[Item Overhaul] The Support Project (Revised)

Pyro·Jan 17, 2015·9 votes·1,877 views

TL;DR: Give supports choices to make when buying items - More GP10 final upgrades - More Sightstones - Make the secondary support items feel good

http://i.imgur.com/5ZZwSS6.jpg

This item overhaul is a complete set of suggested changes to improve the gameplay diversity in League of Legends. The ultimate purpose is expanding the realm of possibilities, both in the spectrum of "viable champions" and the in-game actions. The overhaul covers all item systems, from AD and Critical Strike rework through AP and Support expansion to differentiating Fighter and Tank classes.

Why? Well, more or less to have more than top 3-5 champion picks for every role in LCS with cookie-cutter builds. Item builds should be more flexible and reactive, not predefined for a whole class of champions.

The Tank Project (revised)
The Support Project (revised) - you are here
The Carry&Fighter Project (revised)
The Mage Project

Full list of all items

#The Support Project

Let's start with an observation: Support builds are a one-way road. You have your one unchangeable GP10 item, which most of the time is defined by your champion pick (some champions have a choice between two items, the rest always buy the same item), you upgrade it for 500g, you get a Sightstone, and then boots (90% of the time it's Boots of Mobility). Aside from the situations when you don't upgrade your Frostfang, that's over 3000 gold on the GP10 item and Sightstone alone, not counting boots. This is far less diversity than the laners - or, with the new season, jungler - have. At no point after starting lane is there any decision to be made concerning where you'll end up - all you can do is to pick the next components towards your unchangeable core set.

Have you ever seen a support build in competitive scene, like LCS or OGN? 30 minutes into the game, it's an unfinished Spellthief's Edge, Sightstone, Boots of Mobility and usually at most one single support item - Mikael's Crucible or Locket of the Iron Solari (unless it's a snowballing Morgana, then it's Zhonya's Hourglass).

- a typical endgame support build on pretty much any non-tank champion in pro scene - 4600g spent on a tank build (Leona, Braum) with no alternative choice to be made at any point

In your everyday solo queue game, there are a lot more kills and a lot less pink wards, so supports have more gold at their disposal, That, however, doesn't change the core of the problem. The build will accelerate faster and at 50 minutes you will actually have some items, but the choice for the first 3 ones will be just as limited.

Why we need more options? To feel better? To have more power? No - to enhance gameplay through decision making. Having options means choosing between route A and route B. Every route is different. Making a decision to buy A or to buy B is part of game and requires knowledge and adaptation skill. It's nothing big, but it separates people mindlessly following one build from people capable of adapting to the situation.

#The GP10 Families

All old GP10 items slightly altered to make up for changes to regen (which were an outright nerf in the laning phase)
New tier 3 upgrades that build out of bigger components (I've been going over this for almost a year now)
Overall designed around HP-regen-AP symmetry, with the Ancient Coin now having flat MS as the defining trait of the Shurima item line

#Mt. Targon line

Targon's Brace

Recipe: Relic Shield + Rejuvenation Bead + 320g
+200 health (+25), +50% base health regeneration
Unique Passive - Spoils of War: Unchanged.
Builds into two items: Face of the Mountain and Crescent Shield of the Lunari (new item)

The regeneration from this item took a significant hit with the preseason changes, so the raw health gets a tiny bit buffed.

Face of the Mountain

+600 health (+100), +10% cooldown reduction, +100% health regeneration
Passive and active unchanged.

Again, following the trend of making up for the preseason changes to regeneration. It used to grant 20 flat regen - now it grants about 12 upon purchase, coming back to 20 around level 16.

