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@Riot Support Role, passive sightstone

magic pole··4 votes·941 views

This is just my personal experience, but queue times seem to be getting longer. That is, unless you queue with support and/or fill. Then the queues become almost instantaneous.

I think that speaks to the unpopularity of the support role. It's getting to the point where I think the role's (or lack of interest in the role) effect on overall game health (for casual players, yolo Q) is negative and concerning.

are you considering this at all?

Some things i believe leave support unpopular, is that it is not often a glamorous role. Mid gets flashy assassinations or 1v1 duels. Junglers can pull off exciting ganks to secure kills and take leads and objectives for the team. They get to secure dragon and baron with smite; that makes them feel important and when they do this successfully, they take pride in their role and what they have done for the team. Top laners get to play powerful champions and suck up that solo lane gold/XP, and make TP plays. ADCs do the most damage in the game, and they are ffs supposed to get all the kills they can. If that isn't a salespitch for a role idk what is, "be ADC and try to KS as much as you want, and people want you to !"

Support can set up kills, but ADC is desired to get the kill. I can't say how many times i've landed a Blitz Q E R, Leona R E-Q, or thresh Q W Q R E - basically, put the kill on a silver platter so all my ADC literally has to do is right click them and execute 3 autoattacks or so - and then, someone says "GJ vayne". This is of course a problem of vanity, and any good support won't care; they know they set that shit up and got their ADC fed. They know what they did. Good players also recognize good plays made by supports - they surely recognize the bad ones, especially those always perfect silvers - so maybe say "GJ thresh" every once in a while. It will make your support feel appreciated and take more pride in their contribution to the team.

this is getting long, so a final thought. One of the most unsatisfying things as support is having to rush item 2049 . We are poor. By the time we can afford this thing, ADCs typically have a big fucking sword. Have you considered making item 2049 a passively scaling support-only item? Like a second trinket just for supports? It begins with 0 or 1 charge, and gains another charge every 8-10 minutes or so, capping at 4 or 5. That would be pretty cool and its exclusivity to support might also be a boon to the role. Junglers would live without it; they now have tracker's knife.

Support/meta is already being encouraged by the new dynamic Q having a "support" position. Why not give the support a passively scaling sightstone. It would allow them then to buy actually fun items earlier and might make the role more attractive.

Another suggestion I see all the time is giving supports more credit. Add more post-match statistics that highlight support contributions, like, "wards placed", "wards destroyed", "damage shielded", "tower assists", etc.

Please. Something.

anyway, hoping you are considering the health of the support role. (immobile?) Mages are in the works and ADCs just got their love. I would hope support - the unglamorous, unnoticed, but necessary role - would get some attention too. Anyone has any comments or suggestions of their own please leave them.

9 Comments

magic pole1 votes

downvoted with no comment, why bother even trying to contribute anything here

Lost R1 votes

Because the community is largely composed of a bunch of miserable bastards who hate everything.

I have much to say on this issue, but it'll take a while before I can assemble my words together.

EmEx1 votes

Revolutionary! Like what the fuck. The support gets free items!!!!!!!!!!! Best Idea I've ever heard of for LoL!!!!! Genius!

magic pole1 votes

yeah, the support gets a support-only free item that they are all but required to purchase anyway

it's a suggestion or idea; the point of the post at least is to address the role of support and its unpopularity and possible solutions. The support role is unattractive to most players so im trying to bring up some ideas that might remedy that.

if left to rot, this means for sure queue times increase, and i think anyone will agree that is undesirable. My norm queues are already ~8 minutes long. about 0-30 seconds if i pick support or fill, however.

thanks for your input

EmEx1 votes

[{quoted}](name=magic pole,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wqgzHvy7,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-03-16T22:43:54.015+0000)

yeah, the support gets a support-only free item that they are all but required to purchase anyway

it doesnt have to be limited to a sight stone, it could be other items or more than one item, it would solve the lack of gold problem entirely.

it's a suggestion or idea; the point of the post at least is to address the role of support and its unpopularity and possible solutions. >The support role is unattractive to most players so im trying to bring up some ideas that might remedy that.

