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The Hard Knock Life of a Support

SaitamaForPOTUS··10 votes·1,629 views

I believe Riot absolutely just hates supports. Not so much in terms of character creation, but the rewards systems in place. I've had the hardest time getting S or S+ rankings in game because it seems like its just impossible to please the LoL Gods. I thought maybe well I just suck, but I recently took part in a ranked game that shed some light on the issue.

It was a 4v5 from the get go because our Nidalee jungle went DC and didn't come back in until close to 20 minutes in. At the end of the game, when I had 3 kills, 1 death, and 11 assists, she had the same amount of gold as me. Now I know I'm not the best support or player out there, but I feel that I should at least be given some sort of reward for taking part in the whole game as Nidalee was only in for the last 15 minutes. On top of that, I was only given an A grade with that ratio. It is damn near impossible to get level 7 mastery where my main duo adc had already gotten level 7 on Jinx very shortly after the mastery level was available.

I believe that something needs to be done about this and the unsung heroes of Summoners Rift needs some time in the spotlight as well as the other roles.

31 Comments

barbarianskull5 votes

At least you always get ur role...

SaitamaForPOTUS3 votes

This is true!

Yuumi or Lose5 votes

When people say "Riot absolutely hates this and favors this", it makes me think of a spoiled brat.

Fondling Gems2 votes

I personally find supports to be the easiest to get S ranks on. There are only a few supports that I play very infrequently that I don't have S ranks on like Janna who I have played all of maybe 3 games on since hextech was implemented.

Gene Freakz1 votes

I concur that getting an S - to S+ rating is difficult with a support especially if one does not play a powerful mage support like Sona or Zyra I think Riot may need to relax the requirements for earning this grade. The problem is that it is just a system that measures performance, not an actual person. You could have died to save a carry or pulled of a game-changing, momentum-shifting play that goes unnoticed by the computer system measuring performance as it cannot assess that. So don't feel too bad if you haven't earned that 6 or 7 mastery emote. A lot of it is luck anyway. I have less than 200 blue essence and I don't feel like I'll get my morg mastery 6 anytime soon even though I have 2 mastery 6 tokens. Keep it up ol' chum. We supports gotta look out for each other ;)

zlumpy1 votes

Why should they relax requirements? Just like a high elo rank (which I don't have) the grading system is something to strive for to better yourself. My favorite S strat for supports is buy tons of pinks, roam to mid or top (I run teleport) when I can be of use and the adc doesnt need me, and to just glue myself to a hyper carry. What you guys thought vayne was strong before? See what happens when she has a pocket taric following her everywhere.

Gene Freakz2 votes

I definitely see your point. There are many different ways to play support and some of them may land you an S and some of them may not. In the grand scheme of things, I couldn't care less about what Mastery Emote I have. I just want to win games and climb. If that means me not getting an S rating, so be it. It is fun thing to strive for, though, almost like a mini-game within the game.

SaitamaForPOTUS1 votes

Here's the thing about that though. You get so little gold, even when you do well. It becomes the choice of wards or defense. which I definitely commend Riot for adding the option to combine your gold income item with your sightstone. THAT was something that I absolutely loved, but as opposed to the major changes done to other roles like Mage and Marksman, it pales in comparison.

zlumpy1 votes

Well thats kinda the point of grading with wards. If you are doing well enough to get a better grade you are doing well enough to buy extra wards. Btw just got another taric S+ with a 7/6/22 maybe around 11 pink wards placed, a couple of tower kills, I was present at 3 dragon kills, helped kill baron, and I took a butt ton of damage while initiating. To be fair I think Taric is very under played atm so his standards are probably much lower than a hero like nami or thresh.

Cubíx1 votes

KDA isn't the only part of the rating system. There's kill participation (as in if you had like 10 assist out of 40 kills thats only 25% KP), ward count, damage dealt, and its based off all the player on that champ in that role. Also I think riot said something about fixing support mastery system in one of the next patches.

Tiny Trickster1 votes

Have they explicitly said this? Because I hear people saying it's all of the things you listed and people saying it's just KDA.

Mysticman891 votes

There was a podcast on it that went into more detail, plus theres the support article on mastery that explains how it's percentile based and theres lots of metrics for performance.

