User blog comment:Zilverdael/Seperate itemsets and why they are good/@comment-1330314-20140617111554/@comment-6281696-20140619131942

Mikael's is sub-par because it comes with a large chunk of wasted stats, especially on tanks, most supports don't need those huge amounts of mana-regen. Again it mostly relies on the fact that it comes with an increadibly usefull active to earn it's place as opposed to actually being a good item that also has uses beyond it's raw stats. On mage supports this issue is slightly less noticable depending on how much they want the MR and how mana hungry they are.

The gold-items I all consider sub-par in some way or another. Although they are a considerable improvement over what we used to have.

FoTM comes with pretty much only health, just health, without any Armor/MR or massive amounts of regen to back it up is not very usefull. As a first item it is mediocre at best and it doesn't start to become properly usefull until you gain a more complete build and have other stats to back it up (or are Braum and already have ~30% additional damage reduction from the start of the game). In a full build it is usefull, arguably the most usefull of the support items, but early on it is simply not that good due to the lack of damage reduction to actually make the health effective.

Coin provides reasonable sustain, but the completed item again provides copious amounts of stats that are liable to be wasted (seriously what's with the large amounts of mana & CDR on everything even remotely supporter-ish, CDR is usefull but I don't want 80% of it) and it's stats are utterly awefull within an actual fight as fights don't last long enough for the sustain to actually matter unless you happen to fight in the middle of a horde of minions with some heavy AoE on your side so you can proc it on 10 minions and get a significant heal.

The blue one is the only one that is decent statwise early on, actually providing all of the stats an AP support wants. Although it drops off past mid-game due to the lack of a fourth upgrade, leaving it a bit awkward by lategame. Especially when it's not backed up by other AP (support) items. Although it should be noted that AP-support has by far the best itemization of all supports, and actually is starting to become decent. Though with too little defenses for my taste, or at least too little defense in comparison to the massive burst opponents bring. I really wish the overal damage of LoL would be lowered so being blown up in half a second wasn't a genuine threat to squishies, not that interesting if it happens that quickly. Also, I don't like the playstyle of mindless blind barrages of harrasement it encourages. It rewards mindless harrasement from the safety of maximum range too much. Admittadly this is also largely due to bad/lazy players abusing easy-gold-mechanics.

Sighstone provides a laughable amount of stats for a single slot & because of it's relative cost ineffeciency early on it often feels like a massive waste of gold when you get it. O and before you start about how the free wards make it super effecient. Yes obviously by endgame it's worth the money stat-wise. But when you buy it you spend roughly twice as much gold as needed on a fairly minor amount of HP, which especially when you are far ahead, or trying to catch up, feels like you're just handicapping yourself by sinking so much gold into something that ineffecient for a minor amount of stats you don't really want at that stage of the game yet (again, health on it's own is really not all that usefull..)

Ohmwrecker has fairly decent stats, but just doesn't fit in many support builds. You already spend 3 slots on sighstone, gold & boots (all of which are rather awefull statwise), and this would still leave you with a fairly inbalanced build with the only stats that are really on a decent at that stage being health and AP (and AP only if you took the blue gold item really). And late game the towerdiving isn't that relevant (plus the game has usually ended by the time you reach your 5th or 6th item anyway). Which makes timing it somewhat awkward.

As for zeke's giving decent stats. No it doesn't, at least not to the carrier if the carrier is a support. Healthwise basicly every item of the same cost has more, CDR you can get in so many places it isn't even funny anymore, and the AD & lifesteal is not something you care about as a support. The only onea on whom this would be a decent combination of stats are bruisers & maybe some high AD tanks. But for those the AD & health is too low for the item to not be outclassed by other options to the point were the utility of its aura just loses its shine.

Too much of the power in these items is focussed on utility & stats that are liable to become overloaded (e.g. CDR, manaregen), partly in order to prevent other classes from abusing the item. Often they come with stats that at that stage of the game you don't care that much about yet (e.g. sightstone's health) and when they do come with nice stats they are often rather low and drop off after a while(blue thing). Which makes the items feel lackluster, and at times makes it infuriating. Again, helping your allies is fine, helping them to the point where you're essentially just handicapping yourself just to give them a (minor) advantage is not.