If mages become viable supports they are adjusted to function well as a support. What is this unfair bias Riot has against support champions. Either get the damn mages out of bot lane who make playing Leona impossible, or make Leona top viable. It's really not fair that damage bloating 'supports' get to be played viably in bot lane, but when Lulu, Sona or Karma become viable outside of bot lane Riot nerfs them back into it.
PPPPPPPPPPPP27065 votesLet me tell you the brief history of supports when they don't go to the bottom lane.
He would basically free win every trade top lane with his W and sheen combo and you couldn't even fight back. Even when you did he would have a large AD steroid and massive damage reduction. Going back even further he would be able to gank you behind your tower at extremely early levels and live.
She would pretty much have all of her strengths but amplified much further with good AP ratios on her utility. She also becomes a massive lane bully that almost every melee would straight up lose in because of her Q harass and limitless CC and disengage. She would provide a lot of damage and huge utility that couldn't be matched by normal mages.
Before her rework that pretty much made it impossible to solo lane, she would be able to get constant harass with her Q and stacking MR reduction. Her E basically was free damage to anyone in range because of its laughable cost. Assassins had a terrible time vs her because of a 2 second silence and huge armor buff on her heal.
Oppressive champion that would win most extended trades with his Q and W while being full tank and getting a ton of damage thanks to his ultimate passive. He pretty much made any melee top laner unable to beat him.
mid would have by far the best wave clear in the entire game with her Q. It had huge range and can one shot the entire minion wave with one spell while not even being near the minion wave at all. This was a time where baron buff didn't give damage reduction to minions would basically require your team to have a good split pusher or be unable to end the game.
LordOfTheLeague9 votesYou have described the problems then now Riot should fix them
ChaoticPinecone30 votesWhich they did - the supports were nerfed/changed. The thing is, supports dont go outside of support unless they are blatently OP. Alistar getting a Sheen and Shiv proc by disengaging you from fighting was stupid. Janna being able to AFK farm and oneshot waves and then give a 1000hp shield lategame was stupid.
Mage supports still have the same drawbacks as they always did - they fall off in damage unless you snowball, and they are easy to pick off, especially when behind. Leona is still a good support into mages, but you just need to survive levels 1-3. Once you get a lead in the lane, you can endlessly hardengage and keep racking up the kills. Seriously - as a Zyra main, one jungle gank is all it takes for the Leona to get a lead and kill me every time I walk into lane.
And I dont know anymore, but Leona top used to work. Her Q actually reset her autos twice - you auto, cancel it with the Q, then you get a free auto after the Q (most champions have to wait their AS to get the auto after their auto-reset). Braum top works into some anti-snowball matchups (like Riven). Zilean and Morg still function as midlaners.
LordOfTheLeague5 votesI am mainly concerned about the enchanters going into solo lanes.
I am pretty sure it is possible to put them there while still being strong in bot lane.
Adriqnohee8 votesTo go in a solo lane you need a couple of things, you need some form of wave management and enough damage so that you don't insta-lose every match, give any of those to an enchanter and they become oppressive thanks to having both great utility and solo power.
LordOfTheLeague6 votesI imagine you can have wave management and enough damage to harrass while still having utility.
Look at orianna. She is really close to what I would expect from a support that goes in solo lane.
She can harass, she has a shield, ms buff and her ulti is an aoe displacement.
With just some small change to her ultimate, like if her ultimate healed instead of dealing damage in the aoe of her ultimate while still having the displacement I think she should be called an enchanter that can solo lane.
Ale non è male1 votesShe can harass, she has a shield, ms buff and her ulti is an aoe displacement.
With just some small change to her ultimate, like if her ultimate healed instead of dealing damage in the aoe of her ultimate while still having the displacement I think she should be called an enchanter that can solo lane.
She would be v 2.0
Which...well...wouldn't solve the problem, if a Janna v 2.0 would be strong enough to get out of support position and play solo lane , she would have exactly the same problems the guys above have yet mentioned as being completely broken
LordOfTheLeague4 votesI could write a lot about it but I feel it will be ignored.
