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Why the support item hot fix isn't bad

SUCC Ghast·2/13/2019, 2:22:30 AM·46 votes·20,680 views

Ancient coin-

  1. You already should be relying on your adc to last hit for the coins, and if adc backs, then you cs and get gold anyways.
  2. Having only mana coins could be beneficial to some casters when their adc backs
  3. More gold for playing a support, when your with your adc (Which you should be for this item)

Frostfang-

  1. More gold for hitting abilities, this is beneficial for supports that should be seen, like sona and soraka, who should be backing with their adcs anyways.

This nerf could honestly be directed towards mid-lane mages being played bot lane and taking frostfang. Such like Brand, who wont be allowed to free poke and farm while the adc is away. IMO this isn't a nerf, but a buff to support players who are good at the role. This will definitely affect players who on off support, or don't play it at all and get autofilled.

And this might lead to Riot getting rid of the passive on Frostfang for taking CS, or maybe they will change it to where you only get the cooldown if the adc is within 1500 units and you take farm.

114 Comments

Tobykachu2/13/2019, 2:47:38 AM14 votes

People seem to be forgetting that the alternative is a new, very un interactive and un enjoyable playstyle emerging that people complain about for weeks before Riot decides to do anything about. I've been playing games all day today, as support, and haven't really noticed a drop in the overall amount of gold I'm generating per game and even if it is slightly lower, I'd happily take these changes if it meant stopping such a boring playstyle emerging.

rtbf2216514122/13/2019, 2:49:29 AM7 votes

I like how you brought up Soraka...

When her E is a priority skill in laning phase over W and Q but somehow this is 'healthy' for her.

Note: Just because her winrate is good doesn't mean she is in a good spot. This isn't how Riot originally created her to be. It's not Rocket science to realize she was meant to poke with Q, heal with W, and have a side of E. Not poke and do massive damage with E and only increasing W to hurt herself less with every heal.

Daddy Ants2/14/2019, 11:22:35 AM5 votes

Watching the 0 CS kleptomancy strategy in pro play was not fun.

Getting rid of Kleptomancy would be the better option tbh.

Illabethe2/13/2019, 3:58:51 AM5 votes

I'm sorry Ghast but the nerf permanently buries "hard to hit, easy to poke" Enchanter Supports more than anything.

They struggle the most to gold, defend turrets, and almost ALWAYS are left in lane without an adc more than any offensive mage.

Nami for example, will be one of the worst hit; She gets poked out of lane by mage lanes, and her adcs often die or have to recall versus burst on CC duos, like those with a Leona. She is also outranged by other enchanters, like Sona, to the point that she only naturally procs about 2/3 as many charges as any other support at best, 1/2 at worst.

Sona has horrible early game cooldowns, btw, so unless it's an absolute counter lane, she too is majorly affected by this.

Kubox2/13/2019, 7:06:02 PM4 votes

I think it's easy to look at it and say "Well you should still get about as much gold" and honestly, I would think Riot ran the numbers and made sure that really, supports aren't too affected by this. Hopefully anyway.

The issue here is that it's taking away a lot of gameplay opportunity more than anything. Enchanters can no longer progress their quest if their bot laner dies (something I used to wish they would allow tank supports). Poke supports have lost the proc damage when defending plates. They also lost the reward for going out of their way to poke roaming champions when roaming themselves (damage tends to not be relevant so the gold was nice).

This change to me is removing a lot of the little things that I knew I could do to get slightly ahead and removing that option. Instead now it's "Only poke when an ally is near" and even if that meant that I got the same amount of gold, it's simply boring.

It's akin to changing the jungle and making jungle camps only give gold if you have a jungle item, then buffing gold gain from CS. The goal being "We don't want you to lose gold, we just want you to not counter jungle as a laner". Laners get the same gold so they shouldn't complain right? They lost the ability to steal money from the enemy while aggresively pushing to snowball their lead and instead just get that lead from ... csing better. See what I mean?

The loss of gameplay options is more frustrating than whether it is a gold nerf or not.

3ternalkarma2/13/2019, 9:12:15 PM3 votes

do people even know why they started doing the 0 cs strategy top lane? its because Riot destroyed the advantage of wave control and cs leads by adding bounties.. "oh im ahead of my laner in cs better give me a bounty so they can catch up even though i controlled the wave and zoned them out by playing properly!"

WAZZZUP5002/14/2019, 3:35:56 AM3 votes

On one, it incentivizes being a good support (as opposed to a straight up ap carry in bot lane). On the other hand, I don't like having to constantly babysit my adc (especially if they're toxic).

Morticianjohn2/14/2019, 4:02:57 AM3 votes

Just get rid of Kleptomancy. It has been a balance issue for some time. It would not hurt an entire class of champions. All of the klepto champions have an alternate rune choice that is nearly as good.

The issue I have with the changes is that support is frequently the least popular position, if you hurt gold generation on a few supports for a few situations it merely increases a gap that already is one of the biggest problems plaguing the game. IMO one of the biggest problems with the game is that certain roles are more fun and thus those roles are more popular. Nerfs to jungle and support, already the least popular roles is only going to hurt the game as a whole moving forward.