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Utility scaling is taking too much power budget

Ghiefelstein·4/27/2015, 3:18:16 PM·19 votes·1,598 views

Bard has no utility scaling. That could be a sign that it did more harm then good on other supports. Let's see:

Lulu went to terrorize mid and top lane with her new scalings. That lead to several nerfs, including the removal of utility scaling on her Q. Riot has not lifted a finger to help support Lulu after those nerfs.

When Nami builds AP, she gets more movespeed on ability cast and a stronger heal. In patch 4.13 Riot preemptively nerfed her before she became too strong. They lowered her base movement speed and raised the cooldown on her heal. Exactly the places she got utility scaling.

The queen of peeling scales so well with AP, that she frequently buys a Mejais. The counterplay: kill one of the safest champions in the game. It also encourages Janna to stay passively in the back instead of sacrificing herself if necessary.

Sona is really scary with a Lichbane and a Deathcap. To keep her from becoming oppressive, she has been nerfed repeatedly. Is damage when she gets to build AP really where Sona's strength should be?

Soraka can't build tanky because of the % max health cost on her W. AP is actually a decent alternative that makes her better at healing, so I think utility scaling fits on her.

Everyone with utility scaling can potentially have huge power if they are building AP. A big part of that power is damage. I would rather see that supports became better at their core job: supporting. Are we ready to admit that utility scaling did not work out as intended?

33 Comments

Teridax684/27/2015, 3:48:32 PM12 votes

Bard 's main form of scaling is via his chimes and meeps, so he's like Thresh in the sense that he already has a means of making his support contributions scale, and doesn't really need additional utility ratios. There's also very little in his kit that could be made to scale: bar the movement speed bonuses on his W and E, it's not really possible to add a ratio to his other forms of utility (the slow on his Q gets overridden by its stun, so it wouldn't do well with an AP ratio).

I feel Lulu 's issues mostly come from her laning playstyle, and not from her utility ratios: her kit is mostly fine, but her point-and-click hard CC and damage, which weren't too much of a problem a few years back, suddenly allowed her to have far too much safety and reliability when it came to poking, kiting and harassing enemy solo laners, especially melee top laners. With less innate reliability in her kit, she could afford to have stronger AP ratios on everything, including her utility.

As for the rest, I think they're in a good spot right now, since they're all strong with AP while making distinct contributions from mages. Even Sona , who can output massive damage, doesn't have the raw burst of an average mage, at least not alone. If I had to criticize something about AP scalings on supports, it's that it's still not a good idea to go full AP on any of them. Items like item 2049 and item 3222 are pretty much mandatory on every support build, and coupled with the fact that supports still have the lowest gold income on their team, they can't really display the full power of their utility scalings.

Ariel the Cruel4/27/2015, 7:30:06 PM7 votes

Interestingly, the only utility that gained scaling was move speed modifiers. Heals and shields already had scaling and got nerfed. Utility got nerfed across the board, whether it scaled or not.

"Utility scaling" is just a joke.

EDIT: As for Lulu, there's really nothing they can do. Her support play and solo play are largely the same, such that buffing/nerfing one will have the same affect on the other. She needs a rework if they're to separate them. (I really don't want to see a rework)

TenSlashTen4/27/2015, 7:59:56 PM4 votes

Riot doesnt care as long as supports stay bot lane. that was made very clear with my zero compensations to my AP mid/top janna after completely gutting her out of viability but putting all of her power into W. And changing the W cooldown to be 10 seconds at max rank instead of 6 seconds. gg wp'ed. rip.

fucking assholes...

CoolKnightST4/27/2015, 8:31:21 PM1 votes

The riot problem with utility scaling is that support just doesn't benefit from it. Seriously if you look to the AP items that are available to supports. It's just said to see. Better itematisation would solve the real problem.

Pika3104/27/2015, 9:02:23 PM1 votes

Sona is really scary with a Lichbane and a Deathcap. To keep her from becoming oppressive, she has been nerfed repeatedly. Is damage when she gets to build AP really where Sona's strength should be?

Interestingly enough, Nami or Bard can do the same build and still do more damage than Sona did even before all of the nerfs. Problem is that Sona has been on the receiving end of Riot so much, she's been forced into these types of strategies and the results from it are beyond misleading. Fact of the matter is, Sona has the 2nd lowest damage potential of the entire support class and her scalings are worse than most rivals. Nami in particular is superior in every sense of the word, but players don't understand that Lich Bane is artificial scaling that doesn't belong to the champion using it. If someone bothered going to the trouble of winning games as Deathcap, Lich, Echo Riven, I can assure you there'd be someone somewhere complaining about Riven and not those items, when fact of the matter is she doesn't even have an AP scaling.

Reikken4/27/2015, 11:43:09 PM1 votes

I don't see what you're trying to get at You say utility scaling is bad, but none of your champion specific comments support that

Draazur4/28/2015, 1:11:50 AM1 votes

Isn't Lulu a staple pick for a few competitive team comps? Not saying that means that she's balanced for solo queue, but I'm worried AP buffs would make her a little overtuned for comp

Transgressor4/28/2015, 7:48:24 AM1 votes

That's a exactly the point. Utility takes such a power budget because if said utility champion goes out to lane they have way too much oppresive power for your enemy to have fun. Utility is ment for champions that have to make plays when they lack direct offensive capabilities. The problem is this game still doesn't have enough dedicated supports to fullfill the needs for ability and thematic veriation, so normal picks end up getting pushed out by picks that have utility AND strong offensive power to boot. Annie for example got to bot lane because she has a permanent and always reliable stun to back up with extreme offensive power, but lacks every single othe tool that supports bring on the table in forms of utility(heals, slows, silences, shields, disengage/engage and whatnot). Why pick Nami if you're gonna misswhen there's a chance you miss a crucial bubble despite her kit being awesome for supporting, when you can always have a stun and crushing AP power as Annie ?

HEXXEN9x4/28/2015, 10:20:14 AM1 votes

"Sona is really scary with a Lichbane and a Deathcap. To keep her from becoming oppressive, she has been nerfed repeatedly. Is damage when she gets to build AP really where Sona's strength should be?"

"The community"+ "The pros" convinced Riot to cram sona into more narrow build paths and roles to satisfy the meta. You can thank people who think Meta > fun.

Unlikely for riot to revert sona.

Mandang04/27/2015, 5:48:36 PM1 votes

Yeah, it shouldn't surprise Riot that putting more ratios on a kit only encourages them to farm MORE. Also, making the utility ratios scale from AP rather than other stats only reinforced mage supports' position in the meta, rather than viabilizing traditional supports. The changes we've seen since are largely a result of champion-specific balance, not anything to do w/ Riot's utility ratios.

Erockandroll4/27/2015, 6:05:05 PM1 votes

Too put it simply, anyone who can actually farm well solo lane and build AP would do so almost regardless of whether they are damage or utility. and Supports can't afford to build AP items. If we bolster the AP Values on support items, mid laners might take interest in them and could make them broken. And we can't increase the Gold Value of support items because People in Bronze (who can't CS for Jack) will complain about them having carry level gold.

I would think the better solution is to create items benefit supports from doing support things. Like say, Aderent Censor. Though it's 25% AS boost is probably insignificant, considering no one buys it.

Compared to mid laners, I would argue that CDR and MP5 are more important than AP. If your AP ratios are below .5 You would probably get more benefit just casting the spells more often.