Expanding upon the idea hunters machete
Hey guys and gals
So I've been thinking about the hunters machete recently and it's upgrade path And it's really a very smart system Riot created with it. Having it only unlock when A player has smite and allowing the jungler to build it to accentuate their Play style I find to be excellent from a balance point of view
Simply because it makes the jungle roles meta more modular (and that's not a bad thing!) what I mean is that Riot is able to take a look at the jungle items and modify and buff certain aspects of those jungle items to really narrow down their intended targets for balancing
We've seen patch 5.5 come through as a huge break through for tank junglers and by and large the reception to it has been enormously positive, and the only problem was that sejuani became a little too good, but that was dealt with swiftly
This patch and it's swift rebalancing to help the games health can e directly attributed to the system they put in place regarding the hunters machete only being unlocked for those with smite it gave their buffs a really right focus for a particular class that needed help and allowed their further rebalancing to have even tighter focus.
So. What do you think if we... expanded on this idea?
What if this system was expanded to other summoner spells? Certain items becoming available based on the summoner spells the player takes into the game. It would give the same focus the new hunter machete gives to junglers but to laners.
For example, aggressive players like to take ignite, what if I could build an item that turns ignite from a slow burn into a small burst called "inferno" I imagine champs like veigar, ahri, and talon would find this enchantment to be useful, but since it's an item that must be built up to, it's power is gated at the beginning and it allows Riot to plainly see how a champion is viewed by the community if they see this item being built on them and they can directly fiddle around with the "inferno" item to more tightly focus on a particular class of champions without unintentionally hurting other champions by having to rework general purpose items.
Supports like taking exhaust? Nice! What if I could build an item that allows me to exhaust an objective like baron or dragon that would help burn down the objective quicker?
Tanks like taking ghost? Nice, what if I could upgrade my ghost to give me an interesting passive called "spectral" that allows me to take 5% reduced damage from auto attacks like a mini ninja tabis?
Or maybe a ghost item that has an active affect of creating a small aoe silence around the player when activated? Called "Howl"
The goal is to make the balance of the game more modular and gives balancers the ability to look and modify an item with a reduced risk of hurting other champions.
Any thoughts? Over to you guys and gals