Tweaking New Ancient Coin

JainaProudgurl·May 4, 2017·20 votes·10,266 views

First off, I want to say that I LOVE this update. Its changed a lot of things, including making support much more enjoyable and making it harder for them to fall behind. From the games I've played, the support items are absolutely amazing.

I do however think that Ancient Coin needs to be tweaked a bit. Characters that build Ancient Coin are generally more passive supports that heal and shield from the backline, which is very counter intuitive when you pair it with its passive. The passive forces you to go forward to or past your minions to even remotely get the coins from its passive, which often times puts you in a vulnerable position and makes you take a huge amount of harass. This, combined with the current meta of long-ranged ADCs and since the update REALLY buffed Rapid Firecannon so that people would see more reasons to buy it, which makes it REALLY hard to utilize its passive without getting punished for it.

All I'm saying is that I think it needs slightly tweaked so that people don't have to completely risk themselves to get the mana or gold from the passive. I could MAYBE understand this if it was possible to get the Elixir at say level 5 and be able to take ult early, which I would put as an even trade off, but atm its almost too risky to take it. When playing Soraka or Janna, its counter intuitive for me to be on the front lines just to use the passive.

What do you guys think? Does anyone agree with me?

69 Comments

RiotRiot HjartaMay 4, 201713 votes

Heya Queen of Heals!

Glad you're enjoying the changes overall :)

Just to kind of recap on what our goals are with coin:

With the coin changes we were aiming to change that extremely passive and non-interactive playstyle of Coin. Basically, all you had to do was to be somewhere near the lane and you'd reap the benefits without having to do much than simply existing in that general area. Now, with this iteration it is interactive and there's decision making and tension between it; is it worth the risk to pick up these coins? Will I get punished? Can I grab a lot of coins early to reap the benefits and get a great first buy? Should I or should I not pick it up? Etc. With that in mind, you have the potential to make decisions which end up being right or wrong. If you make a lot of good decisions around coin pick up, you will reap the benefits from it. If you make poor decisions with this item, you will get punished. Being able to make good decisions with this item takes time and practice so you might feel like you're being punished too much initially. However, we also understand that in some matchups it can feel like there are not a lot of chances to make good decisions, which leads to frustration.

Considering these things mentioned above, it is understandable that it may be uncomfortable to be forced to interact with the coins and therefore the lane as you are used to being able to sit back and slowly accumulate gold by simply existing near a wave plus some matchups can be really rough to allow for coin collection. We are actively monitoring player feedback with the coin changes to find a good balance between risk and reward and if the risk clearly outweighs the reward most of the time we will address that :)

HellioningMay 5, 201724 votes

Why is the aggressive option, spellthief's edge, safer than the defensive option? Because I can take spellthief's on Soraka or Janna just as easily as I can take coin, and it's safer because you never have to get closer than auto range, or maybe even further. For coin, I have to get much farther away from my tower, and much closer to the enemy support. I understand that you want to make it more interactive, but there's only so unsafe you can make an option before a defensive champion just decides to ignore that option.

Linna ExcelMay 5, 201714 votes

TBH the new passive seems like it is meant for support tanks more than anything, but it doesn't give health that a tank needs. This feels like a dartboard idea more than anything.

HellpyreMay 5, 20179 votes

The problem I have with the new Coin is really simple. I used to take Coin as a way to maintain goldflow (and health) against high-poke enemies, or in a lane where I was heavily disfavored early. It gave an option to soothe bad matchups. I don't mind the idea of the item being more interactive, really, I just mind that I sometimes have to get into close range, where I would be making more gold with Relic Shield and last-hitting from range in these matchups. If I had a way to gather coins at a tradeoff (maybe a short CD active vacuum effect that was channeled or something) other than "get smashed in the face", it would be okay. Right now, I might as well take Spellthief's and just make gold off of hitting people, since that feels less aggressive than what I'd have to do to maintain similar goldflow with the Coin currently.

