What if we have an item empowering Ultimates?

doublelift fg·May 5, 2015·4 votes·887 views

just watch 6.84 and now dota 2 has aghanim upgrade on something like 80% of their heroes. What Struck me was Alchemist upgrade, the hero can give to any of his teammate his upgrade without him buying it. What if league had also a gameplay arround that?, it would bring more strategies because it actually use one of your slot which i find quiet interesting.

the only problem i found is that it would ask for a lot of work since we have arround 120 champions now.

26 Comments

JustMyBassCannonMay 5, 20155 votes

DotA is DotA, and LoL is LoL.

DotA has Aghanim's and a shit-ton of binary mechanics LoL has Ability Power and a shit-ton of generic mechanics

Old Man TeetoMay 5, 20153 votes

This is a surprisingly accurate comparison.

LaughingStaplerMay 5, 20153 votes

LoL balance team isn't competent enough to have truly game changing items like that imo. Imagine if Blink Dagger was added to LoL for more free flashes. I don't know if I have enough confidence in RIot to go beyond something like Righteous Glory. It would be really cool if they could though.

Best Darius KRMay 5, 20151 votes

Yea, Aghanim's is just sooo BADASS I literally build it everytime even if it's not the optimal build (i don't play competitively anyway)

As LaughingStapler said, balancing such an item would be a nightmare during the first month or two I'm up for it though

DrCyanideMay 5, 20151 votes

I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. At first glance, it looked like you were talking about having more champions like Viktor with his item 3198 , but now I'm thinking you're talking about an item that buffs an allies ultimate? Or an ultimate that buffs an allies item? I'm very confused here.

doublelift fgMay 5, 20151 votes

sorry if i wasn't clear but yea it would be an item like item 3198 but only for ultimates

Teridax68May 5, 20151 votes

I think the biggest issue would be the burden of knowledge that comes with this. Whereas items are predictable enough that you can immediately see how they would impact on any given champion, an Aghanim's Scepter-like item would force players to memorize all of its interactions with every champion. On top of this, there's the issue of stats, since no item or build path would really fit literally every champion out there in League's framework. I also think it's a fairly roundabout way of adding mechanics that should, by all rights, be intrinsic to champion kits: if an Aghanim's upgrade is fun and interesting enough to be worth picking on a champion, why not just add that directly to their kit?

The Aqua SnakeMay 5, 20151 votes

{quoted}

if an Aghanim's upgrade is fun and interesting enough to be worth picking on a champion, why not just add that directly to their kit?

Because that Upgrade may possibly be way too good to have right at the start. If you make it something that has to be worked towards with Gold, then you have more wiggle room to make it stronger.

And there wouldn't have to be any Burden Of Knowledge, if Riot after 5+ Years would take the time to add the option of reading enemy ability tooltips in-game.

DesideriumMay 6, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Aqua Snake,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8TLnqzF2,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2015-05-05T23:57:07.128+0000)

Because that Upgrade may possibly be way too good to have right at the start. If you make it something that has to be worked towards with Gold, then you have more wiggle room to make it stronger.

And there wouldn't have to be any Burden Of Knowledge, if Riot after 5+ Years would take the time to add the option of reading enemy ability tooltips in-game.

There already is enough information on an enemy's kit from just knowing who they are. You'll even know how much damage they're going to do from how much AD/AP they have. You don't need to read their tooltips. Enemy champion infoboxes take up enough space at the top left as they are right now anyway.

And if the upgrade would be too strong at the start, why not make it stronger at rank 3 instead of making an item that would require nerfing almost all of the 120 champions in the game?

The Aqua SnakeMay 6, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kinky Ninja Boy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8TLnqzF2,comment-id=000400000000,timestamp=2015-05-06T00:01:56.941+0000)

There already is enough information on an enemy's kit from just knowing who they are. You'll even know how much damage they're going to do from how much AD/AP they have. You don't need to read their tooltips. Enemy champion infoboxes take up enough space at the top left as they are right now anyway.

