A Better Balanced Banner
As I am sure most of you are aware now, especially after the posts regarding One For All, 
absolutely shits on ap champions.
The good news is I think I've found a way to make the item better-tuned for general sieging while lowering player frustration.
So, why does the item even need a change to begin with? is simply too effective vs certain champions and not effective enough vs others even when applied for its intended niche: sieging. It is effective at completely shutting down a large portion of the cast who have little to no way of effectively countering the effect even when these minions are nowhere near a tower or enemy champion. The active becomes not an effect specifically to help with sieging but one to broadly shut down magic damage champions.
Rather than simply buffing the banner minion to take less damage from physical damage and removing the magic damage nullification passive I thought it would be a better option to instead do something slightly different... something that doesn't just make it harder for everyone to clear the minion but rather something that targets the main culprits behind anti-sieges while still giving all champions an effective way to take it down.
My suggestion? Instead of making banner completely shut-out magic damage waveclear... make it shut down ranged waveclear.
The squishy champions who sit back and farm and clear from safety would have to get down and dirty to kill these things empowered creeps effectively. Xerath and Cait or whoever else that clears from safety will either have to choose to wittle it down over time by staying safe or play more forward to kill the empowered minion that's attacking their base, exposing themselves to harm.
But how will this work? Well, sadly, I'm not sure about the exact specifics of all the numbers but the empowered minion should have % damage reduction based on the vicinity between it and the damage source. Basically, the further away a champion is from the minion - the less damage it takes.
With this change, an ap champion will no longer be auto attacking a Banner minion in lane for a full minute when it's running it down mid and will instead take down the improperly-used minion by walking closer to it. In exchange, the Banner minion will be more effective when in a real siege with multiple champions simultaneously fighting between protecting/killing the minion and destroying/protecting a tower. Hopefully, this change will provide more interaction between teams of all compositions.
Here's the problem...
Not all minions are created equally. Melee minions would need a larger % damage reduction from the banner's effect as they are naturally going to be closer to the enemy champions. Caster minions would get less % reduction as getting close to them is naturally more difficult. But the biggest issue is the cannon minion... This is the go-to minion to receive the Banner buff. It's probably enhanced by over 90% of the time these days. Why? It is the strongest of all minions excluding supers, it's naturally tankier than both ranged and melee minions, and it's ranged to boot. This makes the cannon minion a harder nut to crack ESPECIALLY when you consider Baron Buff which turns this cannon into a siege machine that outranges towers.
Honestly, as of right now, my best idea is to simply not allow cannon minions to be buffed by banner. This isn't my ideal choice to completely exclude cannon minions from receiving the enhancement but I do believe this would achieve 2 things:
- reduce the potential balance nightmare of enhanced cannon minions (especially when enhanced by Baron buff)
- give more choice to players between buffing a ranged creep for a safer enhanced minion vs a melee creep for a stronger enhanced option instead of always defaulting to the cannon
Thoughts?
