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Support mages, Ziggs and Caitlyn are't used because they're too strong

Verdade·1/13/2017, 7:04:49 PM·4 votes·1,370 views

They are used because actual supports suck badly. Non-support champions sucessfully played as supports:

Why? Because these offer more than actual supports. Naut, Annie, Veigar and Trundle are/were used for their utility (reliable hard CC mostly), Velkoz, Brand, Zyra for their carry potential.

Guess why are so popular? Because they are SAFE. They can farm from long range, have some mobility/safety and can peel for themselves.

Supports can't peel as well as , can't match poke/kill pressure of .

As far protecting goes, well-placed CC is often better than shielding/absorbs, which is why were Annie, Trundle and Veigar valueable - reliable point and click CC.

These are FACTS. Now for speculations.

We know certain supports sit at 52-54% win rate, which may indicate they are VERY STRONG picks. However, this is inconsistent with fact that they are pushed out of support position. If they were strong, they wouldn't be outclassed, right?

Supports are designed to function with low income and xp. On the other hand, mages require tons of gold and xp to work well. If class that needs gold/xp to work preforms as well or even better in position with low income than class designed to work there, something is obviously broken.

Question are: Why are win rates of certain supports so inflated despite them preforming rather badly?

Why have actual supports weaker utility than non-supports?

20 Comments

Poske1/13/2017, 7:09:34 PM4 votes

Supports are underpowerd

Every game has a support though so thats why they are all around 50% winrate

They are still underpowered

Reason why support role is the most underplayed role is because its influence on game is abysmall and riot has done nothing to adress that

Heck in season2 supports had more influence just by warding and shurleya

Blumpkin Nation1/13/2017, 7:15:33 PM1 votes

I feel like most of this contributes to the fact that they released so many champions and didn't think about the end result. There are still many champions who could use reowrks (small/large). When those are accomplished, hopefully, it should resolve this type of issue.

But for the most part, I agree.

Slythion1/13/2017, 7:17:26 PM1 votes

personal theory: mages acting as "carry" supports is just a by-product of the slow damage creep that's been in league. With these masteries and base damages slowly rising, there is less of need to buy hyper-expensive items when you're in a lane with a target that you can burst anyways (the adc), regardless if you have that 3.2k ap item or not.

Especially considering how recently, support items have become reallllyy good (hello, item 3107 ), which only helps because the fact that supports function on a "low income" life, that doesn't matter if they are given good items.

That brings us to another issue with the support class itself. They don't have an income, which means their items need to cost less. But if the items cost less, that means the provided stats need to be worth less. What does this mean? The items available to supports will require them to be weak compared to any other class, and this issue can't be fixed because if they start producing cheap items with good stats, other classes would abuse the fck out of them.

So basically, Riot needs to find a way to provide supports a legitimate gold income without shaking up the meta, and then they need to find a way to combat the growing damage creep that can be found in the game. Both issues are much harder to solve than initially assumed, but that's for an entire different thread in itself.

Aptest1/13/2017, 7:53:54 PM1 votes

Q: Why are win rates of certain supports so inflated despite them preforming rather badly?

A: There's this poor win rate support champion that people insist on playing a lot that's skewing all the other win rates upwards.

Basically Thresh has a 27% play rate and his win rate is bad. So everybody else gets to have more win rate because of his huge play rate.

Q: Why have actual supports weaker utility than non-supports?

A: They do not.

4U type supports: BARD: Hard-CCx2 Soft-CCx1 SpeedupX1 MobilityX1 THRESH: Hard-CCx2 Soft-CCX1 MobilityX1 Shieldx1 OutPlayx1 LEONA: Hard-CCx3 TAHM: Hard-CCx2 Soft-CCx1 Mobilityx2 Outplayx1 Janna: Hard-CCx2 (both AOE), Soft-CCx1, Buffx1, Speedupx1 SONA: Hard-CCx1, Soft-CCx1, Buffx2, Speedupx1, Debuffx1 Healx100

Bot lane casters: BRAND: hard-CCx1 Zyra: Hard-CCx2, Soft-CCx1 Annie: Hard-CCx1

Is that even comparable?

Jmman1/13/2017, 8:33:22 PM1 votes

my 2 cents

A lot of mid have been pushed out of mid due to favoritism. (certain champs are always stronger and safer) And the Auto fill with jungle new power.

This has created an environment where people are trying new things and they are working. I have always prefer a mage/tank support to a real support. At the end game you have a real champ to peel and either tank or lay the dps down. If you adc blows no worries they can support you or just be a human shield late game. It doesn't glimp you like a real support and weak adc will.

in eq we would joke around reverse healing. You don't need to heal or shield if you blow them up first. Mage can do 70 to 80% of you hp mid if they catch you early. So take that bot. Now you have someone that can help finish them off (adc) or they can back giving you gold and lvl advance. Almost all mages have cc / harassment / wave clear. This gives you lane control and dragon control.

Now the jungle is really strong atm. So when they come if you have a mage helping the cc plus damage will force the jungle to think about diving or not. with just the support and adc both will die on the turrent. 200 heal vs jungler taking 800 damage. what would be better if they dove you under the turrent at lvl 3 or 4.

Late game would you rather have a full build adc and mage / two mages or adc (that get 2 shoot) with a support that gets 2 shoot without damage.

Add in that bot hasn't really had to face mid mages so they don't know to kill malz pets. instead they let them do 70% of there hp.

add in that mages are 100000X more fun than supports to play. Plus you can actually help in team fights. You can kill anyone that is low hp instead of die with 100% hp to a 5% jungle.

Its just a perfect storm call the META. Its the easy / most fun atm. But main reasons are same champs mid, jungle too strong, game snowballs easily, and all the people coming bot imo.

Wiz the Great1/13/2017, 9:43:19 PM1 votes

Janna Karma Nami Thresh Braum ??? Also Zyra was updated to specifically be a support