Support Scaling: A New Approach

The Topic: Meddler recently posted that news bit about supports. I'm giving some input concerning their scaling and progression compared to other roles.

The Problem: Much of the game's scaling happens from AD and AP, which also feeds offensive abilities. This has created an environment that makes it difficult to balance many supports in a healthy way.

The Proposed Solution: In the following paragraphs, I will outline a new stat that I think could revolutionize support scaling. I posit that a utility scaling stat is needed in LoL, simply because it adds the exact lever needed to tune supports. I will avoid talking about individual champions (except when I need examples of where the current design is inadequate) in order to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the idea.

The problem with current support design, especially "enchanters", is that the AP scaling is too general to balance the utility scaling of supports with the raw damage that AP gives them. As a result, supports are kept somewhat weak, because it keeps them from becoming an overbearing source of damage and utility (think solo lane Lulu). Riot has said they are thinking about this, so I think it's the perfect time to pitch a radical idea, perhaps in time for Riot to consider it for the next pre-season.

The easiest way to get around this problem is to use a new stat. The stat would link to utility, specifically. On appropriate champions, this stat could....

• increase healing/shield power (in lieu of current options for this)
• increase cc duration
• increase "enchanting" effects, such as move speed boosts

I will be referring to this stat as "UP," for "Utility Power." In my mind, UP is probably better off as an analogue to CDR than to AD or AP. Basically, we could count UP out of 3 or 4, and items could give 1-2 UP (similar to how CDR works). In any case, I think playing a raw numbers scaling game with a stat like this is untenable. I propose, along with the idea, that it probably needs a cap, which isn't a new idea (again, CDR).

With UP, there would be a lever to tune support ability. It's similar to Riot's current attempts to do this with healing/shielding power, but I think something more general, that doesn't exclusively synergize with some champions, is better. This is an especially interesting idea for tank supports, since we could add some UP scaling to their cc durations and help them scale that way.

This idea doesn't stand alone as the answer to the problem, but I can imagine it being a VERY useful lever to pull for support balance. There are still issues concerning sightstone, gold generation, etc. But I think an item like this could potentially tie into solutions to those other problems. Put some UP on sightstone. Maybe you can find a way to reduce price on UP items so that supports just get to 6 items faster than usual? Some champs could do that in other lanes, but if it directly scales their support abilities, they won't have overbearing damage AND utility. There's a lot of ideas that we could branch into from here, is my point.

I'm trying to keep the "wall of text" effect to a minimum, so I'm gonna stop there. But please, discuss below. I think an idea like this could have a lot of potential. While it is incredibly unlikely Riot would lift this idea and use it exactly like I suggested, they might get some good ideas from good discussion around it. So let's do that! I'll close with a poll.