Boards›Gameplay

A Thoughtful Post: 8.12 Nerfs Shields Without Compensation? Why wait until 8.13 to "fix" Enchanters?

mSticky·6/7/2018, 9:14:27 AM·6 votes·2,703 views
Surrender at 20

I'm a Plat support main. My Stats: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=mattusticky

TL;DR: Duration nerfs alone aren't the answer to shield spam.

The SALT (This is a joke, if that wasn't clear...):

I get it, Riot. You've heard Scarra and Hashinshin howling for support nerfs. You've just made a new assassin "support" Pyke who hasn't been popping off per your expectations. You want faster, more snowball-y games to appease the low-elo bloodthirst, but there's a particular class of champs who thwart your ambitions: the evil shielders Janna Lulu Karma. How DARE those underleveled bot lane leeches have tools to disable the almighty Yasuo Zed Talon Kassadin on their welfare incomes?! How DARE those inbred monkeys pretend to be worth more than half a champion in the League of Crabs? UNACCEPTABLE! You need an answer, something imaginative, something** J U I C Y**, and then you realize it - nerf all primary shield supports and their items item 3114 item 3107 item 3504 item 3222 into the ground.

Don't lie to us, Riot, we KNOW you hate shield supports and backline enchanters in general. That's why the last true shield support you made Lulu WAS BACK IN MARCH OF 2012 (Rakan has a heal & shields, but they're secondary mechanics to his engage/disengage potential). Beyond that, the last real backline enchanter you made was Nami back in DECEMBER OF 2012. You've been trying to grandfather this subclass out of the game for six years now, and you won't wait anymore. You've already punched out tank supports (item 3097 nerfs), you've humbled Rakan after MSI, and you've dropped the big 8.11 patch that ended season 8's "Better ADC Wins" meme. The time is NOW. KILL THE SHIELDS. #NoEGirls

The DISCUSSION

Riot wants to remove "spam shield to win" gameplay and give opponents more defined windows for counterplay, which isn't inherently bad. With 40% CDR easily accessible for all enchanters, shielding supports have their shields (and item 3504 ) on their carries with basically 100% uptime by endgame, which can feel suffocating for assassins and playmakers. I personally believe this is the justified "enchanter fantasy" for a late-game defensive support with weak offensive potential, but that's beside the point. What matters is that Riot wants more reactive play out of their shielders throughout the game, and they're hitting shield duration to do so.

**My problem is not with the shield nerfs themselves. My problem is that the nerfs come in a vacuum with no direction about where shield supports should be headed. **

For starters, there are no compensation buffs planned for shield supports alongside the duration nerfs, even the most basic one: increased shield value. If anything, Riot has decided to lower shield intensity too with the item 3114 line nerfs. **This is a mistake. ** Gutting a champ's primary mechanic without redistributing power elsewhere is usually a bad idea. Remember when Riot moved Jinx's Switcheroo (Q) mechanic to per-level scaling and she was complete ass for a whole season until they changed it back to per-rank scaling? Or maybe when Riot tried to give us a weird AoE bruiser Rengar by reworking Savagery (Q), only to revert it back after a year of negative feedback from the community? **Hitting a champ's core mechanic is guaranteed to negatively affect the champ's effectiveness and potentially alienate longtime players, and doing so without any kind of compensation is inexcusably stupid. **

Secondly, almost all shield supports have a secondary effect on their shield that will be negatively affected by the duration nerf, compounding the nerf beyond just numbers. Let's go down the list: Janna's shield grants bonus AD as long as it's up, and her kit is balanced around those values. With the shield duration decaying over 5 seconds, the amount of uptime on the bonus AD she grants her carry will be significantly reduced when her carry is fighting, as the shield will be decaying on top of the damage the carry is already taking. Karma 's shield grants bonus movements speed, and is consequently used not only for disengaging but also for engaging. In a close fight where both the pursuer and target are low health, what good is an "engaging shield" that fades the moment after you catch up to your target? The same applies to Orianna's ball. Lulu's shield moves Pix around, enabling Pix to deal damage when its target autoattacks. In the status quo, Lulu can spam shields on her carry late game allowing them to make full use of Pix's offensive bonus and her shield's defensive bonus throughout a fight, as 40% CDR means that her next shield will be available the moment her last one expires. However, if Lulu is no longer allowed to spam her shield and now must try to reactively shield an opponent's rotation, her carry is denied both Pix's extra damage and item 3504 's buff until the enemy diver makes their move. Note: All supports will struggle to get full value out of item 3504 for this reason, but Lulu especially.

POTENTIAL ALTERNATIVES:

GOALS: Preserve shield support utility while also increasing vulnerability windows for opponents.

  1. Buff the initial values of shielding supports and give them either the "decay over duration" quality or a shorter overall duration, preferably the first option for more consistent synergies with secondary effects.
  2. Rework Ardent Censer to reward clutch shielding over spam shielding.
  3. Pretty much anything over what's been suggested.

CONCLUSION

Riot, wanting to move shield supports away from sustained shielding and more towards clutch shielding is perfectly fine, but this is not how you do it. All these hard nerf/buff patches do is change what champs people play, rather than encouraging players to find new ways of playing their respective kits. By combining buffs and nerfs here, you can give skillful players a chance to distinguish themselves while keeping shield supports fun to play and play against.

Thanks for reading.

