With new gold generation in season 4 for supports and aura changes as well, Aura Support Blitzcrank has taken a new form!

Guide Under Construction: Everything Below is from last season. Update coming soon

General Pros

• Rocket Grab provides team with kill opportunities
• Grab intimidation can be used to zone the lane
• Overdrive negates the necessity for boots with careful positioning
• Power Fist keeps enemies form escaping, and isn't effected by tenacity
• Static Field has a strong passive, low cooldown, and can be activated to clear minion waves fast, and silence grabbed targets

General Cons

• Skillshot dependent for pulls
• Pull dependent for effectiveness and gold
• Mild early game mana problems

Build Specific Pros

• Strong gold generation with items, runes, masteries, and assists
• Strong active effects on multiple items.
• Gives your entire team tons of damage, sustain, and survivability from auras. Specifically:
  
  Nearby allies gain:
  +20 magic resist, +20 attack damage, +10% life steal +30 ability power, 20% spell
  vamp, +25 health regen per 5 seconds, +6 mana regeneration per 5 seconds, and 8% bonus
  movement speed when running towards you.
  Nearby allied minions gain:
  15% increased damage and 20% bonus movement speed.
  
  It's like giving everyone six additional item slots :D

Build Specific Cons

• Costly
• All items are for teammates' benefit, not your own
• dependent on teammates for effectiveness
• Must choose between an aura, boots, and sightstone in late game final build
• Can be slow to get moving if underfed

The only critically important feature of the runes is the Greater Quintessence of Gold. Other than that, modify your runes to your preferred play style. If you prefer Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed over gold generation, they make an excellent substitute.

Though using Greater Seal of Armor is a more popular choice, I find that the Greater Seal of Gold is excellent for further accelerating gold generation and getting auras faster. by late game, these runes alone can save just under 10 minutes off the final build.

Heal and Exhaust are extremely useful for supporting your carry. Heal can allow for excellent sustain, and get your carry out of some sticky situations. On the other hand exhaust helps lock down and weaken the enemy champs you grab - save it for more dangerous targets to prevent them from turning your pull into a free initiation.

again, feel free to modify spells to match your play style.

Always start with Rocket Grab, followed by one point of Power Fist. this combo will leave enemies out of position and locked down.

The first skill to maximize is Rocket Grab for the cooldown reduction. More pulls means more kills/assists, which means more gold.

What you max next though, depends on the flow of the current game.

Maximize Overdrive second if you plan on saving boots for later. It is extremely useful to get back to lane faster, catch up to team fights, and position for a perfect grab. I find this to be the most effective to max second.

If you invest in early boots, maximize Power Fist second for extra damage and crowd control. This move is quite powerful at level one, so don't feel bad saving it for last.

Always upgrade Static Field at 6, 12, and 16.

This is the most important part of Aura support Blitzcrank. The order you buy your items will have significant effects on how fast you can get auras, and which benefits your team will receive and when they receive them. This section will cover when and why you will want to buy each item. Also note, that to buy all auras, you'll need to sell your philosopher's stone late game, and choose between your sightstone or a final aura.

Remember - be flexible, and adapt to the situation you find yourself in.

Early Game

sight ward

Start with a Rejuvenation Bead, Faerie Charm, and a sight ward or two. combined with explorer and buiscuiteer, this will give you all the early game sustain and vision you should need by the time you obtain a sightstone. if you find yourself starved for vision before getting the sightstone, grab another couple of wards.

philosopher's stonekage's lucky pick

AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, upgrade your items into a philosopher's stone followed by kage's lucky pick and a Sightstone. Later, you will sell the philosopher's stone for a fifth aura, and may opt to replace the sightstone with a sixth aura. I only recommend this if the game is close to over, and the extra vision isn't proving very useful - otherwise, make it a ruby sightstone.

After doing some math, I've found that purchasing an Avarice Blade before your Sightstone can cut around 5 minutes from your final build time. Ideally, you will sell it just after picking up Will of the Ancients.

Mid and Late Game

It's time to start grabbing Auras. This is where things start becoming variable.


Aegis of the Legion
This is the aura you always want first. The survivability it provides is critical to your team's survival. Aegis of the Legion even builds out of an emblem of valor, allowing your lane partner a bit of free health regeneration as you start the build.


Locket of the Iron Solari
With Runic Bulwark gone, this item isn't as strong as an aura, as it is the same as Aegis of the Legion's, but it comes with an active shield that can really help soak up damage for your team for a low cost of 600 gold. While rushing this isn't as important as bulwark, try to make this one of your early-ish purchases.

Zeke's Herald
Stark's Fervor...I mean Zeke's Herald
Every champion benefits from AD, and you'll likely be paired with a ranged AD carry. This will make your pulls even more deadly, and keep your carry well sustained. After Stark's(...err... Zeke's Herald), your build path opens up a lot. If your team is extremely AP heavy, build Will of the Ancients first.


Will of the Ancients
You'll want Will of the Ancients early if your team has a lot of AP characters on board. This item combined with Zeke's Herold and Locket of the Iron Solari give extreme sustain, damage, and survivability. This combo is so good, I've come to call these items "the aura trinity". Also, remember that this will consume kage's lucky pick, and it is critical that you buy another or upgrade your first into a Shard of True Ice. If already have Shard of True Ice, this is where you'll sell your Avarice Blade.



