How Wild Rift’s meta-defining support changes in patch 3.4 work

Wild Rift patch 3.4 has changed the support meta for good, adapting items from League of Legends on PC. These new items give the role more versatility and snowball the game. Here is everything to know about the major support changes in Wild Rift.

Support in Wild Rift has been a lot like the League of Legends of old. While the champions are new, the mechanics were dated — especially without support items. However that void is being filled in Wild Rift patch 3.4, changing the game forever.

There were two items implemented from League of Legends on PC: Relic Shield and Spectral Sickle. Both offer more gold to the support players, and are responsible for many of the meta changes the latest Wild Rift update. 

Here’s how they work, and what support will look like in Wild Rift after the changes.

Wild Rift adds two support items in patch 3.4, changing the meta

The two Wild Rift support items, Relic Shield and Spectral Sickle, provide a very different play style to scale into the game. While a very welcome addition to the handheld game, these new support items are definitely overtuned as of patch 3.4. 

Their total amount of gold gained passively and actively, if managed properly, allow supports to become the strongest role in the game.

Relic Shield’s main objective is to abuse the gold sharing passive, alongside additional healing. Relic Shield’s healing helps ADCs stay in lane longer, which means longer time to farm and trade. A strong scaling ADC is essential to winning team fights, which typically occur in the Dragon area thanks to the elemental dragon changes. 

The amount earned is incredibly high, which makes the item very abusable. In addition, the gold Relic Shield grants from minion executions provide a massive source of income, since supports still earn the passive gold from simply being near a dying minion. 

As for Spectral Sickle, this particular support item is more damage reliant, and rewards supports who play more aggressively during the laning phase. Unlike Relic Shield, Spectral Sickle doesn’t necessarily help the ADC directly, but instead allows the support player to deal far more damage and scaling.

When comboed specifically with Ionian Meteor, the damage enchanter and mage supports can deal is pretty broken. 

New support items open doors for role, Riot says

The Wild Rift support items are very powerful, but serve a different purpose than League of Legends PC’s. In developer Sean Mason’s words, “we don’t want the support players in our game to think they’re primarily responsible for maintaining vision on the map.

“Instead, we wanted supports to feel like they have something they’re uniquely good at.” 

One of Riot’s biggest focuses when developing these items was the reduction in cooldown for enchantments. Since there are a plethora of boot enchantments, there’s a myriad of ways for supports to impact the game. 

“I’m hoping support players will have more gameplay goals in the early to mid game,” Mason mentions, while discussing their desired goals for the support item implementations.

It appears Riot prioritized helping the role have more impact, and have succeeded. Pending on player feedback and data though, expect some support item fixes in Wild Rift.