I really think the problem with enchanters is that their buffs, utility and damage are often too easy to pull off .
For example, shields last for years (6 seconds for lulu, janne 5 seconds), poppy shield duration was nerfed recently because it laster too long.
They are instant so it is hard to play arround it exept knowing it will pop.
They point and click so when mages often have to put skillshots to deals damage, enchanters only have to click to conter them.
With all those innate advantages, of course shields have to be weak in numbers or it's broken.
But they could last less, be channeled and interruptable, and be skillshots (just example they don't have to be all the same). In return they could be far stronger (numbers, range etc), more satisfying to use and better to play against.
And I am only talking about shields.
I have a lot to say about how I think supports are poorly designed in this game.
Death by Glamour1 votesMage supports don't fall off whether they get gold or not
Annie support becomes an engager with flash Tibbers irrelevant on how much gold she gets
Morgana functions well without any gold
Brand zyra and vel have massive aoe damage to keep them relevant.
ChaoticPinecone2 votesIf youre an mage support with no gold, what function do you serve? Flash-Tibbers is on a 5 minute cooldown, and sometimes you cant save your flash for an engage. Morg is a snarebot, and you have to land a very slow skillshot.
I'm not saying that mage supports fall off into uselessness when behind (no champion does). I'm saying that they fall off - if you need an engage with low damage, an Alistar with no gold is an engager, has more CC, and is a lot tankier. Same with Leona. Thresh can be a stun/snare instead of Morg, and has his E and Ult to peel, plus his Lanturn (the Black Shield is nice though). Yes - Annie still has her flash-stun, but if you dont pick her for her CC. You pick her for her damage. If you dont do damage, there are better options available.
Verdade6 votesSure, flash tibbers has 5 minute CD, but it's used because its SO RELIABLE. It's instant point-and-click CC, something unheard of by other supports. There used to be "initiator tank annie" build, and this one was even used in LCS. It went something like:
So she used FQC to slow you, ran at you with Glory and threw tibbers at you. It wasn't as reliant on flash as usual Annie, she was VERY tanky and obnoxious, and still deal pretty decent damage.
Fawkes047 votes
seems to be fine in Solo-Lanes as well as in Bot-Lane. Her stregth gets amplified by Items, her Q deals more damage, but she is balanced in other roles as well as Support. So there should be a way to balance Lulu for both lanes.
actually was fine in solo-Lanes, also as Support, just like Karma - until they decided to take away her only really good Keystone with Thunderlord's no longer being activated by her W only.
is fine in Toplane as well, he was fine in Jungle before and still is good Top & Support
is fine in Mid-Lane as well as Support.
We see, balancing a mage-support for them to be viable as Support AND midlane does not seem to be the problem.
Sexy Jack Rabbit3 votes is severely gimped. She cannot mid-lane effectively. You either take her Top as Tank Karma, or bot-lane as a Shield bot. Mid-lane Karma does not work.
Wtf are you on about? They never nerfed her W or took away it's ability to proc TLD. She just lacks a consistent damage out-put to be relevant mid-lane anymore. Mid-lane Morgana was prevalent in a time where Mobility-creep was not so evident. You can still take her mid-lane, but it's pretty pointless.
Has gone through multiple iterations. He was Jungler, then a Support, now he's a Top Laner. Nautilus isn't a case of a support being nerfed back botlane.
Same situation as Morgana. Mobility creep has made him to hard to function as a mid-laner. No real point picking him over any other mid-laner.
Fawkes041 votes was played quite frequently in mid, must have missed the time when pro's started playing bad champs (or champs in roles wher they are bad) frequently.
did you even read patchnotes? she can't proc TLD only with W anymore.
re-read the paragraph about
Sexy Jack Rabbit2 votesKarma WAS played mid. She's now garbage as they nerfed her back bot-lane, that's the point of this post. There was no reason for it beyond Riot wanting to keep her as shield bot, they could have easily nerfed other aspects of her kit. In fact she wasn't even that oppressive midlane.
