's movespeed boost, for example, is noticeably less powerful without AP). I agree with you in that AP (an offense-scaling stat, and thus one of the more expensive ones) should not be the primary source of a utility support's scaling into lategame, due to the pricetag associated with it and the minimal income of the average support. You suggest that perhaps another scaling stat be found for this purpose, and I maintain that cooldown reduction is that stat--as it directly improves that utility by increasing its uptime. It also happens that this stat tends to be found on many durability-centric items (Frozen Heart, Face of the Mountain) and utility-centric items (Talisman of Ascension, Twin Shadows), leaving two primary paths for utility supports: durability for longer uptime within fights, or largely improved utility.

Also, I'm not really sure how you reached the conclusion that melee support defensive stat scaling would have to be removed if ranged support offensive stat scaling on traditionally non-scaling utility is removed, since A) those values are allowed to be much lower on offensive abilities (eg. Braum's Q) due to already serving a purpose by directly increasing survivability, B) those champions will end up buying those stats anyway, since they generally need to put themselves in harm's way to be effective and the scaling either acts as a defensive steroid (Leona) or to prevent the champion from being able to deal damage on top of having access to everything else on their kit (Braum), and C) these champions also have no scaling on their utility (you can't increase the duration of any of their CC etc.) so the two examples aren't really comparable.

One of the only reasons that support scaling and itemization hasn't fallen completely on its head is due to the sheer amount of gold that was thrown at supports in S4, which is partially why you can send Annie or Morgana or Zyra or any other mage that is outclassed by other mages (and some that aren't) down bot with your ADC and end up with both a competent support earlygame and a second mage lategame. This is partially a problem with support item design (without those items fitting a pattern of being very gold efficient but equally slot inefficient, you'd have supports struggling to get items without all of the extra gold they currently find themselves with) and support kit design (many of the older supports save for maybe Janna and the new Soraka tend to be outclassed by newer supports due to not being specialists and adhering to relics of design, such as Taric having a click-stun instead of something with more power and counterplay).

Jamnon2 votes

UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME, I would prefer supports to have more kits like Thresh's: make abilities that aren't reliant on raw power/item+gold reliant, and it would probably be more appealing to play support in general because you can have an impact on fights as long as you have good game sense.

This would solve the issue of ADCs/Jung picking up support items. Sounds like you are onto something.

Fighters/bruisers are to be measured against the "Renekton bar" why shouldnt supports be measured against the Thresh / Lulu bar? It is, afterall, harder for a support to catch up if they fall behind. What better way to solve this than give them kits to deal with it. IE so they can still contribute in a meaningful way?

BastionKross3 votes

Can you imagine Taric or Zilean buffed up to Thresh level? My god, it would be glorious. I fully support this idea, Zephy. Buff all supports to the Thresh Bar.

RIP Zephyreal3 votes

Can you imagine Taric or Zilean buffed up to Thresh level? My god, it would be glorious. I fully support this idea, Zephy. Buff all supports to the Thresh Bar.

Haha, I'm sure a lot of people are gonna breathe a sigh of relief after reading my first post, but I have absolutely nothing to do with game balance. My views are just an expression of why I main support, why I think it's actually a desirable role, and what I look for in a champion that adds to the "fun" factor of the game.

Of course, if we did the reverse and we just take out utility from the game... champs like Gangplank might be permaban/pick status! Wouldn't that be a great world to live in? Or I guess Zed would just be a high priority pick like he is for some players/teams now, so maybe not much will change?

BastionKross2 votes

And now you're coming up with ideas that help out everyone's favorite pirate?! Why haven't you been made Grand High Exalted Leader of the balance team yet? I hear you get to wear a cool hat!

In all seriousness, I think your view and the views of the OP match up, just in different ways. You want supports to have more utility so they can have a stronger impact on teamfights and feel more rewarding as a whole. The OP wants supports to have more gold so they can have a stronger impact on teamfights and feel more rewarding as a whole. And I think we could all agree that if all/most supports were as fun as Thresh and Lulu, it would most certainly be a more desirable role.

Hellioning2 votes

See, I agree with your basic point, but I have to disagree with your post because Thresh is a badly designed champion...or, rather, he's a well designed champion going up against a lot of badly designed champions. I legitimately think Thresh would be a viable pick if he did zero damage with his abilities, simply because every skill he has can peel in one way or another. He's fun to play as and has that 'flashy' feel to him that the people love, but he's going up against champions that were designed years ago, and he looks overloaded and stupidly powerful in comparison.

Is he? I think so, but that's because I dislike CertainlyT's design decisions as a whole.

RIP Zephyreal4 votes

See, I agree with your basic point, but I have to disagree with your post because Thresh is a badly designed champion...or, rather, he's a well designed champion going up against a lot of badly designed champions. I legitimately think Thresh would be a viable pick if he did zero damage with his abilities, simply because every skill he has can peel in one way or another. He's fun to play as and has that 'flashy' feel to him that the people love, but he's going up against champions that were designed years ago, and he looks overloaded and stupidly powerful in comparison.

