Riot wants to make supports fun and desirable to play...

Before I start, this is not a flame riot post or complain about support + adc being unstoppable. I'm just giving my thought( Long thought) on the matter

Now to start, I can say I have played a decent amount of support recently, usually with friends (if I'm solo I typically go for a carry role). I find the role very fun majority of the time, but part of that is because I'm premade. I know I'm silver garbage, I'm still going to voice out my opinions on itemization and also talk about their impact on adcs.

People have been talking about the "Adc meta" recently, and I can agree that some of them may be strong, kit wise or because of items. I can say that support do contribute to the issue with items like , and . I don't think its the items or mechanics themselves, but the big bulky mass that is created when you combine them all together. You get deaths dance damage delay stacking with the phantom dancer and knight's vow reductions, and or combined with the healing from lifesteal and ardent. This leads to matches being unsatisfying because the enemy adc can out heal any damage dealt to them in a few attacks. This doesn't count for the healing from the support's kit or from Athene's if purchased, or with any other attack speed bonuses given to them. I feel like the game gets stale, even when I have the lead, because all I do is stack buffs on my adc and I might as well do nothing afterward, because all they really need is the passive bonuses I provide and nothing else. This also leads to overall boring fights because it consists of no flashy plays or remote decision making, just going head in and seeing if you can heal your way through it. To make support better, and make the overall experience of bot lane, leading to the rest of the game, more enjoyable, I think that we should get rid of these raw, passive stats on support itemization and replace it with other effects.

Items like and are very good items for supports to have because they are interactive and feel powerful and fun to use aesthetically and visually. Redemption can make for flashy plays or counterplays like someone displacing the enemy team away from the aoe and using it against them, or stopping recalls with it while your trynd passively splits inhibs on top lane like he's been doing all game. The new Zekes just FEELS powerful to use, especially since it only procs while using your strongest ability. The nice visuals and even buff icon make playing support more appealing to play. This is what I think riot should build upon and continue doing. Black Market Brawlers gave pretty cool new items for all classes to enjoy, even if the mage ones were a bit overpowered. These items brought new ways to play your champion and weren't impossible to play against. Look at Martyr's gambit, or what I like to call a healthier knights vow. It was an ACTIVE and not a passive tether, so there were ways to play around it: Smack their adc with a stun while the duration drains or shove them away from the fight. There was the puppet item that let you string enemy champs with basic attacks and use the active to pull them to you. Pretty satisfying to use items that still provide healthy gameplay and require you to think more than simply binding to an ally. Imagine how much better players would feel about "tank" adcs if they knew the reductions didn't last forever? If it was a 1.5-3 sec duration with vastly more damage reduce on vow. Although a newer item, I think vow could undergo some changes. An active version would still make the item fits its role of letting front lines and tanks do something to help out their carries without making it a dread for others to deal with. Staff of flowing water was a pretty niche roaming item, but it gave you the option to roam to other lanes through the river while getting mana back. When you see someone with a staff you can know to ward your river brushes too, so its not like you have someone speeding to your lane with nothing you can do about it. If you ask me about murksphere, I like it, but it would turn into a is coin or sphere better situation if put in normal rift.

While on the topic of being interactive, you might be thinking about . Locket has been nerfed, but also buffed in some cases due to other classes taking the item just for more team fight. I've thought about multiple ways to make locket stay in it's class while also keeping it relevant. Keep in mind that these do not ALL have to be implemented, I'm just spitting out ideas.

1. Make Locket have a delay. A visible delay. Something like how taric ult has the very clear timer on when it will start. This might not fix a karma getting locket to stack it with R + shield, but it certainly wouldn't give you a jump scare when the entire enemy team suddenly blocks off your team's burst.
2. Disable heal/shield power on locket's shield. I don't know if this has been done, but I feel like this would seal the deal in between choosing which one you want to take(Redem or Locket) . If you're tanky and going in for the team, you'd want locket. If you have a lot of shield amps you'd want to take redmeption instead.
3. Make it require taking damage first. This wasn't the best idea, but I feel like it wouldn't play out awfully. Enchanters tend to take little to no damage if they sit back and plop buffs on adcs like they do at the moment. They wouldn't be able to activate the shield unless they took hits first, which would disrupt the way they played. Maybe something like a lower threshold type counter to make it so only people who are front line could make use. This also allows the enemy team to be able to do something before you throw out the mitigation for your team.

