Morello responded!

... unfortunately his response seems to be mostly about why the Mastery implementation would be bad.

Morello, bro, we've been past the Mastery thing for months now. The consensus is that it would be better as a basic mechanic or as an item passive.

Morello also references the "nobody would play trad supports anymore" argument: if you could have an Annie with 40% farm instead of a Sona, you would take the Annie every time. It's only at 0% farm that Sona is competitive. If that's so, that's a problem, and Supports should be buffed until they can compete at 40% farm with a half-starved Annie.

Here's my proposal:

(1) Add a fifth goldtream with, say, 40% of normal farm.

(2) For each traditional Support, either
(a) buff them up so that their power level is somewhere in between a 40% farm Annie and a 100% farm Annie, in other words giving them less snowball potential in exchange for less risk

(b) make them scale harder, so that they suck about as bad as Annie at 0% farm and are almost as useful at 100% farm. Put ratios on their buffs/debuffs/CC, for instance.

Finally, I don't think it would be bad if Annie were sometimes viable as a Synergy champion. Maybe the player sucks at Support. Maybe your team isn't going for big teamfights, and so doesn't really need a Support champion. Maybe the player is just really good at Annie.

EDIT: Wow. I had no expectation at all that this would receive so much ... support. ^.^

EDIT2: Unfortunately, I'm sort of stuck with the "Mastery" title. I think this would be better as a basic mechanic or an item.

TL;DR: Make a new mechanic (a basic mechanic, a Mastery, an item passive, whatever) that gives champions gold when a nearby allied champion last-hits a minion. (It's a bonus; it doesn't take away from what the last-hitter receives.) It would, in effect, create a 5th goldstream for the 5th Champion. Synergy, whether as a Mastery or just a default game mechanic, furthers two main goals:

(1) $ FOR SUPPORTS. Give Supports some ability to itemize and make item decisions beyond the same old Philo Stone, HoG, Shurelya's, game over. Also remove the "starvation stigma" that Supports now suffer. ("The four of us get gold to buy items. You don't." + "u lastpick u support".) Right now, even with gp10s, Supports are several thousand gold behind (more if you don't count the gp10 costs as "spent gold") by the time you hit early-mid-game teamfights that can decide the game. It really sucks trying to teamfight with basic shoes and a philo stone while everybody else has their first legendary-tier item and upgraded shoes. Supports level well ... but not THAT well.

(2) MORE FLEXIBILITY IN LANE ASSIGNMENTS. Make alternate lane compositions viable. Right now, 4 zero-sum goldstreams for 5 champions has lanecomp locked up: 1-1-2+J, with the "2" being almost always a Carry and a Support. People should play Supports because they want to or because of the unique advantages Supports bring to a team, not because the economy demands it.
There are two keystone facts that lock in the static meta:

• Currently, you must have a Jungler, or else you have only 3 goldstreams for 5 champions (even worse than 4 for 5). Synergy lets a champion who would otherwise have to jungle instead gain "half of a goldstream" by laning with someone else.
• Currently, the only viable duo laner is a Support, because choosing to back someone up in lane currently means 0 farm revenue. Synergy makes duo-laning viable for a much wider range of Champions, such as tanks and bruisers.

I propose something along these lines:

Synergy: When a nearby allied Champion slays a minion, gain a bonus equal to 40% of the minion's value. (For example: if Warwick kills a 20-gold minion, Warwick gets the full 20g but a nearby Veigar will also get 8g.)
If more than one allied Champion is in range of a last-hit, split this bonus evenly among them. (Example: WW kills a 20-gold minion, with Veigar and Ashe both nearby. Warwick gets 20g, Veigar gets 4g, Ashe gets 4g.) (Acknowledgement: Cocaco and others suggested using a percentage.)
Whoa! Wait a minute! You crazy cupcake, are you proposing even more gold for farming carries?
--> I am not! If you're a farming Champion, this mechanic would have ZERO* impact on your lanefarm revenue.
--> I do also want to point out that getting Synergy gold is always worse than getting solo farm. Packing 3 people into a lane to max out Synergy does NOT help your team's total gold generation.
--> However, I agree that we might want to tweak it to avoid making every backed-up minion glut a mini-dragon. See the red text below!