Most people prefer to be salty and blame the system for it not working as they expect though.

Tiny Trickster1 votes

I see, ty.

Cubíx1 votes

its more than just KDA, I played a 2 Kha'zix games both were roughly 30 mins. I got an A+ the first game and S the the second, better kda in the first, the only difference was about 30 more cs and 5 more wards in the second game.

Tiny Trickster1 votes

It compares your performance to other people who play this champ in that role. So that just means a lot of people play better than 3/1/11.

SaitamaForPOTUS1 votes

This game wasn't to point out the KDA, I know there's people that have done better because I do better than that constantly. That game was to show how a Nidalee that was DC for the whole game got the same amount of gold as me, someone who was in the whole game. That just isn't right.

Tiny Trickster1 votes

Yeah I do wish that support gold items were more effective. I mean it's not like any other lanes can really use them.. besides like the tank gold item. So I don't get why they generate so little gold.

alfavhunter1 votes

As someone that gets S with Janna on a somewhat regular basis

Ward more kill enemy wards and partake in more kills, the game looks at kill participation so if you were in 7/10 kills that's 70%, usually around an A-

Warding and CS can inflate your score a bit, just like objective control can, but I do agree it needs to be a little more forgiving not to supports

Yordlelayhehoo1 votes

Look at news, read the update, they're fixing it. God people are stupid

SaitamaForPOTUS1 votes

Trust me. I always average highly in the ward category. And i definitely participate in the kills my assists are always at least in 20. The only time I get less is when the team has retreated so bad into defense that we can't even tower dive. But as some people have stated on this discussion, One thing that I do quite often, is I will take the hit and die if I know my adc will get the kills from it and that can't help my score, but it helps the team. It sucks that I get punished for it though.

Athenes Lulu1 votes

Kill participation, wards placed/destroyed, kills, and minion kills.

All of them vary depending on what you're playing, but those 4 are what you should work on. A short range support needs like 60% KP, medium range 60~65% KP, long range/super safe ones 70%+. The more magelike you are, the more kills you will need. Somewhere along the lines of that.

I will say it's not the easiest thing to get S ranks, but it's not impossible; people just like to bitch and whine.

SaitamaForPOTUS1 votes

I definitely participate and my wards are always high. It's easy to just say what it goes off of and believe that people just aren't meeting those expectations. But nobody else seems to need to do all of this just to get some love. others just need to get kills, but they get kills from Support presence. That should be the main goal, but it obviously isn't

MarshallBananna1 votes

I actually got my Lissandra S+ crate as Liz support :P

I find the ranking to be kinda unpredictable in all positions mind you, not just support.

kaltenashes1 votes

I believe Riot absolutely just hates supports. Not so much in terms of character creation, but the rewards systems in place. I've had the hardest time getting S or S+ rankings in game because it seems like its just impossible to please the LoL Gods

DUDE ARE YOU SERIOUS??????

http://www.masteryprofiler.com/?name=kaltenashes&region=na

CHESTS EARNED Total 14/131 top 2/35 jg 1/27 mid 2/33 supp 8/17 adc 1/19

i actually got more than 8 chest as support, but some champs are from other roles also have 5 token playing as support, i wont upgrade it to mastery 6, i dont need it

NO, i'm not a support main, i'm a filler main ='(

Bemapon1 votes

item 3060 + item 3512 = Easy S.

Just be careful you dont go out of your way to take the farm

Oleandervine1 votes

Does no one read the articles on the main page, or do the all go straight to board rage? In the State of the Season they catalog the next few patches, and at least 2 of them are absolutely devoted to support work. They're doing a mini role update with changes to XP, items, and such. In another patch, they're addressing the mastery system in relation to the Support role. So yeah, Riot sure hates supports if they can for sure tell us that they have this much work planned for them in the next few patches.

ArbiterOfTruth1 votes

They just announced in a post that they're going to be looking at the grading system for supports. Edit: Here's the link: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/state-season-mid-season-followup

ZeeWolfZ1 votes

I got two S+ as Viktor "Support"

ArbiterOfTruth1 votes

That's because you weren't really a support. The current system requires you to go something like 5/0/30 for an S rank.

manbearswine1 votes

Just don't play these champions as supports, that often helps.

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