We need more enchanters like Nami

Pie Cubed·9/4/2017, 12:27:50 AM·73 votes·3,619 views

Edit: when I say more supports like Nami, I mean which skills you need to play her, not the actual kit. Like positioning and decision making are quite important to the success of playing Nami. More of that stuff, not her actual kit.

Here's my thought as to why Nami is the perfect example of an enchanter, and why we need more enchanter supports like Nami:

Q: the bubble thing. It's very hard to land, a good skill expression ability. It's especially difficult when laning against Kalista or hyper mobile champions. Because it's a small AoE ability, it's not like Janna Q or Sona Ult where it hits everything in its path. It's very rewarding to land, but leaves you vulnerable to everything if you miss.

W: Lots of skill expression here, too. While point and click, it's all about positioning and knowing who to hit. In team fights and trades, this is vital to the success of your team, whether you bounce to two enemies or two allies for more damage or heal, respectively. There's clear counter play, too. You can back off just slightly and the wave will stop bouncing. It's punishing to use on one person, as the mana cost is high. It needs to be used properly.

E: Decent ability. Not much here, but can be used as a speed booster when low on mana due to passive.

R: The wave travels super slow, so lots of ability to dodge. The wave also slows after knocking up enemies hit, which the slow scales with distance traveled. This can make it very rewarding to hit at max range and save an ally from a lane away almost. It's a game changing ability, which can win a team fight, with many uses, but mistiming it can be extremely punishing. It's not a "get out of jail" ability either, at close range when you get caught out it doesn't do too much, since the CC is not too strong at that distance.

Overall, I think we need more enchanter supports like Nami, where skill expression and counter play are very clear, and require practice to play effectively. To me, Nami is the prime example of a well designed support, where skill expression also very noticeable impacts gameplay. We need more supports like Nami.

89 Comments

The Yetii Rider9/4/2017, 4:28:02 AM13 votes

Actually, Nami is a great example of a generalist champion, which is something we need far less of in the game, not more.

Nami can heal, deal damage, CC, initiate, peel, and give speed to her allies. That's quite a lot of varied utility without a whole lot of specialization or niche. Basically, if Nami's numerically the best healer or if she's got the strongest poke, there's no reason not to pick her, while if she has subpar numbers compared to more specialized champions like Soraka and Lulu, you have no reason to select her.

Nami, Thresh, Lee Sin, and Lucian are the main generalists that we have in the League, and their pick rates rarely change unless the environment around them warps tremendously. To Riot's credit, they did a lot to try and reduce Lucian's pick rate by making him much shorter range (which sharpens his niche and reduces his general usefulness) but Lee Sin, Thresh and Nami are still a problem in that area.

Clementine9/4/2017, 6:21:55 AM12 votes

Nami is cool, but Bard is the best in terms of design imo.

sad þoy9/4/2017, 8:26:35 AM1 votes

Said this on quite a few posts but I'd love to see a male enchanter that can sustain mana with mana like how soraka does with health, then also has gradual healing abilities. Not weak but not OP strong. The ultimate could be something like, giving the entirety of your health/mana to an ally leaving you with 50 health/mana after casting it, also leaving you vulnerable. :P