Talk:Zeke's Harbinger/@comment-6281696-20150730202206/@comment-6281696-20150811192607

Given that I rather tire of this (and that it ends up invariably being the same discussiong every time anyway...)

What this all inevitably boils down to is a different approach towards what it means to be a support (and thus what kind of items/stats/etc.) they need. Supports fullfill roughly 3 functions. One is that of a mule, another is that of canonfodder and the last is that of the buffer/debuffer (depending on which champion one side is more dominant than the other obviously..).

Now the canonfodder role isn't too bad, it goes hand in hand with the powerfantasy of a tank. Although in LoL most supports that focus on this tend to lack scalings & thus can feel frustrating late game (nothing is quite as lame as losing a 1v1 against say a darius with 10% health left despite you starting at full because your attacks do nothing other than tickle...)

The buffer/debuffer is also not bad either, the powerfantasy here is essentially that of the healer keeping their allies immortal, or the bard inspiring his allies to greater deeds, or that of the warlock stealing his opponents strength. Again scaling can be a major issue here, though with utility scalings this is becoming less of an issue.

However, the mule aspect is quite detrimental when this is the focus, and sadly both riot and the meta focus heavily on it.

First of, it severly limits build options as several items are essentially mandatory to function as a team/support (sightstone, a golditem..).

Second, it forces supports to buy stuff they don't really want. Sightstone is a prime example, statwise the item doesn't provide much of a powerspike, utility-wise it's just a (eventually) more cost effective way of warding (but still nothing special) & the upfront costs make the cost-effective bit less appealing. As a consequence the item has very little immeadiate added value to the support, at least until he has placed a large number of wards, and never it feels quite "right" to build.

Third, because a lot of items have their power focused in the supportive aspect, and you are merely a mule carrying them, they feel increadibly weak whenever their supportive aspect can't be used to it's fullest potential. Zeke's & Censer are good exampels of this. When their supportive aspect is triggered they're reasonably good, whenever it's not they're mediocre at best. Now since these items can not be triggered on your own, and in the case of censer it literally doesn't work on yourself, they feel increadibly weak for you as an individual. And since you will at times be on your own, for whatever reason, the item needs to also be usefull to you on your own. Since it isn't it feels like your items are not to make you a better support and more powerfull champion, but merely an extension of say the ADC, simply because he can only carry 6 items.

Fourth, supports still have terrible income. This makes the powercurve of a support even more awefull since on you'l just fall further and further behind until you finally start catching up because you can start buying actually usefull stuff (and even sell some of the more useless stuff like for example gold items)

Now sadly, the focus of riot and the meta lies especially on the mule aspect. As a consequence supports frequently feel weak and irrelevant as no matter how good you are, since you yourself have virtually no power you'l rarely carry a match on your own. You can only make the set-up, but if your allies are idiots you'l not be able to finish it.

Anyway, ultimatly the question is do you want supports to be powerfull in their own regard, capable of actually fighting an enemy headon, as long as they make good use of whatever advantage they can find, but at their best whenever they are helping an ally. Or do you want supports to do nothing more than provide set-ups, to empower their allies, and be good at that, but be essentially powerless on their own should their allies fail to follow through...