I know this issue has been brought up before, but my own recent experiences with Janna have reinforced how pressing a concern this really is.

As an example, I recently played a match with Janna. We won. Handily. Our team had more than thirty kills, and I participated in easily 1/3 of those kills. I put early points into her shield skill, allowing our Master Yi to survive and win early fights where he otherwise would have died or retreated. I used my ultimate to keep our team alive and fighting in several key battles. I felt like I had played well.

And by the end of the match I was credited with 1 kill and 2 assists--and both assists came from auto attacks that contributed very little to the fight relative to my heals and shields. As a result I was about two levels behind the rest of my teammates and I had accumulated significantly less gold. The combination caused me to be more fragile and forced me to run out of mana much faster than I would have liked. And the end-game was significantly less fun than it should have been.

The issue isn't recognition. I couldn't care less what the scoreboard says. But assists yield gold and experience, both of which are extremely valuable. They also trigger some item effects that can be useful.

By not giving assists for playing a supporting role, the current design slows the development of Janna, Zilean, etc. both nerfing those champions and making them less fun and less rewarding.

I agree, while the system may not of been designed with keeping track of healing while champs are fighting, it should be implemented. Though I doubt this will happen because this might require an overhaul of how the game tracks assists. If a champ heals me for over 1/2 my health and I end the fight below 1/2 health the champ should get 50% of the bounty.