Sentry Ward [Item suggestion]
Premise: Jump ahead for item suggestion.
The current state of league regarding Vision wards, trinket, and stealth reveal, has left champions such as Twitch, Shaco, Rengar, Evelynn and the like of them in a quite better situation than the previous season. While I deem stealth a fun and enjoyable mechanic, at the moment it significantly lacks counterplay. This will mean, the moment stealth champions will become strong in competitive scene, they will be hammered down as there is no gameplay involved on how to keep them away from you, except for turret hugging. As shown by Twisted Fate's nerf on "Pick a card", Riot doesn't endorse any strategy that involves a costant sacrifice of cs and engagement as a significant one, unless it's limited in its occurence or availability. As it is , Evelynn, Shaco, and post 6 Rengar, can easily deny cs just by being hidden in the fog of war, as long as the enemy laner can afford to take out Vision wards each time the enemy tries to place them, which is not really hard, as the enemy laner can't costantly apply pressure on the enemy pinks, as then the jungler can simply ambush. On the other hand, I also agree with Vision wards being really strong when being stealthed, because it turns a gold lead into a vision lead, as the losing lane will end up further behind if attempting to outvision the enemy with more pinks.
**THE ITEM SUGGESTION **
Sentry Ward
Cost:75 gold
Active: Place an invisible unit on a point of the map with 3 health and a 5 minute duration, which doesn't provide sight of the area but is able to reveal units. When a unit, regardless of stealth, moves into the ward range, it will trigger an alarm for the duration enemy unit stays in the area and a color icon upon the ward based on the distance from the ward. Limited to 2 active per champion.
Context: with this item the goal is to introduce a anti-stealth mechanic that it isn't stealth reveal, but rather a counterplay to stealth champion when used right and more utility for map vision in general. By unbinding the ward-sight identity this ward doesn't enhance the map awareness as other wards, but can still contribute to give your team some conscience about where the enemies are and what they are doing. However, with this ward being unable to provide sight, it can also be used against the player : for example, you may think that Rengar is coming to stealth gank you and place a Vision ward in the lane when he was actually simply walking in that area without ultimate. ----------------------------
This item could introduce some new possibilities against stealth champions without the need to hammer them down as they currently planning to do on Rengar and Evelynn. WHile many players will simply answer that the game shouldn't change because of 2 champions, I'd point out that this is not simply intended as a champion specific counter, but as a mechanic counter. If all true damage was based on %health like Vayne, then Darius and Cho'Gath would have to be nerfed, because, gameplay wise, you had nothing against that damage, and if it was effective it also was uncounterable. Same for stealth: as long as there are no viable counters (and by nerfing Eve and Rengar Riot is acknowledging that), there can't be competitive stealth champions. Sure, the game can exist without stealth, but for the same reason it could exist without critical strike chance, three damage types, all this different kind of cc, lifesteal and so on. I think preserving and balancing a mechanic will provide more depth and fun to the game than just nerfing the ones who are strong with it without actually addressing the issue.