22 Comments

D357R0Y3R6/7/2018, 10:29:06 AM5 votes

Fiddlesticks riot balance team are abusing fiddlesticks who has 53% win rate and 8% pick rate

any sustain related champion that can counter his poke needs to be gutted

Nyarlathοtep6/7/2018, 11:30:51 AM2 votes

How DARE those underleveled bot lane leeches have tools to disable the almighty on their welfare incomes?!

You do know that overshielding affects just as much pretty much everyone. Although it does hurt more assassins since they rely on burst.

can feel suffocating for assassins and playmakers.

Actually it can suffocate pretty much everyone. Trying to poke as mage only to see the target being shielding for 300 hp. Finally getting the adc low enough to be killed, only to be met by yet again another big ass shield. All that with a press of a button.

I personally believe this is the justified "enchanter fantasy" for a late-game defensive support with weak offensive potential

It would be acceptable IF they didnt have other tools. Janna might have a strong shield (with late game being on a very low cd) but she has also one the strongest disengage kits in the game, thanks to the last changes she has decent damage (for a supp) while also having a decent aoe heal. Lulu has also a strong shield (-10% ratio compared to janna's), but she also has a strong skillshot aoe slow, atk speed and movement speed buff, being able to amplify ones damage thanks to her passive (albeit by a meager amount), being able to make a single target useless (polymorph) and an ulti that will grant them bonus hp, slow enemies close to the ultied champ and knock up enemies during the enlargement.

They arent shield bots, as such if their shields were ever to become unbearable they should be nerfed.

For starters, there are no compensation buffs planned for shield supports alongside the duration nerfs, even the most basic one: increased shield value.

With their current strengths they might not need compensation buffs (maybe minus karma).

s shield moves Pix around, enabling Pix to deal damage when its target autoattacks.

I think i've read that pix will remain around for the full duration even if the shield expires

Oh also i think lux didnt get her shield nerfed because its not point and click.

Killer of Night96/7/2018, 10:24:34 AM2 votes

Lulu pixie could be adress in her W too and aery with lulu W apply censar too. Karma will only lost even more identity because now she has to well use shield instead of chasing pp with 1,5s of ms. The big issue is that a bad shield is punished even more than a good shield (expecially for their secound effect). In karma case the good shield is punished as bad shield (cannot be used for engage). Also karma CD is too long with the actual shield.

DODGEORLOSE6/7/2018, 9:17:13 AM2 votes

I'm also a support main. I would love to see more weaknesses for shield supports.

Oleandervine6/7/2018, 11:29:20 AM1 votes

Instead of just flat nerfing shields, they could, you know, give them mechanics like Taric's Q, which rewards you with a more powerful heal if you're not spamming Q.

Janna could gain stacks to empower her shield per tornados she hits or when Zephyr damages an enemy. Lulu could gain stacks to empower her shield whenever Pix strikes a new enemy during an auto. Karma could simply go back to having a large shield bomb if she's going have her shield gutted, because her Mantra Shield Bomb was a fun mechanic (and NOT what Ivern has, btw. Ivern's shield is more like Sion's, the damage wasn't on cast like Karma had).

There are ways to make shields less oppressive without wholesale genocide to the shield enchanter class as a whole.

ChaddyFantome6/7/2018, 2:00:02 PM1 votes

Support main here. The only champion whose buff on Shield is getting hit is Janna since the buff durations on those spells are seperate from the shield itself.

Janna needs the nerf tho, and this change will encourage more proactive gameplay from her as it rewards her for protecting Shielded allies do they can maximise the AD from the shield.

Also, applying ardent buff is the same in this regard. It has its own duration.

I do think nerfing the item 3114 items is pretty overkill tho, but hitting durations is the right direction imo.

I do think compensations are in order, especially given the item hit. Peoplw have been complaining that supports have been to item defined as opposed to kit defined, similat to duskblade and assassins as is, so assuming compensations are gonna happen, im fine with these changes going through.

ModKnightsKemplar6/7/2018, 3:42:47 PM1 votes

A lot of your assumptions here are flawed.

Gutting a champ's primary mechanic without redistributing power elsewhere is usually a bad idea.

For which champ is this true? Shield is Ori's primary mechanic? Lulu doesn't max Q in lane? Janna's is, but she has the lightest nerf and has also been a top tier support for 3 seasons in a row! She needs a nerf!

you want faster, more snowball-y

Meddler directly addressed this in a post yesterday and said fixing snowball was a top priority. So this is just wrong.

I personally believe this is the justified "enchanter fantasy" for a late-game defensive support with weak offensive potential

Again, none of these champs classify as having "weak offensive potential." Even Janna does pretty good damage with Aery and W now. Having 100% shield uptime is the definition of no skill expression; I respect your opinion, but I think it's actually really bad for balance. This just means that assassins and carries have to have even more damage, and it starts an arms race with shields and damage trying to balance the two. That's exactly what we've seen, so hitting the uptime is a great solution.

Secondly, almost all shield supports have a secondary effect on their shield that will be negatively affected by the duration nerf, compounding the nerf beyond just numbers

Also wrong, I think, but I'm willing to be corrected. Every post I've read says the secondary effects for Lulu, Karma, and Ori are unaffected. Only Janna's will be, and again, that's why she's getting the lightest nerf.

If the basis for your logic were all true, I might agree, but as I've pointed out, a lot of your key assertions simply aren't true.