Please consider reworking the new penalty on Frostfang!

Azadethe··14 votes·1,121 views

Riot, I'm not talking about the wards, or the lack of a third tier when I say reconsider the rework.

But.... The change to the Frostfang's cooldown timer has shoved it to the mack of the line for support trinkets. It's also left some champs in pretty precarious situations, like Zyra Morgana who often cannot help but pick up some minions with it. For example, if KogMaw Recalls, and minions are pushing a turret and Taric Jinx are pushing with them, Morgana has no choice but to kill some minions. Killing 5 minions puts item 3311 on a full MINUTE cooldown! And usually the waves are bigger than 5 minions.

And, sometimes Morgana will pick up a minion just because she's trying to harass with her Dark Soil, or to pick off 1-2 minions to line up a Q.

That means..... if she manages to lock down a kill for an adc, the result is when they push a turret, she won't be able to proc any item 3311 Procs. I normally get 4 hits on a turret for gold before we have to regroup/have opposing laners back. That's a loss of 60g in exchange for what was probably 2 19g minions.

And what's more is, no other support item has this kind of micromanagement. There's major reasons item 3096 has become the go-to trinket for pretty much all enchanters, even the ones you advertise as metaing item 3311 ; They can still farm with it, albiet no AP from it.

Now, Morgana can stay relevant to the Support role, even with a gold nerf. However, Zyra is at risk of not even having a role anymore because of this change; Zyra NEEDS to farm at some point in the game to be relevant, because her kit scales a little less, and her items are more expensive (item 3116 item 3151 being pretty much must haves). And, in mid there are way too many ways to make Zyra Absolutely irrelevant, which is why she's primarily a support. If she has to go on a cooldown for 2-3 minutes every time she clears a big wave, she's going to fall behind a whopping 2-3k Gold every game from where she is now. She also can't really always control it, because her plants attack autonomously at some ranges.

What's the real kicker is; This cooldown now applies even when the item is loaded with 3 stacks. The last version only lengthened cooldowns if you were expended, so as long as you managed not to completely deplete your item 3311 , you could manage the cooldown. Now..... it doesn't matter. You clear that wave to protect your turret, and the next 1-2 minutes when the other lane's champs arrive, you can get no gold.

I understand the jungle nerf. But why increase the penalty for a minion 50%? You're basically reducing this game to 2 trinkets, and one is the obvious winner.

(And no; Nomad doesn't need a nerf; But, it does need to be used as a baseline for what gold a support can achieve).

Some other champs who are going to suffer some because of this:

Zilean (Destroys his ability to use Bombs on minions as portable seeking missiles) Teemo (Shroom collateral damage) Velkoz (Not that I mind, but often picks up major minions when played support) Sona (Often Q auto seeks 1 champ and 1 minion) Lux (often picks up minions, and has more of a reliance on leveling her E over her Q in comparison to Morg, so happens more often) Karma (Almost ALWAYS has to hit minions to do damage bot lane to champs, and usually enough to clear 2-3) Brand (Again.... don't mind, but also generally kills minions)

15 Comments

Salron2 votes

Literally every single enchanter support has a higher winrate AND higher playrate with spellthiefs line, the sole exception being Rakan, who has a higher WR with spellthiefs but is picked less than coin

Why does spellthiefs need a buff again?

{quoted} There's major reasons item 3096 has become the go-to trinket for pretty much all enchanters, even the ones you advertise as metaing item 3311

Are you living in patch 7.19? People barely run coin ever

Azadethe1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Face The Win,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9rhWO5Ox,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-01-25T14:43:11.191+0000)

Literally every single enchanter support has a higher winrate AND higher playrate with spellthiefs line, the sole exception being Rakan, who has a higher WR with spellthiefs but is picked less than coin

Why does spellthiefs need a buff again? There's major reasons item 3096 has become the go-to trinket for pretty much all enchanters, even the ones you advertise as metaing item 3311

Are you living in patch 7.19? People barely run coin ever

Just because someone doesn't do it and looks at the main item page guidance and oversaturates the samples, doesn't mean it's the better choice. I main Nami, and I pull 20k more heals and 3200 more gold on average out of a Nomad's than I do out of a Frostfang. And oh wait...... I never lose to Xerath Brand Blitzcrank Leona Velkoz As Nami because of it.

Coin is always better gold, which translates into earlier items to manage mana, which makes anything that Frostfang offers irrelevant.

P.S. I see a Nami game on your history. 0/3/6 in 25 46 seconds, and only 43% kill participation. I Average 63% Kill participation. I know your Vayne was weak, but 7k gold in 25 minutes is horrible, even if your adc is only 8k. Medallion and good team presence and you would have had more gold than her.