I already created a thread on how to fix the support role but people resisted so I gave up on support altogether, I play mostly top lane now.

if left to rot, this means for sure queue times increase, and i think anyone will agree that is undesirable. My norm queues are already ~8 minutes long. about 0-30 seconds if i pick support or fill, however.

About same que times for me

Valderis Vandala1 votes

Or, and this is probably a terrible idea, get rid of sightstone entirely. Without the option to buy it support will not be expected to buy it and can focus their gold on better items. I doubt its a good idea though, vision is power. Unlikely to happen anyway now that we have so many different ones, I can't see them all just getting the axe, then again I haven't seen much positive talk about those things.

Your idea is pretty nice, great way to give supports extra stats for free essentially. But whatever it gives will have to come very gradually with levels otherwise supports might be able to just stat-check other champions early in the game. Even so it might still be a problem, they would still be getting free extra stats and use of wards without having to leave their lane. It may look innocent enough because they are in a lane against another support who gets the same bonus, but what if it becomes a practice for a member of a team to start to que up as support but then switches to another lane so that they can enjoy the benefit of the free sightstone? Not like their own team is going to report them for it, and I don't know if the other team can or if people will even care to.

Even if all it does is give extra wards, mid laners and junglers will be all over that, especially is the item could also still be sold for extra gold once they are nearing full build or to access power spikes earlier.

So unless there is some way to make sure that only a support player can get this benefit and will play the support role this might be a bad idea.

Might be a good idea to get people to que up as supports though, but that might just create a reverse problem. XD

magic pole1 votes

well, it wouldn't add stats. It wouldn't be identical to the current sightstone. It would function as a 2nd trinket basically. No stats, just scaling quantity of wards; similar to trinket but it can hold more and it doesn't replenish unless you base. Also, it would start at 0 wards and remain there for at least the first 10-15 minutes of the game, so that jungle ganks aren't oblierated. basically it offers nothing early game, but supports get to build something else first instead of sightstone.

idk, it's a wild idea i guess, but im just trying to brainstorm something to help the support role. I think it needs attention more than any other role

Also, if someone hijacked support for a free sightstone, well i guess they could do that, but bot lane would be out of wards then. Because if this idea was implemented, the purcahseable sightstone would be removed. So theyd really be screwing over their bot lane.

I see your point though, it is a radical idea that could heavily impact the overall game. But they just basically did that in preason 6 so i dont think it's that crazy. might have to try something a little different to inject some life into support role

Valderis Vandala1 votes

While bot lane could get screwed you'd have to consider the impact this has on the overall strength of the team, currently wards are more or less still a support priority, but this is mainly for gold optimizing reasons. If a sightstone-like item had no cost and took up no item space then it would not need to be linked to the support. Perhaps other roles or lanes gain more benefit from vision then bot lane? It's not like the support only wards the bot lane.

Lost R1 votes

Years ago, the community decided that the most important and glamorous thing in the game over anything else were kills. Assassins prioritize on kills, so it's easiest with them, and much like a bear, the playerbase will more often than not go for the easier meat. Supports don't, and while you can rack up kills with the support, it's not easy, and people will yell at you for it.

There are a million problems with the support and the perception and treatment of the support, and much of the issue is attributed to the climate of the League and what the kill-focused culture forces the support to do. While an ADC or assassin has to only focus on building their big swords, the support has to focus on so much more. They're expected to regularly focus on crowd control, range and utility on top of vision control (which is difficult post-Season Three because of the ward limit, which most players STILL don't know that's a thing!). The support is extremely skill focused, which means they also need to focus on building mana and cooldown reduction. If they're a tank, you can stack armor, health and magic resist on top of that. Mages instead focus on ability power (again, people don't know most utilities scale off ability power!). The less of any of this is on the team, the more a support is expected to handle, regardless of their ability (even if that means Tank Nami), and you have to build all of these on a shoestring budget. Makes the ADC and assassins' responsibilities a trifling concern by comparison.

