Subclasses, Lane Lock, and Class Items

Hey everyone, so this post might run kinda long so I'll add a TL;DR at the bottom. The link is for the subclass dev blog back from April for those interested.

Alright, so I've tossed this idea back and forth between my league friends and we all pretty much think it would be a good idea and I just wanted to hear the communities thoughts. With RIOT announcing subclasses and how they are sorting champions into them that got me thinking on what could this could be used for besides just grouping champions. This is going to be a pretty extreme, and in some ways antifun, premise that I believe would be a great change for the sake of balance.

The idea is that each lane and items would be limited to only certain classes and subclasses. I feel this would not be to hard to do as the game already locks players in roles that they choose anyway. Basically, the idea is to force certain champions into certain lanes and I know that that limits alot of freedom and experimentation but here me out.

Alot of champs that arise to be OP or toxic occur mostly because they can abuse one of two things, usually both, thier lane and items. Think about it, you wouldn't really take tank or tank much mid because it's too risky, doable, but certainly not as useful as full ap would be to blow up your target. You take these champs top lane and all of a sudden you have yourself a viable cheese lane that most the champs that live up there cannot handle as they were designed to go against other top laners, not other mid laners. Locking champions in lanes removes some of these problem champs that are known to plague the meta every now and then.

By now I think you can also see where I am going with my next part about items. We all know about how the juggernaut items have been abused by both adcs and assassins alike so the change to make items class/subclass specific eliminates these cases as well (aka ). Since this would effectively remove most of the item pool for all champions, more class specific items would be added to each to hopefully meet all the needs you could want. For example, a tank item with attack speed or an ad mana item. This item change would also benefit RIOT because they would be able to see directly see which champions it boost over the top or if the item just makes that group of champions too strong already. I am aware that RIOT can do this anyway but this would eliminate any outlier cases that skew the numbers.

This change can give alot of champions hidden power as well since RIOT can always let champions be open to other lanes, so imagine a champ that is allowed to be in all lanes. Not unique now, but ideally a new champ that was made to be able to thrive in all lanes. If they feel that the direction that a champion that has been having a hot date with the nerf hammer is no longer working out in thier intended lane, then they can swap thier lane and further balance them from that controlled perspective. Of course, lane swap would eliminate part of this balance plan and I don't see much of a problem with it as the other team can always swap lanes back. This would also give more variety to hybrid champions and those champions that fit into several subclasses as they could gain access to more items and lanes.

PROS:

• fewer abuse cases can arise from these new lane restrictions
• item variety to fit every class increases
• adds another tool for balancing
• opens up unique new abilities/gamemodes such as all items being available and all lanes being open.
• forces champions that can abuse other champions that weren't intended to lane against to lane against there respective lane partners CONS
• removes a big element of fun for the sack of balance (RIP mid....or not)
• removes item experimentation (sorry Koreans)
• forces champions that might otherwise have an easy lane into a more difficult one (such as vs instead of vs )

TL;DR: With the coming subclasses, lanes and items would be limited to certain subclasses but itemization for these classes would increase to meet there needs.

If you read through all of my post bless your beautiful face. If not, then I do not blame you.