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Quick rundown of why support is unpopular

chipndip1··3 votes·950 views

  • Interacting with enemies is fun. Riot wants to make sure people fight more often. Jungle even gets changed so you run out of shit to farm, so you find yourself having to gank. Meanwhile the primary support play style is to just wait until something comes at you/your allies, then press one button. Rinse and repeat.

  • Meaningful item choices is fun. It isn't fun to always build the same items. It isn't a meaningful choice to choose between a strong or weak item. Given support itemization, assuming I'm building like a support, item 3107 I know exactly what item 1001 my build's item 2049 gonna look like item 3190 by the game's end (unless it's a long ass game).

  • There's a huge plethora of carry-related feedback and data in the game. There's nothing showing how much I healed, how much I shielded, if I saved anyone from otherwise deadly attacks, or whatever a support would be interested in. With this said, can we separate life steal from "damage healed"?

  • Bringing up things about the lackluster game play experience of support (in comparison to other roles) will have a bunch of people come out of nowhere to nay-say you and romanticize the exciting rush of pressing E 500 times in their last Janna game.

Short version: A ton of shit that both Riot and the community agree are fun and good for the game are things support players are actively left out on. There's not much feedback for support players to feel pride in as they attempt to polish their skills, and if you bring up the faults of the role, people drown you out with stupid shit that doesn't negate the point.

20 Comments

TheJakeinator2 votes

You don't do tons of damage and get to carry

There i fixed it for you

chipndip13 votes

{quoted}

and if you bring up the faults of the role, people drown you out with stupid shit that doesn't negate the point.

Swerzz1 votes

There's a huge plethora of carry-related feedback and data in the game. There's nothing showing how much I healed, how much I shielded, if I saved anyone from otherwise deadly attacks, or whatever a support would be interested in. With this said, can we separate life steal from "damage healed"?

So you need Graphs and Numbers to show and justify your play? If you save someones life or set up an amazing play. You know you did it, Your ADC knows about it. Just because there's no number attached to it at the end of the game doesn't take them away.

And it actually does show amount healed. I like Nami, so this the one stat i'll check out

And if you want gameplay from playing a support. Try being in a team fight with 5 activatable items, 4 moves and your Summs up. Also trying to keep track of everyone and figuring out when to use everything properly. And 'all at once' is not the right answer.

chipndip12 votes

So what you're telling me is that you're actively dodging the points I made and you're telling me to get over it?

Swerzz1 votes

I quoted one of your points. how is that dodging your points?

chipndip12 votes

  • I say "One thing people dislike about support is that the game doesn't give much feedback on your play" (basically). You say "Well, YOU know you did it. That should be enough". Meanwhile we got shit for "How much did the tank take?", "How much did the carry deal?", "How many turrets did I blow up?", "How much gold did I get?", "Largest killing spree", and so on. Support players get the short end of the stick in this regard objectively, and the answer to that, instead of "fix it" is (not surprisingly) "get over it".

  • I say "One thing people dislike about support is that many support champions are highly 1-note and reactive, but most people, including Riot themselves, would agree that players like proactive and aggressive play more". You say "But I gotta build these active items though!" Doesn't negate anything about what I just said, but you say it anyway.

Swerzz1 votes
  • Ok, how would they possibly calculate and record, 'if I saved anyone from otherwise deadly attacks'? Do you want the, "Times that an Ally Champ was under 10% of their health and there was an enemy champion withing 400 units of them and you used an ability to possibly prevent them from dying" Category?

And it's not like Tanks are the only ones who see how much damage was taken. And ADC aren't the only once who see how much Damage was dealt. Everyone see's these stats. Braum and Leona care about Damage Taken. Nami and Soraka Care about Damage healed. Zyra and Brand care about how much damage they deal. There's the warding section, that's pretty much the 'support exclusive' section.

  • People have different play styles. Maybe some people like to support, maybe they don't want to be more, "Proactive and Aggressive". And supports build the active items because they fit most situations. Just like most mids rush Morello or Ludens Echo. or ADC's build IE or BotRK. And i don't see you complaining that Jungle always have to build a Jungle Item?
chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

  • Ok, how would they possibly calculate and record, 'if I saved anyone from otherwise deadly attacks'? Do you want the, "Times that an Ally Champ was under 10% of their health and there was an enemy champion withing 400 units of them and you used an ability to possibly prevent them from dying" Category?

It's merely me spit-balling ideas. I find it surprising you made an entire paragraph on the least workable one. Still, I also agree that it'd be difficult to work a sort of "allies saved stat into the game.