is the signature item for an enchanter. It gives your carry combat stats after you give them amplified shields or healing. It scales well and gives a flat number of healing which sounds balanced on paper, but when put into practice it becomes problematic with fast attackers or people with already strong self sustain. This is one of the reasons YI + Kayle is pretty hard to play against; the carry invests in nothing to have permanently significant healing and attack speed increase while near their support. Ardent has a pretty funky visual indicator that's overall decent (No SFX or very intriguing VFX), and it could probably use an update like targon items received. This item gets abused for the pure advantage it gives and it can be even stronger with AoE healing, shielding. It makes the auto attacks of anyone heal and hurt somewhat, even though the damage isn't that bad when on a mage or tank. I think that the healing and attack speed should be removed from ardent, and replaced with a new effect that still fits the niche of making a heal or shield more than slightly stronger. There's also an opportunity to give it more of a censer thematic with play style and visuals. My idea: Healing or shielding an ally imbues them, making their next SPELL CAST apply ardent aroma to the first target hit. (Give it a brief cooldown so it cant be spammed or used on multiple targets with multitarget heals/shields) Ardent Aroma: Enemies that damage this target gain 30 movespeed and heal for 45 health. Make it 1 time for each ally or make it so only 1 ally can proc it period and increase the heals. The only thing I wouldn't like about all allies This looks weird, but I think it will influence decision making more than the normal ardent does. It still gives your allies sustain, but switches out flat dps for mobility. The spell cast will make a fight change from buff buff buff > attack attack attack to buff buff buff > adc casts a spell > does it hit? > auto for reward. If you play right you get rewarded, and if you don't you can be punished. If the new bonus is underwhelming, make the ally heal for a small portion of the hit's damage instead of a flat number. It won't be constant healing so % value may be acceptable.

is a very great item, but it seems to be less appealing for some reasons. To start, harmony is an awful passive. Even for a defensive build, harmony doesn't satisfy anyone who builds it. You get a tad bit of hp regen even though you can just heal yourself, and you probably stay back-line in fights if you have this so you don't take damage anyway. Harmony could be changed to something else. The VFX of the item is kinda bleh. It could be changed so that if you manage to free your ally, everyone will know you did and in return you'll feel more rewarded for it. Also give a counter to the amount of hard cc and normal cc you've disrupted. I want to hear what others think about changing the slow immunity to large amount of tenacity, making it so you can still get cc'd after being cleansed, but you take it for significantly less time if you do. Athene's is taken more because of the powerful ap bonus it gives, and the passive heal bonus can be used a lot more. Maybe lower the cooldown on crucible when you successfully cleanse an ally of HARD cc? All cc?. I think the clarity and harmony are the main downsides to this item though.

... This is an item that has been untouched for ages. Riot talked about removing it possibly, even though this doesn't has to be the outcome. Ohmwrecker should completely be taken away from turret interaction because buffing/debuffing turrets is hard to balance. My take on ohmwrecker would be giving it a thundery feeling for vanguards or front liners. Change the build to hp and cdr, giving it no resistances. I think this will be good because it forces a choice from the person building. Do I need tank stats, or can I drop a little resistance for a good bonus for my team. My fantasy of ohmwrecker is having it be a thunder gauntlet. (Make room iceborn!) Passive: Enemies who stay close to you for 2 seconds get marked with static for seconds (being near them refreshes static duration). When an ally damages a target with static, the target is marked with ohm wrecker. You can't apply static while invisible (brush doesn't count, only ability invis like shaco) Active: Your next basic attack steals 10% of your target's armor and mr (you gain this amount.) Hitting a ohm wrecked target will double the steal and ground the target for 1.5 seconds. This item makes being front line more valuable. You cant manipulate the item like locket has been, because you have to be near the enemy. This doesn't add another stun to your kit to cc lock targets, but instead simply grounds them. This adds thought to which target you want to hit, and also if you want to wait it out or use it immediately. This doesn't directly increase your hits damage either, to prevent abuse on other lanes. If the ally attacking part isn't needed, it can only require static to amplify the hit. Iteration 2: Passive: hard cc on an enemy marks them with ohm wrecker. Active: Dash to a wrecked enemy within 300 units. Upon reaching the target, visual effect in an aoe. Gain flat resistance for each nearby enemy champion. This is a more free ohm wrecker. Very little limitation and very good utility. This can be used on more than supports and vanguards though which could cause problems, althought it adds 0 damage to your kit and only gives a gap closer or follow up to escaping enemies.

Opinions on is that they're pretty niche. You build them if you dont need RSS cdr and/or the active from FQC, ToA, or FoTM. Not always a bad thing though.

One thing players have been asking for is a name for the heal power stat. A lethality for supports. Grace, spirit, faith, whatever the name may be, would make support feel more solid even if by a little. Personally, the stat display is outdated to me and could use an update, especially with spell vamp being on there even though there's little ways to make the number change ( and don't count as spell vamp so it stays at 0%).

I would like to hear from other players about what they think and how the feel about supports. Do you guys feel pleased or rewarded for being good at support? Does getting a bland cleanse effect for a greatly timed cc not matchup with the huge pentakill splash text at the top of the screen when your adc right clicks everyone to death?