*: Possible, limited exception: if your lanemate sees you about to miss a CS, they can last-hit it and give you 40% of the minion's value. I like that! It feels cooperative and ... teamly.

Wait, so what IS it? A Mastery? What?
--> I've created a separate thread for discussing implementation options (item, runes, mastery, etc.):
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/....php?t=2360873

• I originally posted it as a Mastery (to be honest) to make it seem less radical. The Mastery version still has its adherents. There is debate about whether it would be deep in the Utility tree or right at the top.
• My current view is that this should just be a basic mechanic, like XP-sharing.
• Drahal and others have suggested it might be an item that costs about 600g and has a VERY low resale value. It might upgrade into some sort of nice Support item. This would prevent everyone from buying it for the occasional late-game wave-clear. My second-favorite option after basic mechanic.
• Some have suggested runes: personally, I think it would be wrong to make IP *that* powerful, or *that* necessary for playing Support.

What about jungle creeps?
--> As written, it would not apply to them. However, I think it might be interesting if it applied to non-dragon, non-baron monsters. Double Jungle wouldn't be quite such a troll thing anymore, and Double Jungle is fun. It might lead to bot running to golems for splash gold ... which might be a problem and might be fine. Something to test! But as written, it would not apply.

I would be ecstatic if Riot would try this out in-house, and perhaps add it to the PBE to see what happens. Playtesting experience will probably lead to improvements on the numerical specifics, and it may need some new non-numerical details, but I think the basic idea is sound.

SOME IMPORTANT POINTS

• Has no effect on your own last-hits.
• Remember that Synergy is ALWAYS worse than last-hitting. Tri-lanes actually reduce total team gold generation: think of each champ as earning a paycheck for the team.
• I made Synergy gold drop off quite sharply after the "Ashe last-hits, Garen and Blitz gain Synergy gold" triple-lane point. I wanted tri-lanes to be costly but feasible, but I wanted to minimize the value of having the whole team around to farm massive minion waves late-game.

PROBLEM:

• Supports don't get the farm that other champs get, which means Support players can buy very few items.
• This is a problem because buying stuff is fun. (Support is fun as-is, but it would be more fun if we could also buy items.)
• More than that, adaptive item selection is a big part of gameplay, and itemization lets players take their own unique approaches to their champions.
• Right now, Support is mandatory. (So is Jungler.) This is also a problem. Support is strong, no question. Supports can turn teamfights around, boost AD Carries into snowball land, and otherwise win the game with their skillful play. But people who can't competently do any of these Support things end up playing Support all the time, because with 4 goldstreams and 5 champions someone has to starve. As players of the "Starvation Role", Supports are too often looked down on as the players who got stuck with the least-desired role. ("U LASTPICK U SUPPORT")
• A sign of how bad the situation has become: I used to think of the definition of "Support" as being about what a "Support" Champion could do. A Support, I thought, was someone who used heals, buffs, debuffs, repositions, and other such abilities. I didn't think of Supports as waterboys or cheerleaders, but more like military officers who organized their team and, through clever play, amplified their power and disrupted the enemy strategy. But it seems that now, the main definition of "Support", the sine qua non of being a "Support", is that you're not totally useless even when you're utterly starved from 0:00 onward. A fix to the starvation-support problem could mean that once again Supports are valued for what they can do, rather than what they can survive.
• More generally, the 4-goldstreams for 5-champions setup sets off a chain reaction that locks down the lanes. As-is, all too often you can't play the champ you want to play because lane mechanics require you to fill a role that your champ can't fill. That's unfortunate.

