League of Legends: Patch 10.4 Aggregated Support Tier List

League of Legends. Courtesy of Riot Games. /

We take a look at the League of Legends support meta in Patch 10.4.

Supports weren’t targetted in Patch 10.4, but their champions certainly were. With Sona and Soraka dominating the top lane of League of Legends, nerfs were necessary to bring those two enchanters into line. Some of those nerfs have been walked back since the patch rolled out, but the question of where these champions will end up in the support tier list remains.

Now Riot has since hotfixed both Sona and Soraka and hinted that some of these nerfs could be walked back in Patch 10.5. For right now, though, these two champions’ mains will have to wait and see where these two enchanters will fall.

Support Tier List

S tier: Blitzcrank, Senna, Leona
A+ tier: Thresh (⇐⇓), Bard, Nami, Nautilus (⇓)
A tier: Lulu
B tier: Zilean, Janna (⇓), Pyke, Rakan, Morgana (⇓), Vel’Koz (⇑), Sona, Taric, Karma (⇑), Shaco (⇑), Zyra, Soraka (⇓)
C tier: Brand (⇐), Yuumi, Fiddlesticks, Swain (⇓), Lux, Alistar, Braum (⇓), Xerath (⇒)
D tier: Tahm Kench
F tier: Shen, Galio, Malphite (*)

Dropped: Maokai, Poppy, Volibear

Key

* = new to the tier list this patch
⇑ = improved (rated at least one tier higher than the previous patch)
⇓ = declined (rated at least one tier lower than the previous patch)
⇐ = borderline-up (within 10% of being in the next-higher tier)
⇒ = borderline-down (within 10% of being in the next-lower tier)

Observations

Buffed Champions

Lux

Riot specifically called out that they were trying to buff support Lux with their damage and cooldown buffs on her Light Binding. The Final Spark buff where she can flash while casting is also nice, but ultimately the buffs were fairly significant.

She did only get a modest bump to her ranking, Lux is still a C tier support. However, her win rate in the role jumped by 3.6% while her pick rate also rose. I think Lux is probably a bit underrated by sites around the internet and should be considered at least B tier.

Nerfed Champions

Sona

Riot attempted to re-adjust her to be more of a support than top laner by making all of her abilities grant 30 mana when she tags an ally with the aura (while also raising the overall mana costs). This was supposed to be net neutral for Sona as a support and indeed her rating as a support barely moved in Patch 10.4. However, her win rate is down to 51.4%, down almost 1.4% from the last patch.

Soraka

Similarly, Soraka got a bunch of nerfs aimed at her top lane power. Unlike Sona, though, the Starchild’s support presence was actually negatively affected.

Soraka suffered the biggest drop in our tier list, going down all the way to nearly C tier. In addition, her support win rate cratered, going from 50.6% down to 47.6% in Patch 10.4. And that is on top of her pick rate falling.

Which support is best to main. dark. Next

Methodology: These rankings were determined by finding the average standardized score of a champion from nine different tier lists from sites around the internet. This is done by assigning a certain weight to each different score, rank, or grade given by these sites (for instance, both a “Diamond” rating and “A” grade would be worth a 90 score). The standardized score is then determined by looking at the average score given to all champions in every role by that site as well as the standard deviation of scores given (so that sites that give out more high grades will not have their As be worth the same as a site that gives out very few high grades).

The full, underlying data can be found here. This link also includes the full listing of how the scores are assigned. Champions must be rated by at least half of the sites audited in order to qualify for our tier list.

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