Diana Restriction at PAX & a "macro solution" for Itemization

yes, absurd that this is even a topic.
Theres nothing wrong with the way support is played, i wouldnt want to see anything tampered with wich would without doubt wreck a whole range of balance again.

As someone who is playing 95% of his games as support, I can tell you, that if you think "nothing is wrong with support and how it is played" that you haven't been playing support. At all.

At this point support really needs a shake up. We need to be able to branch out in the kind of items we buy, because it can be painfully boring, depending on who you need to play for the good of your team, if you are reduced to a ward/aura bot.

Sure, we have the intricacies of warding and counter-warding, but it can really become mindnumbing to build the same items over and over and over. I'd really love for a few support-only items with effects. Make it more fun for us people who run around letting others blow up the enemy team champs, and not have the opportunity to shine with double, triple, quat or pentakills.

As someone who is playing 95% of his games as support, I can tell you, that if you think "nothing is wrong with support and how it is played" then you're probably the kind of player that should play support.

At this point support doesn't really need anything. The itmes we buy are tailored to those we support and selecting the auras best for them, theres a still in what aura to buy first, how many spare wards to take, where the right place for those wards to be are, when to use Clairvoyance and for who. Its tactical and fun in its own way, making sure you never pick up a single cs all game is a challenge in itself. Sure, you could get stock items and ward obvious places, but then you're sapping the fun for yourself, it has nothing to do with the game.

Sure, we have the intricacies of warding and counter-warding, but even if we build the same items over and over and over so does everyone else playing their preferred role. I think we already have enough support-only items with effects that other champs would love to have but cant afford the costly detour to take. I grin at my 0/0/24 and being the unsung hero whilst the carry screams about how he carried the team, because I know it was me who gave them the opportunity to shine with double, triple, quad or pentakills.

As someone who is playing 95% of his games as support I can only agree with the person above. Support itemization is ok right now and it leaves enough place for personal/situational choices. Let`s hope it will be even better after possible Riot reworks.

I also play 95% of my games as support, and I don't think that there's a massive problem... I do however think that there should be some sort of "ward bag" item... I would love to be able to have a full build, and still be able to carry wards...

Item suggestion: when an enemy minion dies within a certain radius of you, and you DIDNT kill it, you gain some gold. Possible?

That wouldn't be a support item.
It would be a "everyone must get this" item

their are two types of supports, the "assets" to the team, and the "liabilitie" to the team.

The support that do well (asset) buy gp5s early on in the game and ward/counter ward for the team, but to reach this goal, what must happen?
1) you always have to start with a small part of a gp 5 item and few wards.
2) if you start with anything else (like a boot) you can only buy 1 ward, and have to wait extreamly long to get to the gp5 item.
3) you have to rely on team to not fail, or in some cases, the support to not fail.
4) as a bot lane, if one person in your lane fails its almost gg, and supports are not supposed to take kills, if its a equal tradeoff with the your carry not getting the kills, and only the support getting the kills, while the oter team is "vise versa" they well only keep coming back stronger, and eventualy make u a liability to the team.

If you are a liability however (in many cases it happens) you tend to get focused down in lanephase, it may sound dumb, but if they kill a support and live up to the tradeoffs it does and it can become a huge liability to the team!.
1) you wont be able to buy gp5s right away!, even if u are able to buy 1 you are still a liability!
2) to prevent further feeding, must must buy an item to keep up in sustain, however, the only thing supports think of now-adays is to buy more gp5s.
3) I agree gp5s are really great, but you still need armor, magic resist, and health to keep up with the team, what good are you if you are die so many times that they get fed, and you dont live long enough to ward effectivly <.<
4) the problem at hand is that a mr/armor/and hp items are way to expensive for the supports, and to get these items, you end up needing magor dragon control or some kills.

In conclusion, i agree that supports need better items, and usually, there is always one support in the game, who is a liability to the team. The problem riot is trying to fix is that recovery from that liability to make this game more fun, and less onesided.

PS.~ feel free to refute me, this conversation is rather fun, and i wouldnt might hearing other opinions.

