Boards›Live Gameplay Balance

Dream patch notes from a 4 year Support main.

Cameryn Kyre·11/23/2013, 3:01:36 PM·16 votes·1,831 views

I've mained support since before it was meta, literally. So far back I was getting yelled at if I DIDN'T farm. So I like the new gold... but we all know Relic shield borked it all up... There is no reason for bot lane to start anything other than Relic shield on both ADC and Support. This combination generates 120 gold per minute while offering great sustain and durability. Even if it's just the support going this route, the base HP and Regen alone are better lane pressure stats than the others offer and gold generated is double or more than the others can even hope to generate while giving your ally extra sustain and gold as well. It's blatantly OP and I'm already bored of having only one realistic purchase to make at the start of every game.

Disclaimer: Targon's Brace is balanced, just the shield is OP.

And I want to make sure Riot fixes this the right way... Relic Shield is a good concept and just bludgeoning it with the nerf bat doesn't do anyone any favors.

Here's what I would want to do to fix this:

Concept: Retool all the gold items to keep them all on relatively equal in terms of realistic gold generation with the rest of the item being a strategic or playstyle choice or simple champion synergy and tying it in with your ideal 3rd tier gold item.

Amulet Coin:

Stats changed to 6 hp/5 and 4 mp/5

Gold changed to 1 gold/10 & Favor: awards 2 gold whenever a nearby enemy minion dies.

Result: While laning, the item now has an effective 30 gold per minute, the same as Philosopher stone gave.

Fantastic for a passive ranged support looking to build into a Talisman late game.

Spelltheif's Edge:

Stats changed to 10 AP and 5 mp/5

Gold changed to 3 gold/10 & Pickpocket: awards 3 gold whenever you hit an enemy champion with a basic attack. This effect cannot occur more than twice every 10 seconds (similar to charging a Tear). Disabled for 20 seconds after killing a lane minion.

Result: This item now grants ambient gold of 18 per minute and you can realistically expect to get an extra 12 gold per minute taking calculated risks and they present themselves, up to 36 extra gold if you take every risk (has already been proven completely unrealistic by pickpocket mastery in S3). Realistically you'll get about 30 gold per minute, same as the coin.

Better fit for an aggressive AP support looking to build into some damage.

Relic Shield:

Stats changed to: +50 HP and +5 hp/5

Gold Changed to: Spoils of War grants kill gold + 5 to nearest ally. Max 2 charges. ***Generates a charge every 40 seconds & Cannot be use on Canon minions.

*Targon's Brace not changed at all

Result: Assuming you keep on top of your charges and almost exclusively use it on melee creeps, you get 30 gold per minute worth of farm and your ally gets 40 gold per minute through spoils of war. This item effectively generates 40 gold per minute. Higher than you can get from the Coin, and likely higher than what Spell Thief's Edge will do. But it no longer completely outclasses them.

Targon's Brace remains the same. Same HP, Hp/5, charges work on canon minions and generate every 30s. All retained. So using each charge effectively and focusing on canon creeps, you generate 75 gold per minute for your ally and you get 55 gold per minute worth of farm.

To compliment this, Nomad's Medallion gets buffed to 3 gold/10. While near minions it would work out to be 66 gold per minute.

Also, Frostfang would get buffed to 5 gold/10 and the new pickpocket design I laid out gets increased from 3 gold to 6 gold per hit or spell damage, no more than twice per 10 seconds. This would work out to 30 + 0-72 gold per minute (as stated before fully utilizing the potential of pickpocket is completely unrealistic, something like 24-36 extra per minute is to be expected) So roughly 54-66 gold per minute.

Also, I'd change Frost Queen's Claim to do damage based on how much gold has been pickpocket'd. Something like .35 x Gold earned from harass. Extra 300 taken from poking? 105 damage! Yaaay... I guess.

Proceeding Meta:

All gold items generate in the ballpark of 65~75 gold per minute, the most passive route offers the least, the tanky route offers more than the passive route, the aggressive risk/reward could either wind up worse than the passive or better than the tanky route depending on risks taken. As far as I see it, that's how it should actually be.

No gold item clearly outshines the others anymore. Relic shield currently yields litterally double the gold the other two can realistically expect while offering the best stats for lane pressure and offering their ally sustain (and more gold...). This re-aligns them so they each provide comparable gold through different means and specifically work with the play styles and champions they were designed to. And provided Frost Queen's Claim gets some other sort of buff... (maybe buffed to 60 AP or adding an AP scaling to the active) Each 3rd tier gold item will also have it's time to shine.

