Supports still need their own smite-ish style thing

Soda Popkillski·9/17/2015, 1:30:30 PM·42 votes·2,799 views

Junglers get these super good stats on their first item to make up for the lack of gold/xp they gain in the jungle. Yet supports have none of this even though they get about half the gold with masteries and the items. Supports need this, weither you make it only work if you have x summoner spell, or weither you make it built out of sightstone: Supports are currently extremely weak making them on average (barely anyone mains them, and a lot of the ones whom say they do actually don't) the least fun role to play as.

47 Comments

sreggad9/17/2015, 10:42:56 PM12 votes

All they need to do is buff the gold generation of the gold income items. No laner is gonna pick up item 3303 because it punishes you if you cs. Make a gold/5 passive on top of it's normal 2g/5 that also gets disabled on minion kill.

item 3302 requires an ally. I would say make a unique passive that only worked on melee champions that gives it a decent g/5 and has to be in range of an ally.

item 3301 For this honestly just give it more gold on minion deaths around it. No laner will take it because you lose more gold than you get from missing cs.

Supports don't need strong stats they need some half decent gold generation. Until they make a summoner spell that is useful for supports and only supports just buffing gold generation is the only way to make supports stronger without strengthening the laners.

jamieadams99/17/2015, 10:37:09 PM5 votes

most supports are supposed to replace pure power with utility

Slamurai Jack9/17/2015, 5:07:28 PM4 votes

You realize supports are supposed to be weak right? There's supposed to be a downside to playing a role where you don't CS.

Hyrum Graff9/17/2015, 10:12:47 PM4 votes

Or you could just increase the gold from support items and masteries, so they don't need some gimmick to stay relevant without snowballing.

YossarianSensei9/18/2015, 12:43:16 AM3 votes

Support items are all ridiculously cost efficient for supporting lol

Most people would consider support boring but they definitely have the tools they need to do the job. Junglers didn't, thats why they got the jungle changes.

JustMyBassCannon9/17/2015, 5:16:42 PM3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Soda Popkillski,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vJ0FqyMb,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-09-17T13:30:30.268+0000)

Junglers get these super good stats on their first item to make up for the lack of gold/xp they gain in the jungle.

Machete and the smite upgrade are 850 gold spent on getting extra gold from the big mobs, and a tiny bit of DPS and regen. It's not until the item's enchanted (costing another 1400 gold) that it has good stats.

Funny story, the support items follow a similar build; 365 gold spent on the basic gold gain plus really tiny stat bonus, 500 gold spent on upgrading to mid-tier, which buffs the gold gain and the stats, and then 1235-1335 gold spent on the final upgrade, which has respectable stats and a powerful active ability. All in all, 2100-2200 gold spent on the support's item, compared to the very similar 2250 for junglers.

Stiv12349/17/2015, 5:33:35 PM3 votes

They should make a unique summoner spell that only supports can take (like smite for junglers) and create items that require that summoner spell and which give them good gold generation and some XP catchup bonus.

Remlap12239/17/2015, 2:48:23 PM2 votes

What supports need is something that allows them to come back from a bad start. Think about it, you feed early on as an ADC, you play safe, you farm well, and you can get experience and gold to come back. Same goes for any other role. You fall behind as a support, you're basically a free kill. I'd like to see supports be able to earn XP outside of having to mooch it off their carries all the time.

Koldheartedjsp9/18/2015, 12:39:24 AM2 votes

You clearly do not understand support role and why it exists, even if you main it

NazZomLord9/17/2015, 7:47:33 PM2 votes

Personally (this isn't a amazing opinion) i buy item 3093 on most Relic users, the extra money isn't much but it all helps in the end. With Braum or TahmKench i do this the most seeing as item 3142 's passive gives attack speed and move speed. This is situational but even the bit of damage can help in a tight spot when the ADC is going 2v1 and the extra damage and your passive is truly needed.

Kitten of Evil9/17/2015, 8:13:14 PM2 votes

The difficulty is that if a support can buy an item, so can anyone else. And Riot isn't going to say "these champions are designated supports". Sightstone is an intentionally crappy item, and that's so it doesn't benefit junglers who might take it. Really, all the support items are designed to have mediocre stats but great actives, often ones which they could not use on/by themselves (see Ardent Censer or Zeke's Harbinger, for example).

