Patch 3.10: Itemisation changes for Supports

Intro

If your main role is support, there are a few items which you've built a lot - Aegis of the Legion/Runic Bulwark, Locket of the Iron Solari, Ruby Sightstone. The Runic/Locket combo, brought a lot of strenght to the team with a nice aura boosting defensive stats, plus Locket's shield-on-demand. That item combo meant also that otherwise the squishy support champions were no longer that - squishy.

The Runic/Locket combo gave you a nice chunk of HP, Armor, Magic Resist, HP per 5 regeneration. Well, some part of that is gone now. In this blog I will discuss how support itemisation was changed by Patch 3.10, what are your options to adapt and how the overall change will affect you.

You can find the full Patch 3.10 patch notes here. You can also check out Riot's video about the patch:

What exactly changed?

Here is a summary of the item combo most affected by the patch: Runic Bulwark + Locket of the Iron Solari.

1.The old Runic Bulwark + Locket of the Iron Solari (the total stats the carrier of the items got):
600HP, 75 Armor, 55 Magic Resist, 20HP per 5, 10% CDR

The old Legion aura from Runic Bulwark:
10 Armor, 25 Magic Resist, 10HP per 5. The effect was increased by 50% for minions.
Locket's Shield: 50 + 10 x level of carrier for 5 seconds (remains unchanged by Patch 3.10).
Total price: 1850 (Locket) + 2950 (Runic) = 4800 Gold

2. The new Locket of the Iron Solari (the total stats the carrier of the item gets now):
300HP, 20 Armor, 20 Magic Resist, 10HP per 5, 10% CDR

The new Legion aura:
20 Magic Resist, 10Hp per 5. The aura does not upgrade by upgrading from Aegis of the Legion to Locket of the Iron Solari.
Locket's Shield: 50 + 10 x level of carrier for 5 seconds (remains unchanged by Patch 3.10).
Total Price: Aegis (1900) + Locket Upgrade (600) = 2500 Gold

So with some simple math we will see what the 2300 was worth:
2300 Gold = 300HP + 55 Armor + 35 Magic Resist + 10Hp per 5

But this isn't the true value of the 2300 Gold. Your team also lost (due to the aura nerf): 10 Armor, 5 magic Resist per player. Multiply that by 4 (the other 4 players from your team) and you get 40 Armor and 20 Magic Resist.

 

What to do with the 2300 free gold?

So yes, if you saw the Patch 3.10 notes and said 'OMG I lost so much stats as a support!' you were kinda right. But here's the good news - now you get 2300 gold to spend on other items that might end up helping your team more in the long run, plus one more free slot in your inventory. This is always nice to have when you see the game clock hit 45+ minutes.

Here are some examples: Shurelya's Reverie, Twin Shadows, Mikael's Crucible, Frozen Heart. We will analyze each of these items below.

1. Shurelya's Reverie:

Shurelya's Reverie is built from Philosopher's Stone (700) + Kindlegem (850). Philosopher's Stone, an essential item for supports, is a great early-game item. We're going to assume you already have it, as we're talking about having 2000+ gold to spend (and it's 5 Gold per 10 seconds will help you accumulate that gold). From here it's just 1400 gold standing between you and your new Shurelya's Reverie. The 1400 Gold will give you the following:  250 HP, 3HP per 5, 1 Mana per 5, 10% CDR and the UNIQUE Active: +40% Movement Speed for 3 seconds for yo uand your allies - a great tool for quickly engaging/disengaging the enemy team or moving a lot of people close to an objective like Dragon, Baron Nashor or a quick shove up a lane to kill that pesky enemy tower.

Here we see that some of the stats you lost from the previous Runic + locket combo start coming back - Shurelya gives you 250HP while still giving utility to the whole team, plus the 10% CDR is always nice to have on a support like Nami or Sona for spamming your healing abilities, having your ultimate on a lower cooldown and so on.

Buying Shurelya's Reverie will leave you with: 2300-1400 = 900 gold.

 

2. Mikael's Crucible:

Mikael's Crucible is another item that builds out of  Philosopher's Stone. The other item you need is Chalice of Harmony (880 Gold) and the gold for upgrading the items into Mikael's (920 Gold). The total cost of going Philosopher's Stone -> Mikael's Crucible is 1800 Gold.

This item is absolutely awesome on spam-happy supports. It gives you a giant boost to your Mana Regeneration: 18 Mana per 5 and the UNIQUE Passive - Mana Font: Increases Mana Regen by 1% for every 1% of missing Mana. Having this item ensures that as a support, especially a healer like Nami, Sona, Soraka and Taric, you will have a really hard time running out of mana and you will always be that supportive element in prolonged teamfights.

The other huge thing is the item's UNIQUE Active: Removes all stuns, roots, taunts, fears, silences, and slows on an allied chamipon and heals that champion for 150 (+10% of maximum Health). Mikael's Crucible has a 180 second cooldown. In my opinion (you are free to disagree with me, of course) this is one of the strongest active items a support can have at their disposal. It gives you the ability to make that fight-changing play of saving a seemingly doomed ally.

