What about adding new effects/utility to skills when you want to buff rather than damage?

ThePikol·Jun 22, 2018·34 votes·12,127 views

We really have enough damage in game. Adding more option for skills to be used would not only buff a champion but also add a little skill expression or strategy if said skill could be used in more than one way. Who do you want to buff? ? Change his Q so it won't interrupt auto attacks. This would help his early csing. Or change his Q so he doesn't have to stop moving to cast it.

? Add a passive to her E. Make it reveal everything. Or increase her vision range with every E point

? Make so that their W reveal champion in the area like Oracle Lens. After all Wolf is hunting, let him "smell" the enemies. Or make thet enemy marked with E is visible for duration

These are just examples what can be done if you want to buff someone. Adding more damage is not always the answer

39 Comments

Pika FoxJun 22, 201819 votes

You usually dont want to add a whole new ability just to fine tune something. Look at it this way; if the new ability/effect is too good, you now need to do the opposite and remove a full part of the ability, which isnt something you want to do.

AirKingNeoJun 22, 20182 votes

yeah but then you look at bard, who's only buffs have been: more damage

Maybe if a champion needed more damage, like Aatrox back when his base AD was shit, I'd understand, but maybe attempt to fix the champion's actual problems or give them more utility to make them more fluid.

Pika FoxJun 22, 20181 votes

I mean, bard doesnt need more utility. While i think his heals may be underwhelming, his Q stun E and R are already stupidly powerful utility on their own. Its just not that useful in yoloqueue because hes largely team synergistic.

My Waifu VanillaJun 23, 20181 votes

Depends. Bulk buffs would have arguably had the same impact in higher level play but as it stands with all of the damage buffs he has gotten he is ONLY a lane bully in solo queue with Electrocute since Q+Auto will almost always just do 40% of someone's health in lane. Bard STILL has the problem of being a sitting duck later on in the game because he is still inherently fairly squishy without a real escape and is more reliant on a damage build (at least in lower elo solo queue) because teams simply won't play to his strengths. I am almost plat for the 3rd(?) year in a row and I STILL never trust bard portals because 9 times out of 10 they simply don't work in my favor and junglers will rarely get portalled in for ganks like they would in higher elo games (same goes for thresh lantern).

Hay5eedJun 24, 20181 votes

When Bard was first released he was absolute trash for several reasons.

1.) Always squishy...no matter how you built him 2.) The only cc he offers is slows and a conditional stun (which can be very tricky). 3.) His ult is very difficult to use correctly, while advertised as a why to save teammates by protecting them from damage, what you mostly do is ult enemies so that your teammates can get away. 4.) His heals were crap. They take forever to charge and even at full charge the heal they give is pretty meh compared to other healers. 5.) The mana costs on his heals are too high. 6.) His E doesn't really do anything super useful for him or his team. They can help people roam, but enemies can follow you anyways, the only point of his E is his Q combo

There are several things they could have done to try and buff him.

1.) Reduce the mana costs on his heals 2.) Increase the amount of active shrines he can have at once 3.) Increase the AP scaling of his heal when at max charage 4.) decrease the cooldown of his E 5.) Make his Ult not able to be spell shielded

Instead they just gave him a damage buff, which really hurts his support vibe

YuGiHoJun 22, 20181 votes

Isnt that what they did to singed when they gave him the grounded effect from the cass rework? riot has been adding many new effects into the game in new champion kits that i think could do good in older champ kits as a way to improve problematic or under preforming kits without just changing numbers around.

Pika FoxJun 22, 20181 votes

Every now and then sure. But not for every single balance change.

Anin777Jun 23, 20181 votes

Unlike abilities that deal dmg, buffs like that can easily be tuned. Adding extra conditions to be fulfilled balances it quickly

Z3SleeperJun 23, 20181 votes

Is that why Lee Sin has had over half his kit removed since release? (exaggeration)

Anin777Jun 24, 20181 votes

Lool. Remember when Kata was insanely mobile because she could E on wards? They removed that condition and now her mobility mechanic has been replaced with a "healthier" one.

MelledoneusJun 23, 20189 votes

I think the message here should be "try QoL changes over numbers buffs."

