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Why do new supports feel like junglers? Can we have a new DECENT Healer / Shielder support?

Glauciane·1/23/2019, 3:31:41 PM·9 votes·6,526 views

Supports were really unpopular some seasons ago, older players know it. We always wanted the role to be more relevant. I feel that Riot tried to make it by releasing "independent" supports. Independent in a sense that their kits no longer have strong defensive spells, but strong ccs and mobility skills that allows them to** force pick-offs /roamings without being punished if everything goes wrong. **

**1- Pyke. **He can protect his carry with his dash and knock up, but they are very situational to be used that way. Those skills are more effective when HE's the one engaging . He can pretty much win the game even if his ADC's bad, since his kit is perfect for roaming and pick-offing. His ult rewards pyke to die AFTER his carry, not before, as a support should. In tf's, It only works if someone take the risk of landing enough damage so he can reset. AND even if his roaming doesn't end up well, he can just use his invisibility/dash to run and grey-shield to back fullife to lane.

2- Rakan, whose shields and healings are a joke, is also almost a jungler in the bot. His w can be used to protect his ad by knocking the enemy carry (which is pretty useful against jhin, for example), but we all know his biggest utility comes when being used as an multi-target engager (With less damage than pyke, thanks god). His E, instead of being used to protect the carry, ends up with the utility of running away to avoid being punished for bad engages.

3- Tahm Kench can defend his carry, I admit it, his w is strong and useful. But as it has a high cooldown, his kit ends up being about punishing who dares to come close enough to the carry. He can even 1x1 most of champs in the game, even without being ahead/farming. He also has the grey-shield that doesn't make him get punished for bad plays, and his ult is perfect for roaming.

**4- Bard **has healing. Which is in fact useful during the lane-phase. But as game advances, his w's charging time becomes an issue, and it ends being more used as a speed buff. His kit, as pyke's and rakan's, is pretty much focused on opening a window to roaming ( I won't talk much about him, his skills talk by themselves).

Braum is the last full-peel released support champ. His q is strong to engage in lanephase, but since it's slow and, as his ult, has a small range, he ends up using it as a defensive skill for most of the game. **He was released em 2014, 5 years ago. **

That being said, i wanna make clear that , besides pyke, (which i think shouldn't have everything on his kit), i really love and often use all the champions here quoted. Supports are more impacting in the game now.

**BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND, I WOULD LIKE A NEW HIGH RISK HEALER/SHIELDER IN THE GAME. ** High risk in a sense that, if it's carry doesn't play well, he would probably lose the game. But due to the strong defensive kit, with a good carry, he would be highly rewarded for protecting it. Botlane is dominated by lucians/jhins/strong early champions. We don't see hypercarries (Vayne/kog) any longer. That kind of champion would be perfect to duo them, protecting them while they don't hit their power spike, **since nowadays everything have explosive dmg and tons of cc. **

Nami, who has been released in 2012, 7 years ago have somewhat the kind of playstyle i would love to see in a new champion. Soraka / Janna also do what i'm talking about.

31 Comments

The thigh guy1/23/2019, 4:03:55 PM10 votes

Nope. Can’t have protective champions anymore. Only engage, damage and burst is allowed. This is the will with of the all mighty rito!

Butterwood1/23/2019, 4:06:36 PM5 votes

Or put some respek on this guy's name Ivern

Death by Glamour1/23/2019, 3:37:39 PM4 votes

BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND, I WOULD LIKE A NEW HIGH RISK HEALER/SHIELDER IN THE GAME

old soraka then, W had quite a hefty CD and required you to get in close to Q as to reduce its CD if I remember correctly

maybe Taric ?

Sire Hippington1/23/2019, 7:06:13 PM3 votes

I disagree on tham and Rakan.

Sure, rakans trademark is the engage with ult, but his shield is actually rather powerfull and his mobillity allows him to quickly shift between peeling and engageing, and the heals is not that bad either.

