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[Diamond Design] How Passive Should a Passive Be?

Joushi·1/12/2015, 12:57:06 AM·30 votes·3,222 views

Hello everyone!

Glad to see most people seemed to enjoy my previous article, so we’re going to have another discussion. Let me know if the series title is something I should change and if you have any better ideas. In the same vein, if you have any suggestions for topics you want me to discuss, please let me know in the comments.

I’m going to try and keep these coming on a weekly basis, probably posting on Sundays, so stay tuned! But of course, no promises. I’m doing this because I like you guys and think these topics are interesting, but unfortunately they don’t pay my bills. Anyway, time to get started. Today’s topic is…

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VbMlAj2ucMc/VAkUv3KHalI/AAAAAAAAA-8/mSqCLSEfbWM/s1600/Bilgewater_Wallpaper02.jpg

#How Passive Should a Passive Be?

This week’s discussion follows the concept of last week’s and expands on it, this time looking more specifically at champion passives. Quick refresher, we talked about interesting decisions in a kit, and how having too many or too few can be problematic in terms of balance. We talked exclusively about abilities, so this talks about something we didn’t focus on at all. What makes a passive interesting? What makes it good? Should it be something that just sits on the sidelines or something you should really have to think about?

What a ridiculous question! By far the best passives in the game add gameplay and decisions to their champions rather than just give them free stats. Other things passives shouldn’t do is eat up significant portions of a champion’s invisible power budget, and they DEFINITELY shouldn’t be something you can effectively ignore at higher levels of play.

In the rest of this article I’ll examine a number of similar passives through classic showdowns, and explain why I consider one of them to be better designed than the other. I will not be discussing whether I think the rest of their kit is good or bad, or whether a champion is strong or weak.

#Applying Effects on Spells

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Brand_4.jpg

Brand vs Kennen

In the red corner! The Man on Fire! The Human Torch! The Burning Vengeance! BRAND!

  • Blaze: Brand's spells light his targets ablaze, dealing 8% of their maximum Health in magic damage over 4 seconds.

In the blue corner! The Lightning Mouse! Speedy Gonzales! The Heart of the Tempest! KENNEN!

  • Mark of the Storm: Kennen's abilities add a Mark of the Storm to its target for 6.25 seconds. Upon receiving 3 Marks of the Storm, an opponent is stunned for 1 second and Kennen gains 25 Energy. The stun has a diminished effect if it occurs again within 7 seconds.

Any guesses as to which one of these is the better designed passive? Come on, it’s a 50-50 chance just go for it. Well?

If you guessed Kennen, you’d be right!

“Oh man this guy’s so dumb. Brand’s passive sets up his other abilities to do different cool things! I’m not gonna read the rest of the discussion!”

Ouch, that was a quick decision to stop reading! You’d be right in saying the thing about Brand though, but you’re forgetting an important aspect of Brand’s kit. The passive itself is only the damage over time to champions, and the all the cool things his abilities do to enemies marked by his passive are actually passives on the other abilities.

Both of these champions have passives that are applied to enemies through the use of their spells. Looking at their passives in pseudo-isolation, Kennen adds Marks of the Storm to his opponents, and by managing the marks he has on his enemies, he can make important decisions as to whether he wants to activate the stun, which targets to try and activate the stun on, and gives him a strong incentive to try and manage his passive in such a way that allows him to gain maximum benefit from the stun and energy return. Without looking at the rest of his kit, one could assume that a defining part of his kit would be to try and proc this stun onto as many targets as possible in a short amount of time.

Looking at Brand however, his passive is a lot of extra damage that is only somewhat earned. The problem with Brand’s passive is primarily this: if Brand’s passive didn’t do damage, he would still have a nearly identical play pattern. Hit the target with a spell so that his other spells can have more fun effects. Another problem is that there is almost zero counterplay to Brand’s passive when compared to Kennen’s. The player could choose to back off and ensure Kennen does not get the third mark when he’s hit, but the same player cannot back off from the damage that Brand deals with his passive. I would go so far as to say that because of how much damage his passive does naturally, Brand will likely never see buffs beyond quality of life improvements, as he has received no buffs since patch 3.9, in July 2013 (apart from the extra armor all champions received in 4.5).

