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Kinda tired of the "botlane is 2 people so they should always win 2v1" argument

Sasogwa·4/27/2018, 3:00:37 PM·2 votes·1,420 views

Yeah I know, might once again sound like the classic anti-botlane circlejerk thread. Now before you jump at my throat, I didn't say that they should be 1v2ed easily, but I feel it should be a lot more close than nowadays.

Why? It's simple. Despite being 2 out of 5 people of a team (40%) botlane only has access to 1 of the 4 sources of gold and exp in the game, botlane minion waves. (the 4 sources being the 3 respective minions waves of top,mid,bot and the jungle) So they only take 25% of the ressources of the map. And that should mean something. But it doesn't really nowadays, for several reasons: gold sharing on shutdowns, general free gold/second flow, bonus 30.4% exp on several ppl sharing experience, and gold generation items completely optimized and catered for supports. So, they're already 2 champions with respective base stats and base damages compared to a sololaner, but they also get fucktons of free gold from support items, free gold given that doesn't require actively taking any ressource on the map like lasthitting, free experience sharing bonuses.

I don't like that. I hate the fact that Riot abandoned the idea they didn't want to enforce the meta and instead took the meta and tried to make every player feel as strong as another. It feels not right, because it destroys the strategic decisions and drawbacks you had from actually choosing to sacrifice your csing for your carry to get stronger, for instance. It just saddens me when I see a support get almost as much gold as me a sololaner when they literally didn't take any ressource on the map whatsoever to get that strength.

For me, botlane shouldn't feel like 2 sololaners worth of power. They shouldn't get that powerlevel because they do not consume that much resources on the map.

14 Comments

FOR JUSTICE4/27/2018, 3:24:34 PM3 votes

{quoted}

Why? It's simple. Despite being 2 out of 5 people of a team (40%) botlane only has access to 1 of the 4 sources of gold and exp in the game, botlane minion waves. (the 4 sources being the 3 respective minions waves of top,mid,bot and the jungle) So they only take 25% of the ressources of the map.

actually the only thing split among them is the EXP, which is why botlane is usually 1-2 levels behind everyone else. since all the gold goes to the ADC (unless the support is an asshat, or playing zyra or a level 6 blitzcrank) its just as much gold as any sololaner

And that should mean something. But it doesn't really nowadays, for several reasons: gold sharing on shutdowns, general free gold/second flow, bonus 30.4% exp on several ppl sharing experience, and gold generation items completely optimized and catered for supports.

everyone gets these bonuses, and supports don't make much on their own though.

So, they're already 2 champions with respective base stats and base damages compared to a sololaner, but they also get fucktons of free gold from support items, free gold given that doesn't require actively taking any ressource on the map like lasthitting, free experience sharing bonuses.

only one of them is actually getting free gold from harass, the ADC has to last hit just like everyone else.

I don't like that. I hate the fact that Riot abandoned the idea they didn't want to enforce the meta and instead took the meta and tried to make every player feel as strong as another. It feels not right, because it destroys the strategic decisions and drawbacks you had from actually choosing to sacrifice your csing for your carry to get stronger, for instance. It just saddens me when I see a support get almost as much gold as me a sololaner when they literally didn't take any ressource on the map whatsoever to get that strength.

end game the support usually has the least gold in the game,the only time this is true is when they purposely took CS or everyone else is garbage at farming

Mig894/27/2018, 3:20:21 PM3 votes

Look at it like this. 2 players with 3k gold between them vs 1 player with 3k gold 1 player with 2k gold lvl3, 1 player with 1k gold lvl3. 8 abilities and the base stats of two lvl 3s. 1 player with 3k gold level 4, 4 abilities, and one players base stats.

Janna Level 3 HEALTH 603.3 ATTACK DAMAGE 48.2 HEALTH REGEN. 6.3 ATTACK SPEED [*] 0.625 (+ 4.4%) MANA 444.4 ARMOR 33.6 MANA REGEN. 12.1 MAGIC RESIST. 30.7 RANGE 550 MOVE. SPEED 315

Ashe level 3 HEALTH 644.2 ATTACK DAMAGE 68.3 HEALTH REGEN. 6.3 ATTACK SPEED [*] 0.658 (+ 4.9%) MANA 327.2 ARMOR 35 MANA REGEN. 7.6 MAGIC RESIST. 30.7 RANGE 600 MOVE. SPEED 325

Zed Level 4 HEALTH 776.5 ATTACK DAMAGE 70.7 HEALTH REGEN. 8.5 ATTACK SPEED [*] 0.651 (+ 4.8%) ENERGY 200 ARMOR 39.9 ENERGY REGEN. 50 MAGIC RESIST. 34.9 RANGE 125 MOVE. SPEED 345

Ashe and Janna have a combined 116.5 AD if you think about them both autoing and a combined 1247.5 health for zed to get through. That and Janna has peel in her kit as well as ashe. This is just an example but I could have grabbed any ADC or support, I just picked common ones. In what world should Zed and his 776 HP and 70 AD get through two champs. Janna would most likely have upgraded support item and boots. Zed is going to have one completed Item. Ashe probably has BF, boots, and maybe some more attack speed or damage from a long sword/dagger. Why should one champ easily outplay two? Whats the rationale?

