Doesn't it seem weird to people that Summoner's Rift is designed for 5v5 matches, but only really supplies 4 optimal gold resources?
Top lane, mid lane, bottom lane, and the jungle.
And the support is just supposed to make due with an income item, Bandit, passive gold generation, and cheap items.
Feelsbadman
A Bad Mystic1 votesdoes anyone even use the gold gen runes anymore? Do you remember when those were actually necessary to survive as a support while buying wards and such? Now youre not forced to take substandard runes to have meh gold income.
Elite4Runner1 votes[{quoted}](name=A Bad Mystic,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=MQy9Lzfh,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2016-09-29T08:23:27.603+0000)
does anyone even use the gold gen runes anymore? Do you remember when those were actually necessary to survive as a support while buying wards and such? Now youre not forced to take substandard runes to have meh gold income.
You make a good point. I actually don't think people really do. If I remember right you can only end up getting something like +5.25 gold per 5 seconds from a full set of Seals and Quints, which is certainly not bad, but those then can't be used for anything else.
However, I did hear some rumors about Riot planning on reworking their rune system, so maybe they will focus more on the importance of these.
The potential downside I see to that would be if they do it in a way that non-supports are able to utilize them as well.
For this reason, I almost feel like they would have been better as Marks, but we will just have to see what Riot does. .... or if they do anything.
FloRaider421 votesIf there were more gold sources (more camps or more lanes) then marksmen and supports wouldn't really exist in that form.
Elite4Runner1 votesIf there were more gold sources (more camps or more lanes) then marksmen and supports wouldn't really exist in that form.
No doubt! and I'm not saying that I want that, I'm just saying that it is a little interesting to think about.
I mean, simply as an alternative, imagine if matches were designed to be 4v4. Think about what a difference that would make.
Supports would no doubt be gone, but the gold potential would be even across the board for all other roles. Sure some champions can earn gold at a faster rate due to their effective wave/camp clear speeds, but 3 champions would have a lane, and one champion has the jungle. I think it would actually make the meta more dynamic because the lanes would be much more like a game of rock, paper, scissors. Instead of always matching your ADC against their ADC, you could match an ADC and a Tank. Tank can out attempt to out sustain the ADC, while the ADC tries to out damage the tank. Mages have the middle ground, but the utility to out duel either.
Honestly, I am just thinking all of this "out loud". Ultimately, I understand that it won't happen in this game, but it could potentially work in another.
Still, I do think the lack of gold available to supports is something that I would like to see Riot at least attempt to work on.
FloRaider421 votesWell, supports wouldn't be a thing considering that with equal gold and no double lane, there is no real reason to pick Utility over damage. Assassins or mages, would probably still inhabit mid with a similiar map (shortest lane and shortest distance to other lanes) Marksmen would also change drastically as with no support they would need to be able to survive on their own.
Elite4Runner1 votesWell, supports wouldn't be a thing considering that with equal gold and no double lane, there is no real reason to pick Utility over damage. Assassins or mages, would probably still inhabit mid with a similiar map (shortest lane and shortest distance to over lanes) Marksmen would also change drastically as with no support they would need to be able to survive on their own.
I don't know that they would stop existing. It really depends on how it is achieved I think. I mean, I believe that Riot is already on the right track in the sense that you reward supports for being supports by giving them extra gold. The Bandit mastery is a good example of this. +1 gold for every minion enemy minion who dies within a certain range, and +3 (ranged champions)/+10 (melee champions) gold by damaging enemy champions once every 5 seconds. This helps to mitigate the gold discrepancy and encourage harassment. On top of that, 
and 
, and the items they respectively build into help to further encourage these functions respectively. Personally, I think 
is a little weird because it actually encourages the support to kill minions on occasion, but it works well for champions who need health and are not able to harass as easily.
I would really like to see these expanded upon, and other changes as well.
Additional masteries, items, or champion specific passives could be reworked/introduced to grant bonus gold for when a shield they had placed on an allied champion absorbs damage, once every so often. For heals on allied champions every so often.
As I mentioned to another commenter, I heard a rumor that the rune system is being reworked next season. I am hoping that something in these changes could potentially assist gold income on a class level. (I haven't really thought about this too thoroughly yet, but I am sure I will come up with something)
I have shared an idea of a gold income summoner, similar to how smite is a jungler summoner. Support/gold income items would be tied to this summoner in the same way jungle items are tied to smite. My theory with this is that junglers are balanced so that, other than their jungle item, they utilize the same items as lane champions. If the same thing were done for supports, we wouldn't need these cheap support items that never get purchased by any other roles.
How often do you see
on non-support champions, .. who are playing effectively?
Granted that each of these items have very unique passives that provide great utility which is very strong for supports, but it feels to me more like they are consolation prizes.
Wh1teWu1f1 votesI'm actually fairly certain that the jungle was meant to be a main focal point for fights because, as you point out, there aren't enough resources for 5 people, unless you were to take over their jungle (or they hand it over for some reason). Then players figured out that it's more optimal to not be fighting and just have one player gold starved since 4 players could then get more gold than the other 5 players who were trying to split it equally, thus the support role came to be.
Elite4Runner1 votesI'm actually fairly certain that the jungle was meant to be a main focal point for fights because, as you point out, there aren't enough resources for 5 people, unless you were to take over their jungle (or they hand it over for some reason). Then players figured out that it's more optimal to not be fighting and just have one player gold starved since 4 players could then get more gold than the other 5 players who were trying to split it equally, thus the support role came to be.
Then you have 10 people fighting to share 5 resources (the respective enemies jungle being the fifth). That just sounds insanely difficult. ... however, it would be interesting to see that be a meta.
To tell you the truth, I'm expecting a little bit of that to happen when Ivern comes out. His ability to take smite as a support summoner would significantly increase his ability to invade and clear an enemy camp now and then very effectively. Or at least that is my plan for when he comes out.