Both players still face the same dilemma of simply getting tagged again when they return to the fray.

Alright so we have this problem, what options are there to fix it? I don’t have definite answers as to what could be done to fix the problem, but simply other options. I’m also not a Rioter, so don’t expect anything to come from anything said here.

Keep the cool effects that the spells have if the target is previously marked, but have the burn do damage as a percentage of his Ability Power instead of the target’s maximum health. This limits the obnoxious playstyle of support Brand, which can do damage comparable to a standard mid laner without the pesky part of buying damage items, while at the same time maintaining the core of his gameplay, comboing spells!

#Post Death Actions

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Sion_4.jpg

Sion vs Zyra and Kog’maw

That’s right folks, this matchup is actually a 1v2! Sion, the Undead Juggernaut, faces his biggest challenge yet as he takes on the Mouth of the Abyss and the Rise of the Thorns! Let’s take a look at what they’re all bringing to the table!

  • Glory in Death: After being killed, Sion will reanimate himself with rapidly decaying Health. He can move and attack during this time. He gains 100% Lifesteal, attacks extremely fast and will deal an additional 10% of his target's maximum Health as physical damage on hit. Max 75 bonus damage against monsters. All of his abilities are replaced with Death Surge, which grants him a burst of Movement Speed.
  • Icathian Surprise: Upon dying, Kog'Maw starts a chain reaction in his body which causes him to move faster and detonate after 4 seconds; dealing 100 + (25 x lvl) true damage to surrounding enemies.
  • Rise of the Thorns: When Zyra dies, she briefly returns to her plant form. After 2 seconds, she can press any ability to fire a thorn toward her cursor, dealing true damage to each enemy it strikes.

These passives are all at least conceptually similar. After you die, you have a chance to retaliate against your opponent, and maybe bring them down with you. However, Sion’s passive is far superior in a design space than either Kog’Maw or Zyra for two reasons.

First is the options it presents for your opponent to play with. Sion’s passive allows him to quickly move towards a target and damage it while his health deteriorates. This first gives Sion a number of options. Do I want to target the enemy I was chasing/running from? Do I want to help secure an objective? Do I want to just use it farm? At the same time, it gives his opponents options as well. Do I run from it? Do I kill it? Do I ignore it? Depending on the situation, all of these can be important options. By using crowd control on undead Sion, you vastly limit the usefulness of the passive. However that same CC could be used on a champion trying to escape.

The options available to Kog’Maw and Zyra when they die are much more simplistic. Aim/run towards my opponent, or sometimes farm, and hope to do enough damage to ensure that target(s) dies. Kog’Maw’s passive is actually the worse of the two because of the movement speed boost he gains during it, making it more difficult for other champions to get away without using an escape ability. Zyra has to aim and gives the opponent the ability to try and outwit their opponents and dodge correctly. Overall these abilities can either be attempted to escape from, or simply taking them.

The second reason is the playstyle of the champions. Sion, a tanky initiator, is expected to dive into the middle of the enemy team and control the movements of the enemy team. This will mean he is often surrounded and killed. This is a playstyle that would be true even without his passive. Being able to continue making decisions after he’s dead is a natural continuation of his playstyle.

Zyra and Kog’Maw on the other hand are long range dps. Neither of them want to be in a situation where they will ever have an opponent on top of them. This means that if they are doing their job correctly, they effectively do not have a passive! The situation where these characters want to die so that they can finish off their opponent that they couldn’t otherwise kill effectively never happens, and instead their passive functions as a consolation prize of sorts.

What passives do other low-mobility, high damage, long range champions have? Jinx has a reset mechanic that allows her to have high temporary mobility. Ziggs has an enhanced auto-attack that comes with spell rotations. Vel’Koz has true damage when he lands multiple spells in rotation. An option similar to these would be good options for these characters. Perhaps, after casting or landing a certain number of spells, Zyra’s next autoattack is a snow/snare? If Kog’Maw gets a kill or assist on the last champion to damage him, he gets enhanced movement speed? While not perfect solutions, they at least complement what their playstyles already are.