I read the patch notes and Morgana is still able to proc TLD with her W. Fizz Enthusiast has even mentioned that they haven't even implemented the technology yet to even do something like that. Provide me the patch where they allegedly did it, I'll be more understanding. Morgana's last change was in patch 6.17, she hasn't been mentioned in the patch notes since.
Zilean is sub-par mid-lane, just because a Pro picks something up, doesn't instantly make it viable and 'meta'. He is rarely picked into Assassins, but no more often or as effective as say Lissandra, and she's not exactly popular either
Sire Hippington8 votescause Zyras plantspam is such interactive gameplay, or Malz point n click lockdown and void swarms.
Not saying supports didn't cause some issues and were pretty bad to play against in sololanes, but so are many sololaners themself aswell as many of the botlane mages. Also, one could try to tackle their oprresiveness in lane without gutting them for sololanes...
Athenes Lulu27 votesThere isn't a problem with the fact that Lulu can go outside botlane and function as a solo laner. However, it becomes a problem when solo Lulu has all of support Lulu's strengths as well as covering up all of her weaknesses nearly completely, and that she eventually became a "must pick" almost every game due to having too much and too good of everything in a solo laner: safety, bully potential, waveclear, loaded with utility, has DPS, and does not have the risks of "becoming useless" when camped. Yeah, that has to go.
I'll leave this here.
LankPants3 votesThe exact same thing could be said in reverse if you replaced Lulu with Zyra.
AbiwonKenabi3 votesExcept where is Zyra's safety? Can she shield herself and others for a ton? Sure, Zyra has utility in the form of solid CC, but she can't speed herself up and escape most ganks. She's very squishy with no heals or speed ups.
If Zyra is camped she becomes almost useless, I'll just say that right now. Lulu can be fairly far behind and her utility is still useful. That's the point, when Lulu was dominant, it was because she was useful no matter what and there wasn't much you could do to prevent it. Zyra has situations where she isn't as useful.
Death by Glamour1 votesZyra support has advantages over lulu top or support.
Damage is just part of it, she like all mage supports function pretty well on there own with an amazing carry or a terrible one. Lulu simply doesn't, her whole kit is designed around buffing and protecting the adc.
AbiwonKenabi1 votesSorry I should have clarified, I was referring to when Lulu was really dominant, not necessarily current Lulu. Also, every ability Lulu has to buff her teammates can all be used on herself. So she's a lot more self-reliant than you think. She's versatile in a way Zyra just isn't; safer in lane with her W speed up and shield/ult, can buff literally any ally who needs it, including herself, decent wave clear and damage, CC for teamfights. Zyra is strong, don't get me wrong, but when Lulu was dominant she did EVERYTHING, in a way that dominant Zyra does not.
This thread is discussing why traditional supports often get nerfed out of usage and that's because they do too much. This isn't always the case--I think Karma has always been decent as both support and solo laner--but often when they are strong, they promote unhealthy/unfair/not fun play.
Orangesilk1 votesShe did everything BUT damage, she has decent bases (as supports do) but terrible scalings, so once lategame rolled around, she was relegated to support with a lot of gold.
My Waifu Vanilla2 votesI mean you didn't pick Lulu top for a late game damage threat. You picked her for the early game damage and the late game utility that was an 800-ish health ult, massive E shield, and a W MS boost that have like 60%+ movement speed.
Orangesilk1 votesOh yeah, but then don't come here saying "You weren't sacrificing anything by having Lulu as a solo laner" Yeah, you had a laner who was neither a damage dealer nor a tank, this is a big sacrifice for a team to make. You devoted a whole lane worth of gold for someone to give big buffs to your team.
Atanchan2 votesYou had a lane that was an incredibly safe damage dealer for the lane, made anyone on your team a tank, and provided difficult to dodge if not outright impossible to dodge crowd control, not to mention she could get a tank-like initiation using a bruiser jungle or tank support and her ultimate, both of which she makes their job of diving onto the enemy team far easier.