I play a decent amount of support (with full runes, etc) and I don't think there's a problem with itemization. 0 cs is an established choice through the meta game, not a requisite by the game's mechanics.

One of the core mechanics about mobas is that you kill stuff for money to buy items. If you choose not to kill stuff, you're not gonna get that money, simple as that. Riot does offer a solution and that's the gp10s.

What I could maybe see is a gp10 item that builds into a new (aura?) item that also had slowly regenerating stacks of sight wards (imagine a wriggle's with Teemo shroom mechanics)

Supports taking kills BEFORE they have gp5's and rarely when no one else can get it is totally okay. I prefer supports securing the kills in the beginning better than some holding back and getting no kill at all. And it gives them a good advantage + no disatvantage to the carry (Still ahead of the enemy through assist).
This whole I HAVE to give all kills to the carry/team and not take them myself sometimes supports cripple themself and if no one get's the kill also their team. Sure crippling is kinda harsh you still give the enemy a disatvantage if they have to back up and heal because they have to heal but if a simple autoattack or spell could have gotten the kill...

I still agree on the point that supporters kinda need an extra ward bag though... they're the only class who is FORCED to finish their build with 5 slots as no one buys wards but flames the support if the map isn't covered nowadays...

For me the real problem is the meta itself. Its really AD carry focused, meaning, all other roles are not as important as the AD carry itself. The jungler is someone that can gank bot lane (top and mid too) in order to keep the team ahead of the enemy team. The support is nothing without the AD carry, basically all you can do is build utility /auras to keep the carry on top. Your abilities wont scale, same with your damage usually, only CDR will give you extra power, and is capped.
The AP mage is never considered as a really important role, it is important, but the current meta (imo) is focused around the AD carry as the "damage dealer" / "the one that should get fed". Some people call the AP carry a "mage" because they dont see the mage carrying the rest of the team. In general, I feel the entire game is based around 1 role, and the rest of the team bringing utility/tankyness so the carry can do the job, and the support role gets a little frustrating eventually, as you become a champion that cant do anything by yourself. In my experience, supports end up being a living aura, warding and using your cc's so the AD carry can get the job done.

I wouldnt mind seeing the last branch of the utility tree being something that gives more gold or xp to characters on assists. the summoner cd just doesnt seem on par with the other two trees anyway

"As someone who is playing 95% of his games as support I can only agree with the person above. Support itemization is ok right now and it leaves enough place for personal/situational choices. Let`s hope it will be even better after possible Riot reworks."

lol full build as aupport. are youre a magician, do your games last 80 minutes, or do you not ward?

normally its boots, shurelias, aegis, 1 or 2 oracles until the game ends.

0cs got to go. the notion that a champ is not a real support, if he doesnt farm is just not true. play ap soraka mid and 0cs soraka and tell me who supports better. then try with janna...

a support is not defined by going 0cs and starving on gold, but by his ability to... well support his team with utility and/or sustain. hence why morgana and lux are both tagged as support.

I think the key to staying away from the 0 CS support and actually being able to farm is having a strong understanding of the games minions. For example, I'm sure you all know this, but you should be CS'ing when the AD carry is away, that's a given. But if you're jungler is top your ad carry is returned and you can kill the jungle creep fast enough, why shouldn't you take them?

I usually end the game with around 40-70 farm (if all were casters : 1080G-1890G)
That's a pretty good sum and can most likely have you an item.

I do agree with everyone's ideas about a new support item, and the idea of an item with stacking regenerative wards, would be awesome!

what kind of support are u.... 40-70 cs? or u are either a terrible laner only getting 70cs in a game, always recall with the carry unless ur there to freeze the lane or protect the turret to replenish ur wards very likely if it was a fair damage trade/farming ur going to run out of wards to keep u safe in 10-12mins

Thornmail is not a bad idea because pros don't use it. Thornmail is bad item because it is severely outclaased by Randuin's Omen, which is almost always a better choice. The only time thornmail is a good choice is when

A) You have the survivability to take advantage of it. It means nothing if you get ripped anyway and can't live long enough to make them pay for attacking you. If you have 1500 health and I do 300 crits with factoring in your armor. I will gladly attack you 5 times and take 300 total while you just wasted 2000 gold.