CoolKnightST9/19/2015, 2:23:55 PM1 votes

Support are stronger than you think. However they still tend to be lackluster when they reach full build. You can't fix support to give them the jungler solution because the level 2, 3 & 6 power spikes are to important in a duo lane.

Cowgirl Ed9/19/2015, 3:45:00 PM1 votes

just remove the useless sighstone items. everybody can place up to 3 wards, and with the new trinkets its just really stupid to buy a sighstone, let alone the guys who rush the red one

AntiFlash9/17/2015, 5:39:40 PM1 votes

How about doing something with clairvoyance, just giving it stacks would make it pretty powerful. Even adding a passive to it that allows you to see further in the fog of war or part way into bushes. I would take clairvoyance with just these changes almost always on sup.

IllllllIIIIlllll9/17/2015, 7:15:25 PM1 votes

if supports got a big enough power spike from first item, your laners would buy support items too. only reason it works with junglers is because laners generally don't waste a summoner spell and 850 gold for a decently priced first item.

alfavhunter9/18/2015, 12:10:35 AM1 votes

Here's an idea, let the sight stone have this passive

Assisted vision

If you assist in the kill of a champion higher level than you you gain 100% bonus gold and exp from the assist

This gives supports a catch up mechanic based on levels (which the support is usually a little behind in because of going to ward) and is focused purely on assists which is what supports want to get

HigeR9/18/2015, 12:34:45 AM1 votes

The problem when balancing support is a lot like balancing junglers but worse... if you make a strong item for junglers sooner or later laners will chip in and try to abuse it, same goes for supports, making sightstone a good pick that gives you gold will buff lee sin, kat, jax and anyone who understands that gold and experience are the utmost important stat on the game.

What Riot needs to do is find the niche that supports fill, on the junglers case the niche was "farming jungle monsters" while Supports could fill something like "no farm" where they gain a chunk of experience after not Csing for a while or "assist bot" where they get 25% more experience from assists, but then again, both of these sound too succulent for laners not to take, so it's quite the big ball of yarn.

Special Kay9/18/2015, 2:34:19 AM1 votes

Supports are not supposed to to get super strong and start bursting others down, supports are supposed to carry/help teams by doing things that dont require gold such as peeling and ccing. Since you said supports are weak on average I can only assume your trying to play supports like a mid or top laner and trying to deal tons of damage instead of an actual support where you help your team deal the most damage they can.

UPfreely9/18/2015, 4:53:32 AM1 votes

agree, even when i get super fed as a support i usually still have some of the least gold on the team. i wanna buy items too guys, and i don't wanna be forced into utility items(tho they usually are the best buys)

ABlueQuaker9/18/2015, 1:13:05 PM1 votes

Remove the Tier 3 GP10 Upgrades. Tier 2 GP10 + Sightstone = Mage Support/Tank Support/Utility Support Sightstone.

Since release I've stopped at Tier 2 GP10 and sold it late game.

ApexInTheCircle9/18/2015, 7:27:03 PM1 votes

item 3840 This, this needed to stay in the game. Deadman's plate got to stay, why in the hell didn't this amazing support item?

Weasel Kensei9/18/2015, 10:28:19 PM1 votes

Just some spitball ideas here:

Sightstone passive, wards that spot an enemy champ give 10 gold while an enemy is in its sight radius, this would have a 10 second cooldown on the same champion.

Bloody Sightstone (an alternate upgrade to ruby ss, or maybe another level beyond with extra stats) champion kills are given to the nearest allied champion for full kill gold (would work sorta like a item 3097 but for champs instead of minions). This would mean supports wouldnt have to pull their punches for the ADC to get the gold to carry in a fight.

Sasogwa9/19/2015, 1:01:23 PM1 votes

Uhm supports are really strong right now. The fact they're not anymore the 0-items full ward guys with 0 combat stats brought back much more power into botlane, and that's why we see growing complaints about some adcs (vayne? kalista?), because since supports are stronger, those adcs are peeled more easily. Right now, botlane is extremely strong and is pretty much the whole focus of the competitive scene. Like, why do they have TP toplane? well, to tp to snowball their botlane ofc !