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Barrier vs Heal

Stillname·10/30/2016, 2:32:47 PM·2 votes·1,257 views

Before early season 4 all of the ADC's used to take Barrier over Heal in the botlane because it simply provided more protection then Heal did because Heal was a group aoe heal for the whole team that was pretty low.

Then Heal got its rework to be only 2 target and it has pretty much been Heal ever since with the exception of a few midlaners taking Barrier from time to time.

However, I think the assassin rework is the perfect opportunity to give Barrier its niche over Heal because assassins already have to be re-balanced for the new items so what is one more small change?

Barrier should be changed to give a damage reduction buff for 1-2 seconds in addition to its shielding so that players have the opportunity to choose between heal and barrier depending on the enemy team comp. This could be done by giving bonus armor and mr per level or just a flat percent bonus reduction.

The larger benefit would be that midlaners would have on option to take against assassins in the midlane to make lanning against an assassin feel like there is more counter-play besides "push them out of lane early."

The disadvantage to all of this being that assassins have a harder time creating windows of opportunity to kill a target with flash being an option and barrier shutting down their all in but numbers can be tweaked to make it balanced.

What are your thoughts? Does this just push Barrier to be better than Heal in every situation?

8 Comments

oSEXYPLATYPUSo10/30/2016, 2:36:35 PM1 votes

well barrier blocks grievous wounds so if your champ has lifesteal or some kind of regen it stops and blocks healing reduction already so thing like summoner 14 it pretty much negates the heal reduction and it blocks damage from it for 2 seconds

i think summoner 21 is fine when facing an assassin (usually mid lane) you need to know if you need summoner 3 to trade back or summoner 21 to protect yourself from dying...

Stick In Mudd10/30/2016, 2:48:23 PM1 votes

I do like the idea of changing barrier to be about 'damage reduction'. It would certainly be considered when someone goes tank jungle or top, over teleport or flash/ghost.

But perhaps a shield AND damage reduction would be too much. Perhaps just damage reduction, but then you may as well create a new summoner spell and keep barrier intact.

I kind of wish they would buff the other sum. Spells like cleanse; giving them a bit of an edge towards certain comps. The problem I see, would be giving players too much counterplay. Have you ever been counterpicked in lane? Yeah, it sucks bad. Now double that horrible experience; that's what it would be like to have to pick first. Then the team counterpicks, and then counter summoner's you, making it so much harder to do anything.

Emerald Fang10/30/2016, 2:51:20 PM1 votes

How about give shield equal to 10 - 20% max HP, and 30% straight damage reduction for 2 seconds.