B) Omen not only makes them pay for attacking you by reducing auto attack and movement but also offers CDR, health, armor, and an active slowdown.

The only good times I can see to build a thornmail is if we are in late game where the AD carry is ripping through people with 600+ damage crits and you have the tankyness to take that punishment or the enemy team has a heavy AD team.

I think Thornmail is actually quite viable at rammus, because he has taunt and also you can make both randuin and thornmail for him if you want. The Thing is thought that its not very viable to any other character in the game, if it would have +HP, CDR or other good stat i would pick it more often, also the thorn dmg could go up to 35% or 40%, due MR reduces it way too much. One option is change it to true dmg.

wiht that much armour thornmail will be negligible

Thornmail reflects damage done before armor is factored in.

You will take 900 damage, not 300

I always take thormail with shen, because of the taunt and because of the nice armor it gives you.

Thornmail is useless because lifesteal is overpowered. AD carries can lifesteal more than the thornmail damages them easily.

it's 100% wrong. imagine that the ad carry deals 1000 damage, has got a fully stacked bloodthirster(20% lifestea), and the enemy target has 50% damage reduction. then, you will hit 500 to the target, so you will heal yourself by 100. but you would deal 1000 damage without armor, and the damage reflection ignores armor, so you are damaged by 300. 200 damage per hit, with 2.000 as you will die in 5 secs.

And then you get a Last Whisper and even though you get high damage from the reflect you kill the target in 2-3 hits. You then continue to sustain on minions.

Im surprised at how no one is taking MAGIC RESIST into consideration. Thornmail returns magic damage, so it is effected by the attacker's magic resist. Let's reanalize the mentioned scenario. Imagine a random ad carry. They all have a base amount of 30 mres which doesn't scale with levels. Now, let's say that it is quite logical that Thornmail is more of a late-game item, so by the time it would be bought by an enemy, your team will most surely already have an Aegis. Let's also take into consideration that this ad carry is running the most common ad carry glyphs - mres/lvl. So - 30 base mres + 24 (mres/lvl) + 15 mres from the aegis aura = 69 mres. And this is only if the ad carry has not still considered buying more mres via GA or Banshie or QSS. The formula by which magic damage reduction is calculated is 100/(100+MR), so 100/(100+69)=100/169=0.59, rounded at x0.6. This will be the new incoming magic damage by the AD carry, so it's a total of 40% magic damage reduction. Now, as it was suggested, let's say that the ad carry deals 1000 damage. Thornmail will return, as stated, 300 damage. Reduced by 40%, that equals 180 magic damage returned by the Thornmail wearer. It doesn't seem so much now, does it? As i said, we are still going along with the above-mentioned scenario where we deal 1000 damage and the enemy has 50% damage reduction (after our armor penetration is counted, obviously). Now let's say that, provided it's late-game, and the enemy has just bought Thornmail, you probably have a good reason to buy some more mres. Let's say that you buy the nowadays so popular GA, which gives you 38 mres, combined with 69 it sums up to 107 mres. Congratulations! The AD carry now has just a bit above 50% magic reduction, which means that the damage returned will now be just a bit under 150. But what if the ad carry decided to go for a Banshie instead? That would mean a total of 119 mres, which without calculation sounds like the damage returned from is kinda going to hell ((55% magic reduction)). Not to mention that the carry probably has his Vampirism mastery, which gives him a bonus 3% lifesteal, which makes the magic dmg returned vs dmg dealt+dmg life-leached in an even more healthier trade for the AD carry.

So, what all of this means is that Thornmail is rather useless for other than the 100 bonus armor. The only way to make it a worthwhile purchase is if you (the supposed tank) had some form of MAGIC PENETRATION, so you could return more magic damage. Frankly, i don't recall too many tanks that would have that, other than Amumu how not only has his passive, but also tends to either go buy Abyssal Scepter or at least go with magic pen marks, if not both. Other than that, you could say that an aggressive Malphite (top lane) could also buy mpen boots and a Guise or Abyssal, so a Thornmail on him, provided he has enough Hp too, is quite a good bargain. So, the only other solution is that the Thornmail user would be a Mage that tends to build mpen and have such runes/masteries. And again, the only viable contenders would be, at least from my view, Mordekaiser, being melee and all (the best for it, if you ask me), Swain, who gets very tanky by nature and by build, and maybe Rumble, also being melee and building lots and lots of mpen as is popular on him atm.

