Make spellvamp more effective on ""AoE"" abilities by making it scale with target count

Quepha··9 votes·557 views

Spell vamp drops to 1/3 effectiveness on AoE spells, but a lot of AoE spells really only technically qualify as such. This value is balanced around not making REAL AoE too strong, like Anivia's ult or Morgana's pool, but spells like Lux Q or Sona Q take that value even though they can only hit a maximum of two targets.

Instead of just making all spells apply 1/3 spell vamp when they qualify as DoTs or AoE, make them instead apply decreasing spell vamp as target count increases. If a spell hits only a single target it could apply 75% spell vamp, still a reduced value, at 2 targets it could drop to 50%, and 3 or more drop to the 33% it currently uses. On pass-through shots or DoTs that hit targets at different times it could start at 66% on the first target hit and scale down to 33% on the last targets it hits in a similar way to how Sivir's Q damage scales down.

11 Comments

DrNova1 votes

Does it really matter?

Spellvamp really only functions on what, 3 champs? And those three you don't want to buff it on.

Making it slightly less not noticeable isn't really going to have any impact IMO.

Quepha5 votes

{quoted}

Does it really matter?

Spellvamp really only functions on what, 3 champs? And those three you don't want to buff it on.

Making it slightly less not noticeable isn't really going to have any impact IMO.

Spellvamp only functions on those champions because this system breaks it on every other one. Vlad has a rare single target spell that gets the full ratio and an AoE spell that's big enough for the reduced ratio not to matter. Morgana is the same because her binding is a true single target spell and her W and R are true AoEs.

Making this change wouldn't really buff them because they already have single target spells and their AoEs hit too many targets to benefit from the buff, it would just make spellvamp more viable as a stat on other mages.

DeathBurst1 votes

So, I agree and actually upvoted this comment, but there is yet another reason that spellvamp doesn't work, and I wonder what you think about it.

Likelink (both lifesteal and spellvamp) works well with sustained damage, because you can continuously heal the damage you are dealt with the damage you deal. But most casters do not deal sustained damage, they unload most of their kit in a burst (and may well over-heal the little damage they already received), then deal crap damage until their cooldowns are back. So most casters don't have a play pattern that let them actually sustain with spellvamp, even if the stat was much more available than it currently is.

Sadly, I have never seen a good suggestion to remedy this issue.

Quepha1 votes

{quoted}

But most casters do not deal sustained damage, they unload most of their kit in a burst (and may well over-heal the little damage they already received), then deal crap damage until their cooldowns are back.

Some spell vamp still allows them to heal up between fights off of minion waves or jungle creeps and there are a lot of mages that have generally low cooldown spells that they cast often during fights. Cassiopeia, Ryze, and Azir are the big dps mages, but there's also vel'koz with a low cooldown poke and charges on his W that let him wait for an opportune moment.

DeathBurst1 votes

Cassiopeia, Ryze, Azir and Vlad, maybe with Brand, Swain and Malzahar can be considered DPS mage. On this 7, you can notice that 4 of them already have some (pseudo-)spellvamp included in their kit, indicating that there is indeed a strong correlation between DPS and Lifelink.

A lot of other AP champs have one spell with a low cooldown, but I don't think it's generally enough to sustain through fights with it, even with an increased efficiency on Spell Vamp. And if you want to use Spell Vamp to sustain between skirmishes, I'd say it's a bad idea, because it means that any Spell Vamp balanced for this situation will be OP for the few that can actually use it during fights.

I mean look at ADC. Sure it's nice to heal on a minion wave, but why do they actually build lifesteal for? For sustaining during the fight and not die as soon as someone sneeze on them.

Quepha1 votes

{quoted}

I mean look at ADC. Sure it's nice to heal on a minion wave, but why do they actually build lifesteal for? For sustaining during the fight and not die as soon as someone sneeze on them.

I would argue that lifesteal is already more powerful for adcs to sustain between fights on minion waves, especially in the small amounts you find on masteries, runes, and early lifesteal items like doran's blade and vampiric scepter. A little goes a long way over several minion waves, but it doesn't really make a difference in a duel until you finish a big lifesteal item like Bloodthirster (and at that point an adc can go from half health to full on a single minion wave).

Sire Hippington2 votes

Spellvamp really only functions on what, 3 champs?

ever wondert why that's the case? One answer certainly is that WotA is a rather bad item in generall and only champs with really powerfull synergie take it right now, but it could get buffed and the few champos could recive some individual nerfs. Gunblade and Death's Dance don't have those clear abuser and aren't really bad, yet they are rarly used, so WotA beeing bad isn't the only reason.

A more important factor is AOE. Most of the potential users do have mostly aoe in their kit, but rarly big enough to reliably hit more than 2-3 targets. Just as Quepha said, the few spellvamp abusers all have alot singletarget damage, or rather reliable big AOEs. Most mages don't have singletarget skills, and their aoe often is so small that you rarly hit more than 2 people with it, unless you clear minions. To summarize: Spellvamp just feels shitty for aoe, and most casters rely on aoe!

If spellvamp was schanged in how it works with aoe, maybe by diminishing returns like 50% less damage on each target beyonf the first, so 50% vs the second, 25% vs the third and so on, which would converge towards 200% total, which is the value you currently get from a full wave of 6 minions. This would make spellvamp feel better vs single targets and small groups, and it would stay as it is on spells that hit a full wave, and it would be weaker vs stacked up minon-waves.

Another option is changeing it to full value always vs champs, and reduced value vs minions, which would also nerf some of the current abusers as they mostly have single target spells that they can spam into minions, so an overall spellvamp buff won't break them.

Slamurai Jack1 votes

Vladimir buffs? No thank you.

Quepha2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O3A7pceR,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-02-17T10:43:51.404+0000)

Vladimir buffs? No thank you.

How is it a buff for Vlad? His Q is single target and wouldn't change, and his E is a big enough area of effect to hit multiple targets while Vlad is the type of champion who wants to go out of his way to hit multiple targets.

Slamurai Jack1 votes

It's a straight buff whenever his E hits less than 3 targets. In duels, this happens fairly often, and Vlad is a cancerous enough duelist as it is.

Abyssphere1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O3A7pceR,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2016-02-17T15:53:27.827+0000)

It's a straight buff whenever his E hits less than 3 targets. In duels, this happens fairly often, and Vlad is a cancerous enough duelist as it is.

Then just give Vlad the nerf he'll need. Making Spell Vamp a functional stat on mages as a whole is worth one patch of Vlad being a bit stronger than he currently is.

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