Shard of True Ice
This item is one of the stranger auras - you can buy it early or late based on your preferences. It will save your kage's lucky pick's gold passive for when you purchase Will of the Ancients, fix any early mana issues, and the active combos amazingly with your Rocket Grab. The aura is a bit lackluster though, and is not as important as those listed above. Either buy Shard of True Ice after Locket of the Iron Solari or after Will of the Ancients. If you build this late, this is when you'll sell your Avarice Blade if you opted for one.


Banner of Command
Banner of Command is an extremely effective pushing tool due to it's active and passive effects on minions. Build it close to last unless your team is pushing aggressively with little danger of retaliation. Sell your Philosopher's Stone to make room.


Captain Boots
This one is the hardest decision to make. Buy this early if you find yourself/your team being outrun or retreating often. Because Blitz's Overdrive, you actually aren't that reliant on boots - the tricky part is that you'll likely have to replace Sightstone for this item. It is the least useful aura, so unless you're desperate for mobility, wait on this one, and if the need for wards trumps this item, forget it all together. If you do build it, feel free to put Enchantment: Captain on the boots of your choice.


Ruby Sightstone
If you decide to keep your Sightstone, upgrade it to Ruby Sightstone. Do this earlier if you need the vision.

By end game, your team will have:

Nearby allies gain:
+20 magic resist, +20 attack damage, +10% life steal +30 ability power, 20% spell
vamp, +25 health regen per 5 seconds, +6 mana regeneration per 5 seconds, and 8% bonus
movement speed when running towards you.
Nearby allied minions gain:
15% increased damage and 20% bonus movement speed.

Based on a cost analysis of the aura items from league of legends wiki, this equates to approximately 4580 gold worth of stats for every ally in range if they were to buy items with equivalent effects on their own. In a team fight, that accumulates to 18320 gold worth of stats: that's more than four trinity forces! The overall effect is similar to your team having a permanent Baron buff.

The Thing to Remember

The most important thing to keep in mind when playing this build is that your strength comes indirectly. Whereas in more conventional builds, you will be dealing damage more directly via your abilities. With this build, at first glance it will appear that you are doing less for your team than would be usual. Don't let this fool you - over the course of the game, the damage dealt, damage prevented, health healed, resources replenished, and utility offered by your auras adds up fast. These effects are not attributed to your assist count, and are instead presented in your allies' kills and stats, making your large impact extremely subtle. Take advantage of this: most opponents will not notice what you're doing, and lower your priority as a target - a mistake that can cost them the game. Don't try to be a superstar. Don't lead the charge. Don't make yourself obvious. Hang back, build assists, strengthen your team, and humbly support your way to victory.

Why Blitzcrank?

Looking at this build, some people may ask: Why Blitzcrank, and not another support? Unlike other supports, Blitz's abilities don't heal, with these items he doesn't do optimal damage, and he can't shield allies...so why him? I have found this build to be more effective on Blitz for several reasons. First, his kit and overall usefulness on his team is centered on his crowd control. To be an effective support, he doesn't need AD or AP, just a bit of defense and good positioning - both of which are provided by his abilities and adequately reinforced by runes, masteries, and the aura item's stats. For the most part, other supports need more specific itemization to remain useful through the game. Second, Blitz is much more likely to gain assists than other supports. By forcing favorable confrontations with Rocket Grab, you can be sure of steady assists, bolstering your gold income along with your gold/10 items and runes. Lastly, by pulling in kills for allies, your team becomes better fed, furthering the overall effectiveness of boosting your allies with auras. You can keep the ball rolling before team fights with a well timed pull, turning what would be a 5v5 into a 5v4, with your side weighted with auras.

Why The Focus on Gold Generation?

I've run some calculations, and found that with the all gold generation runes, gold generation masteries, and all 3 gold per 10 items, the time it takes to get auras significantly decreases. The simple addition of gold seals and avarice blade reduces the build time by close to 15 minutes. Remember, your priority is getting auras for your team, and this setup optimists the efficiency of this goal.

Want more fun with Auras?

Lastly, I've written a guide for a complimentary aura build: Super Aura Disruption Thresh. If you like the aura strategies, go check it out.

1-17-13

• added some clarification to introduction on build intentions
• added clarification to warding: I didn't intend to make it sound unimportant
• added other options for final build

1-19-13

• Fixed runes to actually be useful
• Adjusted build order to be more effective with will of the ancient's new recipe
• Added cost analysis data from league of legends wiki to determine value ally stat boost.
• added some extra details and images to make the guide more user friendly

1-20-13

• added "other details" section for more explanation and strategy

3-30-13

• changed runes and added avarice blade to build for optimized gold generation

6-1-13

• added a link to complimentary Super Aura Disruption Thresh build

8-13-13

• adjusted the build to deal with the loss of runic bulwark

The Idea of Super Aura Support Blitzcrank is to provide your team with strong support, frequent kills, crowd control, and extreme stat advantages over the enemy team. Keep close to your team, participate in team fights, take care of your carry, and position well for pulls. Do these things, and you'll be turning the tide of battle in your favor in no time.

HAVE FUN!