Crescent Shield of the Lunari (new item)

Recipe: Targon's Brace + Raptor Cloak + 535g (total cost: 2400g)
+50 armor, +400 health, +150% health regeneration
Unique Passive - Spoils of War: (same as FotM)
Unique Passive - Point Runner: Grants +30% bonus movement speed that builds up over 2 seconds when near turrets or Void Gates.
Unique Active - Moonlight Shadow: Shrouds target area with fog that obscures all enemy vision from the outside and renders allied champions invisible to minions and turrets for 4 seconds. 90 second cooldown (700 range, 1000 radius)

TOWERDIVE. WE MUST TOWERDIVE. This item obscures vision from towers, wards and minions. Of course if there's an enemy champion inside, their whole team sees you - this works similar to the sandstorm in the Ascension game mode. Very good to secure dragons/barons or prepare an ambush (as this locks any vision from wards or trinkets).

#Shurima line

Ancient Coin

+5 movement speed (new), +25% mana regeneration
Unique Passive - Favor: Unchanged.

Movement speed is now the defining characteristic of this item line. As for the current state of Ancient Coin, "underwhelming" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Nomad's Medallion

Recipe: Ancient Coin + Rejuvenation Bead + Faerie Charm + 140g
+10 movement speed, +25% health regeneration, +50% mana regeneration (+25), +2 gold per 10 seconds
Passive unchanged.
Builds into two items: Talisman of Ascension and Ankh or Regrowth (new item)

With changes to regeneration, this item received a huge nerf (it used to have same flat regen as Frostfang). This is to at least bring it back to its old state.

Talisman of Ascension

Combine cost lowered to 535g from 635g (total cost reduced to 2000g from 2100g)
All stats and effects unchanged.

100g cheaper to compensate for the 4.20 regen changes, no changes to its functionality. Cheapest GP10 tier 3 item.

Ankh of Regrowth (new item)

Recipe: Nomad's Medallion + Crystalline Bracer + Aether Wisp + 185g (total cost: 2600g)
+10 movement speed, +40 ability power, +300 health, +100% health regeneration, +100% mana regeneration, +2 GP10
Unique Passive - Ethereal: +5% movement speed (doesn't stack between Aether Wisp upgrades)
Unique Passive - Favor: (same as Talisman)
Unique Passive - Divine Aid: Increases the strength of your heals and shields by 25% + 1% per every 2% of health you're missing.

True supports, rejoice. With both health and AP, it's the middle ground between the other two item lines. Core item for healing/shielding champions, but works only if you're in the fight yourself. No sitting in the back!

#Freljord line

Spellthief's Edge

+10 ability power (+5)
Mana regeneration and gold per 10 removed
Unique Passive - Tribute:
also restore 5 mana to you and a nearby ally on proc (works like Relic Shield)
requires a nearby ally to proc
no longer goes on cooldown when you kill a minion

Mana regeneration moved to the Tribute passive. Now you need to be active to restore it, but can get more mana if you utilize all charges. AP increased to 10, flat GP10 removed - you're encouraged now to upgrade this item. A bit more risk involved in choosing this item line, it's too strong and reliable as it is.

Frostfang

Recipe: Spellthief's Edge + Faerie Charm + 320g
+20 ability power (+10), +25% mana regeneration (-25), +2 gold per 10 seconds
Unique Passive - Tribute:
also restore 7 mana to you and a nearby ally on proc (works like Relic Shield)
requires a nearby ally to proc
no longer goes on cooldown when you kill a minion
Builds into two items: Frost Queen's Claim and Goblet of True Ice (new item)

Following the trend of moving mana regen to Tribute procs.

Frost Queen's Claim

+60 ability power (+10), +10% cooldown reduction, +50% mana regeneration, +2 gold per 10 seconds
Unique Passive - Tribute:
also restore 10 mana to you and a nearby ally on proc (works like Relic Shield)
does not require a nearby ally to proc
Active unchanged

A straightout buff to the item, as the tier 1 and 2 are now a bit riskier and after the changes to mana regen it's impossible to have it provide as much regen as it did before 4.20.

Goblet of True Ice (new item)

Recipe: Frostfang + Chalice of Harmony + 535g (total cost: 2400g)
+40 ability power, +30 magic resistance, +50% mana regeneration, +4 GP10
Unique Passive - Mana Font: Restores 2% of missing mana every 5 seconds.
Unique Passive - Tribute: (same as on FQC above)
Unique Active - Cryogenesis: Restore 100 + 15% of missing health and 40% of missing mana to target ally. 90 second cooldown.

