[Question] What other ways can a champion be buffed, without touching their damage output?

BLIGHTBRINGER·Dec 10, 2018·15 votes·10,403 views

This can be somewhat of an obvious answer but can someone provide me a list of things? Some that I can think of are...

Health
Armor & Magic Resist

46 Comments

Moody PDec 10, 201830 votes

base stats, projectile speeds, skillshot size/speed/distance, cooldowns, effect durations, what effects you get, spells resetting attack timers or not

covers most of it

BLIGHTBRINGERDec 10, 20181 votes

Thanks a lot (and everyone else who is reading this and commented your answers). This does help with the direction of how one champion that comes to my mind, can be improved.

SwiftKitten88Dec 10, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Moody P,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7tYXEpdA,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-12-10T20:40:09.901+0000)

base stats, projectile speeds, skillshot size/speed/distance, cooldowns, effect durations, what effects you get, spells resetting attack timers or not

covers most of it

true but there is also the option to not buff them and address the people who are too strong rather than buffing everyone to their level of absurdity.

AlzonDec 10, 201812 votes

#-5 MS

CleverCactusDec 11, 20184 votes

Cast timers, the hidden stat that is always ignored.

Moody PDec 11, 20181 votes

well AFAIK everyone who has a cast time has a .25s cast time, with the exception of Olaf who has .35

unless "cast time" includes the lengthy animations like illaoi and ez R

DorkunedAurasDec 11, 20183 votes

Those count as cast times. There's a ton of cast times that aren't the .25.

ExentrickDec 11, 20181 votes

Syndra

ModCaptainMårvelousDec 11, 20182 votes

Projectile speeds/skillshot fuckery generally doesn't happen often because there's a sense that it feels worse than any other change. Plus it's one of those things Riot likes to "set in stone" so that no matter how powerful/weak a skill is, it'll always be the same thing to cast.

To add to this: Additional Effect/Effect removal. A recent example of this being Aatrox losing bonus monster damage on Q to help with his jungling or Riot adding bonus AP to old Nunu's W.

saltranDec 10, 201822 votes

Increase their hair lenght

Kai GuyDec 10, 20189 votes

You caught me off guard with this response. Well done.

Suppose we can Add muscle mass and Abs. Inb4 Swol Fiddlesticks

MrFawknSunshineDec 10, 201810 votes

maybe a brain

https://media.giphy.com/media/ubKUtThRLlly8/giphy.gif

BLIGHTBRINGERDec 10, 20187 votes

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AmazingGlitteringAustrianpinscher-size_restricted.gif

Iota ThetaDec 10, 20188 votes

{quoted}

Increase their hair lenght

Braum’s mustache now scales with max health

Kai GuyDec 11, 20183 votes

I want Dravens to scale with everytime some one complains about his early game.

MrFawknSunshineDec 10, 201814 votes

well health and armor/mr

mana pool/resources

cooldown on abilities (which this in itself can increase damage output )

movement speed

ZackTheWaffleManDec 10, 20187 votes

mana/health regen

ŚhunpoDec 11, 20185 votes

Changing cast times.

SoljiDec 11, 20184 votes

+5 ms

RαyDec 11, 20181 votes

{quoted}

+5 ms

Damn, you beat me to it.

Death by GlamourDec 10, 20183 votes

reducing an item cost

something others haven't mention

BLIGHTBRINGERDec 10, 20183 votes

That's not really champion specific though, such a change effects all champions of x class that use said item.

Beast BrawlerDec 11, 20181 votes

You never said it had to be champion specific, so it counts.

BLIGHTBRINGERDec 11, 20181 votes

It's in the title...

###What other ways can a champion be buffed

Beast BrawlerDec 14, 20181 votes

Yeah but you never specified that it couldn't be something like item cost, new items, increasing/decreasing the map size, etc. Will it buff more than one champion? Perhaps, but that still falls under the criteria. If you don't like it just edit the post or something to say "one champion only" or something.

Emerald FangDec 11, 20182 votes

Buffing utility aspects of kits like MS buff increases. Increasing defensive stats / adding defensive perks to kits

Irelia BotDec 11, 20182 votes

+5 ms

Kai GuyDec 10, 20181 votes

Depends on if you mean Damage output per second, damage output over a team fight /trade, or damage output over a game.