#Auto Attack Enhancements

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Caitlyn_5.jpg

Caitlyn vs Corki

In the next competition, we have a battle between marksmen. She holds up the law, Caitlyn, the Sherriff of Piltover! He zooms around the sky in his ROFL Copter, Corki, the Daring Bombardier!

  • Headshot: Every few basic attacks, Caitlyn will fire a headshot dealing 150% damage to a champion or 250% damage to a minion.
  • Hextech Shrapnel Shells: Corki's basic attacks deal bonus true damage to minions, monsters, and champions.

Looking at Corki and Caitlyn’s passives, they fulfill a somewhat similar role, making their autoattacks more impactful. However, Caitlyn’s is much better designed, because it creates decisions in her kit and for her opponents when playing. Caitlyn has to build up her passive, autoattacking targets to get access to a little bit of extra damage. Corki on the other hand just has slightly extra damage on his autoattacks. With the slight power spike she receives when she has access to headshot, it gives her a little extra power to play with, and good Caitlyn players will try and use this extra damage to try and get a little advantage in lane by using that damage on an enemy player rather than a champion. Similarly, there’s even ways to slightly optimize access to her headshot by autoattacking from a bush rather than simply in lane.

Meanwhile Corki just does a little more damage than he would otherwise. Why is this a problem and what I consider a symptom of a poor design choice? There are no situations in which this passive incentivizes you to make a different decision than you would without it. Would you still autoattack your opponent in this situation? The answer is universally yes! There is no depth added to the character.

What could be done instead? Corki has a playstyle that already incentivizes alternating spells and autoattacks in a fairly simple rotation. To further encourage this, we could perhaps alter Corki’s passive such that every spell you land on an enemy champion marks them for a couple seconds. Autoattacking that champion would do a percentage of his damage as true damage to that target. This incentivizes a playstyle he already enjoys while giving an extra layer of decision making to his kit.

#Spellvamp

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Morgana_6.jpg

Alright you’ve suffered through enough of my bad jokes for commentating, and this one is a fairly simple topic. Morgana vs Ahri.

  • Essence Theft: Gains a charge of Essence Theft whenever a spell hits an enemy (max: 3 charges per spell). Upon reaching 9 charges, Ahri's next spell heals her whenever it hits an enemy.
  • Soul Siphon: Morgana has Spell Vamp, healing herself whenever she deals damage with her spells.

Again, on the surface, these two passives are fairly similar. Both provide a means for these champions to sustain themselves through the lane. Can you guess which one I think is better designed?

It’s Ahri’s of course! Every time you want to make use of Ahri’s passive you make a minimum of four decisions, even if they are usually not particularly interesting. Stacking the passive through casting on the wave or hitting your opponent are often decisions that don’t necessarily overlap. Similarly, in situations where you’re fighting your opponent it can be an important decision to try and optimize damage compared to your own sustain.

Morgana’s passive adds very little to her gameplay. What options do we have to fix it? What if her spellvamp was only available after a certain number of spellcasts, or damaging enemy champions? This would allow each time she used her spell vamp to be more satisfying while adding some small decision points to her kit.

A pair of champions who have a similar situation are Mao’kai and Nasus. Mao’kai gets a percentage of his health back when autoattacking after a certain number of spells are cast in his vicinity. Nasus simply gets percentage lifesteal. Both passives succeed at giving the champions sustain in lane or when jungling, but one of them has the option of trading mana for health conditionally, while the other just has extra sustain.

#Autoattack Passives on Casters

There is one general group of passives that don’t contribute to a champion’s natural playstyle from their kit that I think are still good design, because they present incentives for the player to break what is otherwise a non-interactive, low counterplay playstyle. Orianna, Ziggs, Xerath, and Lux all have champions that incentivize the target to autoattack their opponent, for various reasons. They all normally have playstyles that would want (or allow) them to be as far away from their opponent as possible and still easily farm up. However, because they get extra damage or mana from their passives, they are able to create situations where autoattacking, and thus coming within reasonable ranges, is actually a good decision. By breaking the playstyle they otherwise have by giving them close range passives, these champions become much less aggravating to play against.

