Riot, Here's a Simple, Non-Broken Way to Buff Supports

xxxDogmanxxx··3 votes·737 views

Let me preface this by saying I'm not a Support main. I play Jungle/Mid. But I empathize with Supports and their struggles. A lot of Supports don't buy item 2049, let alone item 2045. Quite honestly, I don't blame them. Oh don't get me wrong, I think all supports should absolutely get at least a item 2049, because vision is incredibly important. But these items are incredibly expensive for the stats they give.

item 2049 gives a measly 150 health for 800 gold. item 2045 gives a slightly better 500 health and a decent passive that reduces item active cooldowns by 10%, but it costs a whopping 1800 gold. No wonder supports would rather forgo these items. Supports are already punished with having less gold, and less experience than other Champion roles.

Solution: Give item 2049 300 health instead of 150. Give item 2045 675 health instead of 500. Basically, make their health stats cost-efficient right from the get-go.

The least Riot could do is make buying vision items like item 2049item 2045 more palatable. This would help alleviate the sting of Supports having to buy the item and take up a valuable item slot, and will encourage Supports who currently don't get this item to start picking it up. It will also improve goodwill towards Supports in general, as more Supports will start getting this item, and their teammates will have less of a reason to blame them for not warding enough.

EDIT: Why is this getting downvoted? It seems like a reasonable suggestion.

13 Comments

BloodyTompon2 votes

It has to be gold inefficient. If it's gold efficient then other people will buy it too. That saturates vision state in the game. IMO they'd be better off lowering the cost and stats. Supports already get less gold, then they have to buy a gold item and a vision item too. In a sense that kind of artificially lowers the amount of gold even more (or more correctly, gold on items that have some agency with them). Lowering the cost (and stats) enables them to buy items over which they have some choice a bit earlier in the game.

xxxDogmanxxx1 votes

Lowering the costs and stats will make them more gold-efficient, but it will also make them even more slot-inefficient than they already are. Lowering the costs but lowering the stats at the same time will basically condemn the Supports to sacrificing a slot for even less than they currently get. The point of the post is to encourage and buff supports.

I'd rather Riot retains the cost and saturate the availability of vision to other champions by increasing the stats instead.

BloodyTompon1 votes

Whether it ends up being gold efficient depends on the reduction of cost and reduction of stats (similarly whether it would be a buff or nerf). I'm not seeing the issue with have the vision slot inefficient. That only comes into play late game.

Oleandervine1 votes

{quoted}

It has to be gold inefficient. If it's gold efficient then other people will buy it too. That saturates vision state in the game. IMO they'd be better off lowering the cost and stats. Supports already get less gold, then they have to buy a gold item and a vision item too. In a sense that kind of artificially lowers the amount of gold even more (or more correctly, gold on items that have some agency with them). Lowering the cost (and stats) enables them to buy items over which they have some choice a bit earlier in the game.

I have to ask, why is having vision such a bad thing? Why would making an item that offers more wards be bad for any lane? I've never understood this argument, especially since yellow wards already stack twice and recharge wards.

BloodyTompon1 votes

Too much vision stagnates the game (incidentally so does too little). League has had periods of both. So the third option is if league introduced more wards and introduce more ways of denying wards. However, this generally leads to greater 'vision snowball'. The ones who control vision continue to control it.

Having said that it's not so much that an increase is bad by virtue of being an increase, it's that the balance is fairly fine.

cinomenapplebae1 votes

Maybe ad some cdr to it too. I've always felt like the health was not needed when im playing Janna or Sona.

SomeLink2 votes

Nearly every support item gives cdr. Athenes/Mikaels. Frost Queen/Talisman of Ascension/Face of the mountain Zeke's Harbinger Ardent Censer Locket of the iron solari Banner of command Ohmwrecker .... You will almost always hit the 40% cap as it is.

cinomenapplebae1 votes

{quoted}

Nearly every support item gives cdr. Athenes/Mikaels. Frost Queen/Talisman of Ascension/Face of the mountain Zeke's Harbinger Ardent Censer Locket of the iron solari Banner of command Ohmwrecker .... You will almost always hit the 40% cap as it is.

I build some ap too

TaoistMaster1 votes

a lot of supports don't buy sight stone????

xxxDogmanxxx1 votes

You'd be surprised. As I was climbing in my ranked account, I didn't start seeing Supports buy item 2049 consistently until about Plat III and higher. Straight up, no support bought it in Bronze and Silver, and I very infrequently saw it in Gold.

Lxst1 votes

I'd buy it without the health if the price was lower because let's be honest we don't buy it for the health we buy it for the abundance of wards.

worm1 votes

????

Ozag the Mighty1 votes

I always buy sightstone, but also don't fully upgrade say, face if the mountain, I just make the eye thingy that gives the stats of face but has wards instead of the shield. It saves an item slot, BUT it also doesn't give the shield click. It's a double edged sword really.

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