Talk:Lulu/@comment-50.103.5.185-20120318170646

It's perfectly logical to compare Support roles, because ideally, you're only going to see ONE of them per team. So whichever Support offers the best deal is going to get picked/banned the most. Obvious, I know.

Though what bothers me is how far one has to stretch to actually find a Primary Support champ now.

Going by the tags, there are 14 Support Champs in the game (with Lulu coming to make 15). But those are just those silly tags; many of those champs aren't EVER played with Support as their primary(dominant) role because their skills and ratios have morphed over time.

Soraka is played as a Mid-Mage Pusher now. Lux is so much better at area Control and Nuking than Support. These are the Mage-Supports who excel at lane control and damage more than enabling other damage champs.

Teemo...*snicker* He's not Support. I've never seen a Support Teemo. He gets mines. That's damage and warding. Great. I love it. But Support? His dominant role is DPS/AS-Assassin; the wards just help enable that.

Shen is now a bruiser-tank with a Taunt much like Rammus. Nidalee and Kayle are in-name-only/"label-supports", since either can perform her "support" duties while playing ANY of their roles. Kayle saves lives, boosts speed (I barely consider this support, given how short the boost is) and enables mega-pushes, Nidalee buffs attack speed and uses traps as warding and debuff. Running full support builds on them is stupid and pointless.

So really, when we're comparing "Support" we're comparing champs like Janna, Orianna, Taric, Sona and Zilean. Who all have UTILITY or Sustain ahead of damage (Soraka straddles the line here, given how powerful her Mid-Mage build is, and how it comes at the expense of her Support build). This doesn't mean they don't have damage-builds; but their support builds are what they're known for first and foremost, and how they're most commonly used.

And in my opinion, Lulu fits in right along side the latter of these. Perhaps with a bit too much utility. I think she's going to become the dominant Support based solely on her kit, not just the numbers. Numbers can change easily, and whether that makes a champ OP or not, well, that requires tuning. It's much easier to increase/decrease a number than it is to completely redesign a skill for balancing purposes.

So core champ balancing begins with the kit, not the numbers. Lulu's kit is ridiculously good for a support. If she isn't savagely nerfed after launch, she will probably become a FoTM ban in ranked until she is nerfed. So if there's any other commonly banned champs you want to play more in ranked, consider practicing them again. One of them might get banned less often, as ban space is finite.