CAUSE OF PROBLEM:

• There are 4 goldstreams and 5 champions.
• In the early-mid game, Supports are several thousand gold behind. I've attached some graphs which show that even 15 minutes of lane-farm vastly outstrips all the gp10 in the game. The exact number is problematic to compute, because it depends on how much Supports "want" the stats (hp5, health, AP) that come with gp10 items. Even assuming you would pay full-price for all that health and hp5 and so on, though, Supports are about 3K behind at 17 minutes.
• Champions scale with gold at different rates. (I've attached some illustrative graphs, showing "bang for buck" on a Carry, a Mage, and a Support. I drew flat lines to represent Support CC, since they don't produce damage and don't currently scale. Carry and Mage DPS is empirically-generated: I simulated buying items and calculated DPS. They should each be an order higher, if you factor in ArPen/MPen. Carries are cubic, mages are quadratic.)
• And so the optimal strategy is to have one champion who does not scale well with gold dip as shallowly as possible into the goldstream.
• It's optimal, but not much fun. You build Philo Stone, Heart of Gold, Shurelya's ... maybe an Aegis. Game over. Also lots of wards.
• Zero-sum gold means only a Support can really duo-lane with someone. Dragon control means the 2-lane is almost always bot lane. You have a jungler because otherwise it'd be 3 goldstreams for 5 champions, on top of losing XP. Zero-sum gold locks up the lane meta. It also makes Support - a fine, respectable role - absolutely mandatory, which is not fun.

SOLUTION:

• Create a 5th goldstream in the form of this Mastery. (Or as a basic mechanic.)
• The Synergy stream will have about 40% as much gold as the other 4 streams in it. Synergy users will still be getting less gold than last-hitters, but it won't be zero farm. Projecting roughly, Synergy-users will be be 1-2K behind, instead of 3-4K behind.
• This is especially crucial for the early game, when everyone else is racking up farm (~ 4K gold in the first 15m) and your gp10s still haven't "paid for themselves". Although Supports may end up "only" a few thousand gold behind at the endgame screen, they miss out on that crucial early gold that lets players shape the early-mid game.
• This would also open up the meta. With Synergy, you could play a less-farmed-but-not-totally-trash non-Support. You could also skip a Jungler and, say, send 2 top. Foregoing the jungle would put your team behind on experience, and you'd have more trouble with buffs/ganks, but there are also advantages to 2v1. Right now, this would be impossible: the gold loss in top lane would just not be worth it. Synergy makes this a viable strategic choice with pros and cons, and gives players more freedom to play what they want.

MY NEXT POST CONTAINS A LIST OF COMMON CRITIQUES, WITH MY REPLIES. IF YOU HAVE A "BUT WHAT ABOUT-" THOUGHT, PLEASE CHECK THAT OUT AND SEE IF THE ISSUE IS ADDRESSED TO YOUR SATISFACTION THERE.

I like it. The fact that it doesn't work on your own last-hits is a good way of making it a support-only thing.

[CENTER]SOME COMMON CRITIQUES, WITH REPLIES[/CENTER]

THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS A LOT OF TEXT. I SUGGEST THAT YOU FIRST PAUSE TO DECIDE WHAT IF ANYTHING CONCERNS YOU, THEN SKIM THE HEADERS TO SEE IF YOUR CONCERN IS LISTED.

"SUPPORTS ARE GREAT AT SURVIVING ON NO INCOME. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!"
TL;DR: Supports can do more than starve well. With Synergy, those other contributions will stand out more.

• The frequency with which this critique is made shows the pervasiveness of the "starvation stigma" I described above. People see Supports and, maybe after "they can heal" or something, think, "Oh, they're on the team because we don't have enough farm to go around; they picked that champ because they aren't allowed to take gold from the other 4 of us, and that champ lets them do that without totally sucking."
• Supports can provide lane sustain power, support Carries through lanephase, use buffs/debuffs intelligently to win teamfights, provide map vision, and otherwise help boost their team and dampen the enemy team. You pick a Carry when you want to do lots of damage. You should pick a Support when you want to do these Support-y things, not because "well, we're short a goldstream; I'll be the one to not get any gold". Starvation is a stupid class specialty. Play Supports to Support the team in clever and effective ways, not to starve!

"40% IS TOO MUCH; HOW ABOUT 30% OR 35% OR 20% OR ... "
TL;DR: You might well be right. I don't claim to know that these specific numbers are ideal. Testing will determine the correct numbers.

