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Why I Think Mages Going Bottom Lane as "Support" is a Good Thing

A Latte Deaths·3/12/2017, 9:41:09 PM·7 votes·789 views

I see people complaining about mages (Brand, Zyra, Vel'koz, Malzahar, etc.) going bottom lane as support, when in reality they go bottom lane to become your team's additional carry post-sightstone. I believe mages going bottom lane and becoming a carry should be allowed and encouraged. I've never been good at formatting posts like these, so I'll just list a few reasons as to why I think that.

**1. It Makes the Support Role More Interesting **

We all know that an issue with League (and many other online games) is that the support role is severely underplayed, and I think most are in agreement that that is the case due to most players wanting to deal damage to carry. Allowing the support role the option to become a fifth carry makes it a more appealing role.

2. It Allows "Support" to Become A Class as Opposed to A Role

Right now when people think "support," they think of the champion that goes bottom lane with the ADC and has a low income, but in reality a support is someone who enables teammates and disables enemies through shields, crowd control, and other buffs or debuffs. Having an APC bottom lane with your ADC dealing carry-levels of damage fills up the "we need some AP damage and safe waveclear on our team!!" requirement, thus allowing true supports to go elsewhere (namely mid or top, with the exception being jungle Ivern). When supports are able to be in a solo lane they will have high gold income, and in a meta where supports can have a high gold income, there's the possibility of having more expensive and powerful supportive itemization.

3. It Allows Further Team Composition Flexibility

If mages aren't viable bottom lane, it creates that terrible scenario where you have a Malphite top, Graves jungle, Zed mid, and Caitlyn ADC, where you, as support, can not fill the needs of your team by going an APC. Giving APCs the option of going bottom lane as "support" not only lets them fill in the gaps of their team composition, but it allows the mid laner and top laner the option to choose supportive champions when VSing a matchup they aren't comfortable with.

There are plenty more points I could make as well as many counterarguments to this (ex: "you shouldn't be able to deal damage on a low income") that I was hoping to address, but right now I don't have the time to so I'll have to wrap up this post.

What are your thoughts on APC "supports" and the possibility of supports going to solo lanes?

6 Comments

CannonLordFreed3/12/2017, 9:45:22 PM1 votes

For that to occur we would need more than Ivern jungle as a potential non-bot support. I agree, it could be interesting, but at the moment, as a support player, I pick jungle as my secondary just because at the moment he's the only non-bot lane supp champ I enjoy. I would love to be able to take my support champs to other lanes and do well and get more cool items, but with the current setup, it's not particularly viable.

Mecha MaIphite3/12/2017, 10:15:50 PM1 votes

thus allowing true supports to go elsewhere (namely mid or top, with the exception being jungle Ivern)

I was on board up until here. If you did shift supports to solo lanes, how would you balance out the fact that they have way more utility? Even if they deal less damage, being constantly CC'd and having your damage shielded and healed in really frustrating to play against.

P0IS0N IVY3/12/2017, 10:29:34 PM1 votes

Mages counter adcs. The traditional supports do not counter mages. That is why there is an issue.