Supports get no gold. Can we please get this issue resolved?

Maxbox·6/3/2015, 10:10:50 PM·7 votes·2,737 views

So I love to play support. I main lulu. Buffing and ensuring my teammates survival is what I like to do. On average I get 1/5/25 at end game (pending on length of game). Something else I see at end of game. I have literally 5k less gold than everyone else. Can Riot swap the kill/assist gold income rate for support champs? Could they simply increase support gold income? Supports shouldn't be poor for doing their job well. Also, keep in mind I have gold income items throughout the game as well as gold income masteries. Am I crazy for thinking this? Is anybody else tired of feeling like they're fighting at a disadvantage due to crazy low income?

43 Comments

disregardable6/3/2015, 10:12:27 PM8 votes

That's the idea. You're supposed to be the one that helps your team, not the one that has enough gold to 1v1 people...

Vash The Stamped6/3/2015, 10:13:11 PM6 votes

Supports aren't supposed to get gold...you're SUPPOSED to make sure the ADC gets it all.

AJStarhiker6/3/2015, 10:17:45 PM6 votes

If you're trying to build like you would an AP, then yes, you will find yourself gold-starved. Part of support is that you are giving up gold farming so the carry build damage faster.

I play extremely low cs on support, with most games down in single digit farm. If I have higher numbers, it was probably due to trying to keep minion waves out of our base until the rest of the team shows up. I can usually get through most of my item build due to smart play and my rune/mastery setup.

Crunchyfied6/3/2015, 10:12:37 PM6 votes

You're crazy for thinking this. Supports are supposed to have almost no gold unless you just want to get all the kills then completely lose the game for your team because you have no carry potential. Use your cc correctly and itemize efficiently and gold shouldn't even be an issue.

ModKnightsKemplar6/3/2015, 10:12:21 PM4 votes

They are trying with the gold items. The problem is that these items cannot ever be as good as being in a solo lane, or farm becomes irrelevant to the game.

In other words, supports will always be gold starved.

qetzel6/3/2015, 10:43:42 PM4 votes

Gather 'round, little ones, and hear the tale of the trials of the support.

Poor supports wander the map, often being shouted at by their teammates for only having four wards up (what? But it still happens). These selfless, maltreated wondrous things give up so much to help their teams for the sole purpose of... VICTORY!

See, there is only a limited amount of gold on the map. You have three lanes of minions and a jungle. Sensibly, to maximise gold and experience, you put one member in each of the lanes and one in the jungle. Even then the jungler needs bonus damage on monster kill to succeed (There are reasons for not just increasing monster gold, but I won't go into that now).

So what does the fifth person do? Typically, ADCs can be shut down easily. If they don't stay even, they fall behind quickly. ADCs are normally the only source of sustained damge in sieges, teamfights and against neutral objectives. You need them to be strong. They get a lot stronger with gold, with items, so the fifth person sacrifices their gold to keep the ADC alive in lane. Later they use their high utility kits to remain relevant without any income.

In ages past these supports were called "Ward Bitches". Everything they had went into warding. They dealt no damage and were always squishy. YET THEY WERE STILL A NECESSITY. For nothing but vision and kit utility, supports were a necessity. Without gold. For Season 4, Riot re-jigged the warding system so that supports couldn't be the only ones expected to ward. They also gave supports neat little gold income items to help them along AND utility scaling so that these items would help them more.

This came with massive nerfs to supports offensive scaling. Why? I'm not sure, but I think it is because having an extra full strength damage dealer on each team causes too many problems. Tanks would die faster, squishies would die much faster, games would snowball more easily. Not good. They were needed without gold. Giving them too much gold scaling is similar to giving supports too much gold. It fucks with the balance of the game in ways that are difficult if not impossible to control.

I'm hoping that the history of supports gold may help you understand why this probably isn't a good idea.

If it makes you feel any better, you don't get gold but you typically get decent shields, slows, CC, speed boosts, and many other forms of utility. You don't need gold to be good.

Truly Prideful6/3/2015, 11:01:43 PM3 votes

How are you falling that far behind in gold? I'm usually lowest gold on my team, but only 2-3k behind max. Obviously ignoring long games with 400+ cs totals / insanely fed people. Supports are fine as they are in the gold department.

Win1Ocent6/3/2015, 10:31:44 PM3 votes

Compared to season 3 supports have a crap ton of gold and you don't have to spend all your gold on wards.

Still though, sometimes the gap can be 5-10k sure, but hardly all the time, most games the support is about 1-2k behind and i'm afraid it has to be that way.