For example, if I were to bring up possible buff ideas for Shen, instead of buffing his Q damage or his E damage, I would increase the missile speed of his Q or make it travel along with Shen while he E's, not stopping until he finishes his dash. Or give him 5 energy for every champion auto attack blocked inside his W.

Something to make the champion feel better or more seamless to play.

My Waifu VanillaJun 23, 20181 votes

The difference is that somethings don't necessarily need those changes either. Shen definitely isn't exactly starving for energy since theoretically his Q refunds itself and his E is on a long enough cooldown that it also refunds MOST of it over the cooldown especially if you get the self refund for actually hitting someone. I understand it is just a random suggestion and didn't actually mean anything, but you can't generally fix things by just adding mechanics unless it actually does something impactful. The problem is if you add something and it IS impactful it could end up rubberbanding the other way and you have to now balance around the new thing.

The recent Urgot ult buff, for instance, while it IS a fairly "minor" buff he must now ALWAYS be tuned around the fact that any ult kill can basically be turned into a free 4 man fear since he can flash with the grinder AND also get a speed boost from his Nimbus Cloak.

ChaddyFantomeJun 22, 20189 votes

Make so that their W reveal champion in the area like Oracle Lens. After all Wold is hunting, let him "smell" the enemies.

While i personally don't like this change (purely for Bias reasons), I must admit how creative and logical this is.

Riot needs to step it up.

echorevJun 22, 20188 votes

That requires too much brain power, buffing damage is just the bare minimum lowest effort path to getting that 50% Riot seems to idolize.

Don't even bother imagining otherwise, these jokes will never dream up something intuitive in their careless tiny skull rattling brains.

MarshbouyJun 22, 20184 votes

Wow. That's a lot of concentrated hatred.

echorevJun 22, 20183 votes

You're misspelling truth

My Waifu VanillaJun 23, 20181 votes

Skarner Volibear Taliyah Singed hasn't bit them in the ass yet right? Just adding effects to abilities couldn't POSSIBLY break them.

FilDaFunkJun 22, 20186 votes

Just making abilities more complicated...

Sir RougeJun 22, 20184 votes

Karthus ''Change his Q so it won't interrupt auto attacks. This would help his early csing.'' That would give him too much pusing power/his early trades would be too good.

''Or change his Q so he doesn't have to stop moving to cast it.'' That would break him.

Ashe ''Add a passive to her E. Make it reveal everything.'' That would be too good against certain champions.

''Or increase her vision range with every E point.'' She already gives enough vision as it is, though that change might be ok.

Kindred ''Make so that their W reveal champion in the area like Oracle Lens. After all Wold is hunting, let him "smell" the enemies.'' That would be too good against champions who rely on invis assasinations/playmaking. The W area is too large for something like that.

''Or make thet enemy marked with E is visible for duration.'' That could be cool.

''These are just examples what can be done if you want to buff someone. Adding more damage is not always the answer.'' Completly agree. Though, as you can see, it's not easy to add utility to an existing ability without making it too powerful.

Kurt HyzanJun 22, 20186 votes

So please tell me what would be the counterplay of assassins who rely on invisibility

Sir RougeJun 22, 20185 votes

I'm not here to talk about that, but busting a few champions against invis assasination is a terrible idea.

My Waifu VanillaJun 23, 20181 votes

I mean most of them don't need the counterplay. The only one who arguably does is Shaco, but he is technically balanced around having the best invis by having the worst damage by far out of his entire class.

Akali literally can't leave her shroud so her invisibility is actually fairly meaningless in a teamfight (you know exactly where she is). Wukong can't travel VERY far with his and his is also very telegraphed. K6 just got neutered for his out of combat one.

The thing is hard counters shouldn't exist. I shouldn't be PHYSICALLY unable to teamfight or unable to even LANE on Akali if I leave Kindred open. What do I do if she ganks me? I W away....and I am still slowed by her E and auto'd down because she used her W and can see me. There is a reason that champions like Akali are absolutely unplayable on Twisted Treeline because she is a free kill on anyone that wants to hit their 4 button.