And it's not like Tanks are the only ones who see how much damage was taken. And ADC aren't the only once who see how much Damage was dealt. Everyone see's these stats. Braum and Leona care about Damage Taken. Nami and Soraka Care about Damage healed. Zyra and Brand care about how much damage they deal. There's the warding section, that's pretty much the 'support exclusive' section.

You're once again saying "Yeah, I get that people complain about things like these, but suck it up anyway".

  • People have different play styles. Maybe some people like to support, maybe they don't want to be more, "Proactive and Aggressive". And supports build the active items because they fit most situations. Just like most mids rush Morello or Ludens Echo. or ADC's build IE or BotRK. And i don't see you complaining that Jungle always have to build a Jungle Item?

Yeah, we have different play styles, but the game reinforces that extremely campy play style too much. As for junglers, it isn't like there's an item combo nearly EVERY jungler needs to build, regardless of champ class.

Regardless of if you want to carry this on or not, do note: If support queues were even REMOTELY healthy, Riot wouldn't have auto-fill in its current state, if even at all. There needs to be steps taken to improving the role. Ignoring the role's issues isn't doing that.

MysterQ1 votes

I gave an idea on the forums.

Postgame, Always post two(four) team maps.

  1. Highest percent of vision Red
  2. Highest percent of vision Blue (3.) Lowest vision Red (4.) Lowest vision Blue That way the entire team can see how much vision was provided. You can compare your progress and where you want to improve and ward.
AWildAPKalista1 votes

I believe it was Ghostcrawler who recently admitted the "HP Healed" stat is completely broken. The way the game calculates it currently, "Farming junglers will end a match with more 'HP Healed' than a Soraka on the same team."

Rito plans on completely overhauling how end-of-game stats are calculated, because at present, they give very misleading and unspecific data.

BlackFlux1 votes

Yeah...I do support a lot cause I have fun but a lot of stuff other roles do is left out. But there are supports that actively do something,be it button spams that help a lot (ACTIVELY!)or actual skill. I think skill could land in (I guess on some of these.) Bard (sometimes.)Thresh....uh....yeah? yeah. maybe Taric to some extent....yeah. a lot of champs are generally utility things you strap on and they spam something on you Soraka Janna Zilean Sona...I mean,when do you see a full AP raka without item 2049. meanwhile you ADC doesn't even grab a new trinket or use it...

Dominick Destine1 votes

Everyone tries to couch the reality in petty little reasons, the real reason support is unpopular; It's harder to carry games, relying on idiot teammates is tuberculosis.

Lauchmelder1 votes

No offense, but if you think supports aren't interacting with the enemy then you're playing the support role wrong.

A support tries to remove his own ADC from interaction with the enemy until the ADC has some items by creating pressure in lane.

chipndip11 votes

[{quoted}](name=MadKnife IV,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wulAHANR,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2017-04-07T00:02:04.574+0000)

No offense, but if you think supports aren't interacting with the enemy then you're playing the support role wrong.

A support tries to remove his own ADC from interaction with the enemy until the ADC has some items by creating pressure in lane.

You don't get it.

The primary bread and butter play pattern of many supports (primarily enchanters) is to simply "Press shield/heal on ally before/after enemy lands attack". This play pattern is boring, but it's also a core part of the play pattern of many enchanters. More offensive measures need greater reward so it invites actually interacting with the lane. To the very least, they should limit how many hyper-defensive enchanters we have in the game.

We know everyone does more than just one simple thing, but the defining play of supports is usually "Don't do shit until shit happens". That's boring. Plain and simple. Imagine how shit this game would be if this mentality was all over the rift, rather than hammered into the support role?

Side note: No, Janna pressing E on her ally isn't her interacting with the enemies in the lane.

Lauchmelder1 votes

I do quite well understand it as support was my main role for 2 seasons.

Champions like Janna (fuck Janna) are boring and uninteractive, yes. The majority of our supports can create enough pressure on the enemy laners for them to back off.

Ever seen the pressure a Thresh can create by simply landing a few hooks and then zoning the enemy away?

Or a Nami that pokes you with her E as much as possible?

Supports, with the exception of a few "bitch don't touch me or my teammates", have a lot of interaction with the enemy. Even more so early in the game.

chipndip11 votes

You realize Nami's E poke isn't that "big" in her laning, right? It's "aight", but it's not a highlight.

Lauchmelder1 votes

It's enough to have an impact

AWildAPKalista1 votes

I do believe I heard Rito is going to scrap the "damage healed" stat and band-aid fix it with "death's defied" just like Phantom Dancer. As a placeholder until they figure out how to properly calculate actual numbers in a way which won't be misled by things like lifesteal.

Big Lincoln1 votes

there's no fighter supports

riot has the least imaginative support roster I've ever seen, it makes me angry

oh yeah and items w/e

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