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Support and Vision

Celosar·5/29/2015, 3:44:05 AM·2 votes·630 views

I'm not sure why but lately there has been a rash, at least in my games, of supports that have no idea that their basic function in the game is to provide their team with vision. I feel like the introduction of sigthstones and the fact that they are the second item in the recommended items list is good enough but I appear to be wrong.

I'm usually pretty nice about it asking the support to buy a sightstone or at least some wards.

My incredibly radical, never going to be implemented, idea is to have RIOT change the store so that if you buy a support item at the beginning of the game, you are required to buy a sightstone within your first 3000g. This gives us 800g sightstone, 800-1200g for boots, 500g for support item upgrade x1, and a minimum of 500g left over for pink wards and potions.

I'm damn near certain that's basically optimal for every support in the game. After the 3000g mark or a sightstone purchase, you can buy any damn thing you want. By all means, you build that deathcap into luden's echo into zhonya's hourglass because you know what? SUPPORT Lux/Annie/Morgana/etc is actually code for CARRY Lux/Annie/Morgana/etc.

/endsarcasm

Look folks, I get that sometimes support is probably the most boring thing you can do with 30 minutes of your life and trying to spice it up by contributing in a non-utility kind of way is fun sometimes but you still have a purpose that's not about your damage output. Personally I like to play Bard because then I have my own minigame to occupy me when nothing fun is happening.

TLDR: support = sightstone

<3

TTFN

15 Comments

Lucentile5/29/2015, 3:51:01 AM3 votes

"their basic function in the game is to provide their team with vision."

This is incorrect. EVERYONE is responsible for vision, supports just do the most of it. They should get Sightstone, yes. But it is not their basic function. It is a basic function for EVERYONE. They can have 4 wards out (3+Pink). That isn't going to even cover the immediate area you're fighting in if it isn't someone's base.

Lucentile5/29/2015, 4:34:10 AM1 votes

Sightstone is 400 for Ruby Crystal, 400 for Sightstone, if I recall.

Mobility boots is about 800 as well. Where are you getting 3,000? Ruby Sightstone is a terrible buy until late game.

Not only that, someone like Leona, Taric or Nautilus not buying tank stats is going to have a bad game.

Really, most supports should get the rank 2 of their support item and Sightstone (~1300 gold) on first back, after that, they build to their role, with an eye on support items like Legion/Auras.

IcyPepper5/29/2015, 4:38:50 AM1 votes

My incredibly radical, never going to be implemented, idea is to have RIOT change the store so that if you buy a support item at the beginning of the game, you are required to buy a sightstone within your first 3000g.

Or how about we force players to buy wards, at least one or two every recall and be forced to have a pink in their inventory or on the field at all times? (/kappa)

Because last time I checked, the 0 cs dude having to spend 800 gold is bull if the other four rolling in the dough can't even fork over pocket change every once in awhile.

Mandang05/29/2015, 3:17:36 PM1 votes

If you're a support and you're not buying sightstone, you're just hurting yourself. Here's an attempt to convince you:

For those of you who played in older seasons, why did support used to spend all of their gold on wards? Were they all making a mistake, or were wards just a better item than any alternative?
Do you build gp10? If so, why do you build gp10 instead of other stats?
If wards are worth 75 gold apiece, and sightstone gives 1 ward per minute, that's 6.25 gold per 5. How does that compare to gp10 item gold generation?

So... if wards are the best use of gold for a support, and gp10 is a worthwhile stat for support to build because it lets you sacrifice your stats for items to directly help your team, then surely an item with the best gp10 in the game (in the form of the best use of gold) is worth building, isn't it?

Partholonian5/30/2015, 1:03:37 AM1 votes

If you want to guarantee someone to have a specific item, just give them the damn item and don't gimp their gold.

Hmm, I wrote this as a joke snarky retort, but is it an actual argument for making some kind of sightstone-like ability literally built into everyone the way Recall is? ...Maybe. Although I still like my two trinket slots idea from the "remove sightstone" thread more, it's more flexible. One of them can always be yellow if you want it to be.

Either would be a huge improvement over gold for vision, though. Riot, please destroy all purchasable-for-gold vision next preseason.

The basic function of supports is to protect their teammates and make plays in ways that don't require personally dealing tons of damage. Vision is tacked on because if you have to have one person with crippled itemization, it hurts the team less to handicap the support (even though it hurts the support more than imposing that burden on any other role, because they have the least gold and lowest levels and therefore base stats to start with).

Vision itself is not a fun or interesting role. It is, however, necessary. It also makes you weaker when you do it (with current mechanics). That part actually isn't necessary, but is created by the fact that you can/must gain vision by losing gold and item slots.

Look folks, I get that sometimes support is probably the most boring thing you can do with 30 minutes of your life

It really isn't. Saving allies is great. Not getting to participate in the item part of the game while everyone else does, and being much weaker as a result, now THAT'S boring and awful.

trying to spice it up by contributing in a non-utility kind of way

AP = more utility for most supports, welcome to season 4. (Except for heals and shields, which have had it forever.) Also, you apparently don't get why supports build mana and CDR; it's so they can use the spells THAT ARE SAVING YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASS more often (even Annie Zyra need the CDR to make their CC available more often). More damage is a side effect for most supports.

Also, most champions are more useful to their teams alive, this includes supports. Items can help with that, if you get to build them.

And there are support items that bring their own utility outside of stats, like item 3504 item 3190 item 3800 item 3222 -- or even item 3060 item 3056 item 3050 item 3512 , which could be useful in some future patch.

Ultimately, "build sightstone noob" and "remove sightstone Riot" are coming from the same place: building sightstone makes the player weaker, but the team stronger. So someone has to do it, until Riot changes the game so you don't have to (or can't, which is probably the only way to stop it). It's the tyranny of effectiveness (aka fake choice) in its most brutal form. Supports literally get killed easier than anyone else because they can't afford the items that would have saved them, yet they don't realistically have the option to build real items instead.