Riot has continually struggled to
make supports appealing to the League of Legends community. While patch 6.13
improved the overall player experience and quality of life, it failed to
deliver the community appeal the role has severely lacked. Significantly fewer
players want to play support, and it’s an area Riot is keen to fix. Last week
Riot WizardCrab announced
that 10 support champions would be added to the free rotation for four weeks.
This was done to give players access to a broader pool of supports and improve
queue times. However, this is only a temporary fix and Riot is looking to make
some big changes to the role in 2017.
Gold
income
League's latest character isn't a support, but she does
offer some fascinating counterplay opportunities. One of the key areas being
investigated is how much gold income supports should receive. Supports
currently earn the least gold in the game and Riot need to decide whether they
want to more closely match their income with other roles. Choosing to up their
wages would give support champions a lot more influence over the course of the
game, while allowing them to hit their power spikes that much earlier. However,
you can’t just increase the passive gold gained by support items as you’ll end
up giving solo laners opportunities to create new strategies that could
potentially upset the balance of the game.
If supports scaled off something
entirely different than AP and AD this could potentially allow the role to feel
more refined, while avoiding the potential pitfalls that come with increasing
gold income. Supports should scale in utility not damage, and the items could
reflect this by offering stronger tank stats, CDR, movement speed, gold per
second and HP/mana regen.
Breaking away from AP and AD would
give support champions better shields, heals and CC, but they would still not
be able to 1v1 enemy champions. A support's job is to look after the team by
providing defensive shields, health top ups, vision and lockdown. A change to
supportive items could add further opportunities for supports to shine, while
also making the role unique. Players may even be drawn toward the role if these
items are only usable when playing support.
Recognition
of success
The next thing Riot wants to work on
is the amount of recognition supports get. Their impact on the game isn’t
celebrated as obviously as a killstreak, for example. However, it should be
made clear when a support makes a good play. Damage dealers get recognition
from their killing sprees/multi-kills, KDAs/CS numbers, tracking of damage
dealt and so on. Supports don’t have this luxury. Their achievements have lower
visibility and offer little satisfaction to the player.
Making an awesome clutch save,
countering an ultimate or stunning an entire enemy team with a Sona ult can
feel great, but it offers little in terms of recognition. Some might argue that
ally recognition is all that matters when playing any role, but this doesn’t
help supports track their overall performance in-game. Additional post-game
statistics would greatly solve this problem.
It would be great to keep track of
how much damage was shielded, number of wards placed/cleared and the percentage
of healing done throughout the game. Even knowing how many kills you denied
would make for a satisfactory addition. It may not provide the same instant
recognition as the booming pentakill announcement, but it puts their plays
firmly in the sights of both teams.
Itemisation
Riot started to address support
itemisation in the preseason, but in the future they want to make sure the
items are compelling enough that players want to pick support items for specific
situations, instead of limiting their build paths. Support players also need to
feel that they’re getting stronger as they purchase new items. When an AD-Carry
or an assassin purchases their third item there is a big spike in performance.
When a support purchases their third item it’s really hard to see a noticeable
difference. Sure, you gain a little boost to your stats and you may even get an
active to help out your team, but the overall leap between items could be
improved.
Sightstone is another area that Riot
wants to consider looking into. If you’re playing support your first purchase
is commonly going to be a Sightstone. Purchasing this item instantly puts your
build behind for the entire game and greatly limits your choices as a support
player. In order to fix this there would likely need to be another overhaul to
the vision system. However, this could be solved by giving supports more
starting items that provide different options without punishing players for not
picking one item over the other. Being forced into purchasing a Sightstone can
feel rather unfair and does not help to create meaningful choices.
Pre-game
Many players feel that the
experience and gold per 10 runes don’t provide enough benefits when compared to
damage dealer runes. Supports should have their own set of runes that are only
available to their role which focus on providing them with what they need. The
introduction of healing and shielding runes would help supports excel in their
individuRiot has continually struggled to
make supports appealing to the League of Legends community. While patch 6.13
improved the overall player experience and quality of life, it failed to
deliver the community appeal the role has severely lacked. Significantly fewer
players want to play support, and it’s an area Riot is keen to fix. Last week
Riot WizardCrab announced
that 10 support champions would be added to the free rotation for four weeks.
This was done to give players access to a broader pool of supports and improve
queue times. However, this is only a temporary fix and Riot is looking to make
some big changes to the role in 2017.
