Boards›General Discussion

The Ranking System, w/regards to the Support Role

N l T E·10/30/2017, 4:44:16 AM·2 votes·672 views

tl;dr: Maining the support role, in its current state, is at the mercy of a coin flip. Riot has done nothing to help players who main this role. They weight it and measure mmr the same as any other role, despite the possible loss streak coming your way at some point in the near future. Why can't mmr gains/losses be more forgiving (as in smaller gains and losses to your mmr) if your role is mainly support? Alternatively, why can't Riot just put a 3 strikes rule when you're at 0lp? At least then, you don't have to worry about being instantly demoted after one loss at 0lp.

=====

Here I am, working really hard to climb solo, having been playing my ass off since the beginning of Oct. or so, starting the season at gold 3. "Sweet!" I thought, my promos placed me really well, despite being gold 3 last year. It didn't move me at all. I then climb to gold 2 pretty easily, and that's where the reason for this post begins. I spend day after day playing league, not tilting or flaming at teammates at all, save for like 5-7% of all games I've played. On my days off from work, I play throughout the day and only manage to climb one division, finally I get to gold 1. Everything is looking amazing. I get up to about gold 1 40lp or so past all of the troll games I had to deal with. I had about 10-20% of my games where the adc or someone would ragequit or start feeding the enemy team because they didn't want to play the game anymore. I was proud of this accomplishment. I steeled myself past all the trolls, arguing, afking, inting, etc, and was making real progress.

That's when the eventual loss streak happens again. It had happened once before, but I shrugged it off because I wanted to move forward. Unfortunately, this time was different. I lose 4 games in a row from g1 40lp. On the 5th game, I'm worrying a little bit in my head because I'm at 0lp but then I tell myself, "it's no big deal, there's no way I'll be demoted if I lose only one game at 0lp, especially after how many games I've put into climbing where I am now as support." Boom. I was instantly demoted, despite doing fairly well in my games. All that hard work after about 4 weeks of play, gone in a heartbeat. "Seriously?" I thought, as the rage was slowly swelling up. I had remembered why I made the decision to quit league a year ago. The payoff was not worth the time getting there. At this point last year, I realized my hours of studying and practicing was not being rewarded.

Mind you, I am not a terrible player, I play well enough to be plat 3 or 2 at best, nothing more, but you can only enable your team so much. Get them a lead? Most of the time they throw it, that's why I switched to actual meta supports. Playing from behind? Usually it works out for me as I can get the right disengage with Janna, Lulu, Karma, etc and the shields/heals are massive but then we have no one to make picks because no one know how to and I'm saddened because I could if I had the kit for doing so (like Nautilus or Blitz). If you ever say anything even a little remotely on the subject of improvement to anyone, they start flaming you and tilt their ass off instead of trying to clear their head and think rationally. That's why I never say a word other than something along the lines of "play around dragon" or "split and use tp advantage." I have considered the possibility that maybe this isn't the meta for me but that's just simply not true. I love making the enemy team useless, and this meta thrives on that. I stick to 4 champs max, the 4th being Morgana and I rarely play her, just to be sure that I am at my best with them. My last game I played Vel'koz because he's my best pick into anything but it unfortunately didn't end up working out because we couldn't get a decent engagement/counter-engagement. I just couldn't believe that I would be demoted after one loss at 0lp, especially as a support and after all the work I put into getting there.

You guys will probably brush this all off as bullshit, maybe as another whiny player who talks big but plays shit but believe me when I say that this ranking system is absolute trash for any aspiring support main to climb. You have to put so much more time into this game to climb than you do compared to any other role because you lack the gold income and you are there to be an enabler for your team.

Why is it, then, that Riot does not weight the support role? Why do they not scale it to the other roles? Or, off the topic of "weighted/scaled" lp, why do they not just do something like a 3 strikes you're out for demotion when you're at 0lp? I don't understand how this ranking system can be such garbage, especially with regards to support mains. I mean, no one wants to queue as support because of this very reason and, instead of fixing the issue, riot decides to reward players that play support at least once (i think) with "autofill protection." Seriously? What is this bullshit.