IvernBramblefoot1 votes

{quoted}

Just because someone doesn't do it and looks at the main item page guidance and oversaturates the samples, doesn't mean it's the better choice. I main Nami, and I pull 20k more heals and 3200 more gold on average out of a Nomad's than I do out of a Frostfang. And oh wait...... I never lose to Xerath Brand Blitzcrank Leona Velkoz As Nami because of it.

Coin is always better gold, which translates into earlier items to manage mana, which makes anything that Frostfang offers irrelevant.

P.S. I see a Nami game on your history. 0/3/6 in 25 46 seconds, and only 43% kill participation. I Average 63% Kill participation. I know your Vayne was weak, but 7k gold in 25 minutes is horrible, even if your adc is only 8k. Medallion and good team presence and you would have had more gold than her.

20k more heals? where are you getting those stats? coin doesn't give any ap, it does give 5% CD though, is that what you mean?

Azadethe1 votes

{quoted}

20k more heals? where are you getting those stats? coin doesn't give any ap, it does give 5% CD though, is that what you mean?

MEDALLION gives 10% CDR, and the increased gold in contrast to other gold items puts me into AP items/Healing boost items sooner than your builds. On average, by time I have enough gold to upgrade to Tier 2, I'm 180 or so gold ahead of spellthief's opponents. I recall as soon as I have 375g (I start game item 3301 item 1006 Instead of potions), and get back to lane and soak 40g token pickups instead of the 25g, and my opponent is still trying to get to 500g or more because 1) they feel they have to stay in lane until the lane is cleared/they kill my adc and 2) Because I wasn't there to poke or harass while gone.

From then on I just exponentially gain presence, because I'm at near full gold Utilization of item 3096 for the entire game. By the time my opponent has 1 1/2 items done, I'm at 2. By the time they have 2, I'm at three, because my presence is greater, gets more assists, some kills, and doesn't depend on poking presence.

I can give an example.

My Last Nami Game, I recalled at 4 minutes with enough gold to get item 3096 item 1004

At 8 Minutes, I bought 1300g worth of items: item 3671 item 1004 X3, item 3114 . That Included me getting a kill on Kog Ma, an Assist on Kog Ma.

The Janna I was against.... Bought a item 3311 at 5:00, and at 9 minutes, finally bought item 3158 for 900.

In that time, she got 3 Assists worth 150g each. In other words, in 9 minutes, she bought a total of 2000g in items at 9:00.

I bought 2,150g by 8:00.

That's an efficiency comparison of: 4.479166 Gold per second (mine) vs 3.703 Gold per second (Janna's)

I finished the game 2.2k more gold than Janna, even though 1) She only died 3 times, and 2) her Kog was fed. My Final build:

item 3096 item 3040 item 3117 item 3504 item 3174 item 3025 , which is about 480 AP.

I healed 37k She healed 15k.

Principal is the same as Kleptomancy: Gold = bigger presence than stats.

P.S. I didn't use Revitalize. She did.

Warios1 votes

Interesting post, need to look into this for my Nami build.

Rathar Dashing2 votes

I really liked the previous version. With it, when you completed your quest, the penalty for taking minions was removed completely. This meant that as Morgana, Lux, Sona, or even Blitzcrank I could actually push lanes without being denied damage and gold.

Sonasaurous1 votes

I don't understand why Riot can't just make support items locked to support champions the way they lock jungle items only to junglers.

Like, I understand that you can only buy jungle items when you take Smite, so if they're afraid of Junglers abusing Frostfang, then they should make it so if you have Smite you can access the jungle items BUT NOT the gold income items.

"But then they'll just buff the support items and then other lanes will take them again!"

Well then lock the gold income items to supports, who will likely either take Exhaust or Ignite. That way top laners with Teleport can't take the coin line and adcs with Heal can't take relic shield, and now you only have to worry about mid laners with Ignite taking Frostfang (but with the above mentioned cooldown of gold income, HIGHLY UNLIKELY).

"But locking gold income items to certain summoner spells will restrict the player's choice in which summoner spell they take!"

Then lock the gold income items to the SUPPORT ROLE that you are assigned to in champion select.

"But what if I'm assigned a different role and I swap to support, then I won't have access to the items at all!"

Then ADD A ROLE SWAP option already, @Riot.


But seriously, though. Supports are always getting punished because their items are being abused by other lanes. You would think by now Riot would've come up with an actual solution other than nerfing the support items.

Azadethe5 votes

[{quoted}](name=Le Kaikai,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9rhWO5Ox,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-01-25T14:41:09.478+0000)

I don't understand why Riot can't just make support items locked to support champions the way they lock jungle items only to junglers.

