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The Core Problem With Jungler and Support Items...

Teridax68··3 votes·424 views

... is that they're designed to cater to classes that are expected to run on lesser gold gains, which means they're inevitably going to offer relatively cheap power. The moment those items become cost-efficient enough, they get abused by laners, who get to reap the benefits of their cost efficiency without any of the associated gold/exp restrictions, which makes it hard to keep them balanced for everyone.

(Also, massive wall of text below, TL;DR at the bottom)

The current solution for jungler items has been to make their power more jungle-centric and/or make them near-identical to an equivalent laner item, but that just means half the current set of jungle items ends up being "junglified" laning items, which isn't all that bad (Cinderhulk and Runic Echoes/Runeglaive are fun items) but not really as diverse as it could be.

The current solution for support items has been to flat-out reduce their power, as is the case for Frost Queen's Claim now and the other two lines during the preseason patch, which takes them out of solo lanes but ends up harming supports most of all. The issue with these items being too powerful or cost-efficient is that they're designed to be just that, and it's difficult to add more support-centric power here because practically every stat on a support item can directly benefit non-supports.

Right now, jungler and support items cannot easily be made to feel good on the classes they cater to without being abused by others, and we're at risk of ending up with a whole line of items that feel more necessary than fun (supports already have that with Sightstone, too). Imo, we need some of the following:

  • Make champion number differences in lane much more manageable, perhaps even fun, and balance around that: Currently, junglers are forced to be behind on core stats and experience relative to laners because ganks are already terrifying in forcing 2v1 combat. Additionally, any kind of 2v1 lane setup tends to feel horrible to play for both sides, since it forces turtling and makes the outnumbered side feel like they have few to no options. The sort-of-counter to that is gold/exp sharing, but in a natural duo support/marksman lane setup that just ends up with marksmen being relatively unaffected by gold mechanics and supports having to work with little to no CS. While this would probably be really complicated to implement, we need map mechanics in place that allow 2v1 lane situations to give the weaker side more options, at least early on (dying to greater numbers is fine in mid and late game), which could allow supports and junglers to get on everyone else's power/gold level from the start.
  • Give support items Cull-style commitment rewards: Right now, it's relatively easy for laners to abuse support items, because they can just skip to the top-tier version and get their full range of bonuses, which means even the relatively mediocre AP on FQC or health on FotM can be too good for their cost. It would probably be worth trying out a Cull/Tear of the Goddess/Devourer-style transformation mechanic where collecting a certain amount of gold via the unique passives would unlock more power (e.g. more stats, new stats, upgraded actives or passives, etc.), which would make support items less likely to be abused (solo laners would have to do duo laner stuff to reap their full benefits) and also potentially far more slot-efficient in the late-game for supports.
  • Give caster supports their own scaling path: Right now, caster support item "scaling" usually revolves around building massive amounts of CDR and mana regen, which at best gives them less viscerally satisfying mage stats, and at worst makes them a bit flatter by turning them into near-manaless spambots. Imo, a "traditional" support build shouldn't force supports to have little personal power, it should give them power nobody else would put to the same use: supports like to roam towards warding spots and allies, shield, heal or buff fellow champions, and use lots of ally-oriented item actives, none of which are primary concerns of solo lane mages. Giving stats or bonuses that would cater specifically to those mechanics could allow support items to have more immediate power without becoming too attractive to solo laners. We sort of have that now with Ardent Censer and Ruby Sightstone, but support items could probably go a lot further.

TL;DR: It would be better to make 2v1s in lane fun than to force junglers and supports into less satisfying itemization paths, and putting everyone on similar gold levels would prevent any specific item that's decent on an underfed class to become OP on another. Support items also need stats and bonuses that work specifically on supports, or at least duo laners, in order to feel powerful without being abused.

8 Comments

Sire Hippington3 votes

I really like 1v1 matchups(especially without much early jungle impact, which sadly currently is rather high), so i don't like the idea of balanceing the game around 1v2 matchups.

Rather work around a cull-ish mechanic, like giving Junglers more expensive(3000g+) items that are more slot efficient, but not as gold efficient, and adding X stacks that give Y gold upon killing a big junglecreep, so the evt catch up in gold by midgame and have not to much combat stats in the early.

Or give laners more ways to deal with ganks. right now you can't even maintain a single fucking ward, so toplane you only can play champs with hard escape or preper to get camped, which prettymuch IS a 1v2.

Also, i see no way of makeing a 1v2 engageing, at best it becomes a PvE experince where the sololaner takes nerby jungle farm while the duo lane takes the lane minions and probably the tower. Unless the sololaner gets so much benefits that he can fight 1v2 on an even ground, which would cause other problems.

Also, another big problem is that jungle/sup items often offer something that sololaners can't get from other items, and usuall those items are simply very powerfull on their own if taken by laners.