• This will require testing to determine optimal numbers. I agree.
• Testing might also reveal other areas for improvement, like adjusting the range.

"EVERY CHAMP WILL TAKE THIS (IF IT'S A MASTERY)."
TL;DR: Synergy gives you nothing when you last-hit. It's only good if you would otherwise be getting no revenue at all. Synergy offers Caitlyn basically nothing. In contrast, she can get about 1000g of stats from Offense. However, I agree that this might be better as a default, basic mechanic that "everyone gets", rather than as a Mastery.

• They won't, because it doesn't work on your own last-hits. Ashe gains nothing from this Mastery. It is strictly better to be scoring last-hits yourself than to be using this Mastery. But if you're a Support who would otherwise get 0 gold, this is worthwhile.
• Remember that the Offense tree holds about 1000g of stats for AD Carries. Synergy provides 2K of gold over the course of 200 CS. 1000g of starting stat boosts is much better for AD Carries than any wave-farming they might be able to pick up in the mid-late game.
• Still, I agree that this seems too important to be a Mastery: Masteries are supposed to be optional boosts. That's why I've come to agree that this should just be a default mechanic. It will have no effect on solo lanes, but will make it possible to join someone's lane without taking their CS or starving.

"THIS IS A SUPPORT BUFF."
TL;DR: Somewhat. It won't make Support CC/buffs stronger. Supports scale poorly with gold. It's more a buff to non-Support candidates for duo lanes.

• Yes. Supports will be "buffed" ... by being given less than half the farm income of a non-Support champion.
• Supports can't buy items to increase the duration of their CC or to amplify their buffs/debuffs. They can't increase their personal power like other classes can. (Some qualify as decent mages, it's true.)
• I think the most significant "buff" will be to the viability of duo-laning with a non-traditional Support ... or a non-Support, like a mage or a bruiser or a tank. Synergy will make it possible to Support with a champ who needs some farm to be viable. But let's talk about the effect on Supports.
• More gold will give Supports more and earlier opportunities to decide how they want to customize their character and contribute to the team. Everyone else gets to hit midgame with a key item or two; Supports are often still struggling along with a Philo Stone, shoes, and a half-made item. Synergy would change that. Do you buy an Oracle's? Save up for an Aegis? Grab a Shurelya's? Buy a ton of wards? It will give you the gold you need to make these calls.

"So this scales on the success of someone else and is worthless if they're doing badly? Wonderful." (Drayenn's critique)
TL;DR: Synergy gains do depend on the duo lane's performance, and that in turn depends in part on the Carry's performance. I don't think this is terrible.

• I think it's good to give Supports a share of the profits when a duo lane goes well.
• Synergy makes duo lanes more important. Currently, they're "worth" 1 goldstream. With Synergy, it's more accurate to say that "1.4 goldstreams" are at stake.
• I think this is reasonable, since duo lanes have 2 players on each side. They should matter a bit more.
• It sucks having terrible teammates. However, with Synergy, a Support can reap the benefits of helping a terrible Carry do at least a passable job. They overextend? Warn them via chat, place wards, hold off gankers and shield the Carry to safety. They can't do enough damage to the enemy? Help them harass. Control the flow of the lane.
• In other words: Supports have an impact on the success or failure of a lane.
• I concede that a Carry could be so utterly abysmal that the Support truly makes zero difference: "that Ashe would be just as bad off if she were alone. I can't help her." But I submit that this level of badness is uncommon.

"THIS IS JUST MORE GP10."
TL;DR: Different in three ways: (1) unlike gp10, Synergy scales off the success of your Carry (2) unlike gp10, Synergy can't be stacked on top of last-hit revenue. (3) Unlike gp10, this gold comes in early (gp10 only starts being a net moneymaker mid-late game)
Not quite. First, a Support's gold gain from this Mastery will depend on how well the carry manages to last-hit. The more help a Support provides, the better the carry will do at last-hitting. It rewards Supports for helping their teammates. Second, it's different from gp10 in that you can't make gp10 too strong, or else everyone will take it, because gp10 stacks on top of your CS. If there were a 20gp10 Mastery, everyone would take it, because you'd get CS + 20gp10. This doesn't stack with CS (you don't get anything for your own last-hits) ... it's either CS or Synergy. Third, the timing is crucially different: gp10 can't serve the purpose of farm, which is early-game gold, because gp10 flows in gradually and only pays for itself by mid-late game.

