Leona shouldn’t have mana issues at all laning if you’re using her skills correctly. You’re probably just spamming your shield too much when really you should be sitting in a bush trying to land random skillshots and if you do then blowing mana on shield + stun.
I know Soraka supports sometimes feel the pinch mana - wise, I don’t really play Sona but I imagine it’s similar. In the case of those two I’d run mana regen blues, with armour red + gp5 yellow + quint.
Honestly those GP5 yellow + quints are literally worth their weight in gold.
The reason you want the armour reds is because you’re always going to be laning against AD in bot and most junglers are AD, so you’ll take physical damage before anything else. I wouldn’t really consider anything except flat armour as red playing support.
I think the end build for all Supports should probably be the same, based on what your team is. Soul Shroud is really only especially good for poke teams. I don’t think WotA is very good at all on supports, honestly. On a standard comp, the best support build is probably Shurelia’s/Aegis/Zeke’s/Locket/GA or something. Or maybe Shurelia’s/Aegis/Zeke’s/Locket/Soul Shroud. The order will change based on which support you are playing and team need, but the aura items are insanely strong and it makes sense to focus on those as a support.
Frozen Heart is cool, sure, but you need that item quickly and someone who actually makes gold should probably be buying it.
I think you are grossly undervaluing Zeke’s. On safe supports I get Zeke’s immediately after double GP10, and on tanky supports I get double GP10->Aegis->Zeke’s. Aegis and Zeke’s are the aura items that really determine teamfights when everything else is roughly equal. Obviously some teams will want/need Shurelia’s earlier, especially along with Soul Shroud on poke teams, but for standard comps that want to teamfight, Aegis/Zeke’s is insanely strong.
EDIT: I run Gold yellows so I don’t have the extra mana regen. It’s a problem on most supports, except Leona as Frosty mentioned.
WoTA is good on supports, but you don’t need multiples of it, the mid / top often buy it because it helps their lane sustain if they’re not going for catalyst / don’t really use tons of mana like Vlad.
Soul Shroud is rather costly, if you can afford a Soul Shroud, you can afford a Frozen Heart. On a character like Leona you are generally right in the middle of everything as that is what her E does and her Q is melee range. Having Frozen Heart lets you use her shield more often (bigger survival due to cdr) while giving her a ton of armour and a great aura for team fights.
Zekes is really good for pretty much everyone but you, it’s not that I don’t see the value in Zekes, I do, but often it’s my 5th or even 6th item as a support and I rarely get past 4 items playing support. It’s not like you get fed playing support as you shouldn’t be taking CS or kills and you should leave farm for the carries. I like Zekes if I can afford it, but really, that’s not often.
In the case of a character like Soraka as well you’ll support better with higher AP in the late game than an extra aura anyway, I’d rather go for a Deathcap after Rylai’s + WoTA than build Zekes.
I’m thinking about grabbing the gold yellows. You guys all seem to have them, and looking at the math makes them sound good, too. Switching out blues from MR to mana regen per level would end up pretty close to the same mana regen (~1.5 less per 5) and you don’t need too much MR in bottom lane most of the time.
As for auras, I go for Aegis first, then get a kindlegem and sit on that to milk my philosopher’s stone for awhile before upgrading to Reverie. I don’t normally get a Zeke’s since it doesn’t build off HoG or philo and I’m usually strapped for cash as is. I tend to get a Locket if the game goes on long enough, though with one gp10 and all the wards I buy it tends to take a long time.
I could probably go Aegis > Kindlegem > Zeke’s and have things work out alright, since Zeke’s builds off Kindlegem. I’d still have my gp10’s that way. I’ll have to try that sometime.
Edit for math:
With yellows, quints, and masteries, you can almost afford 5 wards every 3 minutes (364.5) vs. a little more than 4 wards every 3 minutes with quints and masteries (324). 40.5 more gold per 3 minutes.
The lifesteal and attack speed your AD carry gains from Zeke’s is so much better than AP on Soraka it’s not even funny. Deathcap on its own probably isn’t even worth it on support. If you were going to get one AP item, just get Zhonya’s. Zeke’s is an extra Vamp Scepter and almost Zerker’s Greaves worth of stats for the most important member of your team in teamfights, along with anyone else who wants to autoattack.