You can't just give the support more gold, that would create chaos, when relic shield first was released it was so broken that both players in the bot lane started relic shield and ended up getting more gold than you otherwise would. This makes regular supports unviable as it causes midlaners to become supports.

killd0zer6/3/2015, 10:21:40 PM2 votes

lol i end the game with 16k gold avg as support git gud

Lucentile6/4/2015, 1:26:24 AM2 votes

Let me look at your match history and give some constructive criticism.

  1. You never upgrade your GP/5 item. That's a lot of gold [and power!] sitting untouched. Ancient Coin only is worth the item slot if it becomes the Talisman. Also: You're taking Ancient Coin instead of Frost Queen's Claim, which will net you more gold most likely if you can land basic attacks with Lulu, since Pix also triggers the passive [or at least, it used to when I played Lulu months ago.]

  2. You're building expensive, raw AP items. You're always going to feel behind. The only "selfish" item I usually get on Sona is a Lich Bane, and even then, I know I'm making a mistake doing it most of the time. Try to get cheaper, more utility items for your team. You also are not taking Mobi Boots, which are cheaper than other boots, help you roam, and let you get back to lane faster to get more gold.

  3. You're not placing a lot of wards, but the wards you ARE placing are coming from your trinket, not Sightstone. I see Sightstone on very few of your games; that's the best GP/5 item in the game.

  4. You've got wonky runes/masteries, which is hurting your ability to use your gold effectively. You didn't take armor or MR runes, which means you're taking more damage than you need to. You don't have a biscuit, but spent a point in alchemist anyway, meaning you're not getting the full benefit from that point. Also, don't take the 1 point in Attack Speed. Take it in Expose Weakness; it's a unique effect you can't replicate any other way, so it is a better point buy, especially on a support.

So, what I see is that you're sabotaging your own gold gain, and then making it that you aren't able to do as much with the gold you're getting.

Abyssphere6/3/2015, 11:01:41 PM2 votes

You do make a lot less gold as a support but your items are cheaper because of that. If you're going full AP Lulu then you'll struggle because your items are very expensive but most AP support items cost around the 2100 mark, which is much more affordable.

LayfonxAlseif9/6/2015, 7:29:35 PM1 votes

They will never have supports near any other person in the game in gold totals.. I would personally like to see more support items i see it unfair that junglers get 4 items with 4 enchantments while i get 3 items with 1 build path with each item and all the items are set to specific types of supports item 3303 Ranged poke champion item 3301 Janna soraka somtimes alistar item 3302 melee tank supports and thresh.. perhaps have item 3301 build into a tank item without the active or have it do some other supportive effect. Its just super annoying to build the same items every game the only thing that changes is defensive items depending on who has the kills on the other team. Its super annoying to be the only role without any variation ever if you main one support champion you will be buying the SAME exact items with a change in first defensive item. Some of you might say BUT most ADCS are forced to start IE well! thats inncorrect lucian/corki and ezreal build triforce vayne build botrk and after that they have tons of item variabilitiy top has insane amounts of different items with all the new ones added and mid have some of the strongets items in the game item 3157 item 3285 item 3001 all in all im not asking riot to make us extremely important i just don't like looking at the same damn end game items of Sight stone Generic supporting item Aegis boots,

BluePolarizer6/3/2015, 10:39:08 PM1 votes

you should never be 10K gold behind. Never.

Xonra6/3/2015, 11:17:52 PM1 votes

This might have been a problem a year + ago, but as someone who plays support more often than not (by choice), I disagree that supports don't have enough gold.

The problem I have found, the past few months, isn't that supports don't have the gold they need, it is the fact that people playing support seem to have no idea how to use it properly, let alone efficiently.

I see supports skipping sightstone, starting boots on Soraka(no seriously, I've seen this), buying the wrong support item (relic shield on morg for example. Saw this. Not joking).

Then you have the supports who seem to forget they are supports, and start rushing deathcap with no sight stone or support item and no boots, never switch trinkets, the list goes on.

Quite frankly the problem isn't the gold income, it is what it is (or in most cases isn't) being spent on. People still want to play selfishly and ignore important support items, again, like sight stone...seriously guys, you need to friggin buy this as a support.

I play tons of support, and I usually find myself going "well now what do I buy?" because I have more money than expected after getting sightstone, upgraded trinket (upgrade your damn trinkets, other supports), upgraded boots +enchants, upgraded support items, blah blah blah. If you don't have enough gold, it sounds like you are doing something wrong.

Sukishoo6/4/2015, 12:03:04 AM1 votes

item 3301 item 3303 item 3302 are great at helpping supports get the money they need. Learn to use them effectively.

