Board Thread:General discussion/@comment-5419934-20121223143249/@comment-1330314-20140424210820

To be fair, every champion has utility in some form or another. The point of supports, though, is that their utility is altruistic, or at least can be made to significantly benefit others. Talon's silence is utility, but he only cares about bursting down his target, not about peeling for the carry or enabling kills for the rest of his team. Mages contribute utility because they can shut down a priority target and potentially lock down multiple members of the enemy team, but in the end their main goal in a teamfight is to deal as much damage as they can to the right people. That's not what a support does. Supports can lock down the enemy team too, but they're also there to make sure their own team stays alive. You can have magey supports who are offensively-focused, but in the end they need to be able to peel for their carry as well.