And that’s the thing about the item in general: it’s not about what’s best for the support, it’s about what’s best for the support’s team. If it was about the support’s personal gain, you wouldn’t buy aura items at all, you’d just get standard builds at a slower rate, and wouldn’t cap out at 5 items so you can always have wards on you. So you’re buying at most 5 items, and you need to figure out a way to get maximum effectiveness out of those five slots. Buying items that scale across the whole team instead of just one member is the way to do this.
Zekes is really good, but not all carries benefit from it equally, lifesteal isn’t everything unless they have thornmail all over the place, same with attack speed, not all AD carries need high attack speed.
Urgot is a good example of an AD carry (more of a counter carry that carries) that works particularly well with Soraka, in the case of Urgot you’re not really fussed about the lifesteal, it’s good, but he’ll already have a lot of survival for a carry, he doesn’t rely on his auto - attacks either. Your main role is going to be to give him mana, and if you can slow on top of that with Rylai’s as well as give him the extra armour + heals, those big heals can have more life saving potential than the extra life steal.
As I said, Zekes is really good, I’m not discounting it at all, certain teams will benefit from it more than others though.
All AD carries need attack speed except Urgot. He is the exception that proves the rule. Lifesteal is good no matter the Thornmails. It allows a carry to play more riskily and sustain through incidental damage. Even with Urgot, though, if you have an AD jungler and Top (Shyvana jungle Olaf top, for example) Zeke’s would still be worth it.
Attack speed is good on all AD carries, but there are numerous AD carries that deal more damage with abilities than auto -attacks, Corki is a good example. Life steal relies on multiple factors, such as how hard you’re hitting, if you’re not hitting very hard, you’re not getting a lot of life from it, even if you have a really high % of life steal, AD carries don’t get to spend the whole fight auto - attacking, they’ll get in 3 or 4 hits (enough to kill a carry typically) and will spend the rest of the time trying to get away from things.
Having extra attack speed + life steal does make a difference, but it’s an incidental extra, it’s helpful but hardly a game breaking buff. The carry is getting a bigger benefit from the potion consumables which cost 500 gold for 3 minutes for the two of them. Being able to throw a huge heal on someone will typically give them a lot more health than they’ll receive due to life steal, especially if they’re focused as they’re not able to just attack constantly, that heal is also the source of extra armour, something that helps carries kill other carries.
Anyway, the point is the only time an extra 10% life steal makes an enormous difference on a carry is against other carries where the person with the highest life steal often wins or to counteract thornmail. Otherwise you’ll find the amount of health it gives is minor by the time you have the aura, in the early game laning it would be huge for sustain, but you wont have it that early on.
Anyway, Urgot is like only time I bother to play Soraka as support, I’d rather play Janna, Leona, Nunu or even Yorick before Soraka if I’m playing support.
lmfao ban select is all fucked up, some of you may not have noticed since you own a lot of champs, but you can only ban people you own right now. People are losing their minds in champ select, I’m not even playing today fuck that shit.
This is really wrong. With 40% lifesteal (which is roughly BT and Zeke’s) an ADC is healing for close to 100 health per hit, more if it’s super late game and he also has IE. 20% attack speed is also a huge deal, as it lets an ADC kill their frontline faster than the other ADC does, which opens the ADC to attack other squishy targets. The healing is good because tanks tend to not to a ton of damage all at once, so constant sustained healing helps the ADC fight against tanks, which is what he does, mostly.
You mention the armor on Soraka’s heal, but that part doesn’t scale. I’m arguing that lifesteal is better than Soraka heal, I’m arguing that lifesteal scales better than AP on a support Soraka. Mid Soraka is another story. If you feel like the initiation ability Shurelia’s gives you is more important than raw teamfight power, that’s your prerogative and not something I’ll argue against, necessarily, since both are valid. But suggesting Deathcap is better for your team than Zeke’s is something else entirely.
Add me if you want,
Name is Endeym
and I’m pretty bummed Syndra’s not very good, damn you RiotGames.
I wanted to do her dance taunt each kill but no.
What do you guys think of Lux’s,Morgana’s, and Miss Fortune’s splash art changes?
Lux’s splash art isn’t different on mine. Tryndamere’s is, though. I think the new splashes are all good. Gonna take awhile to get used to the new icons, though.