"THIS JUST ENTRENCHES THE ZERO-CS META FURTHER."
TL;DR: Synergy can't create a new lane of minions to attack. What it can do is relieve the problems that 0 CS causes.
McGrimm raised the "meta" point in a post below. I found it very interesting.

• First, what's the real problem with 0 CS?
• I don't think the real problem is lack of last-hitting. Indeed, I enjoy having the freedom to do other things (like harass opponents, ward, and guard my Carry) in lane. The problem is that, currently, there is no gold without last-hitting.
• Synergy fixes this by giving you 40% farm revenue, rather than 0% farm revenue.
• If you think 0 CS is a problem in itself, you might want to consider hybridizing this Synergy with AthenaMari's suggestion: make it so that when you have Synergy and last-hit a minion, your nearby allies gain bonus gold. This would encourage Supports to last-hit whenever it's at least questionable that the Carry will manage to score the last-hit.

"THIS IS WAY TOO STRONG COMBINED WITH GP10".
TL;DR: gp10 items put you in debt early game, when everyone else has an early-game boost from lanephase farming. Synergy bridges that gap. It won't make anyone rich.
Please read this for more on gp10: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/....php?t=2357605
This would give the Support 40% of normal CS. Some people have said that this, combined with gp10 runes/items, will make Supports the richest champs in the game.

• First, even if so, why is that a problem? What harmful effect would it have?
• Second, I respectfully disagree with their arithmetic. Supports usually end up about 2K or more behind, which isn't that much when everyone has 14K. However, if you look at early-to-mid-game gold, they're far behind.
• 200 CS: ~ 4000 gold
• 200 CS worth of Synergy: ~ 1600 gold
• gp10 profit: difficult to say ("it depends"; see below), but something like ~1000 gold.
• Synergy + gp10 is still substantially less than farm. (Sanity check: if Synergy + gp10 were a MASSIVE amount of gold, you'd expect Farm + gp10 to be even better.)
• I've attached graphs showing gp10 versus farm revenue. It's difficult to talk about this generally, because the true value of gp10 (and how quickly they "pay off") depends a lot on how much the Support values the item's other stats.
• Extreme example: if Garen buys Kage's Pick, the AP is worthless to him, and he's paying the full 765g for 5gp10. He will be "in debt" for 26 minutes, and then slowly start making a "profit". It's a terrible item for him.
• Opposite extreme example: let's say you want Health. Even without HoG, you would buy a Ruby Crystal. Then HoG is really quite efficient: you pay 825g for 520g-worth of health (200 health * 2.6 g/health = 520g) and 5gp10. You only really "paid" 305g for 5gp10. You're in debt for 10 minutes or so, then it starts paying for itself.
• Realistic scenario: You might say you value the item's other stats at 50% list price, or 75%: basically, find a price point at which you would buy these stats over other stats. e.g., if Soraka would never buy a ruby crystal at 475g, but would make it her first item if it were 240g or less, you can say that she gets 240g of Health from it.
• Basically: gp10 does not really make you rich. It's a modest profit, coming in the mid-game. Farm is a massive profit that comes in the early game. gp10 is not really a replacement for farm.
• BOTTOM LINE: The real advantage of gp10 is cheap mana regen and a touch of durability, not wealth.

"SUPPORTS WILL JUST BUY MORE OF THE SAME ITEMS: AURAS AND WARDS."
TL;DR: You buy in order of descending bang-for-buck. There are a few items that are GREAT for Supports. Currently: buy those, game over, no choices. With Synergy: buy those, and then a broader universe of viable options opens up.