ThePikolJun 23, 20181 votes

Well, I think making certain champion to be a counterpick is a good idea. Currently I feel like players just pick adc that are meta no matter what. If Ashe would be a counter to Eve, Twitch, Rengar etc would that be really that bad?

MarshbouyJun 22, 20183 votes

It's possible if you're trying to buff someone up to a higher level, but the two issues are as follows.

Man power. Adding a "new effect" to a champion requires a lot more manpower and bug testing. If all you're trying to do is bring someone up from a 49% WR/3% PR it's much easier to throw a few extra damage points on them.
Making abilities needlessly complicated/overloading champion kits that necessarily didn't need it in the first place. This wouldn't be a big deal on the OG champions who have really short ability descriptions already, but there isn't any room for "new effects" on a lot of the new champions. They're complex enough.

echorevJun 22, 20183 votes

"Bug testing" funny joke.

As if these morons at riot lift a single proactive finger towards fixing bugs until enough people make a fuss about them.

Saucy SellsJun 23, 20182 votes

As if you know a single thing about how many bugs can pop up on code that’s been iterated on for 10 years and how hard it can be to fix some bugs.

Tundra HunterJun 22, 20182 votes

Volibear

ZerenzaJun 22, 20182 votes

Because you don't want to overload a champion?

Damage nerfs or buffs are easiest because it's usually the primary cause of them being too strong or too weak. If yasuo is too weak do we add more to his already overloaded kit? No, cause it's his damage, survivability or the meta that's causing it, not something missing from his kit.

For example, if we removed the input command for Karthus Q(meaning made it so he can move and auto attack with no animation for Q cast) that results in a slew of other problems. First, you can't tell Karthus is casting anything, everyone else has an animation for casting an ability, why not karthus? Second, the fact he has to stop to use his Q, even if only for a split second, makes kiting as him a bit more difficult, and it's already really easy for him to do so removing that removes an inherent weakness that was intended to be there in the first place.

The only time i understand adding new effects is when that effect strengthens their strengths, not buffs their weaknesses, such as if we wanted to buff Evelynn(she's good right now though but it's an example, calm down.),a really simple buff is to make her R have a slight cooldown refund if she kills someone, simple, her R is up again a little bit faster, it doesn't remove a weakness of her's and it rewards her for playing properly. These kind of ability changes, are good, removing weaknesses or buffing something that's already too strong, are not which is why you have to be really careful with ability changes, where as base stat buff/nerfs or ability damage scaling/flat damage nerfs and buffs are a lot easier to manage.

Edit: Like i don't think people understand how much harder it is to manage and tweak added effects over simple damage and stat changes, it's so much easier and more often than not it gets the job done.

ThePikolJun 23, 20182 votes

I mean Karthus would still raise his hand to cast Q, it wouldn't be as he is doing nothing and the Q just spawn. Just like Vel is turnning around to cast W without needing to stop moving

º Kindred ºJun 22, 20181 votes

holy i cant agree anymore with the kindred point. its so frustrating hunting someone down and then ending up not getting the 3rd attack or the dmg out overall just because i lost vision of them.

NeameanJun 22, 20181 votes

Immune to cc during his w Ornn

SaibboJun 22, 20181 votes

Man i'd love ashe E to ping who reveals like the plants so i can still pay attention to the lane and also warn my teammates at the same time

TangoMango33Jun 22, 20181 votes

wut is wold?

ThePikolJun 23, 20181 votes

Wolf. Sorry, it's fixed now

50Shades0fTryndaJun 22, 20181 votes

do you really want to see crit karthus at work?

Rathar DashingJun 23, 20181 votes

I wanna see Lichbane Karthus

Iceborn PippinJun 22, 20181 votes

I would love those Karthus buffs.

AwesomeGuyDjJun 23, 20181 votes

This just makes things more complicated, more confusing more to worry about etc. Sure its not always a bad idea but some times a champ DOES just need a teensy bit more dmg or tankiness. And as pika has already said its alot harder to fine tune using this.

ThePikolJun 23, 20181 votes

As is it bad if League would get a little more complicated? A little more to remember and to worry about? This would bring back strategy to the game as now all thing is gone and it's all about one-shotting