Cinderhulk was as effective just as effective as Warmongs for an healthitem, actually giving more later in the game if stacking health while also giving aoe dps and benfits in the jungle, while challangeing smite was the best dueling summoner, granting nearly the benefits of ignite+exauhst on way less cd. So who is really supprised if laners take it if it is straight better than any other option for them? And at the same time, cinderhulk junglers were objectivly stronger than the rest. The item was to strong on no matter if jungler or laner. Now we see cinderhulk still getting used effectivly, and no laner takes it as it no longer is stronger than other options, but still strong enough for junglers to use.

Then we have Runglaive, which just gave alot that was optainable with other items. It gave a sheenproc like lichbane, but aditionally it gave manasustain, cdr, convertrd ALL damage to magical on the proc, had aoe and used spell-effects. especially the later three were the reason for Ez/GP useing it. If lichbane would have converted damage and used spell-effects with maybe rungliave not affecing minions with the aoe, i'm sure laners wouldn't really have bothered takeing runglaive instead of lichbane.

And devourer is also a bad solution in some way. Yes, it grants a great item for junglers that issn't used by laners, but it is simply by far the best on-hit item, and all on-hit based champs that have a somewhat decent jungle now are balanced around it's existence, makeing the useless in sololanes. If laners would have a similare item, like a version of typhoon claws from black-market, this problem could be solved, and other jungle items could be done by the same principle. Like an roa that gains stacks not by time but big monster kills, alllowing fro items that are costefficient and can't be obtained by laners, while giving coresponding items to laners that are less costefficient, but atleast give them the desired stat-combi or unique effect makeing so champs can be balanced jungle and sololane around such stats/unique effects.

A similar problem is with frostqueen's: The other mp/5+cdr options aren't really great on mages, and frostqueen's is simply incredible strong due to the massive active. If Athene's and morellos would be stringer and thus useing FQC would mean loosing actually out on something more than meager stats, or if sololaners would have acces to that massive active by other means, they wouldn't resort to take the sup item. But right now, it gives em more than other options would, and it imo also is clearly the strongest sup item. The nerfs to it probably would have come even without midlaners useing it. Another problem also is that usually laners shyed away from sup/jungle items as they were to slot in-efficient lategame, but increased snowballing/ faster gamepace changed that. Games rarly reach even 4 items anymore, so slotefficiency isn't really valuable right now compared to gold efficiency so those rather gold efficient have no real drawback anymore.

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

what? 2vs1?

Teridax681 votes

I probably should've explained that better, but I think 2v1 balance (or similar balance around uneven numbers) in lane is responsible for forcing junglers and supports to earn less gold and experience. Gold and exp sharing somewhat prevent duo laners from gaining too much of a lead over a solo laner opponent, but because supports are duo laners who are also expected to give all of the lane's farm to the marksman, they're forced to work with minimal income, and their items end up being very cheap and cost-efficient (also slot-inefficient and sometimes abusable by solo laners). Junglers engineer 2v1 (or 3v2) combat when they gank, and early on that represents such a huge swing in power that they can't be allowed to be too strong, otherwise ganks would become too powerful as well.

The problem with both of these systems, aside from putting junglers and supports behind out of necessity, is that they don't really make 2v1s in lane all that fun or interesting, they just make them less desirable for everyone. It would be nice to have a set of mechanics that would specifically give outnumbered champions more opportunities in lane, instead of making the other side scale less well, and if done right that could allow junglers and supports to be on equal gold and experience with other roles. It could probably allow for other strats, too, like more common 2v1 top lanes, more fun deathball comps where teams focus hard on one part of the map to force objectives, duo kill lanes, etc.

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

i jungle and i have most gold in every game so i cant agree on your problem

Teridax681 votes

That's good for you, but statistically junglers have the second-lowest gold income after supports, and their itemization is deliberately designed to not give them too much power that could carry over to lanes during the first few minutes of the game (e.g. clear-focused items). Riot have also mentioned on several counts that they wanted to avoid giving junglers early all-around combat stats because it could risk making their ganks too strong.

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

its because statistically, everyone in this game plays like shit and try to cheese other noobs 24/7 instead of actually playing the game. if we would introduce some.

people play this game for thousands of games and still cant play in a solid way that isnt susceptible to ganks.

Kal Vas Flam1 votes

All they need to do is apply a gold return penalty on minions for these items and no one else would build them.

Teridax682 votes

The issue I take with that, personally, is that it's a purely punitive way of taking support and jungler items out of solo lanes, and could also end up punishing either role for no reason (when the support's holding a lane, for example, or when a jungler decides to shove the lane in the late game when everyone's pushing for objectives). It's definitely a simple solution that would likely do its job well, but I'd personally take something that would aim to make junglers and supports directly happier, instead of punishing solo laners for trying to abuse their items.

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