Your AD Carry has three people gunning for him. Somene stuns him. He/She has 500Hp left and it's almost certain doom. NOPE! Mikael's Crucible to the rescue. The stun is gone, plus your teammate just got a nice chunk of health back (let's say he has around 2000 max HP, that means 150 + 200 = instant heal for 350HP). Mikael's can ensure the survival of your team's most important player in that critical moment where it seems the fight would be lost without your carry. That's why I call this item 'the mini-Guardian's Angel'.

Building Mikael's Crucible out of Philosopher's Stone will cost you 1800 Gold. This leaves us with 500 Gold out of the 2300 we gain from the changes to Runic Bulwark and Locket of the Iron Solari. But wait, there's more! We still have more options.

 

3. Twin Shadows:

Twin Shadows - a cheap, seemingly simple item with a lot of potential. As a support, the items gives you 3 stat boosts that always benefit you: 40 Magic Resist, +6% Movement Speed (the % is of your base speed without boots) and 40AP for that little extra kick for your spells. The speed boost is really nice for flying around the map and spreading wards, while getting you out of a dangerous place quickly (like the enemy jungle).  

Now let's look at the UNIQUE Active - Hunt: Summons up to 2 invulnerable ghosts that seek out the two nearest enemy champions for 6 seconds. If a ghost reaches its target, it reveals the target and reduces their Movement Speed by 40% for 2.5 seconds (120 second cooldown).

The item works great for those tricky moments where you caught a high-value target, but you just can't get him or her. Have no wards and you're suspecting the enemy team is doing Dragon or Baron Nashor? You have a safe way to check it, and possibly, if the players affected by the ghosts are on low HP, go in with your team and retaliate. The vision granted on the target and the applied slow are really nice for that. The items is also great if your AD Carry is ahead and you and him have began roaming like a small, deadly gank-squad of two. If the target you want to kill removes a CC debuff from your AD/AP Carry, like Vayne's Condemn, you can give them a nasty surprise in the form of two pesky ghosts.

Building Twin Shadows costs 1900 gold. It is built from Kage's Lucky Pick and a Null-Magic Mantle. 2300-1900 = 400 Gold. The items is still covered by our newfound budget. Let's explore a few more options.

 

4. Frozen Heart:

The next item I want to bring to your attention is Frozen Heart, and especially, one of its components - Glacial Shroud. Frozen Heart can turn any squishy support champ into a surprisingly tanky opponent. It gives you a huge amount of Armor when completed (95 Armor), 400 Mana and 20% CDR. This is a very nice defensive item, which affects you a lot, but also has this: "UNIQUE Aura - Reduces the Attack Speed of Nearby enemies by 20%" - a great anti-enemy aura, helping you bring your team ahead in a teamfight.

I really can't call this item 'cheap', but you sure do get what you pay for. Mana, survivability and a huge boost to you Cooldown Reduction. The items costs 2900 Gold, which is more than our 2300 Gold budget, but our goal here isn't building the whole thing right away. We'll focus on Glacial Shroud fro now - for the price of 1350 Gold you get 300 Mana, 45 Armor and a nice 10% CDR. For that price you get a very nice boost to you stats, ensuring you can cast spells faster, you have the mana to do it, and you can actually survive a confrontation longer against AD-heavy enemy damage. 

2300 - 1350 = 950 Gold. But how do we use the remaining 950 Gold. Let's round it up to 1000 Gold and you have an answer - Warden's Mail. This is the second component of Frozen Heart. it gives you less varied stats, so always build it after Glacial Shroud. From Warden's Mail you get the following: 50 Armor and UNIQUE Passive - Cold Steel: When hit by basic attacks, reduces the attacker's Attack Speed by 15% for 2 seconds. When you combine Glacial Shroud and Warden's Mail you lose the Warden's Mail passive, as it is converted to Frozen Heart's passive. 

If you really need Armor to  deal with a huge amount of Attack Damage, you can build Glacial Shroud and Warden's mail at the cost of 2350 Gold. This is almost covered by our 2300 Gold budget and will grant you 95 Armom, 300 Mana, +10% CDR and the Cold Steel passive. From there it's just 550 Gold towards getting Frozen Heart.

 

So we saw some items, what was the point?

Before Patch 3.10, most supports were forced either by the situation, by their team or the need for survivability to build Runic Bulwark and Locket of the Iron Solari. As the item combo costed 4800 Gold, it didn't really allow you to build much else, or anything at all, if you went down that path. It was pretty much Runic, Locket, wards, wards, wards. That's how the mid-to-late game looked for supports most of the time. Now the huge gold sink is gone and Riot presented us with the new Locket of the Iron Solari and it's 2500 Gold cost.

This guide's aim was to show you where you can invest the 2300 Gold that you are now NOT forced to spend game after game for the same two items.  The 2300 Gold is a big chunk of money which allows you to 'regain' some of the stats you've lost due to the changes of the items, while also gaining a lot of options due to the Active/Passive uses of the items you can buy. From the 4 items I showed you we can see there is something for every situation, no matter what you need -  Carry protection, Armor/Magic Resist, Mana and Mana Regen, Cooldown Reduction, Movement Speed and engage/disengage for you and your team. 

Patch 3.10 has openede a lot of itemisation paths for support and you are no longer almost forced to do the same thing over and over again. Here we explored and saw some uses for your new item options that will help you be the most awesome support possible.

Good Luck and Have Fun.