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Concerned about Support Items

Lucifer·10/18/2016, 10:50:15 PM·64 votes·18,204 views

@Meddler

I thought the point of season 3 preseason was to encourage supports to start building AP and have their utility scale with it. This is why their damage and ratios were all gutted in favor of this. Now we're seeing items like Redemption (with admittedly pretty cool effects) that we want to build, but we can't if we want our utility to scale. There's also the issue with unique passives - If I want to build a Redemption and an Ardent Censor, I should be able to. If you need to give one a shield boost and one a heal boost do it, but having them unique is severly crippling to support builds, especially since Mikaels and Ardent are already forced to compete for an item slot.

With Aegis getting its MR aura removed and being made more into a tank support item than an enchanter support item, and then Knight's Vow being introduced for tank supports, enchanter/utility/ap supports could really use Redemption to fill a niche that is being left empty by Aegis/Locket previously being a must buy.

I'd like to see some AP added onto Redemption, possibly in exchange for the health it's currently giving, as well as for the heal/shield passive to no longer be unique.

Also, I'm curious what the intended niche night's vow is supposed to be filling.

Edit: Also Meddler confirmed you can buy Ardent/Mikaels/Redemption, and the heals and shields will stack together. You cannot just stack Ardent with another Ardent etc.

183 Comments

RiotMeddler10/19/2016, 6:08:59 PM22 votes

Shield/Heal strength from different items does stack. Just doubled checked that in game and Ardent Censor, Mikael's Crucible, Redemption and Forbidden Idol all stack with each other as intended. They don't stack with themselves, that's the case that's limited.

Shield/Heal strength is intended to be a much more specific effect than AP. Choosing between it and AP on some champs is meant to have some trade offs in terms of protective power versus damage/other utility.

In terms of Aegis our current expectation is that Aegis/Locket will still be really appealing items for enchanters, given it's one of the best MR options for supports and, if used well, the revised Locket active's really powerful. Instead of a 90-345 (by level) point shield for 2s it's a 70-665 decaying shield for 2.5s. Value if just triggered whenever during a team fight should be similar, value if used at the right moment to counter big AOE spells should be noticeably higher.

We've been avoiding AP on Redemption so far because we don't want to make it too niche. Shield/Heal strength already narrows its users noticeably, AP would do so further again. Could probably avoid further narrowing by replacing the Shield/Heal power with AP, that then skews it away from being as much of a protective item though, pushing it off some current users and onto some other new ones.

Knight's Vow is intended to be an item for tanks in particular who want to protect a specific ally.

In terms of overall support item concerns biggest one on our minds at present is whether we've got sufficient CDR availability for tanky supports. Enchanters have a decent range of CDR options, tanks significantly less so. That might not be an issue if their effectiveness and satisfaction come appropriately from other effects like Knight's Vow's unique passives, might be an issue though so we're watching that one quite a bit at present.

Qoslaw10/18/2016, 11:50:33 PM9 votes

I think this opens up a good conversation about where the support meta will be heading... you don't want to choke people back into playing certain niche picks just because itemization forces you to do so ;;

Veroxid10/19/2016, 12:06:09 AM7 votes

I was under the impression that when they made the buff on Ardent and Mikaels "unique," it was unique in the sense that it won't stack ontop of another of the exact same item in this particular case. In other words, it will stack if you build Ardent and Mikaels, but not Mikaels and Mikaels. Yes, I'm aware that typically, when it says "UNIQUE," it means unique on every item of the same ability. Because of this, I'm assuming that it will be the same for Redemption. (Yes, I'm aware that typically, when it says "UNIQUE," it means unique on every item of the same ability.)

This is actually something I'm wondering, assuming that the above is the case: If you build all 3 items, it would give ~52% increase on all shields and heals, as well as the buffs of each individual item. Yes, this would typically leave you with no more room since Supports typically have to have 2 items from the get-go ontop of boots (wards and the support item). However, seeing how Sona and Soraka, the two champs that get the most out of these items imo, already have some form of movement speed boost (Sona's E and Soraka's Passive), would Supports not be able to sell the boots in exchange for something like Rabadon's Deathcap for the AP?

