@Meddler or Fearless - It's time to bind items to roles.

Riot, specifically Meddler or Fearless, I think it's getting to be that time where you revamp the party system so that Roles can have a more prominent part of the game. As it is now, Role just gets you into a queue. It doesn't actually impact the game at all. It could impact the game, and make balancing a helluva lot easier for you guys.

What brings this up for me is the new pass you're taking at the Support items yet again. You are now stripping the Bandit effect off of the items and causing ALL of the Support items to shut off their gold income entirely if the player with it kills minions. I get it, you're trying to stop abuse cases stemming from things like Nasus and Gangplank (aka Kleptomancy), and make the items so undesirable that only supports should buy them. However, you already gutted the items a few patches ago by claiming that removing their quests and replacing them with Sightstones would make supporting more fun and engaging (I don't believe it did).

What your slow and painful destruction of the Support items is showing us is that you guys need a way to lock items to certain roles in order to stop abuse - it's becoming a problem, and the Support items have been the target of abuse cases for a few seasons. These items deserve to have power in the hands of who need them most, which is why you need to heavily focus on making roles more necessary.

Selecting a role should get you into a queue. However, certain items, like the Jungle items and the Gold Income items, need desperately to be bound to a selected role. Supports need their gold income items to be more than just a slot filler. They are utterly uninspired as they are at current, and they need to return to their former glory. Binding them to your role selection as a Support immediately locks these items away from every other role. Top can't take Relic Shield. Jungle can't take Frostfang. You can balance these items specifically for the roles they are intended for and not stress over abuse. Likewise, if the Jungle items were bound to the Jungler role, forgetting to bring smite would no longer be an instant loss of the game.

Roles should therefore be tradeable in Champion Select. Abuse would drop dramatically, as a top laner like Nasus wouldn't be able to cheese pick support and run top because he would actively ruin the bottom lane if the Support cannot gain gold.

This change needs to happen, and has needed to have happened for seasons now. Abuse cases have run rampant, and champions doing the abuse have gotten gutted to the point of relying on those items until you guys gut the items themselves, creating massive power vacuums. It's time to lock items to roles. It'll be easier on you, easier on players, and overall healthier for the game.