#Objective Creation

Zac and Thresh are other examples of passives that are excellent in terms of the decisions and play that come up with their kit. They create mini-objectives and decisions to make in lane, souls and bloblets, which both you and opponent want to either take or deny from your opponent. By making new points of contention they add decision making to the game.

#Extra Stats

These passives do not add any meaningful decisions to the game, and lack real points of mastery related to their kit. Instead they just make the character stronger with no real tradeoffs. Big offenders of this, Shyvana, Wukong, Irelia, Heimerdinger, and Kassadin limit a lot of what their champion could potentially do. The problem is that there are ways to give characters more stats with points of mastery, or making the player earn the stats. Examples of this include Jax, Graves, Varus, and Vayne. They have extra stats built into their kit, but they have to earn them, or they are only available in limited situations.

So what things make passives good or bad? Based on the examples we’ve seen above, there are some basic criteria to look at and ask yourself when considering the design of a champion.

  • Does this passive make the player make different decisions than they normally would?
  • Does this passive encourage a playstyle this champion already has? OR does this passive encourage less frustrating playstyles?
  • Is this passive extra stats? Is it free stats or does the player have to earn them?

Based on these answers, it then becomes fairly straightforward to determine which passives are good for the game and which ones ought to be reworked or retouched. Of course, once again, I focused on topics that felt more natural to talk about. There are many passives that resist easy categorization (Gnar, Quinn, and LeBlanc). Some of them are well designed, others are not. Some of them have a good base for expansion of the passive, others should be completely scrapped. Go ahead and dig deeper into them and respond with your thoughts. Of course, if you want a place to start...

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Which passive shield is best designed? Yasuo, Mordekaiser, or Vi?

I hope you enjoyed this discussion on passives! Please let me know what you thought in the comments and if you have ideas as to what I should talk about leave a message. There’s a poll below on some of the topics I’ve considered writing about, let me know if any of them seem interesting to you. While I don’t promise the top result will be written about, it will definitely be a factor in my decision making.

Thanks for reading everyone and have a good week!

27 Comments

Earthlord Jazz1/12/2015, 8:44:02 AM7 votes

One thing I think you should factor in is the champion's kit/role in conjunction with the passive. Wukong is designed as an initiator, to dive head-first into a team of 5 and disrupt them as much as possible. His passive encourages him to do this, and the ability to more effectively survive. You raise the point that the Brand's passive itself is just damage. But you also acknowledge that it interacts with his kit. Even then, the damage is DoT, so you need not just stand there and eat the damage. Shield it.

What I'm arguing here is that a passive is never independant to the champion. It's not its own island.

Not every passive needs to have it's own "stand-alone" counterplay, as it effects other aspects and playstyle of the champion at hand which can lead to other forms of counterplay.

Edit: One passive I think we can all agree on that doesn't fit the champion is Morgana's passive. Free spellvamp for a poke mage. She doesn't need it since for her ult she has Zhonyas. Doesn't really fit anywhere in Morgana's theme or mechanics

Ironclad Dragon1/12/2015, 2:09:50 AM6 votes

As "well-designed" as Sion's passive is compared to Zyra's or Kog'Maw's, I feel it's too easily countered. One good CC effect renders you null and void, and they usually have CC enough that it's not "wasted" on you instead of a living teammate. Often times, the enemy team's raw damage is enough to finish you.

CrankyChipmonk1/12/2015, 1:37:26 PM6 votes

I think it is important to remember that what Brand's passive does is make him choose between the DOT or more burst. The DOT from his passive allows him to poke in lane more effectively, but when you you use your entire spell rotation you effectively only apply the passive once, (or maybe 1.5) times in terms of the damage it does.

For example when facing a tank it is more effective to hit the target, wait, hit the target, wait then it is to use all your spells at once. (because it does %health). Tanks do not do too much damage and have the health to live through brand's base damages. As long as you still get the combo off it's more effective to let the passive tick away more.

