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@MEDDLER, Regarding the ongoing internal Support discussion at Riot

Elikain·11/15/2016, 11:51:31 AM·10 votes·844 views

Out of the available Summoner Spells, Barrier is the only one sitting unused because all other have use cases and are fairly common on Summoner's Rift. So why not buff Barrier to make it more appealing to duo lanes?

#CURRENT HEAL

summoner 7 Heals the caster and the target nearest to the cursor (prioritizes the most wounded allied champion if no allied champions are near the cursor) for 90 - 345 (based on level) health, also increasing both targets' movement speed by 30% for 1 second.

#NEW BARRIER

summoner 21 Shields the caster and the target nearest to the cursor (prioritizes the most wounded allied champion if no allied champions are near the cursor) for 115 - 455 (based on the level) for 2 seconds.

(You can also apply that debuff that prevents multiple Barriers stacking fully with themselves, just like Heal has).

As a support main from mid Season 4, i am generally only left with two choices - Ignite or Exhaust. Ignite is for kill lanes that can get off from an early kill while Exhaust is more to mitigate the damage and used in passive lanes. You can't pick selfish Summoner Spells as you're there to help your Marksman, your life isn't exactly worth without them. Barrier seems like a good candidate to promote as it may be used as a short term solution to block burst damage and not to stack shields with existing shields from items or abilities. Since it scales with the level of the champion who has it, it won't reach high values as it would for solo laners so i don't believe there would be any issues with getting out of hand too fast.

This is just my proposition and i welcome the discussion, if people have something else to contribute. [slayer-jinx-wink]

3 Comments

Elikain11/15/2016, 12:39:37 PM1 votes

I also forgot to mention that if the shield stacking with Barrier still proves to be strong (even with 2 seconds), the priority of applied shields can be changed so that Barrier is always the last one that's expended.

SanKakU11/15/2016, 1:07:10 PM1 votes

I use Barrier on champions with damage mitigation. It's also handy for a champion that already has shielding so you can shield your ally and then still have an emergency Barrier for yourself. I go barrier-exhaust on Janna, cleanse-barrier on Lux, and barrier-ignite on Braum. What we need is a tank update so that barrier usage will be more widespread. I'd go barrier on Orianna and Tahm Kench if I owned them.

When you look at barrier as an emergency measure to keep your shielding champion alive while REGULARLY CASTING SHIELD ON THEIR ALLY, then barrier is anything but a selfish summoner spell. If your champion goes down, then they no longer have a lane partner. It's your responsibility as a support to keep the both of you alive.