Mandatory Smite in Champ Select

SkyblazeHydraX3··11 votes·1,313 views

Riot, I know you're dealing with some big stuff right now. New client, balancing for upcoming events, improving Dynamic Queue while dealing with all the hate, at least two reworks currently in the pipeline, and so much more that hasn't been shared. But I was wondering if you could do one thing that might not be a whole lot of work, but a big help nonetheless.

When someone gets queued up in the jungle role for Champion Select, make it so that the game automatically makes them take summoner 11 Smite as one of their Summoner Spells. They can change the other one to be whatever they want and they can apply it to whatever button they want, but if you're queued up for the jungle role you are outright forced to take smite.

Fact of the matter is with recent jungle changes, Smite is already mandatory in all but actually making it so. The jungle items are necessary to get bonus experience and keep up with the champions that are laning, and those very same jungle items are restricted from purchase unless you've taken the Smite summoner spell. If someone forgets to take it, then the team is pretty much screwed.

Case in point? I just had a ranked game where our "jungler" forgot to take smite, and went jungling anyways. Nevermind my horrible performance against midlane Poppy as Fizz, by the time we finally surrendered our "jungle" Volibear was level 9 while the enemy team was about level 13 to 15. The average level difference was enough that the enemy minions had 20% bonus damage against ours. Nevermind their complete inability to really gank or even be relevant.

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly approve of the changes Riot made to the jungle experience gain recently. I especially love it because I don't have to worry about my leash accidentally soaking up experience even though I killed the monsters. But because of the changes Riot had to enforce, something as simple as forgetting Smite can absolutely ruin the game for both the jungler and the rest of their team. With making jungle items give the experience necessary for junglers to keep up and those same jungle items being forbidden from purchase without Smite, I see no justifiable reason to not have the game forcibly make sure the jungler is taking Smite. Non-Smite jungle builds just are not viable anymore, so there's no feasible reason for Riot to support or encourage them.

I'm no computer major or tech wizard, so I don't know what would be required to make this happen. To me it seems like a relatively small change, but I can understand that the coding required for auto-changing someone's Summoner Spells has the potential to make a lot go wrong. All the same I really do think this is a change Riot needs to make. When I'm queuing up in a role other than jungle, I shouldn't have to check to make sure my jungler takes the spell they need to be relevant to the game. And when I'm queuing up as jungle, it would grant some peace of mind that even if I do forget to change my summoner spells, the worst that could happen is that I end up not having Flash.

So please Riot, would you at least consider this? I realize it might be complicated or take a while, but I really think it would be worthwhile and ease a lot of frustrations.

18 Comments

RocketRelm4 votes

I don't think it should be 'required'. However, I think when queueing up for the jungler the game should always load you with 1 spell as Smite, that way it's always a manual opt-out rather than opt-in thing. Leads to less mistakes.

SkyblazeHydraX31 votes

Thing is, to actually effectively jungle smite is required already, as I detailed in the original post.

RocketRelm3 votes

Sometimes you want to trade your jungle queue with somebody else. If you and top want to trade positions, this is the situation where being locked into smite would hurt.

SkyblazeHydraX33 votes

.....Dang, got me there.

Knight Sky3 votes

This is a good idea however, theres 2 problems. 1 if you dont want smite cuz you have a champ with fast clears, for example nunu who basically has a smite and his kit. Sometimes when i play nunu i take flash/tp but i wouldnt be able to do so if it was mandatory. Also theres an off chance that someone wants to duo top, (it happens), and someone wants to play morde and riven top for example. If someone HAS to select jungler then he has a waster summoner spell. Just some thoughts, all in all its a nice idea

SkyblazeHydraX32 votes

The problem with that is that unless you're downright godly in running such a setup or heavily tax your lanes, a non-Smite jungle setup won't work. You'll miss out on the bonus experience given by the starting jungle items, setting yourself and thus your entire team behind. Besides if you already have one smite, why not be sure about it and have two?

Also, Smite isn't a waste of a Summoner spell, even in lane. Not the best, but it's at least usable.

DrathTurtle3142 votes

This would make switching roles in champ select impossible. I always queue up as Support/Fill and have been very unpleasantly surprised by the number of times I've been stuck jungle or worse mid. In these situations I will ask if the player who got assigned to support if they are willing to switch w/ me and if not, I'm usually in a premade w/ either my top or ADC who would trade w/ me. In these situations having smite locked would be a disadvantage because if the support switches I'm forced to either give up exhaust in exchange for chilling smite(which has no AS slow or damage reduction) or gray smite(which has no in combat use and just acts as your sightstone) OR have no flash(or other escape spell)...

This wouldn't be a majority of games, but it is a problem that must be considered. Now, you load w/ 2 selected summoner spells(usually the ones used in your last game), so making the game always load smite for a jungler and allowing them to opt-out would be acceptable.

SkyblazeHydraX31 votes

Yeah, trading lanes happens rarely for me, so I didn't consider it. Being able to trade lanes is important in retrospect, so I suppose having it auto-load Smite in as one of your Summoner spells is a good option.

....Of course that also leaves open the problem of the person you traded lane with accidentally forgetting Smite instead.

I'm beginning to think that along with this idea, you should have the ability to actively swap lanes with someone. Buuuut that would be very difficult to code, and probably cause more problems than it would fix.

Sun Wukong Sun1 votes

bump

SkyblazeHydraX31 votes

Bumps are usually painful and unpleasant.

But this kind of bump I will graciously accept.

Jenks31 votes

I actually posted a very similar post earlier today. I was Vi Jungle and forgot to switch to smite and it was the worst game of league of legends I have ever played :(

I may not force them to take smite, but at least give them a popup saying "Yo, guy, you queued up for jungle and don't have smite".

SkyblazeHydraX31 votes

Some people turn those notifications off, and after a few games it could get annoying. But yeah, going jungler and accidentally forgetting smite? Worst thing ever.

LatetotheRace1 votes

Maybe not MAKE them take it, but has it replace the D of F key. They can do whatever they want with it after the matchmaking starts, but this way they're much less likely to start without it.

SkyblazeHydraX31 votes

Yeah, a lot of people are saying rather than outright force it on them, just have it be automatically put there. That way it's a decision, not an accident.

Spacesuit Spiff1 votes

I want this just because of how many ppl here would panic. Theres already a batch thats offended that champ select "enforces the meta" and that flash is "mandatory"

SkyblazeHydraX31 votes

Geez, some people.

EWBS Mithilesh1 votes

[deleted]

SkyblazeHydraX31 votes

.....I'm Silver, it shouldn't be my responsibility to make sure other people take the proper summoner spell for a role that quite literally needs it to be effective, and you my foul-mouthed and unprovoked acquaintance are reported.

Have a good day, and go clean out your mouth with soap.

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