I wonder when Riot will understand, SUPPORT ISN'T A BACK UP MID

Don't take this personally but I could not disagree with you more.

First off let me ask you this: Why do you call AP items offensive items? Void staff is offensive, I'll give you that, but that's because pen is just messed up. All AP items do is scale something. It does not have to be an offensive scaling. That being said, it's fine if supports scale offensively. I think offensive damage scalings should not be on supports.

What I really don't understand is why people would rather be buying traditional support items over scaling items. It doesn't make you stronger by enhancing your kit. It makes you stronger by giving you an ability that anyone could have. It strips uniqueness away from supports. It's the difference between saying "I can't wait to get money on Nami to make my heals huge" and "I can't wait to get money on Nami to buy an item that has nothing to do with my kit." I find nothing appealing about the latter, and I'm glad Morello shares my opinion. To be clear, buying AP items on supports does not make you selfish. You're scaling your ability to support. I would rather have a different stat than AP be used for utility scaling though. It would mean you get to balance items that supports and mages will be using separately.

I'll give you this: You're right that supports shouldn't need 3 huge items just to break even with where they were before the changes. But keep in mind that supports had huge base utility because they were expected to have no gold. Their base utility had to suffice. I think what you really don't like is that with a generic pickup of sightstone + gold gen item you're not getting anything out of your utility scalings. You pretty much have to get these items though. That's the massive disadvantage of trying to fix the gold issue with items. Supports are absolutely forced to get those items, which means they can't take advantage of their utility scalings.

To backtrack, I said that supports were given huge base utility because they were expected to not get gold. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked support changes came through. Actually that's not true. Leona (for the most part), Thresh, and Annie didn't change. Their utility still does not scale. Their abilities have the same base effect that they always had, which were purposely made strong to work without gold. Now they have gold and strong bases. That is why I suggested nerfing their bases and adding a scaling. You say the issue is that scalings in their own right are bad, but that's wrong. It's that depending on scalings is bad when your opponent does not depend on scalings. If you want to call something power creep it would be the state of support bases prior to the changes. Supports became less and less farm dependent until you ended up with supports like Thresh and Leona whose utility has no change regardless of whether they have 0 AP or 1000 AP. Now look who's consistently strong: the two supports who were given that huge base power, none of which was replaced with scalings. Until you get rid of that power creep then supports who depend on scalings will have a harder time.

You don't say BT is utility because it gives lifesteal, so why should Rylai's be utility because it grants a slow?

The item itself is not utility, it's what the item is used for. Though I would say that Rylai's has utility even if it isn't designed specifically for utility. Imagine if there was a support with a slow that scales hard with AD (and for the sake of argument AD doesn't contribute to this champion's AA). For that champion a Bloodthirster certainly would contribute to the champion's utility. My point is that it's how the champion uses the stat that determines what the stat is classified as.

As another example that's probably a lot cleaner that an AD scaling support... look at CDR. Let's say Ziggs gets CDR capped. He's going to be tossing out a ton of Qs for a ton of damage. In this case it's clearly a damage scaling. Now let's say Nami gets CDR capped. She's going to be tossing out a ton of Ws for a ton of healing. Now it's a utility scaling. Again, my point is that it depends on how your abilities scale that determine what the stat is for.

If all supports start picking up Rylai's, DFG, and Deathcap, wouldn't that be just as non-unique as everyone building SS, Ascension, Crucible?

I'm not annoyed about active items because they're cookie cutter. I do think cookie cutter builds are an issue, but a separate issue. I have two problems with support items; One problem is with actives and the other is specifically with the gold items.

My problem with actives I think I've said pretty clearly, but I could clarify it a little more. I understand this is opinion. It's more that I hate any active item rather than hating a cookie cutter build of active items. Cookie cutter builds are annoying because there's a dominant strategy in terms of build path. That's true of any cookie cutter build, active items or not. Active items have the addition problem of that each individual active takes away from the champion's identity. It takes away from my choice of champion if I know I will always be able to buy an item to remove CC, even if my champion was a minion.

I don't mind the fact that I'm "required" to get a sightstone. You really aren't required to get a gold generation item, I've done numerous games where I don't and can still keep up in gold by being smart about my activities and helping to make plays with my other purchases. You don't need to abuse AP items to be a useful support. I will always believe that a support that is providing solid vision for their team and working to deny enemy vision is drastically more helpful and impactful in a game then a "support" that is blatantly ignoring vision responsibilities to build AP trying to carry.

My problem with gold items is because gold items were an incomplete solution to lack of gold. Sure you can manage without a gold gen item, but you're not going to have the same gold as another teammate that doesn't need to go out of their way to have gold.

And I'm not at all debating that a ward bitch isn't impactful. It's that being a ward bitch, albeit less of a ward bitch than in S3, is playing a totally different game. Again, you're not being valued for your kit. You're being valued because you can buy an effect (vision) that everybody has access to. This problem is very intertwined with the vision system being implemented through (consumable) wards. Ideally I would like to see a vision system that cannot be optimized so that one player carries the majority of the burden. That way I could participate in vision "responsibilities" to the same degree as everyone else and build items that have synergy with my kit.

...that should matter. Currently it still does, but constantly shifting everything to scaling will gradually reduce that relevance, ...

This isn't a problem with scaling existing. This is a problem with being able to obtain scaling even if you're shut down.

Try looking at this as an analogy to Renekton and Mundo. Renekton's generally known for having a strong early game, but he falls of lategame. Mundo is the opposite. You can still differentiate between an early game and late game support. Look at Soraka; she's strong late game. Compare a Janna whose shield AD scales starts low and scales to be huge vs a Janna where it starts decently but doesn't scale well. The former would be valued if you manage to get to the lategame, and the latter would be valued early game.

The difficulty in doing this arises when CC is thrown into the mix. CC puts you out of position, which even for a split second can mean your death in LoL. CC never really "falls off," so there's really not much different between an early game CCer and late game CCer. Actually I'd say the scaling CC is worse because "early game" CC gets the job done and "late game" CC is overkill with a bad early game. It's like comparing a Blitz hook into 5 people to a Blitz hook and Morg snare into 5 people. Either way the person that got hooked is probably dead, so why bother with the snare?

The last thing I want to say is about LB "support." I would call that a support only very loosely. I'd more just call that a duo lane with a mage with some utility. If a Nami went into a solo lane I'd still call her a support. She's just a richer support with nobody to support.