The other option I could see being worthwhile to look at is maybe retooling it to be closer to Bard's passive. Encourage roaming to maintain gold, giving a clear tradeoff (less time in lane protecting your ADC / not getting your tower killed for solo laners) but still producing more interaction than the old Coin. As a support main, I really never felt like I wasn't able to contribute because I was low on gold (even when I was still allowed to spend all my money on T1 boots and 20 wards), but being put behind because I no longer have an item that lets me mitigate poor matchups sucks.

Again - I have no real problem with the concept of making Coin more interactive, but I feel like the new Coin doesn't really share favorable purchase situations with the old item. I want an option for when "win the lane" is not a realistic early game option, and the thing I used to have that filled that hole is gone now. Please, consider giving Coin a passive that lets you generate gold without requiring aggression. We already have two items for that, we don't need a third (and making the coins fling far enough to not still be an issue would presumably defeat the point of the new design).

Anyways, that's my two cents.

UnpaladinMay 5, 20175 votes

is it worth the risk to pick up these coins?

If this is what you think every time you try and make use of this item, it's a ridiculous item to start the game with. The other items don't take it anywhere near this far. These coins better be downright amazing if you can only pick up one in every three coin drops without losing your lane or getting crippled.

ProfirixMay 5, 20174 votes

The issue I see with the coins is that the benefit of picking them up often is not worth the risk, ESPECIALLY at higher levels of play, where you will get punished every single time, since the opponents can see the coins. I just played a game where I was able to deny the opposing Zilean his coins probably 75% of the time. This just doesn't seem fair from a gameplay standpoint when I can pick Sona and absolutely abuse a champion who is in fact negatively impacted by forcing an engage just to pick the coins. 30 gold is a LOT of gold to lose if you can't pick up the coins, but not enough to risk against a high-cc, high damage lane. I also get the impression that the quest reward is not really a reward. A single early level doesn't benefit anything, especially when it takes 10-15 minutes to reap the benefit. It should be something with a little more utility and rewarding, given that the coin line was intended to promote more utilitarian support gameplay.

I also want to mention that this system of 'denial' is reminiscent of deny-plank and the DOTA/DOTA2 mechanics Riot so tirelessly tried to eliminate for the sake of fairness.

PetraneseMay 5, 20171 votes

Coins can be also picked up by hitting them with any AOE ability, but collecting them this way doesn't give you mana.

How about that?

DeathBurstMay 5, 20171 votes

I didn't have time to extensively test all the new support items yet so maybe I missed an important detail, but does Coin give any health regen anymore? The old passive gave HP back for every minion dying, but the new passive only drops gold coin or mana coin, not health.

Isn't that a huge nerf to Coin's users sustain, in addition to forcing them to take more risks? Forcing them to interact is a good thing, but nerfing their sustain at the same time is a bit rough, no?

TyrekGoldenspearMay 5, 20171 votes

No, but I wish it had sustain. :(

DeathBurstMay 5, 20171 votes

"No" as in "No, it's not rough" or as in "No, it doesn't give any health anymore"?

And if it's not rough, what's the critical detail I'm missing? 'cause removing the sustain without compensation is definitely a big nerf.

TyrekGoldenspearMay 5, 20171 votes

It doesn't give health anymore.

PetraneseMay 5, 20172 votes

It can't have health on pickup. The reason is Soraka

TyrekGoldenspearMay 5, 20171 votes

Soraka was actually the reason I wanted it to have sustain. :(

OleandervineMay 5, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Hjarta,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MiKHWGfa,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-05-04T23:30:40.473+0000)

Heya Queen of Heals!

Glad you're enjoying the changes overall :)

Just to kind of recap on what our goals are with coin:

With the coin changes we were aiming to change that extremely passive and non-interactive playstyle of Coin. Basically, all you had to do was to be somewhere near the lane and you'd reap the benefits without having to do much than simply existing in that general area. Now, with this iteration it is interactive and there's decision making and tension between it; is it worth the risk to pick up these coins? Will I get punished? Can I grab a lot of coins early to reap the benefits and get a great first buy? Should I or should I not pick it up? Etc. With that in mind, you have the potential to make decisions which end up being right or wrong. If you make a lot of good decisions around coin pick up, you will reap the benefits from it. If you make poor decisions with this item, you will get punished. Being able to make good decisions with this item takes time and practice so you might feel like you're being punished too much initially. However, we also understand that in some matchups it can feel like there are not a lot of chances to make good decisions, which leads to frustration.