BLIGHTBRINGERDec 10, 20181 votes

Just the champions general damage.

GhaelWindsDec 10, 20181 votes

Decrease hitbox size, or increase for tank.

That's something I've thought of before.

MankeyMadnessDec 10, 20181 votes

Best ways to buff a champion without increasing damage especially for ones that are not DPS Carries Janna Ornn

Increase health regen or lowering mana costs. Hitting an Ults CD is really good for late game buffs.

Increasing range or projectile speed/area of effect sizes also helps but Riot rarely does this because it involves both art changes and players relearning the mechanics. Good example is Caits R. She's getting buffs to her Q damage yeah but the massive rank 1 range boost - higher than her level 16 Ultimate currently even - is by far the most significant buff to her but it has no effect imaginable on damage other than the ability to deal it when she otherwise would not. Another good example is taking 1 entire second off Kassadins Ult CD spiked his WR% like 5%.

Second.

rayzoDec 11, 20181 votes

+5 ms lul

Livin like RivenDec 11, 20181 votes

Disclaimer: I haven't read the thread, just wanted to rant. If any of these are already on here, whoops.

Changing map objectives around can buff certain champions. For example, the turret plating. With this, a lane like Tristana Leona where Leona takes Demolish is actually really good, because if they ever get a chance to hit the turret, chances are it's dead very quickly, and that's a lot of gold. Then they swap top and do the same.

Or, the dragon changes. Now that first dragon is buffed, early game dragon taking champs are really good right now.

You can also buff their itemization options. For example, Morgana, Kennen, Fiddle and Lissandra really benefit from being able to get a stopwatch from the start of the game, although I'm not really sure how many of them take it anymore, it was at one time a buff.

I'd argue the timers on re-cast abilities like Pyke R, Darius R, etc are all buffs since they make decision making a lot easier. A few times I'd ult early as Darius because I was unsure of how long I had left on it, and now it's not even an issue. I think they also changed charge abilities to do the same. like Vi Q.

Champ dependent, but you can increase their utility. One of the biggest examples I can think of is Lux W, which is just a massive shield, and honestly went from me thinking of her as a support I don't really want in my lane to one I'm indifferent about.

Nerfing counters also works. Just less of a chance to lose lane to them, though I guess you could argue that depending on how you nerfed the counter, it could increase damage output.

Vision changes. Can't drop pink wards in to see Stealth champs anymore, stuff like that.

Range changes. Like Lee Sin Q range buff.

And last, but not least, Gettin Gud. You can buff all your favorite champions yourself by just knowing what you can and can't get away with in which matchups, everyone knows that. But what a lot of people don't realize is the enemy might not know the matchup as well as you do. Did you E on Ezreal and they went aggressive while it was down, then played passive when you still had 5 seconds left? Now you can use that info to get cheeky poke knowing your opponents don't know your kit as well as you do. Stuff like that.

SéanceDec 11, 20181 votes

Nerf every other champion besides the one you want to buff.[slayer-jinx-wink]

Modl Ryden lDec 11, 20181 votes

Animation changes can make all the difference in how a champion plays.

Katarina at one point had a slower attack animation. Riot 'buffed' her by making the attack animation to be faster and snappier while preserving the true attack speed stat she had. Just so it could be easier for her to last hit and turn.

Essentially, nerfing and buffing attack delays (a hidden stat generally tied to animations for basic attacks) can add up huge differences to how a champ feels. Caitlyn is another example. She had 0.0 sec attack delay upon her release. Then when the marksmen reworks happened in like season 6, they gave her a 0.1 sec attack delay but gave her a passive 10% bonus attack speed buff. This made it so she had to sit down and attack before she could move, rather than INSTANTLY being able to attack and run away completely.

BLIGHTBRINGERDec 11, 20181 votes

That's sonething I discovered recently, Varus in particular has really long Basic Attack Animation, as well as a really long Attack Delay.

I tried to look up a list of all Champions Attack Delay on the LoLWiki but the post doesn't have a list anymore because supposedly Riot is no longer using Attack Delay since the end of Season 8.

I really hate attack delay because it doesn't let me kite or farm to my full efficiency.