And if the upgrade would be too strong at the start, why not make it stronger at rank 3 instead of making an item that would require nerfing almost all of the 120 champions in the game?

Exactly how do you know what their passives do without in game tooltips? How do you know what their Ultimates do? And it won't take up any space on the screen if you are choosing to hover your mouse over the enemy ability icons.

If you're a game that tries to accommodate new players, wouldn't something like this be the first thing you would add so that players don't have to seek outside information?

As far as making it stronger at rank 3, the abilities that the OP is talking about makes it FAR more potent. So if you want access to it, then you would have to decide if it's worth your item slot. These aren't just simple stat boost he's talking about. Also, even if you made it to Rank 3, there's no guarantee that you'll have the farm for that Ultimate Upgrade Item during that time. This Ultimate Upgrade Item would offer hardly any stats, so that is a decision to make if you want to sacrifice AD/AP for better utility of the Ultimate.

Edit: Oh yeah, just to add the Ultimate Upgrade doesn't have to be just at Rank 3. It can be accessed at Rank 1 of the Ult that would scale with each point in the Ult.

DesideriumMay 6, 20151 votes

It would seem cool at first and everyone would be like "hey let's have it" and then the item would force nerfs on almost all of the 120 champions in the game.

JustMyBassCannonMay 6, 20152 votes

To be more accurate, every champion that would have an interaction with an ultimate-upgrading item would have their ultimates preemptively nerfed to compensate for the fact that everyone is going to want the item.

The Aqua SnakeMay 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

To be more accurate, every champion that would have an interaction with an ultimate-upgrading item would have their ultimates preemptively nerfed to compensate for the fact that everyone is going to want the item.

Well they may not have to do that. This item ult upgrade can be made to be the most expensive item in the game where it takes a big hit to your item progression (And the item would offer very little stats), which of course affects how much damage you can do. Once they keep playing around with the numbers, I think they can find a sweet spot where they can make interesting upgrades without having to nerf the heroes Ult.

JustMyBassCannonMay 6, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Aqua Snake,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8TLnqzF2,comment-id=000500000000,timestamp=2015-05-06T00:58:02.881+0000)

Well they may not have to do that. This item ult upgrade can be made to be the most expensive item in the game where it takes a big hit to your item progression (And the item would offer very little stats), which of course affects how much damage you can do. Once they keep playing around with the numbers, I think they can find a sweet spot where they can make interesting upgrades without having to nerf the heroes Ult.

Except, when you understand the fundamentals of game design--specifically, LoL's design and general MOBA design--you run into a few problems.

Either the item is too expensive for what it does and nobody buys it, or everyone who can buy it will get it as soon as it's convenient (and considering it upgrades their ultimates, rushing it as a first item is a definite possibility).

Items' prices have a certain cost-to-value ratio (what we call cost-efficiency) that comes from the base value items: Long Sword, Amp. Tome, Dagger, Brawler's Glove, etc. When you look at two items and compare them, you're going to compare their cost-efficiency, and how well your specific champion uses the item's effect(s).

Either this pseudo-Aghanim's would have a strong enough ultimate upgrade that it would be on par with cost-efficient, high-end items, or it will be too expensive for the upgrade and will be relinquished to the same pile of worthless items that Sword of the Divine and old Tiamat occupied for years.

More specific to League of Legends is the fact that there are more stats to scale than in DotA. In DotA, you have three core stats--Str, Agi and Int--and then a bunch of secondary stats that you can build, but are upgraded by the core stats as well (and some tertiary stats that exist only on items and specific champion abilities, like MS, Crit, Dodge, MR, etc.).

They have the same stat blocks, but League of Legends doesn't have a core stat that upgrades 3-4 other stats at once.

What does this mean? Well, what stats would this ultimate upgrade item possess? Would it be offense, defensive, utility...would it have AD, AP, HP?

Now, obviously, the easy work-around for this is having multiple versions of the item, a la Jungle enchants/Support gold items, but then you run into the problem of needing to perfectly balance these variants so you don't have the wrong archetype building a different option because it's significantly stronger (the current Cinderhulk problem is a nice analogue).