Considering these things mentioned above, it is understandable that it may be uncomfortable to be forced to interact with the coins and therefore the lane as you are used to being able to sit back and slowly accumulate gold by simply existing near a wave plus some matchups can be really rough to allow for coin collection. We are actively monitoring player feedback with the coin changes to find a good balance between risk and reward and if the risk clearly outweighs the reward most of the time we will address that :)

I feel like there were probably better ways to address the uninteractivity of the old Coin without sacrificing the viability of the majority of it's user base. Most champions who buy the coin are squishy and have to stay back or they die quickly. Rakan is pretty much the only main Coin user that can afford to risk going for the drops because he has the mobility to do so. Slow and immobile champions like Soraka and Janna are considerably hindered by the new coin drop mechanic, and it simply does not accent their playstyle like the Spellthief/Relic Shield line does for their primary users. The Coin should have something, maybe even similar to Thresh souls where they have a wider pickup range or something, to allow for it's primary users to not be so screwed by the game.

DeathBurstMay 5, 20172 votes

Did you actually try the item? I played a Sona game yesterday night, and I had no major issue getting to the drops.

I saw someone else commenting and saying that Spellthief is now "safer" than Coin since you only need to get in aa range of the enemy champion, not actually close to the minions, and that the aggressive option shouldn't be safer than Coin. That's a valid critic. But saying that Coin is "sacrificing the viability" of its users is just a plain exaggeration.

Coin may be less safe than Spellthief, and it's a problem. But Coin is not unsafe in absolute.

ChaubinMay 5, 20174 votes

DeathBurs, I can see Sona not having an issue getting the coins, as she can hit pretty hard early on so most people, in my experience, tend to give her room in lane. I'm concerned about other champions, like Soraka, being able to get the coins. Maybe it's just me, but I took coin on Soraka for the extra health, and the gold. So losing the health, and making the gold much more difficult to get makes me nervous.

Granted, I haven't had a chance to play with the new changes yet, but I foresee most of my supports (malzahar, sona, soraka, ect.) taking spellthiefs or relic shield now, rather than coin.

DeathBurstMay 5, 20171 votes

Give it a try. You have a pick-up range of roughly 200-300, you don't need to walk up directly on the coin to get it, and you don't really need to expose yourself so much to get the coins. You can still remain behind minions, and far away enough so that most skillshots remain dodgeable/baitable. It can sounds scary on paper, but it's not as bad as it sounds in practice.

ChaubinMay 5, 20172 votes

Fair enough, I'm hoping to have some time this evening to test. I'll have to come back afterwards.

ChaubinMay 8, 20172 votes

Went and gave it a try, and I did not have any issues with getting the coins. The grab range is enough that if you're careful positioning yourself, you don't have to worry about being smashed. Overall, I don't mind. The reward feels a little underwhelming though, as a support a single skill point doesn't have as much impact as the permanent shield from relic, or the 50% movement speed bonus from spellthief's.

DeathBurstMay 9, 20171 votes

Look at it this way: leveling a skill is typically +40 base value. If you take one more point on a damage spell, it's +40 damage, but it can also be +40 shield or -3 sec on your utility spell. I agree that it's weaker than the other rewards, but only slightly so, and it's much more flexible to compensate.

I still have two issues with it, though:

It FEELS underwhelming. It really isn't, but you don't notice the reward, and that's sad and not satisfying.
It's horribly weak in late game. I know that most high ELO games finish before Supports reach level 18, but at lower levels, it's still quite common, and when you reach level 18, you have strictly nothing, whereas the other 2 items still have benefits. Maybe you're expected to swap gold item in late game, or even to sell them completely for raw stats, non-gold-generating item, but it's not intuitive, especially if we're talking about low ELO games.

ChaubinMay 23, 20171 votes

Agreed, that has been my experience and I am definitely low elo.