And tham is basically the definition of peel, punishing people that want to pass you to get to you're carry? That IS peeling at it's finest, and his W is hands down the by far best safety net for any carry if the tham is good. It's a cleanse+stasis and tham can carry them to a save spot duering that... One can complain about tham in many ways, but not that he isn't supportive or defensive enough, imo he's even more defensive than braum.

usul12021/23/2019, 6:22:41 PM2 votes

What would they add? You've got Janna as your shield focused disengager, sona for aoe healing, nami for early healing and cc, raka for focused healing, and lulu for shieldbot buffer. The only archetypes they don't have that I'm decently familiar with are a heal over time focused healer (which I don't think would fare well in league) and someone who heals by doing damage, which would instantly cause boards to flip shit.

The Trent1/24/2019, 12:11:31 AM1 votes

Supports at high tier should feel like junglers in the sense that they have to roam, heals/ shields or not. If you're not roaming and the enemy support is, regardless of champ, you're playing at a huge skill gap disadvantage. If you don't like that aspect of support, and how they're making supports that are really good at it, you might want to find a different role to play. It's been like this forever. You obviously weren't here during the supports being nothing but ward hogs meta. You would've really hated how much you had to roam, and there weren't really any good Rakan type supports back then, so you'd just be roaming as like nami, extremely under leveled, 24/7. Supports has always been like this on every champ idk where you've been. The new support looks like a healer based on the colors used in the splash. You should still roam with it regardless. I don't know why you find shield botting fun. Super glad this isn't a kog meta where I have to baby sit 24/7 or I'm flamed because he can't be left alone for 0.5 seconds without dying. You don't like that some supports have heals/ shields for peel, that's fine, but you need to be roaming. You have plenty of options: Janna, Nami, Soraka, Lulu, Taric, etc. The only difference is one peels in cc time so adcs can kill faster and one peels in heals/ shields so adcs can live longer. cc can also save ur adc sometimes so there's that too.

TeCoolMage1/24/2019, 2:16:30 AM1 votes

First they have to fix their itemisation and playstyle

Purely defensive buff and healing casters like Soraka, Janna and Sona after they nerfed her base stats (making her spawn W) should not be possible. All of them have to follow Nami or Rakan, who have healing/shielding/buffs but also very strong, risky enemy interaction (for them it’s their CC). Janna has her tornado but her easy to hit, no need to aim ult kind of acts as a buffer for when she fails so it lowers her risk, but it’s much better than when she used to have a short shield cool down and no auto attack passive

The reason for this is because it’s bad design to have champions hide behind other champions without having some skill check like skillshots. It’s like taking the advantages of Xerath and Yi, less space to retaliate, no need to aim, and none of the disadvantages

Itemisation is pretty okay because ardent rewards you for autoing as well and athene’s encourages you to deal damage, but more AP carry items with %heal and shield would be nice

MLDzXnRRR1/24/2019, 10:51:08 AM1 votes

Vayne has very high pickrate since the last buff, you are joking, if you are saying that she doesn't see play. She sees play not only bot, but also top and I'm not talking about some small sample size, check any decent datamining site!

About healer supports - they are one of the most hated archetypes in the game.The enemy team has to kill the damn healer or lose. It is literally game warping in a bad way and promotes damage creep, so you have to basically to 1 combo the healer or the "carry" to have any chance. I personally don't want to see another Soraka in any of my games (even on my team),

iron4playa1/24/2019, 12:57:44 PM1 votes

"1- Pyke. He can protect his carry with his dash and knock up" knock up? xd

Syrile1/23/2019, 4:12:25 PM1 votes

Oh, they show a Spellbook for the new "support" I am sure it will be more like a Ahri than a support. They will throw in some CC, by virtue of some way to make it ridiculously broken but more so it will probably dash about 9 times, 100-0 you in 0.34 seconds, and have about 6-7 abilities per ability.

ScruBard1/23/2019, 5:15:52 PM1 votes

Why waste a new support champ release only to make them a variation of a Janna or Soraka. Those champs are designed to do only 2 things: spam heals and sometimes peel. There is only so much you can give those types of champs and if you give them more cuz of originality, that would be super OP. And you know most champs these days have a unique design and gameplay cuz Riot focuses on that first rather than let's make another champ that has a point and click heal for their allies...

hhaavviikk1/23/2019, 5:20:45 PM1 votes

ah yes, pyke the ''support'', more like the assassin that doesn't need to build items to assassinate so he can go bot with the ADC.

Khabith1/23/2019, 6:19:06 PM1 votes

If they ever hype up me up for a new champion, and it's a second nami im actually going to kill myself.