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As a Support main, I am disgusted by the hypocrisy at display concerning ADCs being "out-phased".

Oglaf·1/8/2017, 4:03:16 PM·214 votes·17,170 views

... especially Riot's instant reaction/response to it. See, us Supports have been steadily phased-out of bot lane for a while now. AP Carries such as Brand and Malz are rapidly becoming more and more popular on bot lane, but you are seeing an ever-growing pool of APCs being played Support.

Why?

Because as carries, they can do things Supports can't - carry. You simply buy and play the role of Support early-mid game and come out as a fully-fletched APC afterwards. Supports simply lack the ability to make a huge impact on the game themselves as a Champion. Late game you can't even push a minion wave on your own and have to rely on ZZ Rot to have any lane presence. Are Riot really surprised why it is such an unpopular position to play that they have to force people into it via Auto-Fill? I mean, really...

Same problem: ADCs/Support Champions are being replaced in their intended role by other types of Champions who do it better. Way, waaaay different reactions. With ADCs you get Riot instantly reacting by announcing buffs for ADCs several patches ahead. With Supports you get them shrugging their shoulders going "Yeah, we might look into making Supports have more impact... Might."

And the funniest part? It is not on the same scale either. It is just Ziggs being played as ADC. Just Ziggs. Meanwhile and entire group of Champions (Mages) are replacing and entire other group of Champions (Supports). You'd think the latter would be considered far, faaaaaar more problematic, wouldn't you?

281 Comments

Mecha MaIphite1/8/2017, 4:18:47 PM86 votes

As supports, you can also do things most carries can't. You can engage. You can disengage. You have tons of utility that you can dish out in teamfights. Getting caught out isn't nearly as big of a problem because of all the CC and self-peel you have. You can heal and shield your entire team in a fight; a baron could easily be decided by a good support throwing CC at the enemy jungler to keep them out of the pit. Especially now with the new support items, and a meta revolving around bot lane, supports have a much greater impact than before.

Also, let's stop pretending that just because some mages are viable as supports, conventional supports all suck ass. There are like three mages doing well, the rest are all regular supports.

Seriously. Yes, I get that supports don't really directly "carry", and that they aren't as appealing because of this, but saying they have no impact on the game is just absurd.

dunder kill1/8/2017, 6:54:02 PM43 votes

The supports with the highest win rates in order:

Sion Janna Sona Soraka Taric Blitzcrank

The "carry" supports that are "phasing them out" winrates are as follows:

at #9

Velkoz at #10

Zyra at #12

http://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.winPercent&order=descend&roleSort=Support

and the highest play rate out of them starts at:

Zyra at #9

http://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.playPercent&order=descend&roleSort=Support

How are these "carries" "phasing out" supports again?

RiotMeddler1/9/2017, 7:30:41 PM25 votes

I think this is the bit you're referring to about marksmen and risk of them getting phased out of the game?

{quoted}

We want marksmen to be excellent choices bot lane. We’d like to see other classes there at least a bit, but don’t want to see them push marksman out or overshadow them at their core strengths. If they’re not really effective picks bot lane that’s something we’ll address quickly.

Replace the word 'marksmen' with 'enchanter' and that's our stance on the support position. If the enchanters who've been seen as core support options for years aren't effective, or if another class is doing what they do but better we'd want to do something about that immediately. Right now the support position certainly has some challenges we need to address, I'd argue lack of effective enchanters certainly isn't a problem though, particularly with the boost Redemption and the revised Locket have given the class.

Zero Skill Tank1/8/2017, 4:31:27 PM15 votes

Meanwhile and entire group of Champions (Mages) are replacing and entire other group of Champions (Supports).

That's not true. The only actual mage who is played somewhat often as a support is Brand. Zyra is popular too, but after years of being played as support, and with amount of utility she offers it's really hard to look at her as a mage.

With Supports you get them shrugging their shoulders going "Yeah, we might look into making Supports have more impact... Might."

This is also not true. Amount of love utility supporting got in preseason is absurd. Items like Redemption and Locket are nearly strong enough to become meta outside of support position.

I'm not saying everything is fine. But it's not as bad as you try to make it look, and it's not like nothing is being done by Rito.

General Esdeath 1/8/2017, 7:28:01 PM10 votes

: Trust item 3116 me item 3151 guys item 3089 I'm item 3285 a item 3165 support item 3135

ModKnightsKemplar1/8/2017, 5:42:12 PM7 votes

The difference is that adcs have very well established place in this game, especially considering the macro-meta that evolved (sending two champs bot).

Supports, even after many years, are still struggling to find a balanced playstyle that can accommodate the diversity and wide range of needs for the support role. It is a difficult problem to figure out how to make a support work when some of them need to get tanky, and others need AP and shields.

Many solutions have been proposed by boards, but Riot doesn't seem overly perturbed by the problem, publicly. I will say, though, that the post from Meddler a couple months back was promising. They are thinking about it. It's not something that will get left as-is forever.