Karma, Lux and Brand support should not be a thing as long as auto-fill support exists

GripaAviara·Jun 15, 2019·4 votes·1,446 views

Unless your auto-filled support decides to smart pick a healer, the lane is a nightmare. And 90% of the time he doesn't. You can't do anything from the insane damage and low mana cost they have.

Lux spamming undodgeable E or Karma Q with minimal mana use and taking roughly 1/5 of your ADC low HP is absurd. Not only that but the moment they get a lucky break, you're dead. Oh Lux misses 10 Q, one lucky Q hit you, same with Brand. Nice, now you're either dead or forced to go B.

Now wonder Ezreal is played so much. Almost every game there is a Lux, Brand or Karma bot or is banned.

It makes the lane totally stupid and highly unfun.

Sure you then play safe and don't die, and look at top or mid, what you see ? He feeds like a carrot. Great. You are underfed ADC and die in 1 second and now face a beast.

4 Comments

flibitydooJun 15, 20193 votes

I feel like most people that pick damage mages in support role.... ...are the people who got autofilled.

like they wanted to play damage mage midlane. The game said "no u play support instead buddy". So they play damage mage botlane in support role. Which I can only assume is why riot's balance team never nerfed them fully out of the support role. Support's a bottleneck for queue times, most queues are waiting on getting a support to play (well, except for like the past few months where jungle was made so terrible that it became the autofill role).

hrooza dota Jun 15, 20191 votes

i checked most players who picked damage mages bot in like the last 10 games

2 seems to have a mix of multi roles with to many support games in a row to be filled

5 main damage mage support [at least lately]

1 seems to play yuumi support a lot but picked lux in a game for some reason .

i know this is an extremely small data base to base any thought on it but tbh as a support play, mage supports are way more fun to play then any other support, and them being viable atm made more player plays them over other supports.

Luther King Jr VJun 15, 20191 votes

i think none picks a healer because they are not easy to play

RyelicJun 15, 20191 votes

I can't really speak for Karma or Lux, but you leave poor Brand alone. What more do you want Riot to take away from him?

He can barely play mid at the best of times. He has no mobility, poor waveclear, and is arguably one of the easiest champions to gank in the entire game.

He has one of, if not the highest average death ratios in the game, around 7-8 deaths a game. If he's not super careful/doesn't have someone to help him out he will get caught out and die by the majority of midlaners and even a number of supports. I play brand mid/support and most of the time if I'm not ahead I'm stuck constantly trying to poke with w from my side of the lane because if I get peeled or cc'd I'm pretty much dead or forced to pop flash to survive.

Or the enemy jungler shows up and gets a fairly free gank. Early on Brand basically has the power of a wet noodle if he's ganked in the middle of his casting against the enemy in his lane.

He can't spam spells in lane because he'll quickly drain his mana pool if he does. You can't generally rush tear because you need to rush damage to have any sort of impact from your lacking kit.

His only cc requires him to land another ability first - a w with a cast time that's generally quite easy to dodge, or an e that requires him to step up to hit you. Plus, he, y'know, actually still has to hit you with the q. You can dodge it. There's actual counterplay. I know in this day and age that's a rarity, but it's actually there.

Once the game gets past laning phase his only real benefit is in teamfights, if the enemy is dumb enough to group up to get hit by his passive multiple times. He doesn't really have the damage to burst anybody down like the majority of mages do, and he's usually stuck constantly trying to poke to get any sort of momentum going.

I'm not saying that he can't be oppressive at times, because he certainly can, especially with an aggressive ADC like Draven - but the key to winning is actually pretty simple - play more passive and don't do anything stupid. If you do, they'll either overextend (that's generally me going for the e -> q) or push the lane far enough for any jungler with half a brain to gank Brand for an easy 300g.

It really sounds like you're trying to match his aggression, which is exactly what Brand wants you to do so he can hit you in the face with his spells behind his minions while not having to overextend. Just play back and you'll have a much easier time against him - I guarantee it.

Or, y'know, buy some MR to survive instead of just rushing straight for your first crit item.