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Should Items be hurtful to its owner in League?

AJungleOutThere·10/12/2014, 1:10:12 PM·5 votes·1,050 views

So far, until Soraka's rework, any item you could buy had a positive or netural influence.

Sure some items are inefficient on some champions ( who would buy AP on Riven ? ) but it did not hurt them in any way, besides the opportunity cost of buying a more appropriate item.

With Soraka's Astral Infusion, this rule is now broken with health items. Due to the max health cost, once the bonus health provided by the item is gone, Soraka still has to pay a higher HP cost than if she had not this item.

This design decision is an outstanding deviation from standard item behavior. It would not be that critical if it was reserved to a recent high-cost champion, that only plaaters with some game experience can pick up. The thing is Soraka is one of the 450 IP champion which makes her one of the first champion can buy and pick up.

I do undesrtand the origin and the necessity of the health cost on Soraka though.

The solution for this would be to replace "spends x% max health" by " spends x% current health or x% base health, whichever is higher"

19 Comments

Zielmann10/12/2014, 1:40:06 PM4 votes

I think this view on the spell cost is misleading. People who look at it this way are suddenly going to think 'well, I shouldn't buy any extra HP on her', but that's not an accurate statement. Sure, just stacking HP probably isn't the best idea (but it really isn't on most champions anyhow). But picking up incidental HP on certain items isn't inherently bad, and doesn't 'hurt' her. So like, Soraka shouldn't feel bad about getting sightstone and/or locket, just because they have some HP.

Here's why I don't like the logic. Sure, the raw quantity of HP Soraka will spend to heal an ally will go up. But she'll still have more HP after healing. Example: Soraka with 1000 HP vs. Soraka with 1400 HP (buying a Ruby Sightstone), casting a few successive heals (showing HP after heal) First heal: 900 HP vs. 1260 HP Second heal: 800 HP vs. 1120 HP Third heal: 700 HP vs. 980 HP Fourth heal: 600 HP vs. 840 HP

Bottom Line: Buying HP still adds to Soraka's survivability.

She may not benefit from it quite as much as other champions would, but it is by no means 'hurting' her to get some extra HP. And the above scenario ignores both her HP regen (arguably a very strong stat on the new Soraka), and the heal she gets from Starcall. Speaking of the heal from Starcall, it is increased by the amount of health that Soraka is missing, so buying HP effectively increases the amount she gets back from landing Starcall as well.

I agree that buying items should never inherently hurt a champion. That's silly. But it's also silly to think that buying HP is hurting Soraka.

ProfDrDeath10/12/2014, 1:16:50 PM3 votes

Are you stupid sure?

There are champions with %-based HP costs other than Soraka - Aatrox DrMundo Zac Vladimir . And those are not hurt by it, either.

The %-max HP cost makes HP items kind of a double-edged deal for her, true. However, HP is still a useful stat to increase her durability. And that type of cost is there to prevent Soraka from building hypertanky (which is a distinct anti-pattern: If there's a healer that erases all damage dealt, your first concern should be to get rid of that character with alacrity - which is kind of a lose/lose choice if said healer is tanky).

Dicerson10/12/2014, 2:31:27 PM3 votes

I voted yes before reading the comments T.T

Okay, so i did some math and found this. Unless you go ham on stacking HP, the heal will always increase the total health gain of the team. Unless you pass (2400 + 600 per 100 AP) HP, the heal will always heal for more HP than you lost, granted, that amount decreases with more Hp, but if a soraka has 3000 HP and no ap at all, they're playing soraka wrong. And like Zielman said, regardless of that fact a soraka with more health will still be more durable than one with less.

tl;dr Really? You couldn't read that? Oh Well, HP only hurts soraka if you're an idiot.

Frostbutt10/13/2014, 1:50:50 PM2 votes

i'm not going to read through all the replies, so if someone suggested it already, then cool.

Soraka should have a base HP cost and a %currentHP cost (5%?). It'll prevent spamming but it won't kill her.

ceaselessphantom10/12/2014, 2:04:07 PM1 votes

Soraka does not get penalized for health just because of the max health cost. She gets penalized for that mixed in with her reliance on a static (outside of ability power) q heal. If she only had one or the other that would not be so much the case.

DollaMenunaire10/13/2014, 2:00:16 PM1 votes

The only problem I have with it is the itemization. It'd be nice to have additional straight hp/5 items without them ballooning your HP.

wolfax10/12/2014, 4:39:13 PM1 votes

Items should not provide something like negative stats or some sort of debuff to you. Your kit can make certain items less desirable though by way of health cost or something like that.

CNY1000010/12/2014, 5:22:27 PM1 votes

I agree that building health shouldn't be hurting its owner, but health items are not actually hurting soraka. Go to learn some math.

Though I think it might be okay if an item is meant to be kinda harmful to its owner....like +20AD but -100 health might be okay

BenignOmniscient10/12/2014, 1:36:46 PM1 votes

no