Lucky MonikerMay 5, 20172 votes

Rakan in particular gets fucked over by hear changes. Sure he can use his mobility spells to grab coins but then he can't trade with them at all and you spend your entire time collecting coins and ignoring your adc. His pickup range is significantly shorter than most of coin using supports. And the lack of health regen on it also means he can't trade as well either.

PetraneseMay 5, 20171 votes

I feel like this would be easily solved if you could collect coins by hitting them with any damaging ABILITY(not with AA or targeted ability), but if you collect them this way, you don't gain any mana.

Soraka can Q, Janna Q, Nami Q. Sona always wants spellthief, Blitz/Thresh are forced to walk over it or go targons.

ChaubinMay 5, 20171 votes

Hrm, that's a decent suggestion. Make the supports decide whether poking an enemy or saving a spell for peel is more important that grabbing that coin.

EuthenaasiaMay 5, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Hjarta,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MiKHWGfa,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-05-04T23:30:40.473+0000)

Heya Queen of Heals!

Glad you're enjoying the changes overall :)

Just to kind of recap on what our goals are with coin:

With the coin changes we were aiming to change that extremely passive and non-interactive playstyle of Coin. Basically, all you had to do was to be somewhere near the lane and you'd reap the benefits without having to do much than simply existing in that general area. Now, with this iteration it is interactive and there's decision making and tension between it; is it worth the risk to pick up these coins? Will I get punished? Can I grab a lot of coins early to reap the benefits and get a great first buy? Should I or should I not pick it up? Etc. With that in mind, you have the potential to make decisions which end up being right or wrong. If you make a lot of good decisions around coin pick up, you will reap the benefits from it. If you make poor decisions with this item, you will get punished. Being able to make good decisions with this item takes time and practice so you might feel like you're being punished too much initially. However, we also understand that in some matchups it can feel like there are not a lot of chances to make good decisions, which leads to frustration.

Considering these things mentioned above, it is understandable that it may be uncomfortable to be forced to interact with the coins and therefore the lane as you are used to being able to sit back and slowly accumulate gold by simply existing near a wave plus some matchups can be really rough to allow for coin collection. We are actively monitoring player feedback with the coin changes to find a good balance between risk and reward and if the risk clearly outweighs the reward most of the time we will address that :)

Finally the thread i've been waiting all day to appear.

These changes to coin have my Janna feeling like complete fodder before level 10. The nerfs to health regen are like night and day. Keep in mind that I have 158k Mastery Points on Janna. Maybe a health drop should be added into the rotation but the removal of this stat is not beneficial to what you're referring to as "passive" supports. The fact that I have to move towards the coin drops to pick them up is also contradictory towards the type of supports that build coin however I don't mind this mechanic that much. It's kinda neat. Overall gold generation is certainly lower though. The glaring issue is early game here. The item feels almost non existent due to mana drops giving a whopping 15 whole mana level 1-3. These regen issues taper off mid-game but due to the current state of the game (and length of matches) we know that most of the time by then the victor of the match is already quite clear. That is all

OKIGorgonMay 11, 20171 votes

How about thiese changes: 1 - add passive 25% hp regen. Mostly because best gold option for Soraka is coin and unless there are enemies to poke close by, she has no means of getting back hp she spent on healing. 2 - increase coin droprate, but make all of them grant both 2% of missing mana and 5 gold. It's to prevent being locked out of one or the other because of bad RNG. 3 - allow coins to be collected with auto attacks.

Zen OverDriveMay 17, 20171 votes

Coin pickups grant you 50% damage reduction for the first auto attack or spell to hit you in the next 1.5 seconds. Nuff' said.

Well actually, I find the quest reward really boring and still doesn't do anything lategame, while the other options do. I understand that the 8% mana recovery is more useful than the 45 magic damage lategame in poke situations, but other than that, you'd get no lategame benefit from coin, especially when in the jungle or teamfights for example. Most supports aren't hungry for that extra mana anyways with all the %mana recovery support items at all stages of the game. The quest should grant out of combat mobility in my opinion. Maybe either a 40 flat or 10% speed boost out of combat. This would end when landing poke spells(just like mobility boots) and separate this item from the spell thief line's poke quest.

