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It's time for the community to finally admit that yes, supports CAN be overpowered

FalconPawwwwnch··21 votes·1,172 views

It's pretty disgusting when I login to any LoL related forum to see people complaining about the fotm champions that aren't supports for X and Y reasons, yet bring up some excuse when those same X and Y reasons apply even more to a support champion

It happened in Season 1-2 with Alistar/Janna/Soraka etc It happened in Season 3 with Thresh/Sona/Zyra etc

And now it's happening again with Janna; people seem to ignore her insane stats by making an excuse such as "but it's her playerbase being good" when she's played in 1/4 games

This happens every time a support champion is overtuned and it's time we realize it as a community. When Zyra was topping out damage charts in Season 3 while building support items or when Janna had a 56% win rate for existing with a global passive, nobody seemed to care except a few people and Riot. Someone who deals a ton of damage is frustrating yea, and can also be overpowered, but making insanely stupid excuses for a support champion not being broken just because they don't kill you is something our community needs to stop doing as a whole, because it's holding us back

I'm glad Riot actually acknowledges that Janna is overpowered, because you guys certainly never would.

22 Comments

Critkeeper12 votes

janna has always been overpowered.

RIOT said a long time ago that she's got a bit too much power but they don't care because she supposedly doesn't "push out" other options.

The only power nerfs she's ever had is when she was used as a mid laner and pushed out other mid laners. Soraka, Lulu, Taric, Alistar all had the same thing happen.

Janna has never had a nerf directed at her as a support, and probably never will.

Sightless662 votes

The only power nerfs she's ever had is when she was used as a mid laner and pushed out other mid laners.

That's just not true. She's had nerfs in 5.17, 5.1, and 3.14 based solely on her support performance. They're slow to act on Janna, but it's just incorrect to say that they've never tried to address her as a support in the past.

CrazedPorcupine1 votes

and those nerfs did literally nothing to Janna's winrate.

Sightless661 votes

Sure they did. She had drops from 56% to 52.5% following the most recent nerfs. It wasn't enough, but they definitely did something.

Curling Veigar1 votes

{quoted}

janna has always been overpowered.

RIOT said a long time ago that she's got a bit too much power but they don't care because she supposedly doesn't "push out" other options.

The only power nerfs she's ever had is when she was used as a mid laner and pushed out other mid laners. Soraka, Lulu, Taric, Alistar all had the same thing happen.

Janna has never had a nerf directed at her as a support, and probably never will.

Yea but in Lulu's case, she's still overpowered

Rebonack3 votes

Anyone who saw Season 1 Janna knows that Supports can be overpowered.

This isn't even a question.

Haunt2 votes

change ali's q icon it looks like a dick and whenever i get dicked on by him it makes me angry as shit because hes annoying as hell and needs nerfs

Unstoppable Monk2 votes

Oh Zyra's kind of OP again, just not as support. summoner 11

GhastlyGhoulMan1 votes

{quoted}

Oh Zyra's kind of OP again, just not as support. summoner 11

Try taking her bot as support with smite, and once you get kills on them have you and your laner invade their jungle and steal a camp or two. Then you get to put THREE opponents behind. As well as secure some serious vision and get the vision buffs from their camps. ;)

Voluug132 votes

The problem is, you are comparing Janna to a champion that was pushing out other picks on botlane on top of being released as a midlaner but ended up as a support. Zyra had much more balance problems that Janna ever had (which was only AP midlane Janna).

Currently the only arguments to nerf Janna are ''she has a high winrate because of healthy strenghts, lets nerf her!!!!'' and typical Riot meta-enforcing. Not every champion that has high winrate is OP or overloaded. I mean look at Heimer, Malzahar and Swain, all of them had 53%+ winrate but were basically only niche counterpicks to the meta champion like Zed and Yasuo.

Also Riot wont really gut Janna because she is the only restraining over an entire class of support champions (Taky CC engage supports) from dominating botlane again.

Mhihnj1 votes

Leona

Iqqi2 votes

See my response is the definition of what makes a champion overpower is all relative. Does Janna have a high win rate? Yes, but to really look at her as others have mentioned you have to look at who is playing her. I am not saying she isn't strong. I am saying you can not look at the number as a whole and use the apply all method. If you look at Janna from a Bronze + point of view, she only has a 7.5% pick rate. She still has the 53% rate, but only 7.5% of supports are playing her.

