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[Support Item concept Season 5 ]: Paladin and Mage Sightstone.

Knight Devout··2 votes·3,261 views

#Why should we have Sightstone upgrades in season 5? As was many times suggested, there isn't much reason why we shouldn't have had the upgrades even before, but, with the upcoming preseason, it's the best chance to introduce and test new items. Then it comes to why there should be new support items. Well, with the jungle and dragon changes, stats will go around more freely to the jungler (new jungler enchantment), and the team as a whole. However, the support will also lose the dragon gold, and since they are already the role with the lowest gold income , this affect them more than other roles. A small blow, but a blow nonetheless to a still underappreciated role. #So isn't enough to increase gold support income? It would help to keep the game as it was in season 4, sure. But there are a couple complications. The first that I can think of is that, more gold flows in the support pocket, the less traditional supports have impact. Supports are defined by their utility, lane synergy, but also by how well they can fare on a limited gold income. By increasing their gold , you give the support player a chance to swap their Nami/Lulu with a Orianna, sacrificing some utility but gaining a second AP carry(High damage mage) in the late game. Second, the problem with supports is not their gold, but how they scale. If you give them more gold, that doesn't mean they will invest this in stats, as often they will invest that in vision wards or what's more benefical to the team.

#Then what's the goal of a sightstone upgrades? A support doesn't need to be defined by how much gold they gain, and, by role tropes, is perfectly fine for them to not scale that well with items as a mage carry or toplane bruiser. However, there gap between a support and laner in terms of gold doesn't actually imply a gap in terms of stats, but rather in terms of choice: a Mage with 4k gold that recalls can build a Rabaddon, a Void staff , a Morellonomicon, etc. Support in general don't have that choice because they can't hoard that much gold, and that is fine. What is not fine, at least in my opinion, is the entity of the gap in term of lategame presence of a support. You know when you whack a 15% health Ziggs on the head with Leona and you just can't kill him? In short, there isn't a problem with support having low gold income, but there is a problem when support have low presence . #But then, can't they just buy more damage and health?
Fair point, but again, supports have low gold income, and if they were able to build damage, it should be in a form of an item. That then would need an upgrade. And for how much it might be fun to build an Hydra on Leona, I don't think that a meta were Leona has enough gold to become a second bruiser is actually interesting. Also, it reconnects to the problem of the viability of solo laners as support once they have enough gold.

#What's the plan, then? I had this idea since the new map came out. You might have noticed that the 2 opposite sides of the map follow two different theme. The Blue side is themed after paladins and knights, the red side after mages. And, if you think about it, most supports fill either one of those 2 roles: Braum, Leona, Taric are the knights, while Lulu, Janna, Morgana are the mages. Because of that, I thought of 2 possible sightstone upgrades , one aimed at Paladins, and one aimed at Mages, with stats to slighty increase their presence as the game progresses offering base survivability, extra damage , or more casts. When you start the game, you can pick up a free item that gains stacks if a nearby ally kills minion, and you didn't kill minions earlier. Those stacks have an internal cd (like the Spellblade active), have no effect until you grab the sightstone, and have a level cap(can't have the effect of all of stacks below a certain level). Through the game, those stack provide the support champion either a stronger presence as a tank(damage and survivability), or more utility as a mage(more casts, easier time moving around and getting out of trouble). The goal of the items isn't that of making supports a second fighter, or a stronger mage, but just to offset the gap they have with other laners that have access to gold, while precluding solo laners the chance to pick and abuse the item.

Watcher's Badge Free Offers no stats. Gains charges of vigilance when a nearby enemy minions dies from ally or turrets. 3 stack for champions kills.3 second internal cooldown. 90 max stacks. Killing a unit disable this effect for 30 seconds.

