User blog comment:Canvasofgrey/A New View on Supports v.1.1/@comment-96.30.138.69-20120421030049/@comment-198.246.171.254-20120426205138

I would have to say it is like a baby sitting role. You shouldn't be getting creep score so you just sit back and let the carry kill the minions. Once the enemy tries to harass you either shield your carry or heal them and do some what pitiful damage to the enemy with your skills (I highly doubt Janna's Zephyr or Howling Gale is going to do much damage when you have little to no AP). The only real harass a support has would be some CC (Janna's slow and knock up, Soraka's silence, Sona for the movement debuff or damage debuff but they are rather short for her).

That's one thing I don't get is that supports have really nice ratios on their abilities and long cooldowns but you do little about them. Janna has a 0.9 ratio on her shield she could make it huge with some AP (every 12 AP increases it by 10 damage), Soraka has 0.7 on her Wish which could become really strong especially for team fights or she could shrink her Astral Blessing cooldown to 12 seconds instead of 20. Sure you'll do the cooldown eventually but you slow it down by having to get wards/oracles a lot and just relying on Gp10 items.

In my opinion your carry should be able to sacrifice some minions to help you buff yourself. I'm not saying anything big like maybe 2 caster minions a wave. Sure a support can't carry your team but with a 290 damage shield (Janna's) that would only stop one hit which isn't really supporting your team in my mind. If you're looking for the aura items I'm pretty sure anyone could grab those without suffering too much.

I'm sorry but that defintion makes supports like that rather boring you just sit there and if trouble arises shield/heal with minor damage until it's over. That's why I prefer aggressive/offensive supports or I just play offensively. My favourite one right now is Lux and I have had some good results right now, going just like an AP build (Morello's Evil Tome, Void Staff, Lich Bane, avoiding Rabadon's due to high cost), this way I can still do good damage and boost her shield (even though the ratio is kinda bad at 0.35). Then you could still get an aura item like Aegis of the Legion and still have room for wards.