Riot's solutions to supports is one step forwards and two steps back.

The title might be a little confusing but lately I've really began to dislike playing support and don't get me wrong Riot has been trying their best to make support more fun to play and add new and interesting things to get other players to like the support role more but every time they add something new and interesting it seems like they do something to either mess it up or create an even less satisfying experience.

In season 6 Riot worked hard to make playing support more impactful and fun, adding Redemption and the updated Ardent Censer, two great additions to the game once they were balanced and great options for supports who up to that point had mainly relied on mage items.

Season 8 Riot seems to be working hard to make playing support a chore Each unique support item while usually each having their own unique strengths and limitations, now each item builds into a sight stone with the only difference being stats.

The new rune system heavily limits the options to support, literally every healing support uses Summon Aery while the majority of tank supports use Aftershock.

Finally the latest patch has changed the price of the support items to no longer allow supports to buy anything other than their required support item and a potion, compared to literally every other lane being able to buy nearly any starting item like any of the Doran's items, cloth armor, boots and a potion.

Now, this may not seem impactul but all of these changes take away a lot of the player's identify while they play, you follow the road set out for you and while it may seem like you get to choose what you do, you don't. I just don't get the satisfaction that I used to get as a support, every game just feel the same and I wish something was done about this because at this point I feel like the smallest player base in League is only going to get smaller until no one wants to play support anymore.