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Marksmen don't need a buff, supports need (another) rework

LaserDeathBlade·2/4/2017, 1:36:57 AM·30 votes·2,677 views

It's no secret that the marksman role is pretty garbage right now, but IMO half the reason AD's are weak can be attributed to the support meta.

Traditional peel supports have been completely pushed out of the meta by high damage mage supports like Malz, Karma, Brand, and Zyra. When there's no peel, then ADCs are naturally weak and vulnerable.

  • Mage supports almost universally crush traditional supports in lane unless there's heavy jungle pressure
  • There are no good build paths for tanky aggro supports like Leona/Thresh/Braum that can engage on these mages. Removing CDR from Aegis dealt a huge blow to the playability of these champs.
  • It's stupid how mage supports can pump out way more damage than ADCs for the first half of the game, there's just no incentive to gamble on your ADC scaling in when your support can provide all the damage bot lane needs.
  • High pressure junglers diminish the value of peel supports when you're way more likely to get a kill than to prevent a kill
  • First turret gives too damn much gold, further incentivizing high damage mage supports who can push hard and fast, and punish weak lane opponents who can't wave clear easily.

It's possible ADC's don't need a buff at all, but please consider revisiting supports.

37 Comments

chipndip12/4/2017, 4:17:30 PM11 votes

  • Riot actually thinks these mages are good for game health, and they're right. Back when I was advocating that we make more ap support items for supports that want to be a bit more aggressive, you want to know what people told me? "Play a mid lane mage or just play mid". Well, as hard stuck on enchanters as I am, I think it's fine and dandy if someone's got the option to approach the role more aggressively rather than sitting back and healing all day. Before anyone has a cow, think of it like this: Would you rather someone actually fight you to win lane, or would you like Soraka to be op again?

  • Doesn't this scream as a wake up call that support bases are way too low? These mages bring base effectiveness. By late game, Locket/Redemption are bloody broken beyond belief, and these guys hardly build those items, so it's not like they're late-game powerhouses. Rather, the early and mid game is where they do the most damage, but...that's the job of ANY support, anyway. People are having the wrong complaints. Traditional supports are weak, rather than these mages are too strong. Well, they might be a bit strong, too, but the point is that most supports are too weak. If someone's being picked for early power, a support should be able to contest that naturally...because they're picked for early game power. Apparently now they're picked because they're supposed to be fucking wimps with a slow and a heal.

  • Given point 2, I think much of support's problems as a role are grounded in the fact that the community wants support to be a helpless role where you do very little outside of apply slows. Without damage, you can't protect yourself or assert yourself that well. You can kinda try, but if I don't do any damage, what's really deterring someone from ignoring me once my cds are done? What's really deterring someone from not chasing me if I'm caught out warding? Obviously, I don't mean for a support champ to be able to 1v5 carry or chunk as hard as a carry, but to remove all damage threat from the role is legitimate stupid talk. This talk of forcing supports to rely on others to be half their presence in a given situation isn't wise. Hell, that's the very thing people tend to quote when they talk about why they DISLIKE THE ROLE.

With this said, yeah, the current ap mages could use nerfs, perhaps, but it'd be a shame if they were removed from bot lane outright. It'd be really telling about the community as a whole.

SilverSquid2/4/2017, 12:40:50 PM5 votes

high damage mage supports like Malz, Karma, Brand, and Zyra.

Can we get those back to being played (mainly) midlane please? I didn't fathom to ever hear Malz being called a "mage support" and it doesn't feel right.

WoonStruck2/4/2017, 3:01:17 PM4 votes

Rather than making non-mage supports overloaded/overtuned, let's just nerf all of the absurd damage in the game that's making tanky supports relatively useless.

Even when there is peel, it often doesn't matter due to the extremely high damage in the game right now. That, and its pretty damn hard to peel point-and-click that has a lead.

ZT Xperimentor2/4/2017, 2:58:26 PM3 votes

Marksmen aren't weak, none of them even got a significant nerf recently. They just aren't as meta, finally.

THE RlVER KlNG2/4/2017, 2:49:54 PM3 votes

Yah last time supports got a rework TK got gutted and Riot hasn't touched him since.

h5LYF41Lam2/4/2017, 9:45:23 PM2 votes

can we just rework janna already? riot please stop sucking off support mains.

Derfel2/4/2017, 5:11:41 AM2 votes

lol high damage. Malz's damage falls off the roof compared to Zyra/Brand/Vel. Karma is one of the strongest peeling/defensive supports in the game.

Seriously stop it with the fuck mages ADCs in 2017 memeing. The only mages being picked as support are Zyra (besides being a support almost since inception, her rise to god tier was all due to riot's braindead reworking of her poke, which is getting nerfed next patch), Malz (you can blame riot for turning him into a better support than mid, but his voidlings are also getting nerfed next patch to the point he won't even be able to function mid) and MF (a counter to Zyra and Malz). ADCs who can abuse lethality are strong as shit, I don't know how much stronger you want them to be. They have early game burst, retarded mid game damage (Jhin in particular also has some of the best game winning utility in the game) and late game doesn't actually exist anymore so there's no downside at all.

