To those saying HP and tankiness are great when behind - it's not. Not when most support champions are having their spells gutted from base level into building AP to be efficient. When you have champs like Leona/Braum/Thresh being the meta, that means the game works for them. It works for them because a sightstone flows in their kit and their inherent tankyness. For other champions like Soraka, Nami, or Janna, a sightstone doesn't compliment them at all. HP on them is wasted because they don't have the defenses to back them up - even if it takes longer to kill them, it will still result in a kill, as that extra health is usually not enough to survive until one of your much needed spells is off cooldown. Sightstone is an "Ugh, I have to buy it" item. The combinations of it and the 3 gold items is a whole lot more worthless than the 3 top level gold items on their own. Comparitively, I'd rather have the ghosts from Frost Queen than the Eye of the Watchers, or the group speed boost from the Talisman, or the exploding shield from the Face. It really is rough when you're forced to not only be starved for gold as it is, but to also waste that gold for vision when no other role in the game has to waste the bulk of their early income to be effective. Support, by its layout, is a role that forces the player to be dependent on others and to remain behind the entire game.
Here's my proposal to fix it. When jungle changes rolled out, it was rocky at first, but it's smoothed itself out as the seasons have progressed. We need a similar thing for support, except targeting the trinkets and gold items. I propose that there be a set of ward upgrades bound to the Face/Claim/Talisman. When you get your gold item maxed out, it should allow you to upgrade your trinket into a sightstone of sorts, with different benefits based on the gold item. Naturally though, all items will grant the trinket a hold of 3 charges, but they only replenish on returning to the shop instead of recharging over time. What this change would allow is for the support to focus on their income and rushing to hit top level on their items for the actives. It frees up a slot in the mix as well, meaning that with the added income they'll get from upgrading the gold item and not having to buy an early sightstone, they can maybe afford to build items to help their kits out directly. Granted, this does push the vision control towards late game, but if other roles learn to ward, then there shouldn't be too much difference, other than a slight benefit to early jungling.