This is the healing and mp5 part of Mikael's Crucible. The cleanse effect stays there. You can stack these two items if you're mana hungry and good with managing actives, but it will cost you two slots and 5k gold. Still, it should be good for example on Nami when the opponent has an AP assassin.

#The Sightstones Problem: All supports build Sightstone - and upgrading to Ruby Sightstone doesn't feel rewarding for some of them (especially the ranged ones).

We need to state few things outright: Sightstone is a support item. Yes, it's not a problem when the jungler gets one occasionally - but that decision has to have some drawback. If the meta requires junglers to get the second Sightstone, it supresses diversity in jungle roster (domination of Lee Sin and other champions who can afford to not spend gold on their own items). So, to put it briefly, we need Sightstones that feel satisfying for supports as items, but aren't a must-buy for junglers. Basically junglers need to either be restricted from buying it or buying it needs to have a drawback. This draft goes for the first option.

Sightstone

Cost lowered to 400g from 800g
Health removed (no longer builds out of Ruby Crystal)
Ward charges lowered to 3 from 4.
Requires GP10 item to purchase (active will not function unless you have one). Sorry, junglers. Get the cheaper 250g trinket upgrade if you want wardjumps.

Sightstone upgrades

Varying cost
4 max ward charges and 5% CDR that should add up to 10 with the 5% from masteries.
At level 9, the upgraded Sightstone unlocks a unique passive that affects your Stealth Wards and Vision Wards.
This is consistent with how the trinkets upgrade at level 9.
Power of a Unique Passive is inversely proportional to the versatility of provided statistics.
Increasing the Stealth Wards limit from 3 to 4 is out of the question - every support would have to go for it every time.

| Name | Recipe | Total cost | Stats || |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | Ruby | + + 600g | = 1400g | +400 health, +5% CDR | | Sapphire | + + 200 g | = 1000g | +400 mana, +5% CDR | | Emerald | + + + 340g | = 1100g | +100% HP5/MP5, +5% CDR | | Opal | + + 765 g | = 1600g | +60 AP, +5% CDR |

Vision enhancement buffs that unlock at level 9. These are mostly meant to provide an extra varibale in the vision game, other than the mandatory Sweeping Lens. They're not as much rock-paper-scissors as "how do I want to play my vision". To be fair, they coul dbe made into separate upgrade tier (enchantments), but that's just taxing extra gold off supports since they'd be very much required ot get one.

Ruby Sightstone - Vigor
+60 seconds Stealth Ward duration
+2 Vision Ward health (7)
Sapphire Sightstone - Serenity:
+3 maximum Stealth Ward charges (7)
Whenever your Vision Ward dies, you gain vision of the nearby area for 5 seconds
Emerald Sightstone - Transmutation:
Restore one ward charge whenever a nearby ward dies
Your Vision Wards regain their health points if they haven't been attacked in the last 10 seconds.
Opal Sightstone - Insight:
You can place Sight wards at an increased range (1000 units - Feral Flare range).
Your Vision Wards reveal all enemy Stealth Wards in the range, even those obscured by brush/walls.

This is a very much closed system, which means it's possible to change things a lot as we see fit. Sightstones could all have 10% CDR and build out of CDR items, the upgrades could be enchantments (not a fan of the idea, as this leans towards a one-dimensional "pick best stat" and "pick best vision upgrade" approach, instead of making an uneasy choice between the two).

#The Standalone Support Items

This is where supports say "Okay, I have my two core items. What do I buy now?