• Let's assume there are 2 critical core aura items for a given team. For example, let's say a team has 1 mage and 3 physical damage dealers. That'd make Stark's a critical core item. Let's say these champs all have rather low resistances, so the boost from Aegis is going to make a big difference. So: Stark's and Aegis are pretty much must-buys.
• Then there are 2 secondary aura items that are less powerful for your particular team than the critical core items. For instance, if we only have 1 mage, a WOTA might still be a good idea, if not as strong as Stark's (given our 3 AD attackers). Likewise, Shurelya's might only be "pretty good" on a team with tons of dashes and CC abilities. So, WOTA and Shurelya's are next.
• Then there are other items, like tank items (would allow for riskier plays closer to the enemy team) and damage items (like DFG: a portable nuke that doesn't require AP to do lots of damage). They might actually be better than a secondary aura item. They're viable competitors.
• Currently: you build the critical core aura items and then the game's over.
• With Synergy: you build the critical core aura items and then you can choose between secondary items and other items. e.g. "well, I could get a WotA to help our Kennen. Or I could get DFG to try to burst down that 30-MR Caitlyn who keeps killing us. Or I could build some armor to try to get in close enough to Starcall her down for our mages. Or maybe I should just blanket the map in wards and hope we get an ambush out of it."
• In other words: there are one or two "MUST BUY" aura items for a particular team. After that, there are much more interesting tactical calls to make as to how you want to support the team. With zero gold, you rarely get to make those calls early enough to make a difference.

"WHAT THIS WILL DO IS COMPLETELY TAKE AWAY ANY INCENTIVE TO JUNGLE (OTHER THAN TAKING BUFFS EVERY 5 MINUTES), AS THIS ALLOWS "SUPPORTS" TO BECOME RICHER THAN JUNGLERS. (from ButterflyPuwn)
TL;DR: It's a problem if it's always more lucrative to join (e.g.) Top as a duo-laner than to jungle. If this happens, I propose buffing jungle creep gold.

• This is a valid concern. If you'll always make more gold assisting top than jungling, you won't see any junglers. That would be sad.
• If this problem arises, I propose buffing jungle monster gold to keep it competitive.
• The buff shouldn't be too extreme, though: one goal of Synergy is to give players more competitive options for lane assignments. Jungle shouldn't be mandatory. Neither should playing a traditional Support. Jungle because you want to Jungle, not because the economy requires it.

[CENTER] SOME SELECTED COMMENTS [/CENTER]

support gangplank harasses all laning phase, and then carries late game along side that tristana.

sounds like a fair deal.

I remember you! You were in that "how did the poster above you come up with their username" thread.

I think this Mastery might indeed make a "SupportPlank" more viable. Is that a bad thing, though? It'd give the team a somewhat meaningful choice between a Support and a different champion type. Add some variety; shake up the meta. An underfarmed Gangplank wouldn't necessarily be better than a Sona, but he might be in some matchups.

In other words, as the team asks "Do we want a Support?", the decision would be driven less by "saving gold for the rest of us" and more by "do we actually want a Janna".

Value Supports for what they do for the team, rather than how good they are at being gold-starved.

I want this for aram. Just aram.

I kinda like Wealth, though; it enables things like a Regrowth + Ward start. In some ways, I think Wealth is the perfect Mastery: not a huge effect, but lets players who want to be a little different change up their play.

Don't worry; won't create another thread. I just felt that the Awareness debate was crowding out discussion of the proposed Mastery itself.

The idea is to make a "second-best" derivative goldstream, rather than to amplify existing goldstreams. To the extent that you're actually getting last-hits, you're not the intended recipient of this Mastery.

A few slight changes I'd make:

Firstly, the range you put initially was too short. 500 is Teemo's attack range, which isn't very long. 800-1000 range would be far more sufficient.

Second is part of the wording: it now specifies that only minion kills made by allied Champions count, not minion kills made by towers or other minions. This makes sure that last-hitting is still crucial on the part of your ally, and emphasizes more teamwork in the laning phase.

The second one might seem superfluous, but it clears up any possible misinterpretations.