Supports are getting some healing and shielding changes after patch 8.12

Andrei van Roon, also known as Riot Meddler, popped onto the forums today for his usual gameplay thoughts post. This time around, van Roon had some new announcements around support items and the overall support economy.

First, the team is toying around with a “per ability” tuning approach for healing and shield specific buffs, as tuning it broadly is very difficult. Since the support income has also increased over the past few patches, some support specific items will be getting a bit more expensive soon.

The more interesting change is for supports with defensive tools such as shields. Van Roon specifically calls out Janna and Lulu, suggesting that the shields they bring don’t quite match up with the risk/reward players are looking for in counter play. There is a distinct possibility that these abilities will be swapped to be on shorter timers or have some different effects to keep support players more reactive and on their toes.

These are the short term goals for Riot, but they’re also looking to tackle a couple of other big issues with supports. First, the team would like to introduce more variety in how supports earn their gold and their XP. Second, Riot wants supports to give less power to marksmen players, essentially not being able to completely remove an AD carry’s weakness.

We should learn more in the upcoming patches.