Like, I understand that you can only buy jungle items when you take Smite, so if they're afraid of Junglers abusing Frostfang, then they should make it so if you have Smite you can access the jungle items BUT NOT the gold income items.

"But then they'll just buff the support items and then other lanes will take them again!"

Well then lock the gold income items to supports, who will likely either take Exhaust or Ignite. That way top laners with Teleport can't take the coin line and adcs with Heal can't take relic shield, and now you only have to worry about mid laners with Ignite taking Frostfang (but with the above mentioned cooldown of gold income, HIGHLY UNLIKELY).

"But locking gold income items to certain summoner spells will restrict the player's choice in which summoner spell they take!"

Then lock the gold income items to the SUPPORT ROLE that you are assigned to in champion select.

"But what if I'm assigned a different role and I swap to support, then I won't have access to the items at all!"

Then ADD A ROLE SWAP option already, @Riot.


But seriously, though. Supports are always getting punished because their items are being abused by other lanes. You would think by now Riot would've come up with an actual solution other than nerfing the support items.

Honestly? Probably because the Queue/Story Client is a different protocol than the in game protocol. The only reason a different kit shows up when you are a jungler when on the featured items page is, because of Smite, not because you were Queue'd Jungler.

Once in game, Support can in reality have traded with the ADC, or traded with top, etc.

Rathar Dashing2 votes

I don't usually take those as support, I take heal/flash most games.

rtbf2216514122 votes

[{quoted}](name=Le Kaikai,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9rhWO5Ox,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-01-25T14:41:09.478+0000)

Well then lock the gold income items to supports, who will likely either take Exhaust or Ignite.

You never seen an adc with exhaust because the support took ignite?

LuthianDelphi

[{quoted}](name=Le Kaikai,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9rhWO5Ox,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-01-25T14:41:09.478+0000)

I don't understand why Riot can't just make support items locked to support champions the way they lock jungle items only to junglers.

Like, I understand that you can only buy jungle items when you take Smite, so if they're afraid of Junglers abusing Frostfang, then they should make it so if you have Smite you can access the jungle items BUT NOT the gold income items.

"But then they'll just buff the support items and then other lanes will take them again!"

Well then lock the gold income items to supports, who will likely either take Exhaust or Ignite. That way top laners with Teleport can't take the coin line and adcs with Heal can't take relic shield, and now you only have to worry about mid laners with Ignite taking Frostfang (but with the above mentioned cooldown of gold income, HIGHLY UNLIKELY).

"But locking gold income items to certain summoner spells will restrict the player's choice in which summoner spell they take!"

Then lock the gold income items to the SUPPORT ROLE that you are assigned to in champion select.

"But what if I'm assigned a different role and I swap to support, then I won't have access to the items at all!"

Then ADD A ROLE SWAP option already, @Riot.


But seriously, though. Supports are always getting punished because their items are being abused by other lanes. You would think by now Riot would've come up with an actual solution other than nerfing the support items.

Locking it to summer spells forces supports into taking exhaust / ignite, which isn't really fair if u wanna do a heal barrier botlane or if u have a very CC heavy team that you feel taking cleanse into is worth, in all honesty it would be alot more efficent to simply have the frostfang have an area around like, like 2000 units or so that detects allies, and if an ally is within those 2000 units then u can collect stacks from the item, if not then you can't similar to how coin is now. Keep bandit on at all times so that supports aren't totally reliant on having someone w/ them but in general theyre with a team mate most of the game and the only other role that is adc has maybe 5 champs who could bennefit from spell thiefs? MF, EZ, Kog, Sivir, and corki, but all of them are better of buying an early cull or something of that nature if they really wan't excess gold

rtbf2216514121 votes

Fiddlesticks + item 3302 = no disable passive worries.

2Charmnot2Charm1 votes

Why does it still have that penalty anyways? They just removed Frost queen's claim so why would mid laners and junglers want this item?

Azadethe2 votes

{quoted}

Why does it still have that penalty anyways? They just removed Frost queen's claim so why would mid laners and junglers want this item?

Evelynn really still needs it. Her farm speed is trash compared to other meta junglers, so she has to get it out of player's skins. If she can no longer do so, her game becomes a 4v5.

Hochelaga2 votes

Because for only 850 gold, you get to have 10% cdr and 20 AP with a passive gold generating. Taking that item early will basically guarantee you at least 500 gold earned from this item in a game which will give you free wards. All that for 850 gold.

It is a great alternative to get frostfang instead of fiendish codex because the item gets self paid over time.

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