Other factors like the ad carry having Last Whisper, which is a must in late-game, meaning he would really get waaay more than just 100 lifesteal per hit, are just the nail in the coffin for Thornmail. I would love to hear some comments on this, as i'm sure i'm not the best person in understanding the game, and might have missed something.

Tbh i don't understand all that hate on Thornmail. I've found out that it is mostly being frowned on at euw. Firstly i would like to say that i used it hundreds of times and most of the time when i really needed it, it totally raped enemy carry. Probably most of the time they don't have that much mres as you expect them to have, dunno, but that's how it looks. Back about a year ago or more every one used it, on helo (no, not elo hell :P ) if enemy was heavy then almost all team would build it, it was extreemly vialble on normal games, and lets not forget it was >>>>before riot nerfed Randuin's to oblivion ( imho that's what really killed old-school Morde)<<<<<
Most ppl, when they calculate the benefits of Thornmail vs Randuins they forget few really important things:
1.Thornmail still have MUCH more armor.
2.It's WAY cheaper.
3.When you need armor on non tanky champ you buy chainmail, and then when you decide that it's no longer enough, thormail is the cheapest and fastest to get item.
4.Getting your items fast is important. Shtty build that costs 7,5k whole(6 items) can often rape marvelous 20k build.

@BoroFreak:
Interesting thing is i mostly play Morde and Swain... and now that i think about it, your assumptions are completly false.
On Swain you have many better items to buy and if you need armor - Frozen Heart is the way to go, no, really, it's awesome.
On Morde, when he used to be tanky and Randuin was still good, you took Randuin over Thornmail - Morde really needed that CC - also cdr was his best friend, armor was better and health is very usefull for morde.
Now morde is imho too squishy to wear it, still not bad against heavy AD team but srsly he needs something else, it's viable only because... it have much armor and is cheap :P .

Oh and one more thing. When you were calculating all that stuff you assumed that 0 is when enemy gets no damage... just wtf? You completly forget that the sheer fact enemy gets no heal from lifesteal is a great deal.

Ps. Sorry for my poor engrish.

Ok, i agree fully about Swain, was just a wild pick, rather than anything else. And you do have a valid point for Morde, but i was just suggesting that mpen building champs would benefit more from thornmail, as far as returning more damage is concerned. And for the cheap lost of armor thing, it's very true. And Randium's is just a great item overall, although quite expensive. And about the 0 in your last message, i have no fucking idea what you are talking about xD, but nevermind, it's quite possible that i fucked something up somewhere.

And about your points:

1. 100 armor is not that much more then 75.
2. It IS way cheaper, agreed :)
3. It is the fastest way to get armor after chainmail, but you gotta admit, getting it on a non-tanky champ (a support or a carry) is a big waste, cause it still won't save you from focus, not to mention you won't return almost any damage, being a low hp champ. Guardian Angel (or/and Zhonya's) is MUCH more viable and worthy than Thornmail on such champs that are not tanky.
4. Sounds a bit exaggerated, but it's close to being true and i get your point. :)

Anyway..
See you on the Fields!

So you're saying that since Darius was allowed to play with his bugs, which was a mistake, the smart idea is to repeat that mistake?

Yes, it's the Riot way.

She is way too good laner atm, you can check statistics on Lolking and see when ever diana is picked win rate is over 70%. Not saying she is unbeatable but way too good before she gets the actual nerf.

She's not being restricted because she's OP, she's being restricted because she wasn't in the other recent tournaments, and they want the tournaments to be as equivalent as possible.

Are you kidding me? Please, tell me you are joking.
I find him quite a bit more balanced than normal champions that were released.
But he is in no way bad. Blame the summoner, not the champion.
You're obviously not playing him like an assassin, as he's meant to be.
Bushes are key, much is the same with good Nidalee players.
His ult is ridiculous even.