Again, specifically with League, Riot avoids reducing stats on upgraded items. How is this relevant? The only upgraded items with low stats have very easily-collected building blocks. Trinity Force has a bunch of relatively low stats combined in one slot, but Zeal, Phage and Sheen are all pretty cheap, early-game items, making it pretty easy to build the pieces. It's not like you have to save 1600 gold for a single part, like Luden's or Rabadon's.

Likewise, Liandry's Torment builds from two Amp. Tomes, a Ruby Crystal and two combine costs, and while it is technically cost-inefficient, the DoT would need to be applied to a target with less than 100 HP for the DoT to not be on par with the amount of AP you can get from the cost-inefficiency gap.

From this, we can conclude that the only way for this ultimate-upgrading item to have low stats would be if it came from base building block items--easily accessed stuff--and had a high combine cost to complete it. Which means that, again, unless the ultimate upgrade was not as powerful as an equally-expensive option in the same slot, it would be very easily accessed and quickly picked up.

The easiest way to add an Aghanim's-like item in League would be to directly nerf ultimates that interact with it, then upgrade them through the item. Otherwise, it's a fucking nightmare.

The Aqua SnakeMay 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Except, when you understand the fundamentals of game design--specifically, LoL's design and general MOBA design--you run into a few problems.

Either the item is too expensive for what it does and nobody buys it, or everyone who can buy it will get it as soon as it's convenient (and considering it upgrades their ultimates, rushing it as a first item is a definite possibility).

Items' prices have a certain cost-to-value ratio (what we call cost-efficiency) that comes from the base value items: Long Sword, Amp. Tome, Dagger, Brawler's Glove, etc. When you look at two items and compare them, you're going to compare their cost-efficiency, and how well your specific champion uses the item's effect(s).

Either this pseudo-Aghanim's would have a strong enough ultimate upgrade that it would be on par with cost-efficient, high-end items, or it will be too expensive for the upgrade and will be relinquished to the same pile of worthless items that Sword of the Divine and old Tiamat occupied for years.

More specific to League of Legends is the fact that there are more stats to scale than in DotA. In DotA, you have three core stats--Str, Agi and Int--and then a bunch of secondary stats that you can build, but are upgraded by the core stats as well (and some tertiary stats that exist only on items and specific champion abilities, like MS, Crit, Dodge, MR, etc.).

They have the same stat blocks, but League of Legends doesn't have a core stat that upgrades 3-4 other stats at once.

What does this mean? Well, what stats would this ultimate upgrade item possess? Would it be offense, defensive, utility...would it have AD, AP, HP?

Now, obviously, the easy work-around for this is having multiple versions of the item, a la Jungle enchants/Support gold items, but then you run into the problem of needing to perfectly balance these variants so you don't have the wrong archetype building a different option because it's significantly stronger (the current Cinderhulk problem is a nice analogue).

Again, specifically with League, Riot avoids reducing stats on upgraded items. How is this relevant? The only upgraded items with low stats have very easily-collected building blocks. Trinity Force has a bunch of relatively low stats combined in one slot, but Zeal, Phage and Sheen are all pretty cheap, early-game items, making it pretty easy to build the pieces. It's not like you have to save 1600 gold for a single part, like Luden's or Rabadon's.

Likewise, Liandry's Torment builds from two Amp. Tomes, a Ruby Crystal and two combine costs, and while it is technically cost-inefficient, the DoT would need to be applied to a target with less than 100 HP for the DoT to not be on par with the amount of AP you can get from the cost-inefficiency gap.

From this, we can conclude that the only way for this ultimate-upgrading item to have low stats would be if it came from base building block items--easily accessed stuff--and had a high combine cost to complete it. Which means that, again, unless the ultimate upgrade was not as powerful as an equally-expensive option in the same slot, it would be very easily accessed and quickly picked up.

I can agree with the majority of this.

Multiple version of the Ult Upgrades item also seems like an interesting idea.