One big element of champions and League in general is something that I call menace. To put it simply, menace is what a champion or other potential threat can do to you. It's what makes you keep Annie at arm's length. It's what makes all five players grab a sweeper if Teemo is in the game. It's what stops you from tower diving a Thresh (or just tower diving, period), and what puts you behind a line of minions when Blitz is nearby. ALL champions have menace, even supports. ESPECIALLY supports. The problem is their menace only truly shines when their team is nearby.

Put yourself in this scenario. You're in mid lane, facing against a Nami. No minions or turrets are nearby. Nami stuns you. Okay, under normal circumstances, that's not so bad. You're stunned for a second and a half, and the damage is usually pretty negligible; nothing too serious. BUt at the same time, she dashes in and dumps E and W on you. She just burst you while you were stunned and could not retaliate; even after you are freed from the stun, you still can't retaliate because her passive speed boost put her just out of your immediate reach. It's a bit annoying, and she probably took a noticeable chunk out of your health bar, but it's still no big deal, just as long as she doesn't do that again, and next time, you'll be ready.

Now imagine the same scenario. Nami stuns you, but this time, she throws her W and E on Quinn, let's say, as they join the fray. Quinn doesn't use any of her skills, but the W bouncing off of her and onto you further damages you. Quinn unloads three basic attacks that slow you, and the small burst of movement speed from Nami's passive speeds her up, closing the gap with you even more. You're probably hurting, and Quinn hasn't even used any of her skills yet. Or imagine it if the roles were reversed. You're dueling with Quinn. You have her against the ropes and ready to finish her off. Suddenly Nami appears, stuns you, heals Quinn, and gives her a buff. Quinn has a second and a half where you cannot move or retaliate against any of them, and given the slows and movement speed buffs, even if you could somehow outpace Quinn, she doesn't need to use any of your skills to outpace you and finish you off. And you had her dead to rights just a few seconds before!

This is what menace is all about. The threat X opponent either has to your well being and stops you from running roughshod over everyone. The problem here is most players don't pay attention to the menace of supports. They see the support as little more than a playable minion who is only allowed to carry a sightstone and nothing else (and then you run into the players who don't even know what one looks like!). If/when you ever tank, do you consider how the support deals damage? Do you build tenacity with them in mind? If you do, congratulations, you are in an extremely small minority. Even this is hypocritical, though. Supports are described as having no menace, yet people expect them to have the largest impact in teamfights, while working off a shoestring budget.

Lastly, on top of all the stress that the role can bring, being the support is horribly thankless. More than that, players will see any negative aspect of your performance as some personal attack against them, AKA all kills are stolen, all deaths are intentionally feeding, and all assists are either failed attempts to steal a kill or disregarded entirely. You could go 2/5/28 and get yelled at for the two kills and five deaths and never acknowledged for the twenty-eight times you helped someone get a kill. It's a double standard that is rarely given for anyone else, with the only justification given as "you're the support".

Honestly, it's not a wards thing, and Riot has attempted in the past to dissociate being the support to being a ward mule, and even getting rid of regular wards entirely didn't help the issue; in fact it probably exacerbated it. Putting a growing sightstone effect on the support items is only a small quality of life thing, but only the blind and selfish expect the support to automatically have infinite wards at the very start of the game. The real problem runs much, MUCH deeper, and I honestly have no idea how you would even begin to solve it. It's not a Riot-sided issue. It's a community issue, and this involves trying to fix the mindset of literally tens of millions of players out there who think the only champions worth playing are the ones who can get the most kills the fastest, and who look "flashy" and "cool" while doing it, which is painfully stupid and shallow.

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