I was curious as to what the community thought about supports in the later game.

In the early game, it's your responsibility to ward the river and let the carry farm - I know this. However, in the later game, from my perspective, you can do a few things. The "Pure support" would stack aura items, CDR/survivability, and wards getting money from assists and GP/10s.

Take Blitzcrank. When itemized he can be a bit badass as a bruiser (once he's gotten boots, manamune, and sheen). I've always seen "support" on a character like him as a temporary role; after the laning phase you farm other lanes to maintain rough gold parity (not that you will fully catch up, nor do you need to) and start building him primarily as a bruiser, maybe with some aura items that help him as well (Shurelia's is great on him).

However, I've seen other people build him as a "pure" support...However, on Blitz it turns him into just a pure CCbot. It seems a waste when you could provide all that CC -and- actually do damage as well as a minimal cost of farm to the rest of the team.

I'm just using Blitz as an example, but the same logic applies to many supports, save the 'pure' supports like Taric, Soraka or Sona. Thoughts?

How late in the game are we talking? After Blitz has his gp10 items and his boots and buying 10 wards every time he goes back, where does he get the money to build beefy bruiser? I mean, eventually he will have that much gold, but most games don't go that long. If they do, every support should build some damage and survivability. Soraka buys some AP for Starcall spamming and bigger heals, for example.

The key with supports is that while having AP or tank or whatever else on them is fine, they can do great without them. Soraka still has a huge armor buff, heals, a silence, and stacking mr reduction. Taric has his auras and a stun, Blitz has his hook, Nunu has Blood Boil and snowball. Supports are supports because they don't need items to work, items are just icing on the cake.

In short, of course late game you want some items to make your champion have a stronger presence. If you can do that with aura items, that's pretty awesome. If you want to grab an item or two for yourself, that's fine too, as long as you are still buying a million wards. 'Support' isn't a thing that ends at laning- it shifts from keep the carry alive/feed carry kills to keep the entire team alive/feed entire team kills. It goes from warding against ganks and playing the the proper mix of aggression and passivity in lane to warding the entire map, keeping track of timers, keeping track of the enemy team, following around whoever is most important to help them out in case they get ganked or to make ganks less likely. A good Support player takes on even more supporting responsibly as the game goes on.

Taric can do some beastly burst damage. AP items with defensive stats are great on Taric (Abyssal or Athene's, Rylai's, Zhonya's) as they make him even more tanky, but also give him the AP to burst down enemies. Be careful of popping your shield though. Sometimes it's better to have that extra armor for a bit longer. Early game, go Philo, HoG, and Kages. He's pretty mana hungry early on.

You understand that by definition, a CC bot is a support?

Beyond laning phase, you are free to build as you wish as long as you understand that you are permanently the ward-*****. Other players should buy a ward here and there, but it is your responsibility to buy and place wards, as the support, for several reasons.

By definition of a support, you do not require any/as many items to function compared to other champions. What does this mean? It means you will be giving what would be your farm to your lane partner. More to the point, this means you will always have fewer items and therefore always in the best position to be carrying wards at all stages of the game. In addition, by not requiring any items to function, you can buy wards without impeding your ability to support whatsoever. I'm sure this is all information you are aware of.

Beyond that, do as you wish. You don't need to build Aura items to be a support. Even in DoTA you have nuke-type supports with CC that build a DFG equivalent. I don't see an issue with building a tanky support bruiser, just remember that the reason Blitz is a support is that he is a naturally durable CC bot. That means, you aren't going to build Manamune, you're gonna build Phage.

Blitzcrank late game is a tank. He thrives on mitigation stats and specializes in initiation and disruption. The simple fact that he has three hard CC's, and one's a freaking AOE silence makes him one of the best tanks in the game.

Janna's a pure support. Right, right, AP ratios. At the end of the day the fact that she makes disengaging almost too easy for your team, and has very little trouble disrupting the enemy team while keeping her own alive makes her a pure support.

But at the end of the day there's not really such thing as a support that wants to utterly ignore AP (or non-cdr / mitigation items). If anyone could get away with it, it'd be Janna but even she has incentives to gear AP. It's more about who you fight than how you yourself play that dictates what gear to get.

Late game if all you have is just straight aura items its not unusual for you to become a massive liability. By the same coin the fact that you're harder to kill, and can cast spells more often can end up making a huge difference. How you fight Master Yi is different from how you fight Tryndamere or Lee Sin.

The point of support is you are strong even without farm. You shouldn't try to get a bruiser or carry build because you will end up spending all of mid game trying to catch up on farm. Blitz has a bruiser build just as Janna has an AP build but they need farm to get those builds.

It really depends on your support and your team comp. For the most part supports are supports because they don’t need items to do their job. Instead they can build defensive or cdr items. In late game team fights they should be using the tools at their disposal to disrupt the opposing team while keeping their team alive.

Soraka should be using her heal to save allies and her silence to stop the ap carry.
Taric should be stunning the carry and trying to tank as much damage as possible while not dying.
Sona should be spamming her abilities, hitting the carry with her damage debuff power cord and waiting to use her ult.
Alistair should be trying to find a time to initiate on the opposing team.
Blitzcrank should be looking to land grabs or simply trying to find a time to run in and initiate a fight.

There are more but I think these guys get the point across. It’s all about disruption for the support player during team fights. You should be causing as much havoc as possible while keeping your team mates alive. To do this you need cdr and tankyness. In a well balanced team you will never be doing high amounts of damage as the support and should instead focus on not dying and using your abilities more often. In a team fight it’s more about who can use their cc better then who can do the most damage. If you stun the ad carry before they can reposition or silence the ap caster before they can get their full combo off your team will win the team fight.

Your ad carry might feel sky high when he ends a game 15/4/11 but if the support is 2/6/36 who really carried the game?

A 'pure' support would be most likely classified as Shen, Sona, Taric, Karma and Soraka. They really can do extremely well as support when played correctly. Shen is not as much of a true support but the rest are nothing but.

Yup. ^^

Thanks - good stuff in here

You're correct that supports are supports because they can perform acceptably without much gold. However, if they -do- get gold, they perform better. Soraka with some AP can do all the things she used to do -and- heal harder -and- end up doing a ton of damage with Starcall.

Some supports don't benefit from money as much as others (I try not to take kills as Soraka for that reason, for example, same with taric), but some do...like Blitz.
No argument! I like playing supports and I'm well aware that kills are not the same as effectiveness. I was just wondering if I was doing anything horrendously wrong by building some damage on my supports later on when I have all my core done and I have some spare slots.