I don't really mind if the ADC wants to join in and go Relic Shield as well. Though it would still be a bit problematic. The added change of "cannot grant gold to an ally with a Relic Shield" stops that dead in its tracks... I won't lie, I've enjoyed the hell out of abusing the absurd gold generation there... but for the good of the game... Double Relic Shield NEEDS TO STOP.

Discuss?

~Cam

36 Comments

gaugea11/23/2013, 6:14:58 PM6 votes

I guess I am the only one here that is going to comment about the post. Okay.

OT, I think that these are great changes. The new gold generation is a little too heavy for supports, as you said so clearly.

Riot, please read this post. And implement while you're at it.

item 3302

PodunkTheMighty11/23/2013, 3:10:17 PM4 votes

Relic shield is that special kind of silliness that it is hard to see how it got onto the PBE, let alone a real live patch.

bahamutkaiser11/24/2013, 3:37:13 AM4 votes

I barely play supports and use GP, but as common sense would dictate, the item where you just stay nearby should grant the least gold, the one that requires you to last hit minions... easily, should grant more, and the one that requires you to harass and kill champions should potentially grant the most, by a fair margin.

I will point out that the lower gold on ancient coin vs P.stone is accompanied by the fact that it's new upgrade keeps the GP... so it's slower gold, but doesn't hinder your build completion and keeps the benefit.

Babeish11/23/2013, 7:25:52 PM4 votes

[deleted]

Narmada11/23/2013, 9:51:01 PM4 votes

I think these are the kind of changes we need. Glad that someone did the math and made reasonable suggestions. For what it's worth riot, I wholeheartedly endorse this proposal.

Sorry that we have such dumb, toxic people on these forums :(

vasheenomed11/24/2013, 1:33:32 PM3 votes

people will min max these items... one will ALWAYS be better than the others as long as they all have the same goals.... these items need clear niches. I think it should be done around farm/kill/poke lanes

ancient coin- lowest gp5, highest stats... this item gains slight gold on kills/assists for clarity of what it should do... it becomes the KILL LANE item... passively waiting for the right moment and then allining when you are at a positional advantage

spelltheif blade-medium gp5 and stats.... this item should build stacks so that you can go in WHEN YOU WANT instead of trying to maximize gold.. and it should be activated by any damage to a champion, not just aa's.... this item becomes the poke lane support item

targon's - this item should give high gold and low stats... it should primarily be best for SCALING to late game but make you more vulnerable and weaker early game while you are scaling up....

giving clear niches like this will mean you will get different support items to complement different lanes..

PEOPLE PICK A POKE CHAMPION BECAUSE THEY ENJOY THE PLAYSTYLE... so why not make support items that complement that playstyle instead of giving them options to do different playstyles..... overall these items can only be balanced when they do DIFFERENT THINGS

Terricus11/23/2013, 9:54:02 PM3 votes

While I totally agree that the gold rewards need to be balanced with the other items, giving team compositions greater flexibility in how they lane is an extremely good thing. Having every game REQUIRE a no-gold champ and an all-gold champ sharing a lane is predictable and boring. As such, I hope double relic is here to stay in some fashion.

Jonheder11/23/2013, 8:32:07 PM2 votes

It's kind of hard to last hit minions even with 200hp execute against your level 6 ADC. I hate the item, it requires too much team micromanagement of farming, and you can't last hit a cannon minion against a piltover blasting it down. Troll ADCs don't need to work with you at all, creating more team discord. I don't like items like this or items which make you steal gold by attacking enemy champions because it puts focus on doing things that can get you killed and doesn't work in low level play. Also, high level players don't need this to enjoy the game because it's not challenging.

Colonel J11/23/2013, 3:04:52 PM2 votes

What's it like being useless for 4 years?

Rito Ulfanos11/24/2013, 8:15:46 PM1 votes

Power to the support !! Finaly... after two year's we can finaly buy items :)

hellaveinion11/24/2013, 5:58:08 AM1 votes

its like empty? where is the reading text

TaintedTaint11/24/2013, 7:38:18 PM1 votes

I think a good way to limit the double relic lane would be to where if multiple players nearby have the item, it will consume a charge for every player that has it. EXAMPLE: adc and support have the item, they COLLECTIVELY start with 2 charges, and if either champ uses a charge to give gold to the other, it consumes both players first charge.

HBCciuogCI11/23/2013, 3:02:43 PM1 votes

[deleted]