On the Subject of Hard-to-Balance Items: Negative Stats

Dracodino300·Sep 13, 2016·1 votes·652 views

TL-DR: Some items like Rylai's and Aegis could have negative effects to make them less of a necessity.

I've seen a lot of posts recently referring to how some items (most notably Rylai's and Aegis ) are too universally useful for the skewed utility they provide for the team. They're far too useful to pass up on on many different champions almost regardless of the stats they give, until they are nerfed so heavily that nobody buys them, so even when they should be used situationally they aren't strong enough to warrant it.

One possible way I thought to mitigate their general strength would be to give some direct drawbacks to the items. For example:

Aura: UNIQUE – LEGION: Nearby allied units gain +10 magic resist. (1100 range)

could become:

Aura: UNIQUE – LEGION: Nearby allied units gain 10% magic resist and lose 5% armor. (1100 range)

This would mean that, against ad heavy teams, buying the item directly makes your team weaker. It also means that against a mixed damage team, considering your proximity to your team's Aegis-holder will let you most effectively tank damage. (It would also make it stronger on tanks because of percentages, but that's just my own balance idea).

As for Rylai's, you could have:

Passive: UNIQUE – ICY: Damaging abilities slow affected units based on their type:.....

become:

Passive: UNIQUE – ICY: Damaging abilities slow affected units based on their type:..... Passive: Frostbite: Move speed is reduced by 30 (applied after slows/speed ups).

This would make fighting with Rylai's a little less about just spraying you slows everywhere and a little bit more about stopping clingy targets from reaching you, as when they do you'll have a much harder time getting away than before. It also means that in chases, with either you running away or running someone down, you're at a significant disadvantage unless you land your spells... unless you buy other items to compensate such as luden's or boots of swiftness. And in teamfights, you'll be trading your own mobility and safety to enhance your teams damage potential.

Not saying this should be done for every item (that could get out of hand quite easily) but it might make people think a little more when buying these kinds of "situational" items.

8 Comments

DevilscepterSep 13, 20161 votes

First of all the Aegis item 3105 i know 10 flat MR isn't that high but it's useful 2 you're saying that by buying an item you make your allies lose 5% armor. well i think you're questioning the whole point of buying an item. items are made to be beneficial for you or your team and changing an item to make your team lose stats is a whole different thing to discuss about . it's good to change the meta a little bit but i guess if you want to change an item that by buying it you lose stats i guess it should be something that affect only the guy that bought it at the first place not the whole team.

about the item 3116 well the slow of it might be annoying for many of us if in case we are facing a but making it a flat MS reduction is not that beneficial . for changing it i guess you could either increase the amount of the flat MS reduction by 10 or 5 or nerf the percentage MS reduction of the i guess your idea for item 3116 is good but for the Aegis item 3105 is not that good at least in my opinion but riot done more crazy things so yeah why not

Dracodino300Sep 13, 20161 votes

For Aegis, the point was to make it so that you wouldn't buy it against a high-ad team / team with fed ad members. And overall, the item still gives more MR than the armor it takes away, so ON AVERAGE it's beneficial. And for both; the numbers I put in were just ball-park guesses, I can't really comment on how balanced the numbers I put in would be.

VoidStaresBackSep 13, 20161 votes

Actually, because you used percentages, this isn't necessarily the case.

You see, ranged champions only have flat MR without any MR scaling, while all champions have armor per level scalings. This means that for your squishy allies, the ones your supports are going to be protecting, it would be almost equal loss of armor to the gain of MR, and throughout the game the MR boost would be nearly pointless because it would provide minimal actual benefit to them (3 points of MR, to be exact, without any MR items which a lot of ADCs can't afford to put in their builds till late game if at all).

Dracodino300Sep 13, 20161 votes

Well, against a heavy AP team an ADC would likely have a QSS/hexdrinker to provide the extra MR. But I guess requiring that does defeat the point of Aegis, so maybe flat stats would be a better fit.

OneMustFallSep 13, 20161 votes

That'd make things even harder to balance, not easier. Who'd want to use an item where you're losing stats. If you're going to just counteract the whole point of getting Rylais, just nerf the passive. It accomplishes the same result without making niche items that force cookie cutter builds.

Dracodino300Sep 13, 20161 votes

At least the way I see it, item's like Rylai's were meant to be niche, and not just some way to curb the game's mobility creep by giving everyone and their grandma a slow. And while balancing the items would be harder, it puts them in a spot where they can be balanced. Items like Rylai's remind me of the way Rek'sai is in the pro game; her vision and map presence will always make her semi-meta until her stats are so bad she's completely unviable.

DeathBurstSep 13, 20161 votes

The idea of "negative stats" is interesting, and it is similar to some already existing abilities, like Jinx rockets have negative AS or Janna W has negative MS, but I don't think negative stats are a good lever for item balance in general.

As for your specific examples, no offense, but I think they are terrible:

Negative stat on an Aura, it's horrible, you'll bait your team-mates in taking bad fights just because they didn't realize you have this aura.
Self-slow on Rylai is maybe effective to stop some abusers, but it runs completely opposite to the intended role of the item. With such an effect, optimal Rylai users will be AoE team-fight mages who can spray the slow so that their team can benefit from it, not the DPS, kite-y mages who are supposed to whittle you down progressively as long as they hit their spells.

Dracodino300Sep 13, 20161 votes

Aegis: That's kind of the point; they would be good fights because you only buy it when the MR gain is worth more than the armor loss. And it's not hard to tell your team that you have an Aegis. Rylai: I disagree completely. As far as I see it its the dps kitey mages that make the item so oppressive. Champs like Cassiopeia (or frozen mallet Gnar) have ways in their kit to chase you already, with slows or speed ups, they don't need even more. The AoE teamfight users who enable their team sounds like a much healthier gameplay pattern.

And I completely forgot about Jinx and Janna already having self-stat-reducing effects. Thanks for the reminder :)