Is he? I think so, but that's because I dislike CertainlyT's design decisions as a whole.

No damage would be brutal in laning phase, but the concept is kind of the same late game where he (generally) doesn't build damage so his entire fight contribution is CC, saving mispositioned allies, and area control with his ultimate. Personally, I am of the latter where some of the older supports just aren't at Thresh's level as opposed to Thresh being super OP, but obviously that's not a hard-fact statement, just a subjective thought. And if the main problem is the flashy feel (which some people pointed out is their primary concern as opposed to wanting more gold or assists to give more power), then utility as opposed to damage or item power reliance is one way to go about it.

Rawrful6 votes

Helping supports feel good would be great, but there are some flaws with your ideas.

1: The announcer would never stop talking. Junglers also get lots of assists, all 5 of you grab a lot of them in team fights. Fun concept, but the announcer already gets annoying in big teamfights where there are multiple sprees and shutdowns and kills because she talks for 30 seconds afterwards.

2: At higher levels of play this would simply break the game. EVERYONE should be warding, not just the support. The 'ward mule' thing is a cultural problem, not a balance problem.

3: All this would do is give everyone on both teams more gold.

4: I agree. Item auras and debuff auras should give assists. There is no reason for them not to.

Really, what needs to happen is a bigger PR campaign to make Support look like a cooler role. Support really is a super important role and really is way harder to play than people make it out to be. Look at TSM. They had to go to Korea to get a support player because our culture shuns supports so much. Supports are a huge deal in Korea because they both control the flow of the game, rein in the ADC, and have to make plays with significantly less gold. And they do so spectacularly. Thresh might not have much gold, but one good hook can turn a game just as hard as a flashy mid laner play.

Desmond Law6 votes

Match history for ranked should also have "Max assists" I feel kind of shafted as a bronze support. My max death and max kill are 12, but i have gotten 36 assists in one game, but there's no record of it.

Narasimha5 votes
  1. Assist sprees just sound weird. Not good, not bad, just... weird.
  2. This adds too many variables. Did the vision REALLY help? What if I placed one right before they died? What if they cleared the ward and died right after?
  3. They have plenty as is
  4. Pretty sure auras count already.
jzek5 votes

There are many ways to do this. They seem to all be based on assists. Here are some of my ideas. Feel free to chime in.

  1. Start tracking and announcing assist sprees. Supports, from the opinion of the majority of LoL players, aren't supposed to have any kills. This could really help because it gives supports recognition for not dying, and helping get kills.
  2. Start adding Assists where wards were placed, which granted vision of an enemy and led to a kill. Supports are often though tof being "warding mules". They often are the only one on the team giving vision on the team through wards.
  3. Increase the amount of gold that is given per assist. This would increase the amount of gold income the supports would have, making it easier to get items to help the team.
  4. Make it so item auras give assists. For example, say a support has a frozen heart. The said support deals no damage in the fight, but slows every enemy's attack speed during the fight with the aura. That support should have received an assist with every enemy that was slain because he directly effected the enemy's fighting potential.
  1. This could be problematic, because other players who are often involved in teamfights would get all of this bonus gold as well. This would be more of a buff to players who play with their team and not only supports.
  2. This would be extremely difficult to code and is not necessarily fair; the player may or may not actually use the ward and it could also give too many assists to players who didn't contribute to the fight.
  3. Same problem as #1.
  4. Auras and buffs already give assists.

I do enjoy playing support and the only thing that I would change is the limit on wards.

EDIT: I just realized everything I said had already been brought up and feel entirely useless now.

Toxcydia5 votes

I think I could appreciate an "Assist Spree" from the announcer voice. It might actually make your teammates be a little less snobby about playing an assassin and going on a "Killing Spree" all the time, and then pointing out that the "support doesn't have any kills, so useless".

Genreninja3 votes

I literally had a game last night. Where about 15 minutes in the ADC said "Can I get a gank down here? Karma isn't doing much." I just look at the MissFortune not even knowing how to respond. What do I say to that? Not only did I protect her from several Blitzcrank pulls she got caught in. I've zoned the opposing Ashe to the point she's less than half the farm..

I'm working my butt off to support this MissFortune who can't dodge a Blitzcrank pull to save her life. And her only comment to the team about our bot-lane performance is " This Karma isn't doing much."

Seriously? But of course everyone else is in their own lane, doing their own thing, so they can't actually SEE the work. So they buy into her comment and it goes downhill from there. I've been branded a bad support. I never said anything in chat, because I feel defending yourself is futile in the LoL community. But they definitely felt compelled to tell me how poor I was doing for a large portion of the game.

That experience, which is quite common, isn't fun.

AmazingGoat4 votes

I suspect that any attempt to give supports more gold is going to have effects many players may not be crazy about. Giving supports more gold is going to increase the selection of non-traditional support champions, as it enables the use of champions who don't function well without gold.