=====

I had to vent this somewhere because I'm very frustrated that all my time basically went to waste. It's not like I got cocky and thought I was hot shit and played like shit, I'm quite literally at the mercy of a coin flip when it comes to solo queue as a solo support main. I know I can climb with a duo if I really wanted, but then I have to rely on another person's schedule and another person's consistency. Plus, then I wouldn't be able to say my climb was of my own efforts because people could just easily say I was carried and my arguments would be thrown out the window because that's just how people are. I want to climb solo to give hope to other support players but it's seriously looking really impossible, unless you have days upon days of spare time to spend on this game.

With all of this being said, I am really looking forward to the next season. There is a lot of studying and practicing to be done with the new rune system and it's really exciting. I still believe in myself and getting to plat this season, but I might not even worry about it. We'll see.

Sincerely,

  • A very frustrated support main

4 Comments

MysterQ10/30/2017, 4:46:56 AM1 votes

Gold is kind of higher. But Riot should just get rid of Derank (at least in low ELO). Slow down the gains fine, but deranking is pretty bs/tilting/sad. It doesn't even do anything.

Or have it as an optional thing. I would take no derank (heck no LP loss) with like super reduced gains.Well... idk, but it would be more interesting.

Douglas Funnie10/30/2017, 5:07:24 AM1 votes

Riot already gives players "Promo Helper." There is no need for the 3 strikes at 0LP you're speaking of. For a competitive game, Riot should not hold players hand. You have to earn your rank by playing better than your opponents at a consistent level. If you have a 50% win rate- with a hidden MMR around the current division/tier, you'll be gaining more LP per win and less LP per loss. It's all about grinding and focusing on your own play and gaining experience along the way.

However, If you're hard stuck in a tier, you belong in that tier.

Kats Pajamas10/30/2017, 5:28:08 AM1 votes

the reason support mains have it easy, is you instantly got 4 people out of a role they didn't want.

when autofilled I run support secondary, not because I want support, but because if I get my primary role, that means it filled me a support main more often than not.

the second reason support mains have it easy, is the pressure of their play. for most people, League of Legends games end at 3-4 minutes between kill pressure and farm. the support is the reason it doesn't, you have a calm environment to form a strategy of positioning overall for your team. This is why your (icon) on the map is normally ontop of your teammates, to hide their positioning and control team movement. you basically have no skirmish for farm, if that's a skill you're good at, you shouldn't be support, play adc, and rely on your support and jg to carry your games.

I also notice many support mains don't play jg, while many jg mains consider support secondary. both roles in 85% of games are more support than a carry, so support mains considering a second role in the jungle also would refresh and alleviate a lot of tilt. Live in the real world where autofill forces everyone to know 2-3 roles, and stop basking in the luxury of a primary role. Learning other roles will improve your support, no pro support main hasn't played nearly every champion.

N l T E10/30/2017, 8:30:09 AM1 votes

I figured posting here would be useless as well. Basically everyone telling me to stop being an egotistical moron, when I'm not, and stop blaming the team for not climbing. Whatever. I'm not a prideful idiot to where I can't see my own mistakes and can't improve from them. Like I said in the post, I know I make mistakes, but they are not worthy of an instant demotion. Everyone that posts here probably only reads the tl;dr and doesn't even bother to hear about how the games go. I honestly might as well be lying about my play because that's how unlucky I am with solo queue. It is 100% a coin flip with support because you can only do so much. Why do you think nobody plays it and it's autofilled so often? It's ridiculous to say that support mains can carry just as hard as any other lane. Don't get me wrong, good supports can carry the shit out of a game, but they are also only as good as their team is able to utilize their abilities (shields, getting picks, pressuring the map, etc). I am not saying that it is impossible to climb, it is very possible, but it takes much longer to climb due to the nature of the role. Everyone seems to be missing the main point. This is not some pity post, this is me explaining the current situation with support mains and why people don't ever want to play support in ranked compared to the other roles.