Guardian keystone needs to be fixed! Riot attention please
Most of you that read this probably don't play support, and even if you do, you probably don't play champions that utilizes this keystone as there are only a few supports that has a synergy with this keystone, but please upvote so it gets Riots attention so they can fix this! I pretty much lost the laning phase because if this, and your next support might too!
The new keystone shields you and your ally, if you are close to each other and one of you take damage from any source. I have played only a few games with this keystone, and I have noticed already that the keystone triggers accidentally or badly too many times. I just played against an Ezreal, and whenever he successfully hits my ADC with a Q, and I come near my ADC** after** he gets hit, the shield from "guardian" will trigger because of the burn damage from what I think is from "scorch", the mastery that burns enemies for a few seconds after a spell hits. That means the keystone was wasted unintentionally just to block a mere 1-10 damage, and it happened quite frequently! A caster minion auto-attack should also be able to trigger the shield(which can of course be useful sometimes, but really rarely). With such a long cooldown(45seconds at all levels, comparable to a short CD ultimate) and relatively short shield duration(2.5 seconds), it feels really bad when the shield gets wasted like that. I can imagine games in the future where the shield gets procced just before a teamfight by the last tick of a liandry burn!
The keystone itself is very good against burst/all in enemies, as it can soak up a lot of damage if timed properly(long cooldown is the price) , but it is very bad against poke lane. A Soraka autoattack can trigger the keystone, and you will be left open without a the keystone for 45 seconds, making you vulnerable to incoming ganks/spells/fight. I can't find the right words to describe it, but sometimes it feels like you can't control when to use it or not. It almost feels like it procs randomly, and a lot of times you won't know if the keystone is up, because it has such a long cooldown!
Some solution ideas
- Increase the shield duration to at least 4 seconds. A Janna shield has 5 second(double) duration and is much easier apply and time correctly.
- Lower the cooldown from 45 to 30 seconds. This makes the accidentally triggered shields less punishing. The keystone itself feels underwhelming, even if timed properly. If you compare this to "aftershock", another similar(but opposite) keystone for engagers in the same tree, it has only a 20 sec cooldown.
- Everytime you or an ally near you gets hit, the cooldown goes down by a few seconds. This will actually balance itself against poke and all in opponents, as you want the shield more frequently when you gets heavily poked(Caitlyn, Zyra), and not so frequently against Vayne Leona. It won't get overpowered as it is better to not take damage in the first place.
- Make it so that the next attack will need to be X or more before the shield will trigger, depending on your level.
- If the shield triggers and the enemy does not pop the shield, it will go on a shorter cooldown, depending on how much of the shield was damaged. More damage = higher cooldown. So if they pop the shield it will go into max cooldown of 45 seconds.
One or a combination of some of the ideas above will definitely help! If you have any other ideas please share it!
[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]