Support champions and dashes

Niaphim··6 votes·1,004 views

There has been a lot of discussion going about supports, autofill etc. but I'm going to address something else. Why don't we have a single support champion with non-conditional dash? Like some sort of ability that can get a support out of a bad situation or join a teamfight by jumping over a wall?

Alistar 's dash is targeted, only usable to enemy champions and iirc can even fail if cast outside of range. Bard has a cool tunnel mechanic but it's still rather slow to cast, also Bard can be followed by enemies. Still, it is a good ability and a part of reason supports love playing Bard. Braum can only be cast on allied targets. Leona needs to hit a champion with a fairly low range skillshot. Thresh is relatively good in this aspect, as he can close the gap to any enemy target including jungle camps etc with a long range skillshot. And surprise-surprise, he is very "fun to play" and popular.

And that's it. These are champions with some instant gap closing power. Other "traditional" supports have some speed buffs at best.

This in my opinion is part of the reason why supports often feel useless. Everyone is jumping around like rabbits and sometimes you just feel abandoned as you miss all action. And inversely, if the fight goes bad, you know you are doomed.

Not every champion in League has a lot of mobility, some have none, but I personally would like to see some supports with mobility skills that are coupled with some utility maybe. Like Lee Sin/LeBlanc of supports. I just want to feel badass sometimes when supporting, not necessarily deal damage.

11 Comments

OurLestrade4 votes

Tell me about it. The amount of times you see supports lagging behind everyone as they run around doing all their fancy stuff is a little bit disheartening - it's not a skill thing, it's literally just the supports champions themselves not having access to those sort of movements.

Dashes are the root of most playmaking in champions, so it'd certainly feel more satisfying and interactive if there were supports with reliable mobility options to mess around with. Would be a big improvement on the shield spam blocks of meat support style they seem to be promoting at the moment - giving people big heals and shields have never been what makes me enjoy the role.

l Dárius l1 votes

tri force stattikk shiv alistar top

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

Ali can dash to minons or jungle mobs as well.

Also mobility crossed with high utility could cause problems. Ali gets this to some degree which can be seen by the fact that he's a highly valued pick in competitive despite having such a simple kit.

Niaphim1 votes

I'm suggesting some small utility things, like maybe Ezreal's E but with small healing bolt instead of damage (not exactly like that but you get the idea).

In Ali's example dash is bound to a hard CC combo (knockup, that can't be QSS's/cleansed) so he should have some limitations.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

Right, but almost all supports have high utility with hard cc, so the problem isn't with having utility on the same ability as the mobility, its the mobility combined with the utility of the rest of their kit. If you don't give them the utility then they aren't going to function as supports.

Bronze Bonanza1 votes

Support Tryndamere can dash every few seconds.

doiminat0r36001 votes

"Support" Tryndamere can dash every few seconds

FTFY

AcidTheWarlock1 votes

You forgot Leona and Naut in the movement category.

Friendly Ram1 votes

Shen ??? Nautilus +wall

Niaphim1 votes

While Shen and Nautilus are sometimes picked as supports, they are (were) most often seen in the top lane and jungle, so I don't put them in "traditional supports" category. Anyway, Shen is more of a tanky fighter and doesn't fully qualify as a support in my opinion. Nautilus is much better at supporting, but his anchor has restrictions such as he can't get over walls and generally needs a wall to be used if not hitting an enemy. I'm talking about pure dashes with less utility, designed for supports that want to ward more and follow their team more easily.

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