UPDATE I looked on the Wikia, and I was right.

Ardent Censer's bonus healing and shielding passive stacks additively with Forbidden Idol, Mikael's Crucible, and Windspeaker's Blessing.

There is also a Riot post about it describing this situation: http://boards.pbe.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/champions-gameplay-feedback/NT7UcOWt-613-planned-adjustments-to-more-stuff-part-2-teleport-support-items?sort_type=best&comment=000c0000

Teridax6810/19/2016, 3:39:29 AM6 votes

Right now, the core issue is that AP is too expensive for most supports to stack. If you give supports a bunch of cheap items with good AP, then those items risk getting bought by AP non-supports just because their stats would be so gold efficient, as was the case with Frost Queen's Claim when it offered 50 AP and 150% mana regen for 2.2k gold. Effectively, you can't make AP accessible to supports without making it too cheap for non-supports, because of the huge discrepancy in gold income. If you were to give AP to Redemption, for example, the presence of health, mana and nuke (one that can be used while dead, too) would make it attractive on a lot of mid laners, who might rush it and become both more deadly and less vulnerable to being forced out of lane.

Personally, I think the answer to this shouldn't be to revert the utility ratios on supports, but to up their gold income, so that they don't have to be balanced in their own little microcosm, completely isolated from the rest of itemization, with their own weird rules for how gold works and should be spent. At this point, even junglers can buy "normal" items at a pretty similar pace to the average laner, but supports can't easily opt into a lot of items they'd love to have if they had more gold, e.g. Rylai's, BoC, Abyssal Scepter, Morellonomicon, Rabadon's, etc.

I also think it would help if supports had their own stat with which they could scale, which wouldn't be too attractive to non-supports: Forbidden Idol's unique buff to healing and shielding, for example, could be expanded into a multiplier to all buff effects (i.e. a kind of "utility power" stat, which several other users have suggested), and be made stackable and more common across support items. When built in conjunction with AP, supports would get to scale their utility in the same way other classes scale their own core power, which would finally allow them to derive actual power from itemization.

Re: Night's Vow, I think it's meant to be the more polished version of Martyr's Gambit from Black Market Brawlers: with it, you take damage for your ally and heal from their damage, which basically means that ally gets better protection against focus and dives (which is good, considering we're going to have a lot of assassins in the coming months), and if you work together you can tank a lot better. If you had to put it down to a niche, the core theme would be tanking for a priority ally.

SpecterVonBaren10/19/2016, 1:55:06 AM4 votes

I think Riot just needs to scrap having utility scale with AP all together and instead introduce a new stat for Utility Scaling and put it on the more supportive items and then give the champs that are meant to be more supportive Utility Scaling ratios.

Pope Glitterhoof10/19/2016, 6:27:02 AM4 votes

{quoted}

If you need to give one a shield boost and one a heal boost do it, but having them unique is severly crippling to support builds, especially since Mikaels and Ardent are already forced to compete for an item slot.

You misunderstood the difference between unnamed unique passives and named unique passives. Right now, item 3222 and item 3504 's unique additional Heal and Shield Power passives do stack with each other because they are unnamed. The only reason why Riot made them unique was to prevent people from building multiple s or multiple s. This will be the same for the new item "Redemption".

With that being said, from what I see on Surrenderat20, it seems that you don't need to worry about the hypothetical problem you mentioned. You can build all 3 of the items and enjoy additional 40% Heal and Shield power.

Lwnt10/19/2016, 1:32:43 AM3 votes

The redemption should have ap and less health . Its the old sight stone all over again. We need Ap to scale our utility to be more effective.

Roar of Legend10/19/2016, 12:02:51 AM3 votes

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