The LoL Season 14 brought a lot of changes, with one major change being the removal of Mythic items, thank god. This allows champions much more flexibility when building, and makes more champions viable.
However, Season 14 didn't only remove Mythic items, it also introduced new items and reworked other ones. Supports received plenty of new items, and many older items were improved
After almost one week since Season 14 started, it's pretty clear that Support items have taken over the game. This can be seen in both casual and professional games.
So let's find out why support items are dominating LoL right now.
It feels good to be a Support!
The Supports era is once again upon us, with the role being the strongest it has ever been in years. That's mainly because the new and reworked Support items have incredible stats and are very cheap.
As of right now, the items are by far the most cost-efficient in the game, all costing 2200 or 2300 gold. They are so strong and cost-efficient that even other roles, such as Jungle and Top laners, are building them.
With the items being incredibly cheap, Support players now reach full build much faster. They also have more agency in the early and mid-game and are much more powerful in skirmishes that take place during that period of the game.
If you are a Support player, you can now quickly finish your support quest item and acquire your first full item such as Imperial Mandate or Shurelya's.
After doing so, you can try to force some skirmishes, be it on the bot lane or anywhere else on the map. You will also be more effective in fights that take place around objectives.
In general, these item changes give Supports a bigger role in the game and allow them to have more impact. Your power spike also comes earlier, meaning you have more tools to make things happen.
Supports items rule the game but are they also ruining it?
As mentioned above, Support items are cheap and offer great stats, so players are taking advantage of that, especially tank users. Since solo laners have access to much more gold than Support players, they can build these items much faster.
This leads to some champions reaching full build much faster than normal, while still being strong and useful for their teams. This is especially the case for tank champions, who can build items such as Locket of the Iron Solari, Redemption, Trailblazer, and Frozen Heart.
Champions such as Malphite, K'Sante, or Sion are examples of that, and even pro players have been abusing Support items on them.
Oscarinin, Fnatic Top Laner, built a Locket of the Iron Solari, Frozen Heart, and Redemption on K'Sante, being full build at 33 minutes while all the other players were sitting at three or four items.
The LoL community isn't thrilled about this, with many players complaining about the abuse of Support items. Some have said this makes the game less enjoyable to play and that it also makes Tanks incredibly stronger and more useful than other classes.
Because of that, I wouldn't be surprised if Riot Games ends up nerfing Support items, most likely by increasing their price. This would prevent solo laners from abusing the items and therefore fixing the problem.
However, it would negatively impact the Support role, making it return to its previous state, where Support players had way less impact in the early and mid-game.
Will Riot Games sacrifice the Support role to "balance the game", or will these item changes stay? Only time will tell.
But as a Support player, I would like to see these items changes stay as they make the game much more enjoyable to play. However, if the abuse of Support items becomes a huge problem, then something will need to be done.
As of right now, if you are a Support player just enjoy because we don't know when this might come to an end.
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