However when facing a carry, it's better to just e-q-w immediately. This way they are stunned and cant hurt you, and also they are likely too soft to survive the burst. It's likely that they are harder to kite than many tanks as well.

In the blue corner as kennen there is no reason to space out your skills (besides maybe energy costs) and it is almost always better to just get the stun out as quickly as possible whether facing a tank or a carry.

While the final conclusion that kennen has a better designed passive may remain I would argue at LEAST that the gap between them is closer than you make it out to be. Also, that Brand's passive have more inherent risk/reward built in. (if you risk waiting and maybe missing your stun or bonus dmg on w, you can increase the total damage of a single spell rotation)

SerBlaise1/12/2015, 3:21:13 PM3 votes

I have to agree with what some of these other guys are saying. Your analysis of the passives and how they add to the gameplay ignores the more wholistic view of the champion. Even the part about stat passives. Take Nasus for example. The pure stat passive of lifesteal is in and of itself a pretty weak passive. But this weak passive allows him to have MASSIVE power in other areas of his kit. The reds often talk about a 'power budget'. Stat passives encourage certain gameplay patterns and have the opportunity to not add too much to the power budget. For Nasus, the lifesteal encourages him to stay in fights and allows him to build tanky instead of damage+lifesteal (since he doesn't really need it). If the kit didn't have the passive, he would definitely be weaker and would have to have a different gameplay pattern, but just the little lifesteal from the passive gives him a much richer gameplay pattern. For Irelia, its the same thing; an encouragement to stay in a fight due to tenacity and same with Wukong's hardened skin (which are earned passives btw; they are conditional to being around the enemy team and get stronger the more enemies there are).

I also find it interesting that you list Varus' passive under the better stat passives. Yes, it is 'earned' but it's honestly a pretty useless passive. There are often posts on the boards about changing it. Even though a stat passive may be 'gated' or have to be earned, that doesn't necessarily make it good.

The Red Warden1/12/2015, 12:44:10 PM2 votes

I already made a post about Yasuo's passive, so I will just post the link the link at the bottom of this post. The main gist of what I said there is how the passive focuses more on making Yasuo stronger and more gold efficient instead of providing interesting decisions for him and opponents, and my idea on possible changes.

Morde as most people know is the only character in the game without any cc or escapes, so it is somewhat necessary that his other aspects (durability, damage, insta-wave clear) are strong other wise you have no purpose to play him. Once Morde gets caught his only options are to try and walk away (usually death) or fight, so he better be good at holding his own (and he is).

I have never payed Vi so I won't comment on its use.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/jXBWNM8V-yasuos-flow-mechanic-has-wasted-potential

Rew7111/12/2015, 3:40:42 PM2 votes

Now lets compare Aatrox and Zac's revives.

AquariusGine1/12/2015, 11:16:22 PM2 votes

Could you pleaseeeeeeeee make a thread on why Nasus' design is awful.

His kit promotes non interaction in laning and that passive.. is just there to catalyze it all.

EfficientDynamo1/13/2015, 3:09:39 AM2 votes

I definitely agree on your critique of zyra and kog's passives; personally I think zyra's is worse because it is much harder to land. Either way, good play will ensure this rarely gets activated. I think it would be much more interesting if where you died a controllable (maybe ult-maxed) thorn spitter(s) would spawn, if they wanted to keep the death passive mechanic.

As for brand... eh I think it is arguably semantics whether his passive should be counted separately from his other abilities and their combos. I do agree that it is useful enough to make brand too dangerous to get any significant buffs. Thematically though, someone should have the DOT passive attached to all their abilities (if not him then Cass).

And of course, Morde's shield is the best. Requires constant interaction to keep up, especially with his short range. And can anyone point out a champ whose passive is arguably the best part of their kit more than Morde's?

junglerboy161/12/2015, 1:11:59 PM2 votes

Really nice analysis!

As for the food for thought, I'd say that at the moment Morde's is the best right now. It requires him to juggle a few different strategies around like "should I hit all these minions for more shield, or should I just hit my opponent for the bonus damage?". In addition to allowing him to strategize his damage usage, it also allows him to turn his health costs into health gains, and managing his shield level is essential to surviving lane before spell vamp.

