The best item for early game transition as a support! 800 gold buys 300 dual resistance? This Heavenly Stone is too good to pass up

Among the five roles in the King's Canyon, the one with the tightest economy is undoubtedly the support. After all, the canyon offers no dedicated income source for supports—the three lanes belong to the top, mid, and bot laners, while the jungle belongs to the jungler. Supports get nothing, typically relying only on passive gold regen and the minimum gold from support items. However, many supports are tasked with warding, tanking damage, and peeling, which often leads to them getting blown up in the early and mid game. So, is there a cheap yet effective dual-resistance item that can help? Let's take a look.

To be honest, the first two items for a support are pretty much fixed, no matter if it's a soft support or a tank support. The first item is always a roaming item—either Aegis or Vow, and later you can switch to a specific utility item from four options. The second item is boots, to move around the map and support your team, because if you're too slow, you simply can't keep up with your teammates' pace.

It's only when you get to the third item that you have a chance to build something different according to your own preference. And since the support's economy is already low, by the time you finish these two items, it's almost ten minutes into the game. At this point, both teams start engaging in frequent small skirmishes, and the support still has to scout vision. If you position slightly too forward, you'll eat all kinds of focused damage. So both physical and magical resistance are genuine needs.

There are actually quite a few items that provide both physical and magical resistance. For example, Red Lotus Cloak gives 150 physical defense and 150 magical defense—pretty solid stats. Fury Dragon Sword and Overlord's Bulwark also offer dual resistance. However, these items all cost close to 2000 gold or even more. Given the support's slow economic growth, you simply can't afford them within the first ten minutes. So the real options are very limited.

There used to be an item called Magic Resist Cloak, which cost 800 gold and gave high magic resistance—a great choice for supports. Unfortunately, it was removed when some small items were phased out. But recently, many players have noticed an item called Heavenly Stone. It's a component for Sage's Sanctuary, costing only 800 gold, and its stats are 150 physical defense plus 150 magical defense—exactly the same dual resistance as Red Lotus Cloak. The only downside is no HP bonus and no passive effect.

However, supports don't really need that passive effect anyway—it's not very useful. As for the HP bonus, it would be nice, but you can't ask for more at 800 gold. For this price, you get 300 points of dual resistance, which is already incredible value for money. After all, many small items of similar cost only give single resistance or fewer stats.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, Heavenly Stone is a component of Sage's Sanctuary. That's actually a key point. You use it as a transition item in the early game, and later in the late game, you can directly add a Belt of Strength to craft Sage's Sanctuary—commonly known as the revive armor. The current version of Sage's Sanctuary has become more like a proper defensive item: besides the revive effect, it also grants 900 HP and 5% cooldown reduction. This means the 800 gold you spent early on is never wasted, unlike some transition items that have to be sold later, losing some gold.

Even if you don't end up using the revive armor, selling Heavenly Stone later isn't a big loss. Items are sold back at 70% of their purchase price, so an 800 gold item sells for 560 gold, meaning you only lose 240 gold. By the late game, gold is usually overflowing anyway, so this loss is perfectly acceptable. After all, supports don't need to swap items like other heroes—who have to switch to Lone Dagger, Bloodrage's Wrath, or Pure Sky for their builds.

Moreover, in most games, even in the very late game, supports rarely get to full six items. So you don't have to worry too much about inventory space. Just keep Heavenly Stone as a dual-resistance small item and use it all the way to the end of the game. It's much more practical than rushing to build defense late in the game.

Cai Cai often plays support too. Getting a Heavenly Stone early on makes a noticeable difference in survivability when entering fights. Otherwise, soft supports like Yao, Sun Bin, and Ming Shiyin—who are quite fragile—can get one-shotted by the enemy mage's combo before they even react, and then it's all over.

Of course, this item isn't a must-buy for every support. For tank supports that are already bulky, they can go with other options based on their own preferences. But if you're playing a soft support and your economy is tight, this strategy is worth trying. Don't miss out on this cheap and effective transition item.

That's a general overview of the Heavenly Stone. Do you guys usually include this small item in your support build?

*This article is authorized for publication by TianCai ShaoNvJi