Poll: Should Riot do more to make Supports a more attractive role to pick?

PrinceKO·Apr 18, 2016·2 votes·871 views

I'm sure a lot of you have noticed that queuing up for the other roles can take at least 5 minutes, sometimes 10 since there's a frightening shortage of support players. I mean, sure I like to support every now and then, but even I get tired of supporting because I'm paired with a bad ADC who rages at me all game or I just hate having such a low impact in teamfights.

Looking back at the patch notes for season 6, there has only been 2 support champions receiving buffs: Alistar WQ combo easier to land, and Karma having mana cost lowered and a slight buff on her Mantra shield. That's it. Meanwhile, the EXP mastery was removed and combined with all the nerfs to the strongest support champions, the support pool player has drastically reduced.

So, should Riot rejuvenate the supporting role? Or should supports be left alone in the spot they are in now?

8 Comments

PhantomGGApr 18, 20164 votes

Supports don't need buffs, a good support player is perfectly capable of carrying himself. The reason why no one likes support is a combinations of reasons.

1-They are a role that is quite often flamed 2-If the entire team falls behind (those games where 4 out of 5 people are feeding) they suffer the most gold wise 3-The average player is younger than 18 to my knowledge, meening this game is dominated by teenagers. No offense teenagers but, you guys, yall like action, you like slashing noises and explosions, most teenagers lack the maturity to enjoy the role of support. Most supports mains I have met are quite often silent types who are mature. 4-The stereotype that supports can't carry, we enforce this false stereotype that supports can't carry. We call it a bad position that only bad players main. If we create such a horrible stereotype than how would that ever lure in new players to take on such a role?

TLDR- its the communities fault that support is not popular, the role is fine, it needs no buffs. Plus buffing it wouldn't change a thing, especially in low elo. Most people in low elo don't even know why they have to update the game once every month. You really think they read patch notes?

Lost RApr 18, 20161 votes

This guy gets it.

PhantomGGApr 18, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lost R,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bsXBmvLI,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-04-18T08:21:38.876+0000)

This guy gets it.

I am not the logical mind this society deserves, I am the one it needs.

-PhanatosG2 for president 2016

But in all reality all buffing supports would do is make the role over powered. Remember that horrible time frame where Tahm Kench was banned literally every game? Remember when Blitzcrank had to be banned every low elo game before his Nerfs hit? Or the days where Nautlist/Vayne bot lane was the most unstoppable duo lane during late season five? Or how about the days where having a Alistar or a zillean alone won your team the game?

I rather not go back to those days.

Lost RApr 18, 20161 votes

It's not about the supports being too weak. It's about someone on the team being the mature one, and the community maltreating the role because of some fabricated belief that the support is ultimately responsible for every win and loss, every death is intentionally feeding, every kill is stolen, and that they have absolutely zero presence or menace because they can't ultrahyperultdeathkill like Zed or Yasuo can. With that kind of maltreatment and perspective, why would XxCallofCODFan92xX want to be the support?

LostFr0stApr 18, 20162 votes

It's not that there's a shortage of supports.
It's that those who don't mind support don't want to get support every single game.
To avoid that, they just don't put support at all anymore, thus the "shortage."

GinoSoldierApr 18, 20161 votes

The only thing Supports 'need' is a larger item pool dedicated to them, and even that can be argued.

1; Items to open the AD support path, with low power armor/MR shredding, kiting options and the likes. A less damage-oriented version of Aram's Lightbringer item would be awesome. 2; A couple more AP/Support dedicated Items. With the mage rework changing Grail to be a definitive supp item, the total AP/supp item pool goes to 5 items. Of course tank items work as well, but they aren't dedicated to the more offensive AP supports. 3; A couple more Tank/Support dedicated items. Sure plain tanks and Support tanks tend to build the same things, but some Tank items are too costly for the poor support budget, making them a bit slower at building efficiency.

The current Support item pool is 'sufficient' and does work but by no means as diverse as i think it should be allowed to be. Less actives and more passives would also make my day, but that's mostly because i'm lazy.

Terra D SerphApr 18, 20161 votes

I think they just need to rephrase the support role. A lot of people think it means "no impact" to the game, or that you'll be babysitting the guy who's actually going to be making an impact to the game, when in reality, the attraction to support should initially be "I don't have to farm minions, and can immediately start dealing damage to two champions."