So what if supports were different... hear me out. Wall O' text, wont get much attention :(

First I want to say Im basically a support main, I play mid on another account cause I want to play in higher MMRs, supporting is a pretty big gamble for climbing right now in my opinion. That said I love supporting, but if the way it was done changed Id manage.

Ok, at this point Riot has tried many things things to get people to play support. They have given us less feminine "cleric, priestess" passive supports, and given us Braum, a musclebound wall of muscle carrying around a literal wall... They gave us a soul collecting nightmare monster Thresh that binds people with chains... They have even given us an assassin support with Pyke... These are all on top of the other expansions to the roster over the years that can function as a support.

Still support remains the most unpopular role. We have come a little ways from "ward bitch" or "ward mule" but honestly not that far.

Most people dont want to do it because many aspects of it just arent fun. Having to build fewer items, or items meant to make someone else stronger... Even if you do it really well chances are you wont even get recognition for it. While they did add more stats like "vision score" and "CC score" it still isnt really noticable, its not like its on the main stats page where "KDA is king." All of this on top of if youre supporting an ADC who is a potato, and you didnt pick a mage sup, you cant even hope to do anything youre going to get shit on you from the guy shitting the bed in your lane.

Now lets consider a moba that did supporting well. So well that they managed to get 2 supports in most every game in fact. Dawngate. Probably some of you played it. They had 5 roles you could select. One was a farming role, the Gladiator. They got extra gold per creep kill. The one Im more interested in talking about is the Tactician role. The Tactician role got the base gold everyone did when minions died near them, plus a bonus. Not much, but a bit. They did NOT get a bonus for killing creeps. Tacticians still didnt get as much gold for this as the one farming creeps... BUT, they did get a bonus amount of gold for damaging enemy players (on a cooldown) Kinda like how works.

Calculations showed that a very skillful tactician could "out earn" the Gladiators farm. This of course required that they hit every tactician proc soon after it was ready again. Oh yeah, they also got bonus gold for assist. Gold that would simply be "lost" if they took the kill. Dawngate rewarded a "good support" for being on hand while the carries farmed but not taking the farm, by putting down solid harass, and donating the kills to others by... and get this... making it possible for them to get MORE GOLD than the carries by doing their role well. When you see a support with the highest gold in the match, you know they played well. Its both noticeable, and youre obvious skill as a support shows up post game letting people KNOW you did your job WELL.

So what could be some changes that could help support be a bit more of an option for some people, or at least not the position people get and pick some dumb shit to feed on till they can go to a match where they arent support...

Removing purchasable wards from the game was a step in the right direction. People refused to buy them while expecting the support to blow a thousand gold on them... At this point, I think straight up removing sight stone type items from the game may be the way to go. The sightstone also stopped being an item, and merged with the support starting item. Im just saying finish the evolution here, and remove it all together (remember you agreed to hear me out). I use wards all the time, Ive even made some warding guides, and they were some of the most popular videos Ive ever made... but I could let it go.

Now this would mean we would have to add some vision back to the game, but a similar aspect to the sightstone/other item could be implemented for others. Vision is everyone's job, but then lets give those tools a bit of a better distribution. Obviously some balancing would be needed here, but what if you could purchase a "with warding" upgrade for a single item in your inventory? Supports could still chose this, but so could others. Item classes should have reduced ward duration (AD AP primary items lowest duration, defense items higher, classic support items highest). This one would take some time to work out, but honestly having to back for wards puts supports out of the game more than other roles, cuts down on XP, makes them weaker, and is one of the things that makes people not want to play support. People dont want to be the weakest person on the team, get little recognition, and be at the mercy of other people doing their job properly.

So if supports were less ward mule, and vision was slightly more accessible by others to make up for this, we would have to address the issue of support gold income. The support items have their unique ways of generating gold, and thats nice. Im thinking that "assist" should be expanded for supports. What if support items could donate kills similar to how Pyke ult works. Not full kill gold for both like his ult, but it "swaps" the kill gold for the assist gold with the nearest player, then gives a small boost to assist gold for the support. Maybe once every 3 minutes, the support can go hard for a kill, and instead of stealing it, can transfer the value of that kill. This would save so many plays where the support is trying to hold back so they can let someone else get the kill, but they dont want to let them get away. With the bounty system it could also help keep a bounty off the supports head for landing a skill and an auto picking up an accidental double kill.

I could go on for a while, but Id like to know if there are any others who even consider the idea of the support roll being changed, possibly getting more income to the point of matching the person theyre supporting? I know change is scary, I know, but it could make the game better, and the role more fun. Id love to hear some opinions.

TL;DR: What if supports changed to have more income, werent ward mules, had more agency in taking kills... and sightstone sup items went away, while adding vision back for every role.