Support is Dead, Long Live Support

What you've stumbled upon: Welcome to an extended balance thread about the balancing of supports, their future, and what they've become. Enjoy, and give feedback.

TL;DR - Support moved in the right direction, but some push back stopped balance just short of being acheived. With some willingness to change, and some community effort, Riot really can fix supports by rewarding skill and Slightly toning down the braindead supports. Balance potential and consistency

First of all, the low hanging fruit for such a topic is Ardent Censor. It's actually stupid. Yes, Ardent has made every crit based hypercarry ADC insanely strong. It makes lane so much less snowball because the hypers are reaching a level of playability earlier in the game through the buffs they receive and the utility which supports provide narrow the gold discrepancy. The primary reason this META is infuriating is because it's so braindead. For the most part, Janna isn't even a champion. She's just an Ardent Censor, and that's it. Recently support has been getting buffs to increase their impact on the game which has become massive. But the frustration is that BOTH supports are making a big impact. In almost any other situation or lane, one champion wins and one loses, or in the case that both break even, their strength is limited to a mirror strength on the enemy team. It requires both teams to play around the enemy.

Nearly every problem currently in the bottle Meta arises from the fact that you can't really keep a support down. A support will be just as useful when they're 0/10/0 or 0/0/10. Because of this, it acts like a bandage, stemming the bleed keeping the hypercarry from falling behind. Supports are essentially eliminating the midgame by nullifying a large portion of the early game. This would be ok, with one exception: anyone can do it.

Supports are braindead as a function of balance. Remember back around Christmas, when Riot gave a pretty considerable gift to the botlane, and gave supports some very serious quality of life adjustments that made support feel so much more impactful. Supports were given and enormous plethora of utility to enhance their impact, and we loved it. I felt so good having an array of actives and positions to maintain in Team fights. I loved having to actually do something other than mash my W as Soraka. It felt so good for about 5 weeks before the plug got pulled because supports were getting to strong, because the supports could actually become more or less impactful than the other. It made for painfully snowball games and in combination of the All Damage All the Time Meta of the moment, supports that could bring so much to a game magnified this issues several fold.

A large portion of large impact support items such as redemption and locket, which had massive team fight impacts and that strength was resultantly shifted to other support items such as knights vow and Zeke's and most infamously, Ardent Censor. Now, the strength differences between "braindead" and "playmaking" paths still keep play making just a cut above, the issue is that most supports in solo queue aren't aphromoo who know all about making supports and exercising control. Support feels so strong because the general support improvements have gone back on their strength to playmaking because that style of support had been so long out of Meta.

We are currently witnessing the result of buffing support but not enough. The current problem with support is that playmaking supports who build locket redemption and CDR/Mana and other playmaking styles do not bringing enough to the table because we were afraid of the impact that had. While it was good, and ultimately healthy for the support role, the community at large reacted with hostility to the ways in which the changes magnified the other issues with the Meta.

So Support has actually reached a weird place. In an effort to make support feel better, Riot pushed the timetable on bringing them up a little too hard in a primarily flawed Meta, exaggerating various issues with all damage Meta. As Riot cut back on their over commitment (which in a better Meta would be just the right amount) the braindead support styles remained strong. The problem is only further worsened by the lack of dedicated support players who aren't just auto filled to the role. Right now, the issue invading our botlane is Two fold.

The solution however is more complicated, firstly Riot needs to put some more love on the playmaking support. Thresh and Leona needs some love among which is fixing the bugged targons interaction on thresh's E passive, Frost Queen could use a buff, the changes need to not make Braum pick ban, maybe tone back ADC late game in general in favor of more catching potential in the early and mid game. Lastly, the braindead support items need to be nerfed MILDLY. They need some attention, but can't be gutted as their passives and such are what make Bard Leona and Thresh more useful than pressing their Q. Redemption should have it's Nerf partially reverted. The AP scaling on most Sheilds needs to be serious gutted. Or perhaps have it be conditional on resistances. The fact that Censor simultaneously adds utility to sheilds and provides a buff for scaling them immensely compound the problem.

The other half of the solution actually isn't Riot though. Riot can only do so much to make support role fun and interesting. Can only.give so many tools to the playmakers and such. Because people like Madlife and Aphromoo exist and will bring the pain ten thousand fold because of their skill. Support need to step up. Supports need to get in the game and play something and make a win happen. Junglers need to stop whining about the lack of Lee Simone shotting and realize that I they want a win they need to have some follow up. They need to work WITH their team, namely the support. It's about time, that the league player base got familiar with the Meta not as means to use it, but as a means to overcome it.

Right now, League is in really good spot. The game is fun, it's just snowbally enough, but the comebacks are real and the game is so full. There are tons of champions that finally have something to them. The micro and macro play potential of every champions exploding right now, and more are always coming. Unfortunately, as the Meta grows, becomes better and makes the game more fun it also becomes more team reliant. That will take away a small portion of some people fun, because pressing R on someone and them dying is fun, and Syndra is a cool champion at times, but that isn't healthy for the game or community. We need to step, we need more.supports, we need make the plays. Riot can only do so much, it's time you pick up high micro champ, and flex on the Janna. Thats what we need most of all.