Support Changes

PootLoops·Jul 21, 2014·3 votes·924 views

Recently, supports such as and have been top bans in ranked and competitive play, along with , but that's a separate matter. Even though is banned in about 90% of games, these support bans are higher in frequency than I remembered in past seasons. My question revolves around toning up other supports so that they can be on the same level as these champions. It isn't that Morgana is an amazing ban option, but the fact that she simply dominates compared to almost all other supports.

With regards to Lulu, is there any sign of her kit being tuned to have her resume her role as support? She is such a strong champion that many deem her a waste to be played in the role of support, and I think it might be nice to lower her damage output while increasing the utility of her kit by a small amount to compensate and not ruin her as a champion.

In solo queue, it isn't ALWAYS the easiest to play certain supports like Soraka and Janna that heavily rely on the ADCs skill in to transition well out of lane phase. I have no real suggestion on how to fix this, but I feel this is a big reason why the current support meta is the way it is. I don't believe that any of the supports are unbalanced champions, but there are some champions that are just way stronger than other champions in the roll of support; just want to know where support balancing is in the priority of balances/changes. Thanks :)

3 Comments

RoguestoneyJul 21, 20141 votes

I pick Ali!

PRNJul 22, 20141 votes

Braum and Morgana are banned because of their kits. I don't think there are any buffs you can give to other supports to put them on the same level. Simply put, other supports ARE on the same level, it's just that depending on your MMR, people don't trust bot lane to not lose to those two. They are also strong teamfighters in that Braum has a stun as a passive and Morgana can shield her ADC to ensure survivability. Unless you want to give a Braum passive and a Morgana shield to every other support champion, then imho there are no changes needed. They're flavours of the month for now, only Braum is a new champion and Morgana had always been a top ban in the earliest seasons of League. She was just simply forgotten along the way because of buffs to other mid-lane champions, which pushed her to a favoured support role.

OrinneJul 22, 20141 votes

Problem is, supports aren't on the same level, and their tiny subtle differences aren't enough to ever create a situation where Braum will get outperformed by most other tanky support. You can't call it a "flavor of the month" when the only way that flavor changes is through balance changes and when the champion itself literally stomps out nearly every other option that isn't Thresh and maybe Leona. Let me elaborate by comparing Braum to what I consider are the two most outdated tanky supports atm.

What does Alistar bring that Braum doesn't? The only thing somewhat significant is an AoE heal, but it's so tiny and fast teamfights are so prevalent that it's not useful at all today. Sure, Alistar can get his entire AoE CC combo off in two spells that mesh into one another, but why does this matter when Braum does something similar while having other elements, like an Armor/MR steroid, a projectile blocker, etc.?

Taric's a similar case. He has meaningful tools to differentiate himself, a heal and an aura, but he's not used anyways. Is it because he's "out of flavor" at the moment and resting dormant for the time being, or is it because Braum's utility, on top of his stun, just outclasses the rest of Taric's kit, creating an imbalance where Braum's niche is always better than Taric's niche?

Even among ranged supports, you get discrepancies like Lulu vs Janna. Lulu does everything Janna does, with extra utility thrown in. Janna's only saving grace is that she can disengage slightly better with her ultimate, but outside of being a "safe pick", there really isn't any reason to pick her over Lulu.

If older, unused supports need to have Braum passives/Morgana shields added to their kits, aka, unique, meaningful abilities that give them their own niche and unique reasons to pick them over another support, that is absolutely unreplaceable on any other support, then yes, that needs to be done.