there's a lot to unpack here, but first of all - at higher elos every lane will contribute to vision. perhaps support might still contribute the most (inherent advantage) but it's much more proportionate than other elos.

it's not uncommon for me to buy 6-8 pink wards in a 30 minute game in jungle or mid.

secondly, "sight stones" (i.e. ward items) make sense from an itemization standpoint for supports because they're the least involved direct combat. senna might be changing this dynamic, but historically speaking, that's the largest driver

Isn't the first 10 min of support gameplay almost exclusively combat?

that really depends on the mechanics of the lane, but how is that any different from any other lane?

and then how does that evolve as the game progresses?

Are you actually crying about GOLD INCOME, even with items upgrading themselves without needing to pay any additional gold for it?
Spellthief needed 450g+950g for an upgrade before, and now it's free.

Riot saves him 1400 gold, guy complains.

??



On top of that, during the preseason, I played 6 games with support Fiddle which is usually a real mana hungry support in early game, and I had no issues whatsoever. Sure you're not able to spam your E in the very same second when it gets off the cooldown, but it's still more than alright.
Fiddlesticks
CS 36.1 (1.3)
2.54:1 KDA
3.6 / 7.0 / 14.1
76%
17 Played

Plat-Diamond elo

This post was edited by SylvesterStallone on Nov 21 2019 02:28pm

here's another way to think about it.

do you view blitz's style of combat the same as vayne? or yasuo?

Every other lane gets to have consistent, almost guaranteed income in the form of cs.

Jungle, Top, Mid, ADC


So i can play 2 champions to be on par or better than every other role.

Or i can play sub par picks nearly perfectly to stay impactful in game.


In a vacuum, what you describe as higher elo play is there accross the board.
Its not the case for lower elos. I know that may seem like an obvious statement.
What made challenger supports over powered up till this season is what made people like me more able to impact a game.
In low elo from the perspective of the support without a means of income past 10 min outside of objectives or combat gold (which every other role has access to on top of the continued gold income)
It means play perfectly or get out stat-checked by every other role.

Its pre season so i'm not quite tilted yet. With a combination of people not try harding, certain builds being op as fuck right now and this slight shift of power from being scaling to early-mid focused while still being under leveled compared to the rest of the map doesn't feel as fun.




I think that in one button Blitz holds the tempo of a team fight in his hand.
Or baron/dragon dances.
However, miss that one button. Probably lose the fight.
We could argue the same for the vayne tumbling out of the way of blitz's q.
We could say the same about yasuos windwall.
I get that playing this game requires decision making and mechanics.

Here's the perfect analogy for you, from my perspective.
For me, fighting in low elo as a support with the current state. Is like fighting an equally trained guy, who is 1-2 weight classes above me.
It sort of felt like you always had to be smurfing to carry from support. (aside ardent meta that was cancer)
Now it just feels like unless you snowballed the early game you fall off hard.




This post was edited by Poonisher on Nov 21 2019 03:15pm

veigar is the answer.

i think you might've lost context of the original point i was addressing, which was "why supports make the most sense having warding items"

In his dreams

In reality this itemization made him even less relevant to the team

I played a game of morg support in diamond so I wouldn't decay and it felt like I actually generated more gold. I was gaining 50 g per turret auto at one point. It also felt pretty good not having to buy the upgrades to frost