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On the future of support

scaroused·7/9/2018, 12:41:39 PM·5 votes·2,749 views

This gonna be a long one so brace yourself and grab some popcorn.

Ive been playing support for over 2 years now and im a bit torn on riots decision to remove support as a class from the game. I started out like everyone else as a thornmail Ashe but quickly fell in love with soraka and the play style of a support, now my roster is a bit wider with Alistar Blitzcrank Braum Janna Karma Leona Lulu Morgana Nami Rakan Soraka TahmKench Thresh and a few more that i consider that im decent with.

With the rune rework i felt sorta left out, the adc's, tanks, mages and assassins all had their rune "tree" while i was left with klepto., USB and glacial (RIP Windspeakers blessing). I was at first eager to try them out and see how i could use them to my advantage as a support but pretty soon i found that klepto was the only thing that really went well.

This was when the nerfs started to come down. Klepto got nerfed because of abuse from Nasus Illaoi Gangplank Ezreal. Guardian which seemed good with tank supports had longer cd than my ult. The ultimate hat was given to the assassins. Hashinshin complained that he couldn't oneshot braum, so he (and TahmKench ) had to be nerfed because "too tanky", meanwhile mundo gets 100% max hp regen.

Now i know that a lot of people will go "but what about item 3504 " and yes the ardent meta was horrible but imagine the outcry if item 3147 was removed. That is basically what happened to supports recently, all heal/shield items was nerfed and most shield supports were nerfed (they even nerfed orianna shield to make it seem fair). Then the release of Pyke came out and it became clear to me that riot doesn't want the support class.

So tank supports aren't tanky and shielders doesn't give shields, and so we are left with dps supports, but are they really supports? Sure you get support items but you are still just a second tier midlaner with a severe gold deficit. But even if you go brand or zyra and you deal damage, you aren't "allowed" to get kills. Because if you get kills you WILL get flamed and maybe reported for "omg noob ks report kys". And if you want to try something new/different like summoner 11 to get jungle pressure... well ask adellaideskyhart how that went.

I know that a lot of people have been feeling that they can't make an impact, junglers say that jungle is broken, toplaners say that they are irrelevant, midlaners still complain about zoe and adc's are just a meme at this point. But id say that junglers have the most impact (with the possibility to make all lanes win), toplane has the biggest champ-pool and a good fiora is probably the scariest beast you can face on the rift (imo), midlane is still a contest of who can one-shot the hardest and adc will carry you late game see; toplane. But who here has ever seen "better support wins" in chat? I would like to see a challenger support to play an actual support and try to carry a bronze team vs a gold team because i don't think its actually possible. It doesn't matter how good you are, how many wards you place or how much you peel for your team if your team refuses to take the free win you just gave them.

But i still see videos on youtube where imaqtpie and co. says that support is braindead, gets too much gold and is overpowered. Meanwhile im sitting here wondering if we even are playing the same game. Sure i can agree that Sona exists but supports get 100 gold/min less than every other roles and to quote Mr. Toplane himself (when talking about supports 'beyond the rift s02e18') "the supports contribution in warding, dewarding, clearing the lane and warding for toplane so they can splitpush." and that has been (and still is) what people see as a support in league.

If you look at the support role as in other games you will quite soon see that the support is supposed to gives buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies. To me that sounds awfully a lot like Lulu but that type of play style goes against what riot wants. They want faster games with more kills to make it more viewer friendly. And since many supports has their soul purpose to deny enemies their kills they are slowly but surely getting their wings clipped.

So what is really the incentive to play support here? What is the support supposed to do? Is the class of support even needed?
Should i keep playing the class that riot tells me not to? When will zed get another buff? What is Iverns favorite color?

10 Comments

Breezey Boy7/9/2018, 6:54:02 PM2 votes

As a support main, and an Enchanter main before that, the new runes, in my own opinion, severely crippled supports, with no choice that's perfect for us except for Aery. Revitalize is just a cheaper, crappier version of Windspeaker's Blessing, and Font of Life is worthless. The nerfs to heal and shield items might have been justified, but with the nerfs to shield abilities, like Janna's E, was going way to far. So much could be fixed if Riot simply went back to the old runes and mastery system, but they're to fucking prideful to do that.

Krully7/9/2018, 2:58:50 PM1 votes

So what is really the incentive to play support here? to make the picks What is the support supposed to do? carry Is the class of support even needed? ye Should i keep playing the class that riot tells me not to? riot thinks lcs big plays is the way to go, so no When will zed get another buff? indirectly, probably What is Iverns favorite color? clear

robotmaster7/9/2018, 5:57:13 PM1 votes

Unfortunately a lot of these changes have to do with the lcs. Coming from a support TahmKench main at the beginning of the season to an adc main. Riot even said that sole que TahmKench is fine and healthy. But pro TahmKench is a big problem. That’s the price you pay when it comes to big games like league where they need pro play to bring in viewers so they have more support and money for the non pro seen. I will agree that it feels awful. Especially coming from someone who doesn’t care about the lcs. But it’s something we need to deal with as a community as a whole.

SanKakU7/9/2018, 8:18:46 PM1 votes

I don't understand what you're going on about. There are some bad supports right now, like Braum for example because his job is to mitigate damage for super squishy allies which does not pay off in this damage meta, but for the most part, you can beat those greedy players that like their Brand and such with them. Janna Morgana Nami Karma Soraka Lulu are all still strong and if I'm not mistaken, TahmKench is better than ever. The rest of the champs you listed are indeed not worth picking at least IMO but it doesn't stop other champs like Veigar Lux Lissandra Orianna Taric from being good.

If you feel like you don't have enough gold, then try a different income item and/or upgrade it to the final level as soon as possible. You don't have an excuse for falling behind everyone if you have skill in playing the game. Income items are bound to the warding system, so having wards is a big part of doing well as a support and keeping the opponents from getting their income in a nice spot.

chipndip17/9/2018, 8:43:44 PM1 votes

I don't get the point of anything you're complaining about.

The nerfs to the heal/shield items were like...2%? 5% for Crucible. Forbidden Idol's nerfs were worse due to cdr nerfs more than anything.

Like...I don't get it. Things like adding champions with anti-shield/heal mechanics and straight up nerfing shield durations hurts worse than the itemization changes.

ChaddyFantome7/9/2018, 10:03:15 PM1 votes

With the rune rework i felt sorta left out, the adc's, tanks, mages and assassins all had their rune "tree" while i was left with klepto., USB and glacial

the mistake you made was assuming you had to fit supports itnoa box.

Summon Aery, Guardian were clearly meant to be the go-to Support keystones.