Add utility scaling

5000000000000000·Nov 16, 2016·6 votes·360 views

Can supports get their own stat to boost their utility? Right now, tank supports are just weak tanks, and enchanters are supposed to stack an obscene amount of mana regeneration to spam their utility spells.

What if, instead of AP scaling, there was also a utility scaling? We know that Riot has been trying out new effects to allow enchanters to not need high AP, namely through %bonus heals and shields. What if instead of just AP, shields also scaled with utility? Utility could scale with slow strength, CC duration, AoE size, heals, shields, trap duration, etc.

It would be primarily a support srat, but also possibly useful on laners who are behind, if they have some utility in their kits.

Do you see any problems with this idea? I think it's also easily balanceable by adjusting utility scaling on kits.

9 Comments

Rıots Bad ClientNov 17, 20161 votes

lel. I actually like this idea.

But i can imagine. Morgana 3second Q snare duration +2second.

5000000000000000Nov 17, 20162 votes

Some would definitely need to be compensation nerfed. Morgana snare duration is probably a good example. Or maybe some things should just be left untouched. Full utility Nautilus might be better than full tank Nautilus, even. But I think in that case the numbers can be adjusted.

Rıots Bad ClientNov 17, 20161 votes

But over all, I really enjoy this idea.

The utility could all effect ward cooldown. and it could also allow you to proc item 3301 item 3092 item 3401 , and made sure it grants more gold.

Teridax68Nov 17, 20161 votes

I'd avoid boosting crowd control, or any kind of effect size or duration as a general rule, but otherwise yes, I'd totally support a utility-enhancing stat. Preseason 4 helped supports out a lot by introducing AP-to-utility scalings, but failed to give supports enough gold to consistently buy large enough amounts of AP, and cheap AP items are always at risk of being exploited by mages. Supports need their own stat so that they can truly enhance their own power through itemization, and not just stock up on durability and mana regen, plus actives that, while interesting, tend to end up making supports provide very similar contributions in the end.

Akali is SO HOTNov 17, 20161 votes

That's a bad idea. Giving supports more utility than they already have would be completely broken and impossible to balance. Champions would either be extremely strong or extremely weak with its existence and the stat would probably have to be gutted for 99% of the roster because of a few abuse cases similar to spellvamp because of Akali and Vlad.

5000000000000000Nov 17, 20162 votes

Compensation nerf can be made based on individual champions for the proposed utility scaling, unlike spellvamp. If Morgana for example abuses utility scaling on her Q, her Q utility scaling can be nerfed accordingly. Riot couldn't really do that with spellvamp. This stat can be balanced like AD or AP, and less like spell vamp or dodge chance, due to its nature.

Akali is SO HOTNov 17, 20161 votes

That's a problem though. Buffing or nerfing a champion based on the existence of a stat is bad. An example would be if I nerfed Trundle because there is too much CDR available for him to buy. Now he is balanced/weak in the current state of the game, but once CDR is switched around and nerfed/buffed on items Trundle is in turn affected which will make him weak or strong depending on the changes to the stat which means he'll have to be balanced again.

It would be the same way for your proposal. Morgana's Q would be nerfed because the scaling would make it too strong, but if you change the stat around a little bit then all of a sudden she is extremely weak because of those changes and needs to be tweaked again. This would apply to the other supports in the game as well because it affects them too. Having to balance a whole class of champions around a single stat is very hard to do.

That is actually the exact reason why armor pen was changed this preseason. Balancing armor pen around two different classes of champions was impossible without having to gut some champions and buff others so it was completely changed. This would be even more difficult for utility scalings because of how powerful it would make some abilities in this game.

5000000000000000Nov 17, 20161 votes

Her Q's utility scaling can be nerfed without changing anything else about her, though. Then essentially nothing has changed, unless a huge rework comes to utility items. You can't make flat armor pen work differently on ADC and AD assassins, because of how flat armor pen works (or you can by making it melee only, i guess). However, if flat armor pen scaled with each ability differently, then it could be more easily balanceable by tweaking the scaling. It's counterintuitive to do that for a stat that makes you do more damage against low armor target, though.

If Morgana's new build has 30 utility, to increase the snare duration by 1.5 seconds (assuming 5% scaling), then her utility scaling can be nerfed (say to 4% scaling), which would give her additional 1.2 seconds of snare. Her other builds (say, an AP mid build that focuses on AP) are unaffected, and the problem is addressed. It's basically the same thing as changing AD/AP scalings of damage on spells. We see this happen pretty much all the time, and many are successful.

Utility wouldn't be a stat that works the same way on every champion. The base stats wouldn't be affected by utility (unless that's the passive), only spells, and only specific spells. Flat armor pen and spellvamp are problematic because the stat applied in the same way to champions whose kits are very different. Utility stat wouldn't suffer the same problem because the stat is applied differently on different kits.

Teridax68Nov 17, 20161 votes

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That's a problem though. Buffing or nerfing a champion based on the existence of a stat is bad. An example would be if I nerfed Trundle because there is too much CDR available for him to buy.

That is what happened for marksmen, though, after they got much better access to CDR, and to supports themselves after they had better access to gold. I don't think it's inherently bad to make a class scale with an extra stat, all it does is tie the class's power further into itemization. If the class were, say, marksmen, who already depend on a ton of item-based stats, that might not be so good, but on supports it's probably necessary at this point, since they still don't have any great means of scaling their power with items. Even after the MYMU changes to item-based health regen, there isn't really any stat out there that allows Riot to bind items to supports, which is likely one of the reasons why they're still stuck with cheap items that give them a generic assortment of regen and health/resists.

I think the issue with armor pen is also a separate one: flat pen was changed to Lethality because the original stat gave a huge boost that fell off over time, which exacerbated the issues with assassins who built them. Marksmen were never really intended to build flat pen, but did so in part because they didn't have to trade much off for it, which is why Youmuu's Ghostblade is getting a lot of stats stripped off of it.

With all that said, however, I think there are some effects mentioned in the OP that I don't think would be appropriate to tie to items. CC in general is its own can of worms: having some slows scale with AP is fine, but having all of them scale with items is not, as many mages would then be pushed to buy support items to have stronger CC. Increasing the duration of hard CC is a no-no, as is increasing the duration of effects in general, since that tends to double-dip on uptime with CDR. I also don't think increasing the size of most abilities would be the best, since that could seriously mess with clarity and players' muscle memory (e.g. "why is this AoE twice as large now?"). There are a lot of utility effects out there, though, e.g. heals, shields, various stat boosts, etc., and I think increasing their raw strength would be perfect for enhancing the unique contribution of each support, instead of having them all blend together somewhat once they all purchase the same item actives.