GinoSoldier6/4/2015, 12:50:47 AM1 votes

I'm one of those crazier AP-or-straight-tank supports out there. Yes, i'm low elo and rank, yes i mostly play normals. I don't usually get Sightstone regardless of which support I play, instead i just buy straight out the wards i need until i can upgrade my yellow trinket. No, i don't use the red trinket. Why? Because from what i've seen from observing games and endgame statsat my elo chances are low of scrapping more than 5 wards in any long game because the enemy team doesn't usually ward half as much as they should themselves, when in exchange i can ward the map at full capacity without wasting an item slot.

As far as money goes, you won't ever see me voluntarily touch a minion until farther in mid-game where i either just snag a few here and there to increase my output or have to stop a push because everyone else is busy with other often not actually as important things. I am of course extremely aggressive in my usual gameplay patterns, so usually with a Frost Queen's Claim and enough assists which i sell at a net profit every time i can sell it, by 30-40 minutes i'm usually among the richest players on the field in a good game. My average Sona game that lasts around 40 minutes would have me have around 50 CS unless i was playing mid Sona.

As far as supports impacting games, i lean on the full AP side of the spectrum (on AP scaling supports like Sona who has sweet passive and W/E scaling, and don't forget scaling up her Q gives everyone some extra damage for free) when comparing the AP/support itemization. This of course doesn't apply to all supports and usually not much to tank/utility supports, but i find tank and support itemization to be very similar. I really love being able to heal practically double what a support support would. Double the speed ups, slows, and everything else. And a few of them can actually 1v1 carries, or at least hold them off. I always find it really annoying when an ADC in mid game pushes your turret and ignores you while destroying it because you aren't a threat. As AP support, you can fight them back, scare or hold them off, or even kill them if an opportunity arises.

Time for a little story, yes? Yesterday my Vayne carry was going 9/1/4, and I was going 3/0/11 as Sona. Yes, I think getting a few kills when your ADC is already fed, or when you have a safe opportunity your carry can't take is totally fine, so long as the carry remains the focus of your play By then, I was fed enough I had my boots, my Frost Queen's Claim and my favorite, Lich's Bane. Our mid lane Yasuo was struggling against an Ekko, going 2/3, and Jungle their and ADC were mid as well. My ADC and I went to join in, and when I arrived I poked Ekko for about half his health while he was retreating. Two pokes later on the careless Ekko and he was dead, and my mid laner could catch up his farm as the enemy jungler and ADC couldn't oppose a 2v3 in these conditions. We got a good push on and took their mid turret. Before I entered lane, Yasuo was half dead, when I left, he was full health and farming for his gold. The kill didn't happen because I was greedy as much as it happened because the Ekko was in range, being careless, and both Vayne and Yasuo were too far away to act. I think that being able to feel like an active threat besides CC to the enemy team is a nice bonus to the support role. As far as I was concerned, my support job was accomplished, and I think I even dropped a ward there while going back to bot lane.

Is this gameplay type perfect? no. Do i love it? yes. Does it work? yes. Does it have flaws? yes. Hell, also yesterday i went 0/10 to a Blitzcrank because i couldn't be damned to learn my lesson and watch those god grabs when playing the game's squishiest champion. I do that too sometimes, but it's pretty rare.

Lucentile6/4/2015, 1:28:35 AM1 votes

Also: If you see a minion your ADC is not going to last hit for whatever reason [under tower, out of position], take that last hit. Gold on you is better than gold wasted.

Krigjer6/4/2015, 1:32:58 AM1 votes

what am I drunk let me look at numbers again

khorney6/4/2015, 1:34:15 AM1 votes

When I janna supp I don't see a big diff in gold gained at the end of the match . the gold income item that I get is ancient coin plus the gold. Runes plus the mastery tree works out to a extremely high passive gold gain per 10 sec and I find the speed boost is better then the slow on frost queens .

Toothless Lion6/4/2015, 9:04:37 AM1 votes

You must be new. Very new. Support as a role has come a long way from Season 1 and 2.

Byakuya Kuchiki6/4/2015, 8:17:51 PM1 votes

so what ive gotten from this is 1)you suck at support. 2)you want supports buffed so hard they can now build damage and just bring every enemy down to 1 hp and solo win the game 3)youre gonna deny number 2 even though thats exactly what would happen if the change happened

so heres my question how would the game decide whos the support? what if they choose to not have fun one and go a double mage kill lane?

Chimewlan6/5/2015, 12:28:59 AM1 votes

item 3303