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Support gold gen items, and how they can be improved.

Done25·8/25/2018, 2:33:16 AM·40 votes·46,078 views

Right now, only item 3097 (Targon's Brace) is "worth" fully upgrading to item 3401 (Remnant of the Aspect). The item 1028 (Ruby Crystal) component melds perfectly with the fact that it's an HP item, and the final upgrade further improved the passive aspect by increasing the charges from three to four, increased the last hit thresh hold, and boosting the base heal from 40 to 50.

item 3096 (Nomad's Medallion) and item 3098 (Frostfang) do not share this advantage. Not only do they still need a item 1028 to upgrade, which does nothing for mages or enchanters who will probably want early AP to help them scale, but upgrading from T2 to T3 does nothing to improve their gold generation passives in any way.

Further more, all three items are extremely slot inefficient in what they offer to the holder. Were it not for the wards I would happily sell all three of these items in a heart beat once at max build to make room for a better item. This results in people buying the items because they "must", rather than because they "want" to.

Right now the final upgrades are exactly 100% gold efficient for item 3401 and item 3092 (Remnant of the Watcher) with item 3401 being better after you utilize the healing charges, while item 3069 (Remnant of the Ascended) is a wimpy 86% gold efficient.

But Done25, how do you make these potentially very power items worth having, without them being poached by other lanes? By focusing on what makes them useful to actual real support players.

item 3401 : Leave focus on the healing charges for power. This keeps it weak in the hands of solo laners, but makes sure that actual supports, who are usually with at least one other person, will stay strong.

item 3092 : Push more stats into the mana regen. Almost every intended user of this item, such as Lux, Morgana, Karma, and Lulu, will at some point purchase an Unholy Grail. By putting power into the mana regen you lock this item away from junglers like Eve or mages in mid. Most of whom wont want to build Unholy Grail because they can't use its full effects.

item 3069 : Give this item +Healing. Additionally, I would recommend changing the +move speed on this item line to "Out of combat" type in exchange for increasing the speed. This allows supports like Janna and Soraka to roam and ward, but prevents them from being too slippery in actual fights.

Listed below are examples of what I believe would be a good state for the rebuffed gold gen items. Please take current values with a grain of salt.

item 3401 : item 3097 + item 3067 (Kindlegem). Total cost is 2250 for 600 HP, 10% CDR, and 200% base HP regen. The healing portion of the passive is buffed in some manner.

item 3092 : item 3098 + item 3108 (Fiendish Codex) . Total cost is 2300 for 60 AP, 10% CDR, and 100% base mana regen. (10% CDR on Frostfang would be converted into other stats.)

item 3069 : item 3096 + Forbidden Idol item 3114 . Total cost is 2000 for +40 OoC move speed, +15% heal power, +10% CDR. (HP regen removed from Nomad in favor of the increased OoC move speed and of a lower, more efficient, item cost.)

Additionally, item 3092 and item 3069 should have their gold gen passives increased to make supports feel better about finishing their item early on, rather than skipping out on T3 in exchange for finishing the much more useful Ardent or Unholy Grail first.

item 3092 : Holds up to 4 charges. Charge damage increased to 25. item 3096 : Enemy champion take downs will now result in the drop of either a gold or mana coin as if they were a cannon minion. Coin pick up range is 200 units for T1, 400 units for T2, and 800 units for T3.

Thank you for your time, please leave your feed back below. :)

99 Comments

RiotRiot MapleNectar9/5/2018, 10:50:13 PM21 votes

One of our designers is doing a quick exploration into support items and their quest passive rewards to see if there's a way to kind of spice up the satisfaction and appreciable power loaded into them to make way for a few other gameplay changes we're trying out for preseason. I don't want to get into specifics yet since we haven't actually tested them (we get to tonight for the first time). To be clear, we're not just looking to buff the current passives, but rather replace them with something better. It's also a possibility we don't ship anything for it l, but wanted to let you know we're taking some time to explore.

