@Meddler : What was wrong with Murksphere?

AHarmlessTaco·May 22, 2017·4 votes·279 views

In case anyone needs a refresher, Murksphere was an item from Black Market Brawlers.

365g +25% base mana regeneration +5% cooldown reduction UNIQUE ACTIVE – SWINDLER'S SHIELD: Shields target ally from the next 60 damage. You generate 1 gold for every 4 damage absorbed (maximum of 15). Self-cast shields will not generate gold from monster damage. 15 second cooldown.

This item seemed pretty cool, I mean it was slightly more interactive than old Coin.... I just wonder, were there any significant problems with this item?

Dont get me wrong, Coin is cool and I think its a lot better for the likes of Thresh/Blitz/Naut, but it feels TERRIBLE on Janna, and Id much rather get Spellthiefs on Soraka/Nami/Karma/ anyone else because its actually safer than Coin.

6 Comments

Fondling GemsMay 22, 20174 votes

I covered this in a different post a while back but it comes down to removing interactivity. If you want to fight with me I instantly negate part of your all in and turn the fight you picked into gold, regardless of the outcome of the fight. Furthermore it hard shut down poke champions because they couldn't spam often enough to get consistent damage through.

It also had an issue with champions like Nasus getting it. The CDR was nice, and the fact that any trade just helped him buy items and was somewhat negated meant that unless you could all in him (which Nasus W stops) he benefited from you trying to play your champion.

Anyone could buy it and it basically negated a lot of the presence of lane bullies, but instead of being at a cost to the person countering lane bullies, it paid for itself plus other items. There was no reason not to buy it if you wanted a passive laning phase, and there wasn't any real counterplay from the other side except trying to all in because your base stats are a bit lower, which again, the shield helped negate.

While a very fun item that I personally enjoyed a lot, it did posses the flaw of countering a broad selection of champs at absolutely no cost to the buyer. Example:

An ADC buys Ninja Tabi. They not have a safer lane and partially shut down the enemy adc at the cost of damage output. A champions buys murksphere. They now have a safer lane and partially shut down the enemy lane bully/poke champ, and very quickly get more money than they would have if they had bought anything else.

See the issue?

AHarmlessTacoMay 22, 20171 votes

So couldnt it have been made to only work on allies and not self cast?

Do you think that champions like Janna make lanes innately less interactive? She is the main person Im struggling to use either coin or spellthiefs on and I personally think trying to help an adc survive lane should be a valid strategy. Just not sure how to implement it.

Fondling GemsMay 22, 20171 votes

I think the biggest issue wasn't that it was un-interactive from the user end, but rather punished the enemies ability to have an interactive lane.

VisionovaMay 22, 20171 votes

I'm pretty sure that Gangplank (at least) would actually start with that item top-lane and enjoy getting more gold when the enemy tries to interact with him.

AHarmlessTacoMay 22, 20171 votes

I mean, it could just target other allies of that were the case.