I don't think Riot would need to reduce stats for the item upgrade though. Perhaps they can introduce new item components that build exclusively into this Pseudo-Aghs item that have low stats right off the bat so it wouldn't require Riot to reduce anything.

Certainly the idea of a Pseudo-Aghs would take alot of play testing, and would have to be implemented at the start of a new Pre-season since the changes are massive, but I think this would be a great opportunity for Riot to get community input of some interesting ideas, and narrow these ideas down into a finalized ult upgrade.

Edit: Also, maybe the ultimate upgrade abilities can come in waves. Not all 120 champions right off the bat. Maybe they can start with 10-12 champions, playtest them, and over time slowly start adding in the others.

SLangedEdgeMay 6, 20151 votes

Few things...

Dota has no AP, there is no way to gain dmg on spells.

Aghs upgrades either buff dmg of spells, add an extra buff to teh utility of the spells, or add a new spell all together. For these buffs you give up 4200g (about the price of a larger mid game item). You get a bit of tankiness, mana, and 10 dmg, not really worth it for stats. You have to choose wether or not to build the item in place of better dmg items for a bit more utility in ur spells. This tends to buff supports mostly, tho getting that farm would mean neglecting the team's normal needs (wards, counter wards, smoke, dust, mek, etc).

DurzakaMay 6, 20151 votes

Aghanim's exists in DotA 2 because their skills dont have scaling like LoL does.

When they level them up, that is as strong as they ever will be.

Aghanim's is a way to let mages scale past the mid game. LoL does not need such a mechanic.

I cant deny it would be fun to see but it would be a balancing nightmare and just not needed.

SLangedEdgeMay 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Aghanim's exists in DotA 2 because their skills dont have scaling like LoL does.

When they level them up, that is as strong as they ever will be.

Aghanim's is a way to let mages scale past the mid game. LoL does not need such a mechanic.

I cant deny it would be fun to see but it would be a balancing nightmare and just not needed.

aghs isn't just for scaling, most of the times aghs removes some limitation of the skill or grants a brand new skill (as is most cases in the new patch). While there are many skills that are just lower cd/greater duration/more dmg (scaling), the exciting aghs interactions are the ones that change the skill or add a new one.

Like you could do something as simple as ashe ult range restriction, but with aghs no range restriction. Forces the user to choose to build dmg items, or get a small stats item but get unlimited arrow range. There could be far better interactions for sure.

DurzakaMay 7, 20151 votes

That is just another form of scaling.

I didnt specific HOW they scaled, just that it let them scale and stay relevant.

JustMyBassCannonMay 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

aghs isn't just for scaling

Actually, that's exactly what Agh's does in every case.

It's not always a direct increase to the damage dealt--sometimes it's a duration increase, or cooldown reduction, or even adds mechanics--but it increases the effectiveness of the abilities. It scales up their effectiveness by a noticeable chunk.

SLangedEdgeMay 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Actually, that's exactly what Agh's does in every case.

It's not always a direct increase to the damage dealt--sometimes it's a duration increase, or cooldown reduction, or even adds mechanics--but it increases the effectiveness of the abilities. It scales up their effectiveness by a noticeable chunk.

The effectiveness changes aren't always dmg output, but its sometimes for more utility. I don't find utility as scaling upgrade. You can choose the utility or build actual dmg like veil, ethereal blade, etc

There are a select few that gain brand new abilitties, LS, morph, alche, etc...

DurzakaMay 7, 20152 votes

That doesnt change the fact that it is scaling.

The item specifically exists so that some heroes can continue to be relevant later in the game (IE mages are strong as fuck early game, but because there is no AD/AP scaling, they lose a lot of that power because their skills never get stronger).

Just because YOU dont see it as a scaling upgrade is your problem, it is still scaling their ability to compete in fights.

JustMyBassCannonMay 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The effectiveness changes aren't always dmg output, but its sometimes for more utility.

You mean Agh's doesn't just scale the damage, it sometimes scales the utility.

Like how Lulu's (W)himsy scales +10% AP on the MS steroid. Or how Janna's (E)ye of the Storm scales 10% AP on the AD steroid.