Gold
income
League's latest character isn't a support, but she does
offer some fascinating counterplay opportunities. One of the key areas being
investigated is how much gold income supports should receive. Supports
currently earn the least gold in the game and Riot need to decide whether they
want to more closely match their income with other roles. Choosing to up their
wages would give support champions a lot more influence over the course of the
game, while allowing them to hit their power spikes that much earlier. However,
you can’t just increase the passive gold gained by support items as you’ll end
up giving solo laners opportunities to create new strategies that could
potentially upset the balance of the game.
If supports scaled off something
entirely different than AP and AD this could potentially allow the role to feel
more refined, while avoiding the potential pitfalls that come with increasing
gold income. Supports should scale in utility not damage, and the items could
reflect this by offering stronger tank stats, CDR, movement speed, gold per
second and HP/mana regen.
Breaking away from AP and AD would
give support champions better shields, heals and CC, but they would still not
be able to 1v1 enemy champions. A support's job is to look after the team by
providing defensive shields, health top ups, vision and lockdown. A change to
supportive items could add further opportunities for supports to shine, while
also making the role unique. Players may even be drawn toward the role if these
items are only usable when playing support.
Recognition
of success
The next thing Riot wants to work on
is the amount of recognition supports get. Their impact on the game isn’t
celebrated as obviously as a killstreak, for example. However, it should be
made clear when a support makes a good play. Damage dealers get recognition
from their killing sprees/multi-kills, KDAs/CS numbers, tracking of damage
dealt and so on. Supports don’t have this luxury. Their achievements have lower
visibility and offer little satisfaction to the player.
Making an awesome clutch save,
countering an ultimate or stunning an entire enemy team with a Sona ult can
feel great, but it offers little in terms of recognition. Some might argue that
ally recognition is all that matters when playing any role, but this doesn’t
help supports track their overall performance in-game. Additional post-game
statistics would greatly solve this problem.
It would be great to keep track of
how much damage was shielded, number of wards placed/cleared and the percentage
of healing done throughout the game. Even knowing how many kills you denied
would make for a satisfactory addition. It may not provide the same instant
recognition as the booming pentakill announcement, but it puts their plays
firmly in the sights of both teams.
Itemisation
Riot started to address support
itemisation in the preseason, but in the future they want to make sure the
items are compelling enough that players want to pick support items for specific
situations, instead of limiting their build paths. Support players also need to
feel that they’re getting stronger as they purchase new items. When an AD-Carry
or an assassin purchases their third item there is a big spike in performance.
When a support purchases their third item it’s really hard to see a noticeable
difference. Sure, you gain a little boost to your stats and you may even get an
active to help out your team, but the overall leap between items could be
improved.
Sightstone is another area that Riot
wants to consider looking into. If you’re playing support your first purchase
is commonly going to be a Sightstone. Purchasing this item instantly puts your
build behind for the entire game and greatly limits your choices as a support
player. In order to fix this there would likely need to be another overhaul to
the vision system. However, this could be solved by giving supports more
starting items that provide different options without punishing players for not
picking one item over the other. Being forced into purchasing a Sightstone can
feel rather unfair and does not help to create meaningful choices.
Pre-game
Many players feel that the
experience and gold per 10 runes don’t provide enough benefits when compared to
damage dealer runes. Supports should have their own set of runes that are only
available to their role which focus on providing them with what they need. The
introduction of healing and shielding runes would help supports excel in their
individual areas and create more strategy within the position.
Laning
patterns
Lastly, Riot is looking at how they
can improve the in-game decisions made by players in the support role. Many
players pick mage champions when they go support as it gives them a more
engaging playstyle that allows them to harass the enemy, push lanes and even
transition into an AP carry if they get ahead. It’s really not hard to see why
people go down this route, but it’s sad to see so many dedicated support champs
dropped in favour of mage champions.
Many complain that the role offers
little outside of healing, blocking damage and warding. Whether you like the
role or not, supports are an integral part of League of Legends. While their
playstyle isn’t going to suit the majority of players, they do offer rewarding
experiences that are often overshadowed by their bloodthirsty allies. The more
that Riot can do to make them more rewarding to play, the better. All areas and create more strategy within the position.
Laning
patterns
Lastly, Riot is looking at how they
can improve the in-game decisions made by players in the support role. Many
players pick mage champions when they go support as it gives them a more
engaging playstyle that allows them to harass the enemy, push lanes and even
transition into an AP carry if they get ahead. It’s really not hard to see why
people go down this route, but it’s sad to see so many dedicated support champs
dropped in favour of mage champions.
Many complain that the role offers
little outside of healing, blocking damage and warding. Whether you like the
role or not, supports are an integral part of League of Legends. While their
playstyle isn’t going to suit the majority of players, they do offer rewarding
experiences that are often overshadowed by their bloodthirsty allies. The more
that Riot can do to make them more rewarding to play, the better.
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