The Addition of More Counter Items
Previously, I made a post regarding adding items that'd take the bite out of assassins in an attempt to allow some mid lane diversity. After some later discussion regarding DoTA, however, I realized that my scope had been too narrow. I believe that in the interest of making more positions and champions viable, having more counter items would be useful. In addition, adding counter items would improve the strategic elements of League, adding another layer on top of the existing tactical layer that Riot seems to have been working so hard on lately.
Now, what do I mean by counter items? I'm talking things like QSS, Banshee's, Zhonya's, Morellonomion, Thornmail, and Maw of Malmortius. So what are a few other things that could be addressed/countered? Poke, Sustain, Assassins, Mobility, Crits, Hard Engage, and Channels for starters.
Now, unlike my previous thread, I'm not going to bother with specific stats for each item. Instead, I'll simply list off some ideas for what the item actives could be. Bear in mind that these would all be rather expensive items that would probably build out of lower-level gear. These would not be all on the same items. This is just brainstorming.
- Poke: PASSIVE - whenever an enemy skillshot is fired within 1000 units of you, you gain 100 movement speed for 0.5 seconds
- Poke: ACTIVE - for 5 secnds, any enemy skillshots that come within 500 units of you are pulled in toward you and have their damage reduced by 20%
- Sustain: PASSIVE - just put Grievous Wounds on some tank item
- Sustain: ACTIVE - for 1.5 seconds, all enemies within a radius of 600 have all self-healing disabled (shuts down lifesteal, spell vamp, meditanking, etc, but not an ADC getting healed by their support)
- Assassins: PASSIVE - incoming damage from single-target abilities is reduced by 10%
- Assassins: ACTIVE - QSS and Zhonya's are already things, but given that they can often burst so quickly, I feel like adding a new one here would be pointless
- Mobility: PASSIVE - widens all skillshot hitboxes fired by the player by 10%
- Mobility: ACTIVE - targeted snare on a tank item. This item should probably be very expensive, but if Darius gets it, he should be able to finally catch Kalista
- Crits: PASSIVE - crits deal 20% reduced damage
- Crits: ACTIVE - for 2 seconds, the crit rate of any enemy within 600 units of the player is cut in half
- Hard Engage: PASSIVE - every enemy within 600 units of you increases your and your nearby allies' movement speed by 40 while running away
- Hard Engage: ACTIVE- repels yourself and an enemy from one another based on mass (yordles are said to have 50% mass, humans are 100%, max Choggy and Zac are 400%, Elixer of Iron increases mass)
- Channels: ACTIVE - fires a skillshot that interrupts the first target hit
Now, based on this, it looks like we've got some counter items. What about counter-counter items? Void Staff, Last Whisper, and the like. The following are some ideas that would counter the counter items above.
- Poke: see the anti-mobility passive above
- Sustain: PASSIVE - After not healing for more than 1 second, lifesteal and spell vamp values doubled for 1 second (this would also apply to someone first entering combat)
- Assassins: ACTIVE - for 10 seconds, every consecutive spell against the same target increases the damage dealt of the next one by 3%, up to a maximum of 12% per target (sorry Ryze)
- Mobility: QSS already exists
- Crits: ACTIVE - for 2 seconds, your attack damage is increased by 50%
- Hard Engage: PASSIVE - increases your movement speed toward any enemy you've hit with an ability by 100
- Channels: there are plenty of ways to counter the above counter
Hopefully this would allow for more strategic play and make the game more fun and interesting. Thoughts?