Playing support this season.... God i miss being a "meaningful" character.

So been playing utility support for a long time, and this season has got me scratching my head. In previous seasons the big advantage you got from playing these champions, was that you could build CDR without trashing your build. For a long time you'd see other roles maybe top out at 20% CDR, and even that was pretty high all things considered. So being able to rock the 40% CDR with "reasonable" base cooldowns went a long way in allowing you to actually do something despite being made of glass, usually lacking in damage, and often not having great engage/disengage. But with this season it's very quickly becoming normal for basically every role to be rocking 20% or more CDR, and they don't really have to give up much to get it. I mean we have an item that works on most ADC's that gives them 30% CDR for basically building what they were going to build anyway (and helps with their mana issues to boot). Seeing a lot of tanky champions with or for a nice 20% CDR and some decent stats on top.

So as a support who doesn't have a strong/reliable lock down, and use to rely heavily on my ability to cast stuff more often then my opponents, what am i suppose to do now that many/most characters are casting just as fast if not faster then me? How am i suppose to counter abilities that were designed around being used once ever 15 seconds, that are now going off every 8 seconds. How am i, as a support, suppose to keep pace when champions are able to get all their CDR by 13-15 min mark, while i am looking at probably a 20-25 min point to do the same? How am i, as a support, suppose to deal with the fact that, having neither crushed lane or been crushed in lane, 60% of the enemy team will likely be 2-4 levels higher then me and probably have 1-1.5 more finished items? While the game has gotten faster, the support role in general has been left in the past. Champions that use to hit their stride in the mid game (20-ish mins in) are now stuck getting to a "medium" level just as the game is coming to a close.

For all my complaining, i will say that i kind of like the faster games. The average 50 min game where fun, but it was really hard to play more then 1 or 2 in a row. I do kind of like that more characters have access to cooldown items, and that they aren't "cast spell(s) then auto attack for 20 seconds while i wait for them to come back from cooldown". That said, i really do feel like supports got the short end of stick with the changes to the game. You still level slower, you still have a much more limited income, most of your end game gold is based off how many times you were part of a team fight/helped kill an opponent, and your first like 3K gold is going towards tier 2 boots, sightstone, and tier 3 support item (or in other words 33%-50% your possible end game items) .