Literally the only thing you were missing was more late-game orientated damage, but you have your ADC by default and you still have your midlaner if you want more magic damage threat, which you were probably going to do anyway. You lost nothing for picking her top unless you're actively trying to make it so that you couldn't use all she brought to the table.
Athenes Lulu2 votesZyra as a solo laner is kinda shitty, to be frank. Most midlaners have much more range and safety to either weed out everything Zyra has, or has enough tools to dive and jump on her into uselessness.
Lulu support was a lot like that before Riot realized that Lulu having good waveclear is NOT okay.
And a Zyra who got camped botlane does become kinda useless, been there and done that. Lulu doesn't have that kind of risk as a solo laner lane bully.
Though I don't mind kicking Zyra back to midlane and make her support actually have weaknesses. She does and it's called the dangers of being so fragile that ADCs can make her cry, but it's not that obvious because that ADC has to be a zone heavy lane bully like Jhin or Cait, otherwise that weakness is nonexistent.
AbiwonKenabi2 votesThese people clearly don't play Lulu, so they're just stubborn. I would give it up. You and I have like a bajillion Lulu games each but what do we know?
People don't realize that when Lulu mains argue that their main was too strong, they probably were a problem
Athenes Lulu2 votes[slayer-jinx-wink]
Orangesilk16 votesI mean "She does the same thing but better when she has more gold" Okay? Isn't that how it's supposed to function? We're devoting a whole lane to her, she better be able to do something.
It becomes much worse when you send Zyra WITHOUT farming gold income and she has all of the strengths of mid-lane mage Zyra.
Athenes Lulu7 votesThe problem is you are sacrificing nothing when you take Lulu as a solo laner instead of a support, she was everything pros and high elo players would want in a solo laner and not really giving them a choice. You're not sacrificing damage because Lulu can deal a fuckton of damage with lots of AP, you're not sacrificing waveclear because she's got them covered, and you're not sacrificing the risk of becoming useless because she auto-transitions into a support late game PLUS having lots of damage. There almost was nothing to sacrifice taking Lulu as a solo laner other than "no frontline", but who needs that when your support or jungler can do the work?
Took Riot 2 years to realize that something is wrong with that.
On the other hand I'd be more than happy to kick Zyra out of botlane, or at least give her real tradeoffs. OP was talking about how "every support who can solo lane gets gutted", and most people who play the game well enough knows that Lulu as a solo laner while outcrowding possible choices is not healthy at all.
LankPants5 votesThe problem is you are sacrificing nothing when you take Lulu as a solo laner instead of a support, she was everything pros and high elo players would want in a solo laner and not really giving them a choice.
Why should there be a sacrifice moving a champ from support to mid? Just on a straight up 1 for 1 any champ played in a role where they can get resources should just be better than the same champ played in a role where they can't. This is just simple logic, there's no tradeoff between having 20 AP and not having 20 AP, having 20 AP is just better.
Relative to other solo laners Lulu was a null damage threat, she had 1 ability that she used for damage most of the time. There's a clear tradeoff for mid Lulu VS mid Orianna, mid Lulu has more utility, but Orianna has a clear damage advantage.
My Waifu Vanilla3 votesExcept Lulu wasn't really picked mid and was instead taken top where she was infinitely better Teemo. Mixed damage ranged auto attack harass? Check. Waveclear? Check. Ungankable? Check since you can W and R away and laugh at the jungler for wasting their time.
What gets me is the fact you said she was a null damage threat when her Q had a base of I believe 280 and had a very small cd and was near undodgeable as a melee while having the massive scaling slow on it.
Pop0001002 votesproblem is when lulu had damage she was viable mid/top/supp they removed it because she removed agency of her opponent, she just wave cleared and poked you down with impunity, Morgana had the same problem.
ultimately they cant be solo lane because they when good don't have meaningful trade offs, why pick liss over lulu when lulu is better at every point of the game in her heyday.