Which is still scaling.

SLangedEdgeMay 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

You mean Agh's doesn't just scale the damage, it sometimes scales the utility.

Like how Lulu's (W)himsy scales +10% AP on the MS steroid. Or how Janna's (E)ye of the Storm scales 10% AP on the AD steroid.

Which is still scaling.

Well not scale the utility, but rather change the utility. Like disruptors ult silences the hero, but with aghs it will also silence the items, making it hard for the person to get out. So you buy force staffs, euls, bkb to counter disruptor. If he notices everyone is building those items then he's forced to build an aghs for the extra utility and the cost of other items he might need.

Iono why you guys wouldn't want more items that change the way a champ could possibly be played. LIke LS + aghs, his ult allows him to jump into any non enemy hero unit and even control the unit (like a lane creep/jungle/or teammate). Aghs allows him an extra ability to eat a friendly hero, and you can still jump into another unit (instant 3 man gank).

Tiny with a aghs, becomes a pushing monster as opposed to a ganker. This would allow riot to reinvent some of its cast and not just focusing on scaling dmg. The lack of utility makes the roster kinda stale, when u can find another champ that just out scales u, u'd never pick the other champ.

JustMyBassCannonMay 8, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Well not scale the utility, but rather change the utility. Like disruptors ult silences the hero, but with aghs it will also silence the items, making it hard for the person to get out. So you buy force staffs, euls, bkb to counter disruptor. If he notices everyone is building those items then he's forced to build an aghs for the extra utility and the cost of other items he might need.

It's still scaling.

You would have to be screw-loose to look at the Aghanim's Scepter upgrades, see that they all increase the effectiveness of every hero affected, and argue against calling it scaling up the ultimates. It doesn't necessarily only scale damage--hell, there are non-damaging ultimates that it upgrades--BUT IT UPGRADES THEM. Upgrade = Scaling.

Iono why you guys wouldn't want more items that change the way a champ could possibly be played. LIke LS + aghs, his ult allows him to jump into any non enemy hero unit and even control the unit (like a lane creep/jungle/or teammate). Aghs allows him an extra ability to eat a friendly hero, and you can still jump into another unit (instant 3 man gank).

Tiny with a aghs, becomes a pushing monster as opposed to a ganker. This would allow riot to reinvent some of its cast and not just focusing on scaling dmg. The lack of utility makes the roster kinda stale, when u can find another champ that just out scales u, u'd never pick the other champ.

I'm not against items that change how a champion can be played. I'm against needless, redundant itemization.

First problem -- It keeps a hero from having all of their kit tools at full strength until they buy it. I'd rather have my real ultimate from the start, or ranked up naturally or combo'd with my passive or whatever, instead of having a significant chunk of power stuck to a mediocre Trinity Force.

Second problem -- Riot is not big on adding mechanics for the sake of mechanics. Between the fact that they've had to remove bad/binary mechanics, and the fact that any time Riot adds a new mechanic, people complain about how it's designed because it does something new and new is scary to some people, apparently, they wait a long time before adding new mechanics. I mean, just look at Yasuo's Wind Wall. Instant freak-out, and people still complain about its design, meanwhile Braum got absolutely 0 shitposts for having the same mechanic, except stronger in almost every important aspect.

Third problem -- Build pigeon-holing is a bad practice. If League had its own pseudo-Aghanim's, it would suffer the Uncanny Balance Valley. Either it would be rarely, if ever, built on the champions whom it upgrades (because the cost of the upgrade would be worth less than equivalent items), or it would be pretty much necessary on every single champion that it upgrades because any other option is less powerful. Which means champions have one less item slot for their builds. Which means fewer unique build paths.

Fourth problem -- Which champions "deserve" upgrades, and which champions "deserve" to wait for upgrades?

SLangedEdgeMay 7, 20151 votes

How about the heroes like LS/Alche/Morph; it changes the way they're played and forces a user into a value choice.

Treeant also changes the way he plays if he decides to build it or not.

Even though in most cases it helps with scaling, i like this item design better than the way LoL currently has it.