If you did want to do this, however, I really like the idea of tying it to incentivizing players to ward. Riot likes to talk about "hidden power", and seems to not be a fan of it (see, e.g., treatment of auras). Well wards, although ironically granting vision, are in some ways semi-hidden power, in that they collectively provide a benefit far greater than what is traditionally perceived at lower ELOs. This is why competitive play involves running around sweeping while the map is largely dark in bronze solo queue.

I believe that at certain ELOs (around the silver/gold level), taking away the ability to place unlimited wards even if compensated with slightly more gold actually negatively impacted a support's ability to impact games. That is, last season's preseason changes aimed at increasing people's willingness to play support simultaneously in some ways made it more frustrating to play support.

Accordingly, I like the idea of incentivizing players to ward. Rather than having a separate gold generation item and a separate warding item, why not have a sightstone provide x gold per ten seconds when you have at least one ward out. Its effect could be disabled for x seconds when you kill a minion/monster. I suspect supports at low ELO would buy a sightstone sooner and make sure to have their wards out. Also, increase the gold for killing enemy wards.

The incentives are in place, the numbers just need to be tweaked.

MetaCosmos4 votes

Or! You could make team accouncements when there's more then 4 announcements to make

Example: You team gets 2 doubles an ace and a everyone just racked up 5 assist. Insert: "Perfect Ace!"

3 players get 3 assist and 1 play gets a triple in the same fight and no one dies "X team Dominating!"

Stuff like that adds a layer of epic to the announcements and makes everyone feel like they did a really good job.

BastionKross3 votes

Two ways to implement this:

  1. Make a mastery that grants gold for ward assists, or aura assists, or extra gold for assist streaks (whichever you prefer). And then bury that mastery near the very bottom of the utility tree. Instantly, the only champions that get that gold are supports, because no non-support in their right mind is going to put all those points into utility for a bit of extra gold.

  2. Give item 2045 a similar effect. Again, only supports would dump the gold into it since they'd get it anyway. And even if non-supports did buy it, they'd be more likely to actually ward. Of course LeeSin would be the exception to this, but Riot has stated that after worlds are over he's got a date with the nerf bat.

Jamnon2 votes

This would be a nightmare to code, as its hard to know what vision actually ended up in assists. That being said, it is true that vision is largely unsatisfying, but TERRIBLY underestimated resource which can win or lose a game.

The whole "last hitting" might need to be looked at. Maybe track who did the most damage to the target? I dunno seems like pandoras box that no one wants to even look at even though it has faults.

It is innately more satisfying to be the one killing/finishing off targets and this is something that Riot needs to look at, now, i think. I have no idea how this might be addressed however. Kills/killing sprees are announced, and the last thing I need is my game to be spammed with announcements. There's something to be said about having YOUR portrait oulined in yellow, bigger than your teammates, kill after kill.

Thats not to say assisting is unsatisfying, but I just get the feeling its more satisfying to kill than it is to assist. You suggested announcing assisting sprees etc, and putting it on equal ground with "killers" might be one way to do it, but as I said I think it might be spammy. How else might you address this?

Gare Jordans1 votes

This would be a nightmare to code, as its hard to know what vision actually ended up in assists. That being said, it is true that vision is largely unsatisfying, but TERRIBLY underestimated resource which can win or lose a game.

The whole "last hitting" might need to be looked at. Maybe track who did the most damage to the target? I dunno seems like pandoras box that no one wants to even look at even though it has faults.

It is innately more satisfying to be the one killing/finishing off targets and this is something that Riot needs to look at, now, i think. I have no idea how this might be addressed however. Kills/killing sprees are announced, and the last thing I need is my game to be spammed with announcements. There's something to be said about having YOUR portrait oulined in yellow, bigger than your teammates, kill after kill.

Thats not to say assisting is unsatisfying, but I just get the feeling its more satisfying to kill than it is to assist. You suggested announcing assisting sprees etc, and putting it on equal ground with "killers" might be one way to do it, but as I said I think it might be spammy. How else might you address this?

Assist sprees are the only idea that pops into my head with this. They shouldn't be on the same ground as killing sprees. It should be harder to get them announced than just getting five assists in a row without dying. I was thinking maybe an announcement for 7 or 8 assists would be fine. I think that would definitely encourage more players to play a "lesser" role, instead of wanting to be a playmaking carry every game. A lot of times getting that recognition for your outstanding play through an announcement makes things seem a bit better. If you have any counter-ideas let me know!!! I'd be glad to hear some other good thoughts.

Jamnon3 votes

I really like showing damage prevented (shields buffs to lifesteal etc), heals. Things like Zileans ult feel GREAT. I like how buffs count as contributing towards assists. I really dont like how unflashy certain support mechanics are. I think abilities can be a LOT more visible.

Shields are more visible because of the visible buffs. Abilities need to be more visible. Sona changes are in this direction and I think are healthy.

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