Kal Vas FlamMay 4, 20173 votes

I love it on Janna. I think it encourages people to play supports correctly (staying behind you ADC and waiting 2 minutes for an opportunity to shield is not playing her correctly). You should be poking non-stop even if only doing 50-60 damage per hit. That adds up, but Janna specifically is actually a hard hitting poker with some AD marks and her shield early on. I was already doing that, so now I just add in coin collecting to my pathing. Do the same thing with Soraka, Sona, etc.

I can see your point having more merit though if your lane falls behind and you get choked out of getting coins. That could be an issue. Maybe they should expand the "vacuum" zone a little so you don't have to be quite as close to collect them.

JainaProudgurlMay 4, 20175 votes

Yeah, thats exactly what i'm trying to portray. The last thing you want to do on Janna is to go forward past minions and get pulled by a Blitzcrank, or push up when you're already losing lane so you end up feeding the laner just to try and fulfill the quest. I wasn't saying "passive" as in literally staying behind your ADC at all times, I was more meaning that they don't put themselves at needless risk because it makes no sense on those champions. I don't think I've ever ran face-first into the enemy team as Soraka, it just doesn't make sense to do so.

Azure DancerMay 4, 20172 votes

Its quest is kinda lackluster compared to other 2 items. Wish it would give a full lvl up

ZielmannMay 4, 20172 votes

I completely disagree, actually. It's kinda hard to compare it to Targon's line, because it's a very different set of champions that would want coin vs relic shield. But I think the quest bonus on coin is far and away better than what you get from spellthiefs. The movespeed would be nice and all, but a lot of the mages that would want it already have hard CC, slows in their kit, or else slows after buying rylai's. Those make it so it's not really that difficult to catch up to things, or run away from things. On top of that, with coin, you can upgrade to Talisman, which has a movespeed active for your whole team on it.

JainaProudgurlMay 4, 20173 votes

I agree with you, I like the quest, and tbh I think there's nothing wrong with it. My problem is though, that each items quest conforms to its niche and in such a way that if you're behind, its still usable. If you have Spellthiefs, you can still harass for its passive. If you have Relic Shield, you can still use it to execute under turret, plus you're a tank so its okayish for you to be going forward a bit for procs. Ancient Coin on the other hand is pushing you past the minions on squishy champions that are easily bursted. If you're losing your lane or are in an unfavorable matchup, the last thing you want to do is go forward and put that lane at more risk than it already is. Because of this, you get to a point where you're unable to stack the passive because you know that if you do, you end up just feeding your lane.

The Fuzzy 0neMay 4, 20172 votes

I agree. This item kinda tilts me now. I don't even think the elixir is worth it tbh, but I understand why it was done that way... relic and spellthief both involve risk to get their gold so now ancient coin does too. I do think that it still needs to be tweaked... dropping the mana as a coin feels like a waste and enemy opponents shouldn't be able to see the coins. The elixir I feel is usually not needed by the time I end up getting enough gold to actually use it as well

SpyroSpaceDragonMay 4, 20172 votes

Yeah coin does need a change I kinda missed the health on minion deaths it was the main reason why it was good

PetraneseMay 5, 20171 votes

You mean that 10hp/minion that broke soraka? That passive alone was worth 1100+ gold worth of stats. On a item with 800g cost.

SpyroSpaceDragonMay 5, 20171 votes

That and the gold you got was the only thing that made that item good

Leaf on BushMay 5, 20172 votes

No champion has to be played so passive, that you can't pick up coins.

Maybe Janna would go out of her way to pick up coins but that's fine, gives her something to do aside from shielding and waiting for something to happen.

ZielmannMay 4, 20171 votes

These supports shouldn't be playing passively and hanging out behind their ADC in laning phase. I think it's great that the item rewards actually putting some pressure out with these supports, instead of simply hanging out doing nothing. And the coins seem to have a pretty generous pick-up radius, and seem to fall in your direction anyhow, so it's not like you're stepping too far out to get them. Just play it smart and choose the times to step forward and pick them up appropriately.

