Why Damage Supports are not Very Strong in the Current Meta | Day 6/30

The current Meta of League of legends has shifted towards more peel orientated supports and that has left champions like Zyra, Brand and Vel’koz out of the Meta for some time. The reasoning behind this can somewhat be unfair to these champions and the players who have spent time to learn and love them.

Your role

Your role as a mage support is to do damage and poke the enemies as much as possible. The problem with this is that a lot of your damage can be shielded or diverted. This means that your mana has been used and little to nothing gained. The main thing that these damage supports need to do is to poke the enemies down and get them as behind as possible, playing against a shield support makes your job incredibly hard.

Difficulty

If we compare Mage supports to other supports that are more Meta such as Janna or Soraka, they are much harder to play and do well with. Zyra for example needs a much higher skill level than Janna and this can put players of learning her and doing well with her. This also means their is a less dedicated fan base, and less picked.

Performance

In the early game these champions do incredibly well because they usually do more damage than anyone else. Early game Zyra combo’s can chunk enemy laners and make them play super passive. However unlike many other supports their scaling can be terrible. For example if you play Zyra into Janna early game you should be able to poke them with autos and early game poke, however a lot of this damage will be reduced.

While Janna gets stronger for the team fights and being able to peel her team, Zyra falls behind in Damage as she isn’t getting as much gold compared to her laner. Zyra is a slight exception to most damage supports because her ultimate is still very useful even when behind

Overall Mage supports, also known as Damage dealing supports are having a hard time in the current Meta because of the enemies that they are playing against. The issue is that there are some really strong support items that these damage dealers just can’t buy and that is what is affecting them.

Hi there, I hope you enjoyed this guide. If you did, maybe you’d like to show your support by checking out my Twitch channel. I stream very frequently and if you have any questions about this guide or improving at League of Legends, please come by some time and ask me a question or two. Thank you for your support, and I hope to see you soon :) PS, I’m Diamond 1 if that helps.