Paladin Sightstone Watcher's Badge+Ruby Crystal+400 gold (800 total) 150 Health Unique Passive:Turns stacks of Vigilance into stack of Zealotry , providing 2/3 of stacks as bonus Physical damage, and half the stacks as bonus resistances(Max 60 damage and 45 extra resistances). Cannot have more than 5*level active stacks at a time. Unique Passive:Holds 4 charges and refills upon visiting the shop. Unique Active:Consumes a charge to place a Stealth Ward that reveals the surrounding area for 3 minutes. A player may only have 3 Stealth Wards on the map at one time

Mage Sightstone Watcher's Badge+Ruby Crystal+400 gold (800 total) 150 Health Unique Passive: Turn stacks of Vigilance into stack of Focused Magic, providing 20/3 of the stacks as bonus mana and half the stacks as bonus movement speed(Max 600 mana and 45 movement speed). Unique Passive:Holds 4 charges and refills upon visiting the shop. Unique Active:Consumes a charge to place a Stealth Ward that reveals the surrounding area for 3 minutes. A player may only have 3 Stealth Wards on the map at one time.

TL;DR= Item concept about 2 possible version of Sightstone to increase the game presence of supports lategame without just giving free stats on a cheap item to be abused by solo laners. This item doesn't make them as strong as laners but offsets the existing gap .

14 Comments

HalloweenDeath1 votes

Wait the gold from dragon isn't global anymore. If so thats going to create a lot of toxic players to argue who gets the dragon... and support will never get it and will be reported for even asking. I thought they would add more gold income for supports season 5 not ruin it.

Marthian1 votes

The Dragon will be giving a global permanent buff to stats, so supports still get a benefit.

Hat1 votes

But they are a % bonus, so support with low stats will benefit less from it.

BerserkGoldfish1 votes

Why would they add more gold for supports when they can just make people more selfish in yoloqueue?

Knight Devout1 votes

I'll say it again. Stats, not gold. Gold= bad. Stats---still not really good but better.

Kamai1 votes

Frankly, a sightstone getting real stats scares me. Not because the support needs stats, but what happens when other lanes get them. I know you try to mitigate it by removing the effect of all of the stacks if they farm, but that's also nasty for a support that needs to clear a tower at one point or another in a way that's much worse than Frostfang is hurt by farming. If these sightstones are powerful enough to matter, they'll either never see play on a support that has incidental AoE, or will see too much play on laners.

Knight Devout1 votes

Well, there are many ways to make the item only able to charge up while sharing a lane. So, long story short, don't focus on the mechanics.

Once we have set a way to make laners not able to pick up those stats,, what I wanted to discuss was: do you see those item fitting for supports? Are those stats the stat they need for having a small better scaling in mid-lategame? Do they manage to convey the idea of support fighter/support mage of their team(stat wise)? Do supports need those stats?

For example, a Zyra is arguable in need of more damage lategame, but having more mana and ms would allow better positioning for placing Grasping Roots and Stranglethorn-

Kamai3 votes

At the point you're making the 800gp purchase for sightstone (either 1st or 2nd back), as it is right now, the health that you gain gives you a little play room against the BF Sword spike of an ADC. Other stats, outside of Armor/MR, which will bias the sightstone more towards tanky supports, aren't going to really buffer against that first buy, and it'll turn for the most part into a false choice. On the other hand, I think the upgraded Sightstone would be a good place to experiment with these mechanics. The upgraded stone usually isn't bought unless you've managed to go 6 items, and at that point, the health bump is nice, but not highly relevant.

As a support player, I don't know if I want to invest into Sightstone to express further what subrole I'm playing. As of right now, the traditional and semi-traditional supports (imo) get enough expression of their subrole from the 4 other items. Instead, if I really want to invest in the sightstone, it should be because I want more strategic options. If Sightstone had side upgrades like +2 wards held and +1 placed, +25 or 50% ward vision, wards ping when a stealthed character passes it's vision, etc, that to me is what a sightstone upgrade should do.