Meanwhile Naut has 9% and a 52% win rate. Blitz has a 20% pick and a 52% win rate. Leona 11.7% pick and 52% winrate. So again if you were Riot and you were looking at this stuff alone. It is likely you wouldn't be looking at coming down on Janna either.

So to me I don't understand why people think Janna is the most OP support in the game. Sure she is good and brings things to the lane, but she is not being played by a majority of supports. Instead she is clearly just being played by supports who understand how to play her and what she brings to the game. Whereas a majority of supports are playing these aggressive "kill lane" supports.

If we adjust our data and look at just platinum and higher. It tells a different story.

Janna is 22% with 54% win Blitz 15% and 53% win

etc. etc. There is nothing outstanding about Janna's stats that suggest there is anything about her specifically that is overpowered. It really just is who is playing her. She is a utility and control champion in a day and age were keeping your ADC alive for 5 more seconds from the 40 other champions who can 100-0 them in 2 seconds is a huge.

They are making a change to Janna's shield that should be more than enough. There are plenty of other things farm more out of balance than Janna.

GenghisEmo2 votes

Janna, Lulu, Alistar, Naut, Roka, and others deserved nerfs.

Now we have a meta that seems to even make OP supp champs a bit weak, but still way stronger than other supps. And the strong ones deserved the nerfs.

Naut i think had it coming. He got strong again. Roka too.

But, funny how Supps get nerfs, but we dont get xp mastery... i miss it. I really miss it. Please i want it back. I want to roam and be rewarded, not punished as hard as i am being now.

Does Janna need nerfs? Maybe to shield AD effect. Anything else, no.

No flash no life1 votes

Supports are op in aram. They have strong base stats early while possess skills to set things up. As game progresses they grab tank items and it feels like adc doesn't exist in team fight. Toward end game they grab this item 3748 as 6th item and suddenly you see this full tank build support doing massive dmg even tho their strengths supposedly fall off later @_@.

Nyhver1 votes

Maybe with enough posts on here or front page reddit, people will change their minds

KoggyStyle1 votes

almost got a nami penta on aram last night

CrazedPorcupine1 votes

The problem is that Janna's had a 55% winrate for literally ever, while any time Soraka get's strong, Riot literally goes "TIME TO REWORK SORAKA!!!!"

Soraka has had 2 Major Reworks, and 5 minor reworks (This includes fewer than 2 new abilities, massive changes to a single ability etc.)

Meanwhiles, you've had minor mechanical changes to janna which haven't affected her winrate at all.

Passive: Global to restricted Range, Removal of slow on enemies that are walking back into monsoon, various small changes to Q, adding an AP ratio to her E's AD grant, etc etc.

Overall, Janna's one of those supports that's so GOOD at her Niche, and her Niche is so good that no matter what you do to Janna, she'll maintain well over a 50% winrate. Hell, you could get rid of ALL of Janna's Damage on her Q and W, and just keep the CC, and Janna would still have a 50% winrate.

masc dom top1 votes

{quoted}

janna has always been overpowered.

RIOT said a long time ago that she's got a bit too much power but they don't care because she supposedly doesn't "push out" other options.

The only power nerfs she's ever had is when she was used as a mid laner and pushed out other mid laners. Soraka, Lulu, Taric, Alistar all had the same thing happen.

Janna has never had a nerf directed at her as a support, and probably never will.

she's one of the most nerfed champions in the game but she still always finds a way to reach her 54% winrate. did you ever read her buff/nerf history?

OverpoweredSoap1 votes

The community has trouble accepting squishy supports as overpowered. (When they are)

The community has an easy time accepting any time tank supports are overpowered. (When they are)

Old Man Teeto1 votes

Oh man, Season three Zyra was HILARIOUS

Remember on release where her ultimate pretty much won team fights by itself FROM THE SUPPORT ROLE?

Holy shit that was a funny time.

Vekkna1 votes

Nerfing supports isn't the right way to balance overpowered ADs.

doiminat0r36001 votes

Janna isn't necessarily OP but more versitile than other supports. She has a disengage/defensive kit. This can be countered by champions with more than one engage.

She seems to fit in most metas (especially this one) because she gives a free BF sword shield, AOE heal, and a tornado disengage.

This is fine because other champions can heal a lot, tank more damage than her, or even displace her and cancel her abilities all together. She is counterable but easily also has the ability to screw up her own team as well. As many people have said before, she could easily flash ult and push the enemy tank into your team or push the enemy carry away to safety. She is easily messed up but if played correctly can be very successful.

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