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I think one of the issues with supports is that support items are universally good.

Ahri Body Pillow··2 votes·921 views

What I mean by this is that you don't really have to like...itemize. If you're a tank, build Knight's Vow and Locket. Every game. If you're a caster, redemption and ardent. Every game. The pace/game situation does not dictate what you build, only your champion. Back before Locket was reworked, it was a fairly situational item. It gave a small shield and an MR aura. It wasn't incredibly useful all the time, but it made a difference against team comps that were primarily magic damage or heavy Aoe ( Amumu, Orianna, Rumble, Etc).

Mikael's is a very good example of what a support item SHOULD look like. The active is strong, but not strong enough to be required in every game. You'd pick it up if the enemy team had someone who could lock your carry down or a form of very reliable cc, such as an Amumu ult. Items like Locket or Redemption, however, are ALWAYS good. There is no niche. When would you not need that extra shield or health?

I would very much like to see support item actives being more situational. Support builds need to be more dynamic, based on what's happening in the game at any given moment, not what you picked during champ select.

12 Comments

Azadethe1 votes

They ARE Situational, and you're wrong about your every game meme.

Vs Mage bottoms/Magic damage ADCS, Nami etc starts item 3174 , not item 3107 or item 3504 .

Furthermore, Support Gold income has dropped about 2-4k per game, which has drastically affected the rate at which supports can Purchase. I can rarely get over 3 items in most games now. They are coming later, weaker, and I'm sorry..... but realistically the supports are DYING more than they ever have in the past.

Ahri Body Pillow2 votes

http://www.probuilds.net/champions/details/Nami

Every single game on there has an ardent censer, and most of them have redemption. In fact, only a few of them even bother to build athenes. As a matter of fact, it looks to me like Mikael's is the preferred MR item.

It is not a meme, people are building Redemption and Ardent Censer every game...

Azadethe1 votes

Probuilds doesn't mean a damn thing when it comes to build effectiveness. I'm Diamond III atm, and I adjust my builds and rarely ever build item 3107 or item 3222.

Also, if you actually bothered to look, 1 of the 6 player Probuilds followed have Athene's in their builds..... Dumbledoge builds it every game.

Only 2 games even built Mikhael's.

Also, most of them are building item 3098 even though item 3096 is building more gold income, and they are going summoner 14 over summoner 3 , even though Exhaust generally wins more games with Nami's playstyle.

(In LCS 88% chose exhaust, 11.8% chose Ignite).

Furthermore, if you look at their game stats, their damage/heals are subpar to AP based builds focused around the same item 3504 item 3174 item 3003, and their KDA's indicate they stay back and do nothing but E their adc, and heal when needed. Damage low, heals lower, and pretty much slaves to their laners (which is how their teams are designed).

Ahri Body Pillow1 votes

If you're rarely building redemption on Nami, I don't think you're really using her to her full potential.

Also, where are you pulling this data from when you say they have subpar healing? Compared to what numbers?

Azadethe1 votes

The healing of triple stacking heal/shield items is exactly the same on the first hit applications as on a AP build.

However it suffers several things:

  1. Weak Passive movement speed gains.
  2. Weak Q's.
  3. Weak W scaling (AP build gains up to about 26% heals/damage per bouce, while Active Item builds LOSE about 13-8% per bounce.
  4. Active item builds do not scale her E's slow or damage.
  5. Weak Ult Move speed proc on teams.

The reason these "pros" are building the active items are they are CHEAPER. But they NEED cheaper because they cannon properly utilize item 3098 in high tension play. item 3098 builds fall behind item 3096 by a scaling of about 180 gold per 5 minutes on a NORMAL game. In game versus a hard counter, item 3311 falls behind a whopping 282 Gold per 5 minutes.

This translates to different purchase decisions. Namely 2200-2300 Gold ones. They choose the low cost heal boost over AP items, because they know they can at least guarantee moderate heals to game pace.

But at the same time, if you chose item 3096 the pacing generally isn't fast enough to choose both, and item 3174 nulls a passive from taking item 3222 . namely the one that gives you health regen and replaces it with the one that gives you AP.

So, most High gold players are opting out of item 3222 , because especially on Nami, item 3174 can activate twice on her Ebb, and each boosts the amount healed a LOT. item 3174 Ebb on a 4 item build on average heals 860 more than a 4 Item active Heal/Shield build if you take into account both bounces.

I've broken down the math in about 20 different posts. Good luck finding them (73% win rate D III Nami)

Reaper Soraka1 votes

The first person to finish the warding quest disables gold gain on all other support items? The first person to finish the support quest is the only player able to ward from their support item?

I never had a problem with other people picking it up. In fact, I preferred other people having wards.

Ahri Body Pillow1 votes

I'm gonna be honest I don't really understand what you are trying to say here. Could you maybe rephrase this for me?

Reaper Soraka1 votes

Some ideas to get rid of people picking up the support item in other lanes

Draehl1 votes

I'd just love the option to build offtank Bard and Karma again. You skip the normal support item progression, sink extra gold into actual tank items, but barely feel any more tanky. I'd be down for support item nerfs, but there would have to be some sort of mechanic to feasibly build non support items without being insanely behind the gold curve.

FOR JUSTICE1 votes

to be fair, the first 2 items are your core build, those always remain the same. and when you support, youre usually supporting some kind of marksmen, which in most cases isn't that much of a diverse class itself (as most are crit attack speed based) so therefore the itemization would kind of reflect that

Ahri Body Pillow2 votes

A champion having a few core items is fine. But when they become core on every single champion of a certain type, then it's probably a problematic item. For example, every single mage was building Morellonomicon, with the exception of a small handful of mages that built tear instead. I would just like more support items to have more unique/niche strengths.

Aptest1 votes

The problem with the support items is that they are boring, and yet they are very powerful. Only the power is distributed in a way that augments the least engaging part of the character, and does not promote the player gaining agency in the game (rather, someone else's agency is rewarded by extra power coming from the assisting player - the support).

The single current exemption is knight's vow.

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