Ability power: It turns out that supports actually do need AP after the season 4 changes as well as CDR. Most support items don't grant as much of it as they could, and to make up for that we occasionally see Mejai's Soulstealer on champions like Janna, and of course the core Zhonya's on Morgana. For the full list of changes to AP items, see The Mage Project

Aether Wisp

Recipe: Amplifying Tome + Faerie Charm + 335g (total cost unchanged)
+30 ability power, +25% base mana regeneration (new)
Unique Passive - Ethereal: +5% movement speed (now unique)

A straightout buff to the item, albeit rather a small one. The MS passive now doesn't stack now across Wisp upgrades.

Ardent Censer

Combine cost increased to 650g from 550g (total cost increased to 2200g from 2100g)
+60 ability power (+20), +100% base mana regeneration, +10% cooldown reduction
Unique Passive - Ethereal: +5% movement speed (-3)
Unique Passive: Your heals and shields on another unit grant them 25% attack speed for 6 seconds. This does not include regeneration effects or effects on yourself. (unchanged)

In sheer stats, this becomes comparable to Athenes/Morellonomicon. If you're playing Karma, Morgana or Lulu in the middle lane, it might actually become worthwhile. Otherwise, it's still great on them in the support role.

Twin Shadows

Combine cost increased to 830g from 630g (total cost increased to 2600g from 2400g)
+80 ability power, +50% base mana regeneration (new), +10% cooldown reduction
Unique Passive - Ethereal: +10% movement speed (+4)
Active unchanged

Basically a mage Zephyr. Situational, not as outright efficient source of DPS as Morellonomicon or Athene's, but in right situation a viable pickup.

Magic resistance: Again, for the full list of changes to tank items, see The Tank Project. Overall, Mikael's gets a huge hit as a standalone item, but if you want to stack anti-AP defense, it's actually better - suggested new Frostfang upgrade Goblet of True Ice functions as the new Mikaels (upgrades from Chalice) with the heal, just without the cleanse; old Mikaels retains the cleanse.

Aegis of the Legion

Recipe changed to Crystalline Bracer + Null-Magic Mantle + 800g (total cost unchanged)

Just a self-explanatory buildpath buff.

Banner of Command

+200 health, +60 ability power, +30 magic resistance (+10), +10% cooldown reduction
Aura and active unchanged.

Buffing this as a lategame item, enabling purchasing it on midlaners for the occasional strategical value.

Mikael's Crucible

Recipe: Quicksilver Sash + Forbidden Idol + 450g (total cost reduced to 2300g from 2450g)
+50 magic resistance (+10), +100% base mana regeneration, +10% cooldown reduction
Mana Font passive removed
Active - Quicksilver: Removes all debuffs from an allied champion. 90 second cooldown. (450 range)
Cannot be used on other champions while unable to use items yourself.

Without the heal and Mana Font, Mikael's should be a more situational and specialized purchase - and no longer a must-have on every support. The active removes ALL debuffs now. This is possibly the most controversial change - even though it loses the heal, removing things like DFG damage amplification or the Death Mark (!) is probably going to affect the game balance a lot more than I can anticipate. Some other approach to the item is possible, but the goal stays as follows: Mikael's cannot remain a have-it-all item with healing and infinite mana. As it is it kinda invalidates tanks with hard engage in the lategame.

Health: If the suggested changes to Sightstones go through, some champions could need raw health after getting the AP version of Sightstone. Also, with some of the GP10 items not having CDR, some champions might want some heavy CDR after their core GP10+Sightstone build.

Righteous Glory

Recipe changed to Catalyst the Protector + Kindlegem + 250g (total cost recuded to 2300g from 2500g)
+400 health (-100), +300 mana, +10% cooldown reduction
Health regeneration removed

A change dedicated to supports - they would very much like to purchase this item from time to time, but the cost seems a bit high and the item is currently a snowballing tool more than a strategized response. If you think it's a toplaner item and not a support one... check for yourself. Top 5 users are all supports.

Zeke's Herald is moved to the Figher Project. It could still be bought by AD supports, I guess, but it's mostly a diving bruiser item that retains its lifesteal aura, but the AD boost is limited to teamfights (a neat active that gives AD based on how many enemies are around). See: The Carry&Fighter Project.