Support 4 Lyfe8/29/2018, 3:54:18 PM6 votes

Remember when upgrading item 3311 to item 3092 literally gave you less stats and less mana regen for 3 patches straight? Something tells me the balance team doesn't give 2 craps about supports and their items.

Craig8/29/2018, 6:07:31 PM3 votes

Something has got to be done about Remnant of the Watchers. That item has been nothing but a noob trap for autofilled Supports for several patches now.

Elf04918/30/2018, 7:02:57 PM3 votes

I agree that support items could use some changes. I was quite sad to see the old support items go, and in my eyes, the loss of their unique passives/actives made playing support much less engaging and rewarding. Before, if you did well and finished your support item, you were rewarded with extra utility that could make a difference in fights if used well. Now you get...wards. And wards are important, yes, but they can't do anything during fights, and take away some of the active participation you could get from the old items. So let me respond and hopefully add a bit to this discussion.

First, I agree and want to stress several things you already stated. The Ruby Crystal upgrade is silly. It doesn't make sense in terms of play style, and the extra 200 HP is not going to save you if you're a squishy mage enchanter. I also really don't understand the idea behind the gold coin line. Yes, it's cheaper, but why would I build it? If I'm a tanky melee support, I go for brace. If I'm an AP enchanter/mage character, I go for spellthief line. Maybe it's just me, but I can't think of any actual support that would want the coin... When it offered different active/passive effects, it mattered, but now it just doesn't offer anything worth taking.

So, how do we change the items without overpowering them and giving laners the chance to abuse them? I agree with your thoughts for the direction of both brace line and spellhief line. I'm still not sure what to do with the coin line, as it still seems a suboptimal choice compared to the other two. I don't quite agree with the idea of putting heal/shield power on it, but the idea of making it a roaming support item seems to have some potential. The gold generation to complete quests is still locked behind the 'needs a nearby ally,' or 'csing turns this off' mechanics, which would keep it out of the hands of single laners.

Personally, I would like to see added actives (beyond warding) make a comeback, instead of only pumping up the stats on the items. This could be based on an enchantment system, where you can swap any enchantment into any support item, allowing for more adaptability and options, or by once again being tied to the quest system; maybe after finishing the income quest to get wards, it starts another quest that grants you additional benefits of some kind. This would make the items feel unique, would reward players for selecting the right tools for the job, but would also allow the items to actually build up to something in the mid-late game without making them overpowered early on. This would also provide an incentive to complete support items to start working on the other quest/enchantment that adds more tactical power.

RedCyclone9/7/2018, 1:16:08 AM3 votes

I must know if you could consider returning the movement speed on spell hit to the Frostfang line?

I miss it so much, there is so much MS in the game from AD items and mage supports are prone to getting the fight turned on them (usually ded in 1 sec) Would love to have it or some iteration of it

Oleandervine8/29/2018, 4:18:45 PM2 votes

The #1 improvement to these items is locking them to the Support Role. That is 100% the only way these items can be balanced to be effective and efficient for the role they are intended for, and 100% the only way they can be crafted to avoid abuse cases. Until that happens, they will always be a problem for other lanes and always suffer.

Inkling Commando8/27/2018, 12:35:45 AM2 votes

one thing that should be improved is the gold gen per second. no matter what lvl it is always 2 gold per 10 sec. i am thinking it should go like this:

lvl 1: 2 gold per 10 sec lvl 2: 3 gold per 10 sec lvl 3: 5 gold per 10 sec

and when at full mana minion kills always drop gold coins. (you have no idea how annoying it is to be at full mana and a mana coin drops and is probably wasted).

Wolfalisk3188/28/2018, 3:32:59 AM1 votes

I personally don't like the fact that item 3098 is essentially a high-risk all-in item where you can complete it insanely quickly, but if your lane is even or you're losing lane, it's not getting completed until >20 minutes.

The mediocrity of the item's stats doesn't align well with the fact that unless you crush your lane, your team doesn't have vision for 22 minutes.

The item needs to be more reliable or it needs to be substantially stronger. One or the other.

Risk of Fate8/27/2018, 3:51:40 AM1 votes

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