Of the 20 things Riot needs to actually "rework", supports aren't one of them.

Josh Sand2/5/2017, 4:36:55 PM2 votes

Another reason supports need a rework is because the role just isnt popular. Only about 10% of the playerbase mains the role, so Marksmen are screwed over before they even get into champ select.

By a huge margin, Marksmen are absorbing the brunt of autofill's negative effects, and it's only going to get worse as more frustrated Support players cut back on their play time, or just drop out of the game entirely.

Support is boring because there is a lack of agency in the role.

Support is boring because we dont have high skill-cap champions like Azir or Gangplank or Yasuo.

Support is boring because our strength is tied up in activated items noboby esle wants to buy.

I have heard that some at Riot believe its a "visibility" problem - that supports arent recognized so they dont get credit. I have to disagree. Recognition is less of a factor than having fun and feeling a sense of mastery with your champion.

Give us at least that please. We supports deserve the chance to express our skill just as much as LB and Fiora players do.

Dianna Leveret2/25/2017, 10:03:01 PM1 votes

Tank supports ( except for Alistar ), are all falling behind atm, because of lethality. Their deffences are negated so early by 1 lethality item, by the moment they have enough gold to get a full tanky item, 2 even 3 more lethality items will be bought. I said Alistar is excluded is because I believe he is top tier support atm. His engage and peel and teamfight presence is off the roof and its extremely easy to do it nowadays. I don't understand why did they change him. Old school Alistar had almost the same peel and engage power, but needed abit more awareness and experience ... New one is just a pain in the **, who never dies, has some crazy damage ( for a support tank ) etc tec. Utility supports - like Lulu, Janna, Brad, Sona are TOTALLY outclassed right now, by mage supports, who also have cc and peel AND also are a 2nd mid laner. The only reason Janna has such high win rate is because she is one of the easiest champions to play, slippery and often played at high elo, where she wins more, since Janna is extremely team reliant. As a Lulu/Janna main in gold elo currently i struggle a lot, because the teams at this elo rarely use our utility. Janna for example - when i shield adc, its not only for protection-> it buffs his AD, so its the perfect time for him to poke, yet at gold most people dont use this opportunity not to mention lower elo. All can be said for those enchanter type supports, who lack damage, but instead give damage and protection to their team. I would love to see them getting buffed, because its just too hard to keep up with the crazy damage right now from mages, lethality and Hecarim/Zac jungle meta.. Even Soraka, who is hated so much, fell off nowadays, because she just can't keep up with all the damage going on.
But to be fair i would love it even more if Riot just reduced the damage in the game atm..

kirbyzama2/4/2017, 9:19:50 PM1 votes

I feel the hyper scaling adc's need tuning if they want to keep the first turret gold but yes a lot of the weakness adc's feel has to do with having less say in the lane vs and with mage supports (even less than they used too) plus the game has accelerated to the teamfight phase which while its normally where they shine, it starts too early for them to be impactful without utility spells. Basically since mid game starts sooner we pick mage supports for damage and adc's for utility which scales into something later if it gets there while pure scalers like Jinx or Kog are just flat worse than cait jhin or ashe because they provide more utility to be useful early while still scaling (even if they are worse late than hyper carriers its not by enough to bother picking them). However, I defend ziggs bot lane and I will defend zyra's right to be a support pick but they should be an option along with engage tanks, body guard tanks, offensive enchanters and peeling enchanters.

VoraciousX2/6/2017, 3:08:25 AM1 votes

Mage supports 100% aren't crowding out other supports. Champion.GG is known to not be as correct as other sites, but OP.GG shows that the mage supports are actually 50% win rates, while redemption supports(even people who shouldn't be using Redemption, like Blitzcrank who is number 1 support right now) are at very high win rates compared to those. Blitzcrank is at a 53.66% win rate and he's using redemption in all of his core item choices. Sona same thing, 53.27% win rate, redemption in almost all of her most popular core builds. Soraka, same deal, 52.91%. Guess what's in her core? The top 5 win rate supports are(in order): Blitz, Sona, Soraka, Janna, Lulu. You don't get down to a mage support until 8th place with Zyra at 51%. Fiddlesticks is 10th at 50.89% and Velkoz is 11th at a 50.32%, Malzahar is 13th at 50.14%, and Brand is 15th at 49.31%. Sorted by pick rate, Malzahar is 4th, with Brand at 11th, and Morgana is 9th if you count her. Traditional supports are FAR from being crowded out. Honestly from looking at this Redemption still needs to be nerfed harder. Even Sion support is building it with a 57% win rate with it. As for Support Malz having a high pick rate, it's Riot's fault for ruining his mid lane and jungle possibilities. His minions no longer spread from other minions, or jungle camps, and considering how gankable he is, having someone have his back makes things easier for him. His ability to completely disable someone for 2.5 seconds helps a lot in the bot lane as well. It's no surprise he went bot lane. Just try taking Dragon as Malzahar now. It's completely ridiculous.

LordGeovanni2/6/2017, 4:48:38 AM1 votes

Exactly front line dissappears adcs wonder where their peel is i need buffs to dominate without peel as if they dont already. mages get buffs to keep up with adcs cycle goes again.