Relative to other solo laners Lulu was a null damage threat, she had 1 ability that she used for damage most of the time. There's a clear tradeoff for mid Lulu VS mid Orianna, mid Lulu has more utility, but Orianna has a clear damage advantage.
except she didn't since the glitterlances stacked she could do 75% of a ADCs health even if shes on equal footing, her mobility and ult and polymorph, meant she could kill you with ease, and safely since she is fast and was one of the hardest midlaners to gank.
Edge of Daybreak19 votesWell when mages become viable supports they are usually nerfed until they can't reliably go mid anymore so they just become supports forever.
Mira Arya Enthe5 votesThis is because Riot refuses to go back to a system where high scalings and medium/low base damages made mages more gold reliant, when combined with high tier mage items being better but more expensive, most mages would be completely not viable as supports. This started primarily with the MYMU, before them only a couple who already had these problems went bot, like Zyra and Annie.
Ark Sorcerer1 votesPoor Zyra. Her plants have been Nerf as of late so what you say is true with her but what about Annie though? I do not recall anything being done to her to make that true.
Mira Arya Enthe5 votesAnnie already had high base damage and utility so she was commonly used as an off meta support even in S2. But things like Brand, New Zyra's damage, Malz, Vel'Koz and crew going support is the direct result of the MYMU where all AP items were nerfed and base damage was raised to compensate.
Ark Sorcerer4 votesSo we should expect a Malz, Vel and Brand nerf coming soon then? Destroy them being in mid game and keep them bot then? It sounds like base damage being poor and heavily reliant on items to do well sucks but would be effective to get champs back to mid. I mean sure, that would make mid the worst lane when behind, but it already is. A behind TF can only get assists to crawl back up, otherwise he will always get himself killed.
Mini rant that I do not feel like deleting: If it means: Zyra can go back mid (and get her plants back up) Rylai's is "undone" and more AP is given back to mages Preferable AD is a bit less for the AD caster mid I am game for that.
I like Thresh support. Thresh is fun and landing those hooks on a Azir who tried to juke you but still caught him and then got shut down by my teammate is satisfying but what does it matter if I can only play him tank (which isn't bad) but face against ap mages that can ignore minion waves while I can't.
TyrekGoldenspear3 votesBrand is kind of a special case.
Even if you lowered his bases and buffed his ratios, his kit was redesigned to deal tons of damage to grouped enemies and not as much to a single enemy.
Therefore he will always be more useful bot lane as there is eternal grouping there.
Plus the enemies down there don't build MR for a bit so lowered bases won't hurt support Brand as midlane Brand.
xWaters12 votesAll melee supports are having a rough time due to the cancerous "supports"
Mira Arya Enthe9 votesThings like Brand, New Zyra's damage, Malz, Vel'Koz and crew going support is the direct result of the MYMU where all AP items were nerfed and base damage was raised to compensate. High base damage regardless of gold is what makes supports able to support on low income. Mages need their items/scalings buffed back up and their base damages nerfed.
xWaters1 votesWhy the fuck was that tampered with? During the MYMU I was still new, so I don't really know what occurred. But it's common sense, if base damage was made higher, they are less gold dependent, they all go bot. They should revert the MYMU, I've heard so many complaints from Zyra, Malzahar, and Syndra mains.
Mira Arya Enthe12 votesRiot doesn't like 'carries' existing. So they are trying to make everyone relevant at all points in the game, as a result the past two seasons have been the worst in LoL history. Carries are fine, it just means somebody who scales into late game well but has a bad early game.
TeCoolMage6 votesVel'koz was a much better support before MYMU
CancerBasedGod11 votes
isn't.
Erractic Eick1 votesBlitz is a special case, and thank god because he is the most fun support I've played aside from support Sion and Support Jax.
Ørdeal4 votes
Sup > 
Sup
Funkin Dunkin3 votes
RavenMagus6 votesIf mages become viable supports they are adjusted to function well as a support.
Actually what happens is they get nerfed until they are only viable as a support. (Looking at you Zyra, Malz)
Mira Arya Enthe3 votesTrust me, as a pre-rework malz main, I am familiar