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Ending the sightstone tax for supports

SolidariGee·11/20/2016, 5:31:59 AM·3 votes·817 views

I think one of the biggest reasons support is so underplayed is because of what I call "the delay of agency".

Because supports have slower gold generation and have to sink 800g for a sightstone as early as possible, they lack the ability to get power spikes at the right times.

Now, as a support main I am not a fan of the idea of giving supports the same amount of gold as other roles and giving sightstones for free as I've seen suggested elsewhere.

Rather, I want to propose a more elegant solution that won't result in Rengar support dominating the meta.

I think that masteries could be a solution for the sightstone tax and create meaningful and interesting choices for supports without changing how vision works too drastically.

My suggesting is that in each mastery tree there should be a keystone mastery for supports that gives supports access to special trinkets and also a (slightly weaker) bonus related to damage, utility or defense (depending on the tree). I think this tree-specific bonus should be weaker to disincentivize other roles from taking this tree.

For example, in the cunning tree, the 'support' keystone mastery might be something like (obviously play testing would be needed):

Windcaller's blessing - whenever you target an ally with a shield or a heal or apply hard CC to an enemy you restore [level adjusted value] health and mana. In addition, you gain access to support trinkets.

Example 'support' trinkets could be (obviously play testing would be needed):

Eye of the oracle - starts as the yellow trinket, but can be upgraded into an "oracle's sightstone" at level 3. When you use the upgraded form, it activates a sweeping lens effect where you place the ward, allowing for counter warding. The upgraded form otherwise functions as a sightstone.

Eye of the farseer - starts as a yellow trinket, but can be upgraded into a "farseer's sightstone" at level 3. When you use the upgraded form, it is like a blue trinket, except it stores 3 charges like a sightstone, allowing for safer, but less reliable, warding.

Eye of the augur - starts as a yellow trinket, but can be upgraded into an "augur's eye" at level 3. When you use the upgraded form, it is a sightstone with a maximum of two charges, but the charges refresh on a cooldown AND when you 'back', allowing for more consistent warding without having to worry about backing as often. However, it does not give the advantages of sweeping or the safety of long distant wards.

Thoughts? I think this would be a decent way to allow supports to not be delayed in their builds without breaking the game in terms of vision. The payoff would be a slightly weaker capstone.

16 Comments

love god11/20/2016, 5:51:59 AM4 votes

Sorry to be blunt, but it would be terrible to enforce that certain roles take certain masteries.

DrugsForRobots11/21/2016, 7:13:36 AM2 votes

Here's the problem I see with this:

It doesn't actually address the problems of vision, which are many, as the vision situation in League is a mess currently. You say yourself that you don't want to change the vision system too drastically, but that's exactly what League needs. The entire game is suffering because Riot can't get vision right.

The current vision system is one defined by hard counters with gameplay focused exclusively around the interaction between a couple of items, rather than between wards and players, to quote another observer.

Invisible wards themselves are very low interaction and have next to no innate counterplay. The only counterplay those wards have is being briefly visible before they turn invisible. Things like old Vision Ward, the Control Ward, and the Farsight Ward have slightly more or equivalent counterplay, since they're visible and destructible, but you can't really outplay these objects because almost always they'll have seen you first.

And that's part of the problem. Stealth is a huge part of the game, but the vision system we have in place doesn't truly allow for stealth gameplay.

(When I'm talking about stealth and invisibility in Leauge, I mean stealth as covert, careful action and movement, and invisibility as not being seen. Riot has confused themselves and their players when they say 'stealth' when what they really mean is invisibility, and this confusion has led to the neglect of this core piece of their game.)

In order for a game to truly be considered a stealth game, players need to have information on what moves to make, so as to take the careful, covert action necessary to avoid detection. Currently, there is no way to be stealthy because you have next to no way of knowing where the enemy has vision (unless they're foolish enough to let you seem them warding, or you pass over one of the rare visible wards in the game.)

Every stealth game worth its salt communicates to the player how visible they are, whether or not they've been discovered or detected, which way the guard will move. Wards don't do this. Hell, half of the 'stealth' champions don't do this either. Rengar is the only champion to have an audio cue, detection radius, and icon indicating that he's near. Wards don't do those kinds of things.

We wouldn't need to have Red Trinket if all Wards had some sort of innate clue or tell-tale sign that gave them away. Riot even could've pushed the 'camouflage' (which is really invisibility based on proximity) onto the Wards themselves. What would we need SS for if wards were available for free, because they were no guarantee of preventing ganks - because they could (they demand) that the opponent outplay them.

Wards that offer unique instances and ways of getting sight, ways that had their own rules that smart capable players would exploit to create an opening in the enemy vision setup are what League really needs. Wards that act as insurance and are cheap because they're no guarantee of safety rather than a 800 gold tax (taxes being mandatory.)

TL;DR:

Make Wards and Trinkets free, but do unique different things that enemies can avoid / outplay. Unique instances of sight, vision, detection, etc. (Not every wards needs to grant sight in a circular AoE...)

Dark Nephthys11/20/2016, 6:32:13 AM1 votes

OR we could just give sightstone some gold over time (Assuming it's possible for it to have it and not count as a "Gold income" item)

Gravy Traín11/20/2016, 5:38:12 PM1 votes

I think that your mastery part was a good idea, but I disagree with the new ward idea. Like you were saying you were scared would happen, the new ward you named is just a superior ward to the other wards, so ALL roles would take it, not just supports.

VeterenMantis11/21/2016, 6:32:00 AM1 votes

have you stopped and considered maybe, just maybe supports are not intended to be combatants?