14.10 Mid-Season Patch Notes - a Challenger Support Perspective

[@fuwu9904]

Nice video, Idk who that scary looking guy who replaced Cupcake is though

[@Ilandria.]

Knight's Vow is currently being built by basically every tank I have in any of my games (I'd say around at least a 65% presence across all tanks in my games). As for Helia, I still find it's a really nice item on Rakan... I tend to play him a bit different than most people though as I do not play him as a primary engage so I don't need a tank item as my first item. With the 2 stack requirement, his double-cast E, Q, and Font of Life once again proccing Helia letting even Rakan's W proc it, you can churn out a lot of procs very quickly (6 stacks within around a couple seconds is not uncommon for me). It also has a bit of health on it, so you're not entirely without the ability to tank some chip damage. I've also found going into Wardstone after Helia to be very strong since the two together give quite a bit of health, resists, and ability haste. I don't immediately start dumping pinks everywhere because that's just too expensive, but knowing you can place a 4th ward or 2nd pink without removing another one can be situationally very useful in saving you gold as well. This season has made me rethink how I play Rakan quite a lot, especially from a rune/itemization perspective. So far I've been having the most success with a build like this: Runes: - Glacial whenever I can for scaling (see items below), Guardian if I'm afraid. - Cosmic Insight (flash CD primarily, also reduces Solstice's proc CD). - Font of Life (this is very important due to the interaction with Helia mentioned above, it gives you a 4th method of proccing it while also building stacks - W). - Revitalize (good scaling, also increases Glacial slow by 4.5%). - Pick your favourites from the other Inspiration and Resolve runes (I've been enjoying Cash Back - RIP Future's Market and Ingenious Hunter, my favourite runes - and Biscuit, Second Wind, or Bone Plating to help get through early game a bit. Once nice thing about Bone Plating on Rakan is that small chip damage won't waste it, it only procs after your passive shield is gone). - Stat runes are whatever you like, Rakan works well with literally any of them so play what's appropriate for the situation or fits your style. The one caveat is if you are considering the tenacity rune, that might be a sign a champion like Rell is a better pick that game. Rakan wants to avoid being locked down altogether, not get out after being locked down. That's not a hard rule though. Always-Items (in a varying order depending on what the game state is): - Solstice Sleigh (when you W in you will proc this, Font of Life, Helia, gain 1 stack on Helia afterwards, Glacial, and trigger Moonstone for all of that if you have it). - The new recall boots (ESPECIALLY with Xayah... You can gain SO MUCH tempo for your lane very early since that empowered recall transfers to her as well). - Helia (AP, health, haste, and he can proc it better than almost every enchanter I can think of minus maybe Sona. You can proc 4 stacks effectively instantly with him, up to 4 more really quickly afterwards). - Wardstone (The defensive stats on this scale really nicely with Rakan's passive and the health Helia/Moonstone gives you all while not "wasting a slot" on a tank support item in the later portions of games that go longer). If the game goes longer then I always see if I can reasonably buy these, I only buy something else if the situation REALLY calls for it: - Moonstone (Rakan makes very good use of the AP, HP, haste, and heal/shield procs) - Dawncore (if bought after two mana regen items your Glacial slow reaches approximately 60% for 4-5 seconds depending what you proc it with, and your E and Q each give ~450 shields/HP per cast in addition to buffing Solstice, Font of Life, and Helia procs by a total of around 30%) Optional things instead of Moonstone/Dawncore: - Mandate for wombo-combo teams. - Locket if you need general durability. I don't like going Zeke's on Rakan as I'm never standing in range long enough to make use of the proc. The locket shield also scales with the rest of the build. - Crucible when you need a cleanse on support. - Knight's Vow or Abyssal when you need specific damage type durability or their relevant utility (protect-the-carry or "wait why did 0 of us pick a physical damage champion?"). - Staff or Censer to maximize carry DPS. Staff has a niche pick option as selfish move speed for Rakan, but I find I don't really need it. - Redemption: I usually prefer Locket over Redemption most of the time for durability, however Redemption does scale better, lets you affect things you're far away from, if you're dead, and has some niche counter uses when timed well (executes, etc.). I think of this somewhat as a "slightly worse scaling but safer" version of Moonstone when bought on Rakan. Notes: Games very rarely go past the "Always Items" for me, usually ending when I have the mini wardstone. I sometimes go Kindlegem into Wardstone when I need more tankiness as my quest tends to finish around the perfect timing for that. This build gives around 200 AP and 3.5k HP along with some buffer resistances, which makes you bulky enough if you are not the primary engage or vs 18 assassins who only want to hunt you; you should be diving in and out very often. Note Note: Just my 2 cents as someone who loves Rakan but is not coming from a challenger/competitive-play level. I really don't like building him pure tank as I'd just rather play Rell if I'm going to do that. Making use of his enchanter qualities while being bulky enough to play like a psycho is very important to me in expressing my play style with him.

[@Ilandria.]

P.S. My apologies for the massive post, I tried to de-wall-of-text it with formatting as I could. Thank you for your insight, it's always greatly appreciated! I hadn't thought about the potential uses of Warmog's on Renata and now I want to try playing around with it as she's my go-to when the game calls for an enchanter with strong dis/counter-engage. The removal of mana from Zeke's and addition of MR is something I've wanted for what feels like a decade...

[@CoachCupcake]

Helia on Rakan with the font of life changes sounds pretty reasonable, I'll have to give that a go :)

[@Ilandria.]

I haven't ran the math, but based on gameplay experience since the patch the duo XP change alters these level breakpoints: Old: 2 - all 3 melees from 2nd wave 3 - all 3 melees from 4th wave New: 2 - 2 melees and 1 of any minion from 2nd wave 3 - 2 melees from 4th wave

[@garagavia]

Hi coach Catcake. I have two questions about support itemization. 1) I really like Dark Seal, but it often causes me to run out of bag space. Is this why you said it's bad? 2) I find that people i play against buy and place a lot of random control wards. I clear them and think "sweet, 100 free gold". However I currently don't buy enough control wards myself. How can I have high impact control wards that don't just waste gold for free?

[@raWay444]

what happened to chunks to challenger?

[@CrystalArrow-r2z]

I dont see how Knights Vow being bought by junglers/toplaners means its overtuned.. Its just a tank item which is priced primarky for supports but jungle and top tanks can get it too as it gives them stats and an ability they may want. Happy to be corrected. Just got to your bit on ghost - champs who liked extended fights in 14.9 will still like them in 14.10. As an Ashe/Jinx/Trist playa, I think I might switch to barrier when I think the shield will make a big difference. Ghost was simply overpowered and mobility on 325 base move speed champs is very enticing.

[@CoachCupcake]

Historically whenever support items show up elsewhere, Riot patches them. They probably want tanks and bruisers buying tank/bruiser items, not support items. So the item's efficiency is too high IMO, but if you think that's fine for the game then fair enough haha. Thanks for the ADC insight!

[@CrystalArrow-r2z]

@@CoachCupcake Looks like Riot agreed with you, they just nerfed Knights Vow!

[@RyanReynolds42069]

Do you think swifties, dark seal, warmogs, Knight vow is a good core for alistar support now?

[@CoachCupcake]

The boots will depend on the game. Warmogs is also less valuable on melee supports as it's harder to exit combat to heal up as well as being useful from range. Dark seal won't be good. So probably not haha

[@RyanReynolds42069]

@CoachCupcake could you please explain why darkseal is bad? Alistar has very good ap ratios and it's quite easy to keep the stacks because in my opinion it's quite hard to kill an alistar.