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Lack of decent Itemization for 'Enchanter' Supports

Casri·3/22/2016, 10:40:39 PM·5 votes·2,224 views

Discussing specifically: (NOT tank/mage supps).

Most items which should be attractive to these champions are too niche right now, or provide very little in the way of useful stats:

- Pretty useless since the start of S6 due to how easily ADCs can acquire crit. Occasionally useful with .

- Lack of synergy with caster ADCs who are popular right now. Even with an auto-attacker adc, the poor stats are hard to justify unless you have a Yi or something. Very niche (except for new Soraka who abuses it hard with her new heal-over-time which refreshes the buff each tick).

- Terrible stats (no AP = no utility/heal/shield scaling) and the active has a 3 minute cooldown. Only worth buying vs etc.

/ - Both are fine, but both items are frequently purchased outside of the support role. Also: there is no comparable item to deal with the overabundance of physical damage in the game right now.

- No problems with these items. They are all at least decent and have a place in any build. EotW is great in an AP-heavy build.

^ One merit of all these items is their cheap price, allowing supports to reach full build sooner than their team. The downside is that the gold value of items like Censer/Harbinger plummets as the enemy team purchases much stronger items.

It's often better to build EotW/FQC --> Banner --> AP items on Sona/Janna/Lulu. Their AP and utility scaling inevitably provides more utility than 'actual' support items can, other than in specific circumstances . Unfortunately not all Enchanter Supports have good AP/utility scaling to make this build work(like Bard/Nami).

Of course, you have the option of building some tanky items like but in general it's very inefficient to amass a lot of tank stats on inherently squishy champions. Besides, CDR over-capping is a problem with IBG/FH in support builds.

Thoughts?

8 Comments

Dominick Destine3/22/2016, 11:16:02 PM2 votes

I tend to agree. Buff item 3504 and item 3222 .

How the @#*$&% does it make sense that item 3222 has 180 sec cooldown and item 3140 has 90 sec cooldown. doesn't even remove ignite/suppress/etc.... wtf.

EcchiOtakuTM3/22/2016, 10:44:10 PM1 votes

Utility supports could use items that mimic support passives/abilities that would greatly help especially if it's not an on-demand activatable(Utility supports have too much dam activatables)

Something that mimics leona's passive where when a spell lands your allies can proc it for more damage (Flat scaling per level no ap/ad/hp or etc. ratio)

or one that works like zeke harbringer where you bind to an ally and at max charges when an enemy is in range of them it does a janna gust (mini-ver).

Or some more support based abilties/passives.

Riot MUST make them only activate with allies though because we don't want laners abusing them, and hopefully riot can make all of them non- on-demand activates cause supports have too much activatables as it is.

Fashion Mage3/22/2016, 11:07:49 PM1 votes

I'd really like a high AP support item. Kind of like a support Deathcap.

Elindiir3/22/2016, 11:14:56 PM1 votes

The problem with support items is that stat items provide more benefit than utility actives and support passives. With the actives, it takes more micro-managing than people like to give another person a minor to moderate buff... It is easier to concentrate on using your own abilities to protect. Funny thing about support items (other than the income items) is that there is only a need for them on carry supports that have only a single CC. Most ACTUAL supports have so much to benefit allies that it feels unnecessary to buy utility, as a lot of the utility in a support's kit scales off of stats.

item 3504 : Limited usefulness to champions that run Windspeaker's

item 3050 : Is your ADC Kalista ? If not, it depends on lots of other factors... If so, its a must-have as it completely changes Kalista's build path and Kalista has no motivation to be away from her support. With this, Kalista doesn't have to invest as much in crit chance if she needs to build other things. HOWEVER, nowadays, crit chance is so easy to get that 3 items can get you to 100% and there are very few useful attack speed items that DON'T add crit chance.

67chrome3/22/2016, 11:15:22 PM1 votes

Of course, you have the option of building some tanky items like but in general it's very inefficient to amass a lot of tank stats on inherently squishy champions.

It's not that inefficient.

Also worth pointing out "inherently squishy" isn't that accurate when dealing with such supports.

Firslty: base stats, while they are lower with "enchanter" supports than most champions, are still by and large so similar between champions that, for the purposes of mental math, you're pretty safe assuming base stats are simply identical between all champions and that their entire kit, strengths, and weaknesses are more a result of their abilities specifically and what itemization path the scaling of those abilities push.

Sona does have better level 18 HP and armor than Shen .

With defenses from a kit: it's also worth noting HP shields technically scale with your own armor/MR, where 50% damage reduction makes 100 shield HP effectively 200 shield HP. A heal that restores 100 HP also effectively becomes a 200 HP heal with 50% damage reduction from armor/MR, and having the durability to last long enough to get a 2nd cast of that 2 second stun means you're bringing 4 seconds of stun-time in a fight rather than 2. HP shields and heals also are inherent tankyness.

On that note: it's also worth mentioning that AP really is set up to scale more with a carry build involving the exponential scaling generated by these items: item 3089 item 3100 item 3135 Generally speaking: you need ~450 AP to double the effects of any particular QWE spell from it's bases: and with supports, that's just not practical to pursue. Rather, it's significantly less practical than simply pursuing defenses and being, for all intents and purposes, a CC bot tank that happens to be ranged. It's much easier to double your defense then double you're pressure from AP: and with CDR being pretty plentiful in defense, it's arguably more efficient in several circumstances to just itemize to live long enough to cast all your skills twice.

Finally: it's worth considering that a huge threat to enchanter supports is assassins, as being insta-gibbed by an assassin can allow an enemy assassin to pick up kills, use their solid 1v1 and pick-potential to force 5v4 fights, and ultimately have such a great time picking on a squishy support that the risk involved with being a tissue-paper support through roaming, warding, supporting, peeling, and having any presence is so massive you should either rely on a tanky support, or simply build tanky as any support. With tanky items like Frozen Heart, Randuin's Omen, Zz'Rot Portal, and Locket of the Iron Solari: you still get a ton of utility from the items despite going pure-tank anyways, so it's not like you're skimping on utility-heavy support duties.

TLDR: supports scale pretty well with defense.