Supports? OP in multiple lanes

**TL;DR: ** Design and balance champions to go into predetermined lanes. Create a stat called Utility Power (UP) that scales as the game progresses and so supports have a 'support stat'.

Complaints like this Lulu nerf currently on the PBE are completely pointless until Riot fixes one major issue with this game. The ability for champions to effectively play in multiple lanes.

Multi-Lane Problems:

The player on the forums above mentions this in his post:

> Two years ago when solo lane Lulu became a thing in the LCS you made the decision to support it because you liked how she worked there but after repeated nerfs because of her solo laning you've knocked her almost completely out of the Support role and now she's only rarely seen in solo lanes outside of the LCS and barely, if ever, seen as a support. Stop kicking your heels about keeping her the same in a solo lane and as a support and just f*****g nerf solo lane Lulu...

Lulu has been outrageous for quite some time, and to comment on the post above, that player must not play ranked 5s or 3s because although she isn’t played extensively in Dynamic Q, she is a must pick or ban in team composition design scenarios. She can poke in lane, take free trades with E, wave clear late, make any champion she is supporting unstoppable, and turn hyper-carries into Gods. She is the epitome of the problem behind Riot’s current design and balance in that they are so reluctant to segregate a champion into a preordained role.

Lulu isn’t the only Problem

Yes, I’m looking at you Trundle. Ever played against a Caitlyn / Brand bot lane? Isn’t very fun is it? Other great examples include Vel'koz, Zyra, and Morgana. Champions like these that are capable of building support items yet continuing their intended role's level of threat (think “win condition”) are getting out of control. If I’m on a team with a Malphite, Orianna, and Miss Fortune I shouldn’t have to tell my team not to fight in the jungle because they have a Zyra, Brand, or Vel'koz…SUPPORT. I also shouldn’t need to build MR because their full AD team now has an AP threat. Some of these champions have been played a little more extensively in the past like Zyra and Morgana, certainly in the competitive scene, and some are mostly Dynamic Q nightmares. Let’s go a little more meta: Nautilus, Trundle, and Poppy…SUPPORT. Why does this even exist? With all the nerfs that Thresh and Braum have received in the past. Why are champions like Nautilus and Poppy allowed in this lane? Nautilus and Poppy each have more CC than both Thresh and Braum COMBINED! They all even have abilities that make them honor students and Alma maters of The Alistar Academy of the Unbreakable. Enough ranting about the problem, there is only one solution to this.

Utility Power (UP)

No champion should have the ability to do everything that Lulu is capable of with one stat, AP. No champion should be able to build almost the same build path as they do top lane as Nautilus can. No champion should have the gold income capable of building items like Dead Man’s Plate and Iceborn Gauntlet, both items Poppy builds in her jungle and top lane build paths. It’s been needed for a long time. A stat like UP that scales on abilities like Lulu’s W, E, and R, instead of AP. Allowing her to be the support she was intended to be. You could even take this to whole different level. If UP is a stat it could be a scaling stat too. Meaning support champions like Lulu, Thresh, and Braum have a scaling increase giving them added health, armor, and magic resist with slight nerfs to the already scaling stats as the game progresses. This would allow for items like Sightstone and Frost Queen’s Claim to become SUPPORT items and allow their costs to be nerfed significantly as they would have increases of 40+ to the UP stat making real supports stronger as the game progress but be completely useless to champions in other lanes that don’t scale off of the stat, like Nautilus and Poppy.

It’ll never happen though

As we all know the PVP in www.pvp.net doesn’t stand for ‘player vs. player’ it stands for ‘player vs. patch’ and Riot will never do this because, “…we don't want to influence the meta of the game or roles of any given champion.” There are 130 champions in League, keep adding more and it's not going to be an option, it'll be required to keep the game playable.