Rengar is only good early game, he really falls off late game.

not only is rengar not OP, hes also not in the tourney patch, their useing the dianna patch and restricting diana, obviously rengar wasnt released in the dianna patch so hes not in either.

They are or they're not their ... God why <_< fact aside this comment of the op was pretty much meant to be sarcastic.

I don't see how rengar would fall off late game. What? A teamfight just broke out? A wild rengar appeared? Our AD carry is dead? Now hes focusing our AP carry!? TEAMFIGHT OVER!?!?!? ACE!!!!!

Rengar wont be in the patch at Pax......

As quoted by Stonewall... "Rengar is utter crap."

Rengar's attack late game feel like someone's tickling you, he will be dead before he can actualy do anything

his burst dont scale so he falls of hard.

X said champ Y is op/up so it has to be true - You can't be serious... He's out for a few days and those people are humans nevertheless. They can fail at judging something as everyone can. Fact aside some champs just don't fit your playstyle and you'll always perform less effective on them compared to champs that you love and practice all day.

That said, He can fall off but it's not really that drastic. Pantheon does the same - Earlygameterror, but he has less snowballing than Rengar. And Rengar seems to have even more Earlygameterror-potential meaning he'd snowball even harder. I'll sit back and wait a bit longer until I say anything about his current powerlevel - As you all should.

" As quoted by Stonewall... "Rengar is utter crap." "
He was talking about in the jungle, bro. Rengar is pretty good top, mostly because there are two bushes up there and his fairly heavy early burst.

You didn't really get the point... I suggest you go and read again.

The problem with that is the offensive champions that build items out of GP10s. Maokai, Olaf, Irelia, and Nasus come to mind.

Uhh no they shouldn't. You don't need that gp5 that long there is a reason why most support items aren't crazy in price most are very affordable.

Says you. I play support a lot and let me tell you it stinks. I have Gold runes and I build items, but when you have to buy wards all the time (people think it's only the supports job. So annoying) those gp5/gp10 items don't mean squat.

There were some redposts about the enhanced items loosing the gp5 to offer a tradeoff a bit ago. If you build gp5 you should think about if you really want to loose the gp5 in favor for let's say an AoE shield. So I doubt they'll give gp5 to the enhanced items as it would just be too good (getting stronger + still getting free gold) - As said already champs like irelia would snowball hard with that...

As a support, your gold per 10 pays for the wards.
The money you get for buying items comes from assists.

If your money is short, that means your team is losing or you are not staying close to areas of conflict like a good support should.

But really.. how much gold do you think you're going to have in bot lane off assists if the opponent isn't terrible and actually knows how to play? You're going to have at best 1-2 assists at 20 minutes IF your opponent knows what they are doing. Most games at 20 minutes all you have is boots and 2 gp 10s, unless you prefer a 3rd gp10 in which case you still won't have decent enough items to mean anything around the end of lane phase.

care to explain what are you talking about?

Tenacity description now says it reduces the duration of "sleeps" which might be a new form of cc in an upcoming champion.

Sleep was stated in Merc's description 2,5 years ago. Dont get too excited newbie.

Sleep got cancelled as it was not unique. Sleep would mean you'd be unable to move and use skills - that's a stun. If you make it so sleep get's broken by damage it simply get's outclassed by stuns too.

Overall they decided to just toss it then, the redposts are a bit older on that one though.

A thought just occurred to me regarding the above post. I think I would LOVE to see a form of CC like that, actually. A "stun" that can be broken by autoattacks, or else expires after an amount of time. I can see it being used strategically all over the place. Say someone is being chased off to the side of a battle or in laning phase. Sleep could effectively stop them from moving long enough to get away without causing any direct damage. It would be a trade-off spell for a support bot champion; sleep and run or sleep for that second it'll take to reach them, or risk wasting the sleep because he's being focused anyway.

Sure it could be used that way and it'd be interesting BUT in the usual teamfight scenario AoE is bound to happen aka your sleep will almost be broken the second you cast it. The spell wouldn't be very consistent through the game and it's kinda frustrating to know "well I'm the god at saving people in laningphase but afterwards my cc is useless"

I see that's the most possible reasoning holding them back on sleep, but who knows MAYBE we'll get one someday...