Vi's shield is the 2nd best of the three. It is not just a "gain a shield when doing X" passive, it requires monitoring a cool down to benefit from it most, as well as scaling off of her health meaning that she can build durable to get more shield, or if she doesn't she will have to trade off some of her passive's strength.

Yasuo's passive would be the next best, if we were talking about release Yasuo. It was a powerful shield that allowed for cool gameplay based around his strong self initiation. However, Riot has gutted his shield so much in favor of keeping his TRASH DOUBLE CRIT PASSIVE that he is now a feast or famine super squishy melee carry just like every other failed attempt at a melee ADC.

SociopathFriend1/22/2015, 2:51:55 PM1 votes

I would say Mordekaiser's shield is the most interesting of the passive shields you listed.

I won't lie, I consider Yasuo and kind of brain-dead champion. His 2nd half of his passive (for some reason he gets two) is silly in that it just builds up as you walk. It's also a rather weak shield just because of how easily he can obtain it.

Vi's shield is more fun, instead of just accumulating while walking, she can use her abilities to give herself temporary health. This is very useful as her role is to initiate onto the enemy, meaning she will draw most of the attacks. There's also more thought in chaining her abilities to keep the shield high while fighting.

Functionally, Mordekaiser's shield is almost identical to Vi's shield. Both gain temporary health when they strike enemies with abilities. However, Mordekaiser's shield is not limited by a cooldown and does not scale with his health. Instead of gaining a flat boost, Mord turns his damage into health, meaning the longer you fight him, the more damage he mitigates via his shield.

OrangesSC1/12/2015, 2:30:54 PM1 votes

{quoted}

With the slight power spike she receives when she has access to headshot, it gives her a little extra power to play with, and good Caitlyn players will try and use this extra damage to try and get a little advantage in lane by using that damage on an** enemy player rather than a champion. **

:^)

googlemaster1/12/2015, 3:27:42 PM1 votes

tl;dr:

  1. kennen's passive is better because brands passive doesnt have all the spell additions listed in the passive section so you have to read each skill to see what it adds.

  2. being able to stun sion justifies his ability to 0-100 enemies after dying because they have a choice to not let him do that.

  3. caitlyns passive is better because it does all the damage at once and can crit. this somehow makes it better because you have to think once every 8 autos early game.

  4. yeah i got nothing on this one. you have to wait 3 spells which makes it 2 paragraphs better. hit as many enemies as possible vs hit as many people as possible but be more better on 3rd spell.

5 and 6 are really the only argument that makes sense and its not even criticizing anything. yeah, its nice that long range champs have to get close to use their passive. but honestly, its just more damage that they dont really deserve. i mean ziggs, ori, and lux have all been problem childs(ori being the worst) and its basically because you give an APC a fourth main damage spell. all 3 have a mostly utility spell and each one gets a forth damage source because of their passive. and 6, yeah, minigames are fun, but like, there cant be 10 people dropping pick ups everywhere. and the randomness of zacs blobs is quite annoying to the point where lucky blob positions affect duels.

idk. you really play down the effects that make something better than the other when it suits your argument. or only view one narrow approach to an ability. like when people call ww easy because you just Q all game except they never tell you about the part where you have 500 base mana and each Q costs 100.

Tin Tarantino1/12/2015, 4:10:05 PM1 votes

While on the topic of passives it would be great to get some feedback on this suggestion for changes to Sona's passive

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/abXPdY0E-riot-an-open-letter-on-fostering-a-healthy-playstyle-for-sona

Jungle Lux God1/12/2015, 4:19:48 PM1 votes

I think the comparison of some of these passives is a little bit off.

Comparing Brand's passive to Kennen's passive is a little bit misleading because both of their passives provide clear points of gameplay for both themselves and their opponents.