JainaProudgurlMay 4, 20174 votes

Supports have to play passively for a variety of reasons, whether they like it or not. Are you gonna run in front of your minions when you're an ADC vs a Blitz or a Thresh? I sincerely hope not. The fact of the matter is, you can't always be aggressive when you're either against certain match-ups or are losing lane. this means, that just because you went into a certain matchup, Ancient Coin just became useless.

ZielmannMay 4, 20171 votes

Generally, unless your ADC is overextending, even if you're playing 'passively' you shouldn't really be back much farther than your carry is. Sure, there are some matchups where you have to be a little more conservative than others (as well as playing around level-up power spikes and such). But those shouldn't realistically prevent you from picking up coins. Form what I saw, they generally were landing such that i could stand in the melee minions and collect the coins (even from the ranged minions).

Against things like thresh/blitz, you could also use the coins to bait their cooldowns. Fake going for it, and there'll be a good chance they'll throw their hooks out thinking you'll take the coin.

JainaProudgurlMay 4, 20173 votes

Actually, it would. Cait or Draven are amazing examples of this. You walk up to get the Coin, most Caits or Dravens will immediatly auto you because you're far enough up for them to get harass on you. In the case of Cait, it could be 100 damage, but it could also be 180 damage if its a headshot (plus she could put traps to block off the coin, and although this would be a waste, she CAN do it). In Draven's case, it would be about 150 damage that you just took for a coin. These are both fine if you're playing Janna, cause your shield will be able to block it.... but poor Soraka doesn't have a good way to deal with the instant damage, and its an easy way for her to get caught out. Most supports that would use ancient Coin already have low base health as is, and need to be conservative to make sure they don't die.

ZielmannMay 4, 20171 votes

Step forward to snag it while they're last hitting a minion. They can't auto two things at once.

JainaProudgurlMay 4, 20176 votes

It wouldn't matter, they still have abilities they can use and they still would have time to auto another time, its not like it takes 10 years to queue up an auto, it literally takes a little over a second. You'd still be well in range for an auto, even if they were last hitting a minion. Most of these supports have CCs, but they're SITUATIONAL CCs. You shouldn't be just spamming Janna Q or Soraka E for no reason, these abilities are meant for saving your ADC or netting kills, not giving you a huge CD where you need to wait 30 seconds to be able to save your ADC from danger that a shield or heal can't ward off. And whereas other supports do have spammable CCs (like Nami or Lux), these people use spellthiefs cause it makes much more sense than coin does. It puts forward a pretty decent window for you to be ganked, harassed, or even killed. Melee minion range doesn't mean anything at all, since almost every ADC in the game can reach ranged minions from their minion wave.

ChaubinMay 5, 20171 votes

I agreed Queen of Heals. The enemy, if not using coin, can focus their efforts at putting the enemy support further behind. For example, let's same I'm playing Rakan, and I'm laning again Soraka. ADC aside, if I see Soraka's coin on the ground, I'm going to play around that, planning my knock up for when she going in to get that coin.

It definitelyadvertises where the support is going to try to go in the next few moments. Though, depending on how long the coins last, that may not be as big a deal as I expect.

Did I miss how long the coins last? Or was it just not in the notes?

Lucky MonikerMay 4, 20171 votes

Take Rakan, I don't play passively but wandering out into the lane just gets poked down and dead. They removed the health regen he needed to dance around the lane, and made his movements both predictable and in the line of fire. He doesn't have the poke range to use spell thief and is coded as ranged so relic is a bitch.

ChaubinMay 5, 20172 votes

Lucky Moniker,

Rakan is one of the few supports I'm **not ** worried about being able to get the coins. If I'm playing with Xayah, and let's be honest he's next to useless without her, I can dive in with Grand Entrance, then Battle Dance my way out. Unless I'm playing against someone with lots of CC, such as Blitz, I'm going to be able to do that.

That said, I shouldn't have to feel like I need to commit two cooldowns to secure gold, which I will unless the enemy is very passive in lane or we've somehow pushed them quite far up.