Shiznyte4/27/2018, 4:36:19 PM2 votes

Team work is one of the only True OP's in this game aside from being like 5k gold up on someone. 2v1 the 2 should almost always be won by the 2 unless the 1 is incredibly snowballed like 7/0 riven, and even then shes not a tank so you can still kill her. Anything short of you being 2-3 levels behind and at a massive gold disadvantage you should be able to out play most players in a 2v1 scenerio if you are the 2

Aptest4/27/2018, 7:31:03 PM1 votes

I think there is some merit to your argument. I think a lot of people enjoyed the game more when there were OP (top, mid) and UP (bot, sup) lanes in the game.

The result of nerfing support in favor of top lane, as you would have it, is many support players (who will lose their desire to play an UP role) and also adc players (who will lose a lot of power as a result of their babysitter's shields being less potent) fleeing their roles to become top laners.

perhaps it is not applicable to someone like me who enjoyed the level of control over the game's flow that came with being the "walking ward dispenser", but many of the newer support players who only enjoy playing when they can contest the other players straight up, will happily switch to the now more enjoyable top lane.

The cost of the change that you are proposing is a massive amount of autofill. You will be assigned into playing support A LOT. Is that acceptable to you?

honestly i believe many top lane players will not mind. I remember many of them had their secondary role to be support. That only stopped with the "secondary support, always support" meta that happened when role select started.

that being said even if we agree to your argument about the gold streams, bot lane is still 2 players, and therefore should still win against any 1 player, barring miss play.

NekoniClaws4/27/2018, 3:42:18 PM1 votes

As a support main, I'd like to illustrate my strong and vulnerable moments.

You jump on Zilean's ADC while his ult is down, burst them out in .5 seconds. Then burst Zilean. You just got 2 kills.

Do it when Zil's ult is up, he'll stun you, his ADC will respawn. You are dead.

I can't get behind the proposition. I think you'd much rather 1v2 botlane than 1v2 the enemy top+mid. Infact I think your team would spam '???' you and tell you to stop feeding if you tried the latter.

Meep Man4/27/2018, 3:20:47 PM1 votes

It used to be closer to what you are saying when, back in the day, Supports really only had a few "Meh" items to help accommodate for their lack of farming. Philosopher's Stone plus a little bit of other things were their only chance at getting extra resources. This was further made worse by the fact that we didn't have Trinkets and Pink Wards were invisible, leading to huge "Ward Wars" between Supports, increasingly so the higher in ELO you got, where both Supports spent about 40% of their income at least on spamming extremely large amounts of wards. This was also when there wasn't a ward limit per person, so it could get absurdly out of control.

Flash forward to now and Supports have more gold income items, Trinkets exist granting every player innate access to wards and dewarding options, and there is a ward limit so Supports can't just be the only ones warding. Furthermore, Pink Wards, now Control Wards, are completely visible 24/7 and don't need to be revealed by other Control Wards to be killed. This has essentially boosted Support gold income AND freed up probably about not all but most of the 40% of their budget being used before.

Why did this happen? Well, to be honest, it was because being the Support felt AWFUL. You essentially had your base kit, about 2 cheap items, and then a stockpile of wards. That was you every game. You think Mages and Assassins feel bad? Well the term "Walking Ward" was essentially what Supports were back in the day. This also made Queue times horrid and forced even more players than now to play Support, because no one wanted to. Finding a Support main back then was like finding the Holy Grail.

So we could go back to something like those days, yeah. Could we reduce this without going back those horrid days? Yeah. It's possible and it sounds like Riot is looking into that somewhat with them mentioning changes to bounties and such. However, me personally, I think Support as a role is in an all time good spot. Sure, Tank Supports are a bit more meh in comparison to other Supports most of the time, but most Supports can be picked these days and feel useful.

So, what do I think needs to happen? Well, I think Bottom Lane just needs to be shaken up in general. It's been stale for a long time, with it always being a Marksman + Support/Tank since forever. I think changing this to allow other combos to go Bottom Lane would surely make for a more interesting experience and make people see Bot as more than just a carry and their shield buddy. This might make Assassins and such more viable to roam down and try to interact with them, or not. It might not work. However, I'd say it's the best potential way to possibly make such feel better than just flat out making Supports feel worse by reducing the income they receive.

We probably should make roaming to Top Lane more "worth it", although I know Top mains will stab me for saying it. Top Lane needs still to be less of an island and roaming Top Lane should award the roamer just as much as if they went Bottom Lane, albeit likely in a different way.

TL;DR Supports don't need to have their resource income reduced. We just need to shake up Bottom Lane so it doesn't feel like being unable to go against them is a loss. There SHOULD be power in having 2 champions in a lane and not 1, but currently that power is in the spotlight because being unable to stop that power loses you the game on the spot.

Big Lincoln4/27/2018, 3:43:03 PM1 votes

you forgot that support is allowed to magically pull gold out of their ass

support is OP but i'm sure within a month boards will go back to talking about how baaaaad they have it