On Kennen you stated that there is the counterplay of choosing whether or not to apply the stun and your opponents have the ability to avoid the stun, but the counterplay for Brand is still the same: you avoid the spells he uses to prevent him from applying the passive. Obviously there is less counterplay in Brand's case because he has two single target spells to apply it on, but it is still counterplay, not to mention the gameplay that Brand's passive gives him is a lot greater than Kennen's because of the spell effects his passive has on his abilities. As a matter of fact, all of the interesting gameplay that Brand has is in his passive because without it, he would have four basic abilities that do nothing but damage.

Saixos1/12/2015, 4:23:15 PM1 votes

Interesting concept. I think if a passive is just bare stats this may give a champion less diversity, which is a bad thing, but some other factors should be considered when designing passives as well. Such as the design and role of the champion, or simply the viability of the champion. Somehow, somewhere, these stats may be necessary. Take Nasus's passive for example - without the lifesteal, he wouldn't be viable at all due to getting harassed out of lane far too quickly. The lifesteal, while a simple passive, needs to come from SOMEWHERE. In addition I would argue that simple passives are easier for newer players to understand, as a new player I know I largely ignored the existence of passives until around level 25.

Alternatively, I think the passives of ashe and varus aren't good at all, and ought to be changed somehow.

For kogmaw specifically I had a slight idea for a new passive: Eternal Hunger: Each CS kogmaw gets grants 0.5 movement speed to kogmaw. Upon death kogmaw explodes (no more damage) and half the movespeed "stacks" are consumed to slow enemies within attack range of kogmaw by the amount consumed (Flat movespeed reduction).

Along with a base movespeed reduction from 325 to 320.

This would make kogmaw somewhat more viable, as he could start being quite a bit more mobile, but still wouldn't be too mobile as he would be vulnerable to any kind of CC, and he has no form of jump to get away from his enemies - he'd have to walk away, and in doing so take quite a bit of damage. The explosion passive makes kogmaw somewhat similar to what he is now, except instead of simply dealing damage his passive gives him an even greater reason to stick close to his teammates so that if he does get killed his teammates can attempt to capitalize on his death by taking out the killer and possibly a number of other enemies.

Grunt6661/12/2015, 7:13:22 PM1 votes

God how i loathe posters like you. Sorry you are not the authority on design and in every argument you made you either failed to recognize other aspects of the passive, or you failed to incorporate the totality of the champ entire kit. Essentially the passive might be more simplistic on champ A than champ B because of kit differences aka the passive have inequity by design...

I will only start with your stupid brand vs kennen comparison where you arbitrarily decided incorrectly Kennen's was superior....when the actual fact is they are IDENTICAL from a gameplay stand point. AKA both apply on hit affects and thus the decision are essentially identical. Brand can try to make decisions to maximize the extra dmg of his passive, by either spreading it to multiple targets or spacing out his spells for re application, kennen similarly will simply do the opposite focusing on stacking his passive to the same target to generate the stun effect. Both have similar counter plays... vs kennen you might "back off" to prevent stacking though kennen kit actually can preclude you from backing off so alot of that is in kennens control, again the reverse from brand you might do the opposite and EAT IT ALL AT ONCE to prevent reapplication of the passive, but again ultimately brand controls this by the speed of which he uses abilities.

That was just for your first comparison...your others all have similar flaws that i am not going to waste my time pointing out. Now if your point was to simply have a discussion this would be cool and fun, but instead you decided you were the smartest person alive and explained to us peons how we fail to understand these basic concepts, which is why i loathe posters like you and will specifically come to point out your failure.

All that said and done it also seems that your post is tainted with agenda, a overly complicated and lengthy way of whining about your favorite champs or style of play. In the end this is a great topic for discussion too bad to try to make it a point of fluffing your ego.

Joushi1/15/2015, 12:22:48 PM1 votes

Hey guys, thanks everyone for reading. Sorry I've been busy and just really kinda posted this and dipped, gonna try and take the time to respond now. If I don't respond to your comment sorry, I might have just upvoted it instead.

CharQueen1/12/2015, 1:11:19 AM1 votes

Good topic and proud to see so much work put into this post.

I think any passive should be a nice buff that balances out that champion. Be it a stun, % damage, or just a buff.