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Spellvamp!

Killzerz·10/11/2014, 6:57:21 PM·2 votes·1,293 views

Spellvamp has been a heated topic of late, and I would like to open this discussion up for anyone here interested in said topic.

Some of the issues that Riot employees have stated currently are:

  1. "I agree that Spell Vamp is in a terrible spot and something should be done - even if that something is to destroy it entirely so that we don't make false promises to players about what kind power they can acquire in game because it'll be suboptimal for almost every character."
  2. "Layering it behind an active adds the fact that most players won't be able to use this effect, so it'll most likely feel weak to the average player."
  3. "Granting 40% Spell Vamp, knowing that most burst mages are AoE and some burst mages are ST is completely off - as Annie will get 1/3rd of the benfit as Leblanc for no good reason - even though their burst patterns are ideally the same."
  4. "What should burst mages give up to gain sustain, as many of these characters are balanced to be fragile but able to unload a massive payout fairly quickly. If they give up too much, they're no longer burst mages and this item will be horrible on them."
  5. "The answer to 'why not' is always Akali."

In summary: Spellvamp needs help or removal. No actives. Problem with AoE sustain vs. burst sustain (one is better in lane, one is better in teamfights). Burst mages become juggernauts due to high damage and good escape patterns. A good item probably would be bad with Akali's playstyle but good on other playstyles.

My thoughts and goals:

  1. I think that there would be a greater diversity in toplane if there was a good spellvamp/sustain item to build Hextech into.
  2. This item can't be good for burst mages; it must be strong for sustained damage mages. Think Vlad, Diana, and Mordekaiser.

Items - So with that, and how Riot is organizing preseason:

Innervating Locket Amplifying Tome + Amplifying Tome + 330 gold (1200 gold) 40 AP +25% Mana Regen UNIQUE Passive: Every time your spell hits a target, you gain +50% health regen for 5 seconds, stacking twice.

Zhonya's Keepsake Seeker's Armguard + Innervating Locket + 640 gold (3000) 80 AP 60 Armor +50% Mana Regen UNIQUE Passive: Every time your spell hits a target, you gain +100% health regen for 5 seconds, stacking twice.

I prefer this honestly. Simple, clean, you get what it does. Provides sustain in lane while being an AP item with a bit on tankiness on the side.

What do you guys think? About spellvamp and how the new season might change everything?

8 Comments

Greenfish10610/11/2014, 7:03:11 PM2 votes

That is the most useless passive ever. You do realize most mages never exceed 3hp/5 right? That passive would, at level 18 likely heal no more than 20-30 health over its full duration. And, in lane it would likely heal only 5-10 health. That is, for all intents and purposes completely and utterly useless.

67chrome10/11/2014, 8:02:05 PM2 votes

Some of the issues that Riot employees have stated currently are:

Those seem like your personal thoughts on spell vamp, not the thoughts of Riot employees.

You also seem to be focusing on 2 in particular that I can't imagine a Rioter actually backing:

  1. "Granting 40% Spell Vamp, knowing that most burst mages are AoE and some burst mages are ST is completely off - as Annie will get 1/3rd of the benfit as Leblanc for no good reason - even though their burst patterns are ideally the same."

Imagine Ziggs throwing a bomb nonchalantly at a wave of minions 9 minutes in. With no AoE reduction, he's dealing a collective 2550 damage. 20% spell vamp means getting 510 HP back. Every 30 seconds with each minion wave. That's like, 50% of his HP at level 9 - every wave.

If you can't see why the AoE reduction is there, I don't know what to tell you.

Also - not hitting 3 enemies with an AoE skill that has mana costs and a cooldown is completely dropping the ball and just failing at using said skill.

  1. "The answer to 'why not' is always Akali."

The vast majority of assassins at the moment scale with AD.

As in, they get item 3153, item 3074 and/or item 3072 Akali's magic-damage on-hit doesn't benefit from spell vamp, and her repeat-cast, multi-part burst is more like auto-attacks that burst in many ways.

Akali is hardly an abuse-case of spell vamp given what other assassins can do. She still succumbs to all the weaknesses of life-steal drain-tanks: she gets no sustain when under CC effects, she gets no sustain when she's not dishing out the damage, and her sustain is 100% useless if she's instantly focused from 100% to 0%.

Problem users are more the likes of Vladimir, who are durable enough to weather the storm of burst and focus fire, turning into Mundo 2.0.

What do you guys think? About spellvamp and how the new season might change everything?

You're items actually aren't terrible, 7~18 HP/5 is what most champions have as their base HP/5 from 1 to 18. You'd get a little more than the 20 HP/5 Visage offers with 2 stacks, but it would have the risk/reward damage factor to justify that.

That said - it just isn't spell-vamp. You made a (fairly weak) HP/5 item.

As for spell vamp's problems, I'd go more with:

    1. Early game it kills your mana sustain. If you're so reliant on abilities you want spell vamp, running OoM is increadibly bad. This would also explain why all the predominant spell-vamp users are manaless, or have manaless routes to benefit from spell vamp. Vladimir, Mordekaiser, Akali, Rumble, Kennen, Katarina, Nunu, Jax, and ~Zac are the champions you mostly see with it. (I'd also like to point out a lot of those do AoE damage).
    1. Zhonya's Hourglass simply does the same job, but better, late game. At the most basic level, life steal allows sustained damage champions to sustain through a fight. Zhonya's gives burst casters a burst of surviability in the midst of a fight. Fiddlesticks with spell vamp can ~maybe survive a team fight and get a kill. Fiddlesticks with Zhonya's can innitiate while being a glass-cannon and get a penta-kill.

There's not many situations spell-vamp is that useful for most magic-damage champions.

Killzerz10/11/2014, 7:14:27 PM1 votes

Things to note: with 10hp/5 this gives you 23hp/5 if fully stacked. So you are gaining an extra 120 hp per minute. In regards to spellvamp, if you were to have 10% and 2 cycles of the lane minions offer about 5000 health (2 cycles = minutes) and you used AoE to clear the wave, you would gain 150 health. So these numbers are pretty close. Consider too that you don't actually need to clear waves with this; you just need to hit an ability. So it might warrant further exploration. It prevents burst casters from being too strong as well. Further, you have to be casting abilities constantly which is a mana drain/puts the spell on CD.

My only worry is that 120 hp on average isn't enough to be actually sustained against people like Riven who can auto once and get 1/10 of their health back.