Sightstone and support items are being combined

In a Dev Corner this week, League of Legends game designer ItsLobo opened up about forthcoming changes to Sightstone and other support items.

The tier 3 support items like Face of the Mountain are being removed from the game. Instead, they will be replaced by a Sightstone active. Last season, Riot added the gold generation quests to support lines. They resulted in mostly boring things like a passive shield for the Mountain line. Completing that quest will now grant players their ward machine instead.

The reasoning for this change is extremely simple. Being the poorest role in the game and also having to spend 800 gold on a Sightstone every game was a pain. Now, you don’t have to choose between your utility items and your wards. The support items will be somewhat of a catch all and allow you to pick the one that’s best for your specific champ’s gold generation.

While this may be sad news for some, ItsLobo did mention a desire to return Talisman of Ascension and Frost Queen’s claim’s actives to the game. Whether these show up in some kind of support-affordable item or what, we don’t know. However, Face of the Mountain will not be returning anytime soon, which is sad news for tanky supports who have no way to actively protect their allies without a Locket (and all the Blitzcranks shed a tear).

These new upgrades will come with new names and new artwork. We can expect these changes to hit around Patch 7.2, although the post mentioned a possible delay.