In early 2018, Riot combined the support items with an item called the Sightstone that provided extra vision wards. Riot has tinkered with the items that supply supports their gold income to encourage more engagement in lane and keep the role from being too passive. Quality-of-life improvements have also made support more enticing. Riot has also pushed back against the stereotype that the support role is feminine by introducing support characters like Braum, a muscle-bound hero who protects his allies by leaping in front of them, and Thresh, a Grim Reaper-type monster who eats the souls of minions and has a lot of crowd control abilities. In her current incarnation, however, her ability cooldowns are very short and she can do a lot of damage in lane, but she’s very fragile and can die quickly if enemies catch her.Įverybody wants to rack up the multikills and light up the scoreboard Her kit was focused around the auras that surround her when she plays her songs. Some older characters have become very dynamic Sona, a bard character who plays songs that heal teammates, buff movement speed or damage enemies, used to be very passive. In recent years, we’ve seen more aggressive mages in the support role, and some tanky characters originally conceived as laners have been revamped to fit support. Janna is a wind priestess who puts a shield on a teammate, and helps protect her carry by launching a whirlwind that knocks opponents up in the air, while Soraka is an archetypal healing druid who can heal a teammate at the cost of her own health, but can amplify her health regeneration by landing a skillshot on an opponent. When League first launched in 2009, supports were characters like Janna or Soraka, very traditional priestess types. And the company has tried repeatedly to make support more attractive to players. Most patches bring minor balance tweaks or changes to a single champion, but a few times each year, Riot makes major changes to an entire category of champions. Riot patches League of Legends every two weeks. Riot has been trying to change this for years It’s not a job many people volunteer to do. If you select “fill” as your position of choice, you will probably end up playing support.
![x gon give it to ya call me maybe x gon give it to ya call me maybe](https://bsaber.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/f870053ef6970c19fbdd7cd8c5f090e3.jpeg)
According to Riot, 70 percent of autofill players go into support, with the other four positions combining to make up the other 30 percent. In order to keep queue times short, League has an “autofill” feature for solo-queue players that will sometimes assign a player a role other than the one they want. Nobody wants to be tasked with dropping the heals or shields that keep the star player from getting destroyed in the middle of their big combo. Nobody wants to be the guy who sets the wards so the carries can catch people out in the jungle, or be in charge of getting the stuns that set up the big plays.
![x gon give it to ya call me maybe x gon give it to ya call me maybe](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/justdance/images/5/5e/Callmemaybe_jd4_gameplay.png)
The support player is rarely seen as an MVP due to the thankless nature of the role.Įverybody wants to rack up the multikills and light up the scoreboard. The support’s job is to help the laner do those things, which means the support doesn’t get to farm a lot of minions or get many kills themselves. The carry’s job is to farm minions and get a lot of kills to try to snowball into an unstoppable killing machine later in the game. In the bottom lane, there is usually a marksman or an attack-damage carry backed up by a support. The jungler farms jungle camps instead of lane minions for their main source of gold, and roams into all the lanes to try to score kills on overextended or otherwise vulnerable enemy players. Traditionally, a top laner is a tank or a bruiser, someone who can start fights and put a body between the enemy threats and more fragile teammates.Ī mid laner is often a mage or an assassin, someone who can deal a lot of burst damage and roam to the other lanes when there’s an opportunity for a kill. The top and middle lanes are occupied by solo laners. League of Legends characters fit into one of the game’s five roles.
![x gon give it to ya call me maybe x gon give it to ya call me maybe](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/justdance/images/f/fc/Callmemaybe_coach_1_big.png)
Here’s why Riot did it, along with an explanation of why it’s not working out very well. This is something League of Legends developer Riot Games has never tried before. What is unusual about this character is that he has an assassin-style kit, but he is designed to be played in the support role.
![x gon give it to ya call me maybe x gon give it to ya call me maybe](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/P0DWEOVD1yE/maxresdefault.jpg)
Pyke, an angry ghost pirate on a quest to kill everyone he thinks is responsible for his death, is the newest champion in League of Legends.