What about an AoE sleep? To combo with say, zyra's ult, or other AoE spells

And there totally Auto attacks........

and too strong ;) u would be able to stay on lane way too long!

This game is getting boring because of lack of itemisation. We need at least 10 new items (mostly new combinations of advanced tier items) and tweaks for items like Soul Shroud, Tiamat and tenacity items (excluding merc's).

Its boring that now 99% of Ap mids go RoA, Rabbadon, Rylais, Void Staff - just boring.
Same applies to AD carries: boots, IE, PD, BT, LW 99% of the time - BOOOORING!

META sucks in this game, mainly because it even exists.

They would never make an item like that since it would be "must have" for supports

Leaked rework for eleisa, as ^He said.

Must have + there ARE actually ward generating items. They're called gp5/10 items. That's the reasoning of Xyph to not make a support Wiggle after testing taken from a few redposts some I think months ago.

I'd so, so, so love an item like that... I often times have to sacrifice buying survivability for the sake warding every 3-f*cking-minutes only for my teammates to let me die anyway.

Gp5/10 items might give you money for buying wards, but what happens if your inventory is full? Wards don't last as long as in other competitive titles, nor do you have an option to drop items and pick up a ward until you put it down. >.>

Like Akuni said, the gp5/10 items are basically the wriggles for support. With 5 gold for 10 seconds, you end up with 30 gold/minute. With wards lasting 3 minutes and only costing 75g, you actually make 15 gold, which could be used on getting pinks or oracles

The problem is simple - it's just as good and there is nothing else to pick up. Imagine if say Nashor's Tooth was viable alternative to PD on most ADs, but they were not really good to be build together. Now that'd be good choice.

Right now like 80% decision on itemization is on what to get first, and not what to get at all. Those 20% are usually defensive items depending on what comp you are facing and running.

It was discussed already. We never got an update on the subject though. Who knows, maybe it's comming in season 3.

Then again the redposts on that issue are a bit old... Would have to dig throu roughly a year to find them again...

As long as creep assists are from he ad carry killing it, with you attacking it, I don't see a problem, other than the fact that the tower only does enough damage for one auto attack most of the time, which will be the adc

Ex calling is nice as liet's say tryn toplane. You get free crit and gp5 - True not many chars do need crit that much but it's not like no one buys it.

Tenacity items would be better if they had more reasons to pick them. Atm boots are like meh. You basically buy mercs because there's not much that's better than mresistance and cc reduction. I mean why would you not pick mercs in a game where you can get everything else from other better items (PD or Zeal for atackspeed, cloth armors for easy defense, etc). I think boots in general should offer better options but that's only my opinion.

Executioners calling is crit + life steal, not crit and gp10, avarice blade is the crit and gp10 and executioners calling gives a substantial amount of life steal, 18%, more than any other life steal item

My bad I keep mixing them up. That said it also has a pretty nifty active if playing against someone with (a) heal.

Tiamat is a good idea for an item, but it's radius for the effect is FAR too small for it work. Other than that it gives a good chunk of ad as well as hp and mana regen for just a little more than the cost of a bf sword. ex calling is amazing if you have an enemy swain, mundo or olaf. And yeah, the only tenacity item i can see being bought is probably the cloak and dagger for the cheap crit and atk speed

Partially true. Riot's design for this game is 5 people, 4 ways of income (3 lanes and jungle) - Were to get the gold for number 5 without weakening one of the other 4 as they need to share?

This design got adapted from the original DotA were income wasn't a problem. You could deny minions, jungle camps gave more, etc etc.

But you can't blame players for searching the best way to play that game too. It's simply you can't blame only the players aswell as you can't blame only Riot for having the gamedesign like that. It's a mess due to a lot of reasons.

Bilge already has an upgrade. Gunblade is just niche because hybrids aren't viable. >_>

Tenacity items will NEVER be viable because
1) Merc treads
2) Quicksilver Sash
3) Tenacity is a powerful stat that will never be allowed to have an upgraded form.

Bilge's slow is also really nice for people like akali or poppy. That said another build path without ap/vamp would be nice