Can we please break the tank stranglehold on the support role?
For two years the tank and/or all in supports have been shoving out the more traditional utility/mage supports from bot lane. When I first started playing LoL, utility sups were still seen bot, both in solo que and pro play but over time they have become less and less used. Now unless a champ is clearly broken
(Note, I say broken, not OP) and/or specifically counters the tanky all in sups
they don't see pro play and only those that are dedicated to paying a utility support will play them in solo que.
Some think it is because the tanky engage is more rewarding or fun, but them being more rewarding is a symptom of the issue and not the cause. By looking at when this stranglehold began to happen, I have concluded that the issue is that the dynamic of the utility supports vs the tanky engage supports has been thrown out of balance. The dynamic used to be that a utility sup could gain dominance in lane if they poked their enemy down enough that going all in on them was risky, this was their way to gain safety from them. Meanwhile, the tanky sups were meant to avoid this poke and/or try to make a successful all in before they got poked too much.
Because of this, I believe the reason things have gone out of wack was the introduction of the
which took away the utility support strength against all in sups, their poke. Think abut it, both of the other items merely strengthen a playstyle,
gives more AP and damage on hit for pokey supports,
gives sustain and safety for passive supports and
.... gives sustain for a class of champs that aren't supposed to have that.
This is what I believe is causing this issue, pokey sups can't make their damage stick because tank supports have a source of sustain that they aren't supposed to have. Because Relic Shield buffers them to their weakness, they can sustain an enemy utility sups poke and then go all in once they've used up their mana. Utility supports have to put themselves in risk of danger in order to poke the enemy tanks, they have to risk being all inned, but the reward for that risk is for them to heal themselves and their ADC with the Relic Shield passive.
Utility supports are the ones that are supposed to give healing, shields and buffs, that's supposed to be their strength, but Relic Shield makes it so the utility they bring in laning phase isn't worth it because they are squishy. Why pick a utility support that can be killed by one all in when you can get a tanky all in support that is durable and can get kills?
I think Riot needs to change Relic Shield, what it SHOULD do is give something like a temporary damage boost when the tribute passive is proc'd, because that strengthens the nature of the all in tanky sups and puts it in line with the other support items instead of it being as it is now where it skews the balance of tanky engage supports and utillity mage supports.