Knight Devout1 votes

Interesting point of view. I'll admit, health and armor vs mana and movement aren't really comparable. The idea was of making the stone give you something immediately useful (health and mana), while ramping up something more useful for late (extra movement & resistances).
The sightstone stats shouldn't express what subrole you are playing, rather giving you stats to perform that subrole on your own (unlike other items built from the shop regularly). In short, the effect should only be the one to offset the existing gap in gold(and stats) with laners and junglers. By the way, how do you currently feel about that gap? I understand why the fact that not all 5 champions scale equally is good for the depth of strategy, but I still feel that it doesn't feel fair to the support player and soloq ambient in general. I can understand working with limited choices, but working with limited stats (thus, more weaknesses) is kinda uncomfortable. One might argue that it has to be that way for the role, but I'm still not sure wether that was a good pillar to start the supports with. Similar to how most assassins are losing their zero counterplay pattern, because, even if they were assassins, killing other players with no interaction was a bad idea. In the same way, I feel like that having a player that shares a lane end up with less gold and experience is not necessarily a bad idea, but it becomes that way when the player has no way to work around that situation as the game goes by.

The idea with wards gaining different effects when placed from a champion with sightstone is definitely interesting. However, the other risk here is to make the item mechanic overbloated.

Still, thank you for the constructive reply.

Kamai1 votes

Just talking about the gold gap, I think in an average game, it's just about fine. You feel it just a little bit too bad when you start to get snowballed on, or when you have to start roaming and deep warding a lot, but I think for the most part, traditional supports are near a point where they do what they need with the gold they do get, but if they do get ahead, they are a threat, whether in their own right, or with a good teammate.

As you decide to have more stats for people in the support role, you risk either pushing out traditional supports (who needs cc when the strongest cc is death), or you buff up traditional supports to keep up, and make them overbearing in solo lanes (Lulu, Soraka). Since we have mechanics that we want to exist in duo lanes and teamfights, they should be set up in a way that doesn't ruin gameplay in the solo lanes, and right now that's the support power curve.

As an aside, even though I can feel more powerful as a support, I still think that the way Riot's gone about it is completely wrong. At the end of the day, a support scaling up should seem a lot different than a utility mage scaling up. I did actually like when auras and actives were the way to scale up, though I understand why Riot doesn't like auras being part of that scaling. In my honest opinion, a support that has a lot of gold should have a lot more options than most of the champions on the field to both protect their allies and open opportunities for their allies. A support with a lot of gold still shouldn't have 1v1 power, but should be able to rewrite skirmishes and teamfights. I know my view on support is extremely unpopular because yolo queue, though.

Knight Devout1 votes

I think I understand your point. However, I still stand by my point.

A Braum with 60 extra damage on hit, or a Zyra with 600 extra mana, is not really scary in a 1v1 scenario (when they are 2 levels behind due to the burden of a shared lane). And that stats aren't on top of gold, actually the condition to access them is to forsake gold in the first place. What I want is not for support to become "stronger" in terms of damage , but just to offset the sacrifice they need to make in order to be supports . Yes, that Leona on top of me now deals 167 physical damage on hit instead of 107, but she still lacks AS or significant armor penetration. Yes, that Janna support just tickles me with her tornados but she's actually really hard to catch, and has 3-4 extra cast thanks to extra mana.

Believe me, I also don't want support to be strong on their own. That kinda defeats the role of the support .

Hat1 votes

Actually I think it would make quite an impact, I play support a lot, and quite some different ones and I don't feel like I am lacking anything. Only if you adc is a dipshit and your enemy is getting fed then it is really hard to catch up. Whats more of a problem is that when I have to roam and ward, or when enemy is pushing mid and you need to help, while you adc farms up because he was behind, then I will start to fall behind in experience.

I do agree that the sightstone is kind of boring, and I often don't even build it because the lvl 9 ward trinket would give me enough wards. It would be nice to see some extra stuf on the sightstone, like extra experience when near a higher level ally ( like the mastery) , or like mentioned above, extra bonus on the wards. Or movementspeed wich si good for any support ( maybe just out of combat.)

Knight Devout1 votes

I'm talking about endgame, I agree that early-mid there is quite some balance.

Hat1 votes

Item's like frozen heart scale better as enemy's get stronger. but even then, in teamfights those support items will help your teammates do what they do better, and your job is to support, instead of do dmg

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