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Please consider separating heal power and shield power.

Blupor·6/1/2018, 12:50:25 AM·41 votes·13,791 views

Hi all,

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about heal and shield power getting nerfed, and now there are nerfs to several of those items on PBE. Full disclosure: I am a D5 Nami onetrick, so that’s my perspective.

I’m proposing that Riot consider separating the heal and shield amplifiers on enchanter itemization. For months we’ve been hearing about “heals and shields,” always mentioned together. I think it is fairly lazy to group the two together, because they’re very different. Healing is reactive after damage is taken; shielding is proactive and can be a deterrent to damage all on its own. I am not a fan of Janna/Lulu/Soraka styles of play, so I rarely play them, and I do agree more interactivity should be added to their kits. That’s the real problem, but Riot prefers to attack numbers, which is a less great, but OK alternative.

Right now, healing is countered by AD and AP itemization and Ignite. Healers are in a good spot, if not strong. Shielding, however, is countered by...reworked Irelia? And raw damage. Shielding also uses the target’s resistances, so it is more than just the shield you see. In my opinion, it’s far more problematic with less counterplay. If healing and shielding amplification were split up, the shielding problem could be directly addressed instead of dragging healing down with it. If shielding were nerfed, then healing could be tuned a bit lower to keep healers from entirely replacing those with shields in the bot lane. I know not everyone likes heals and/or shields, but since they are in the game, I don’t see a disadvantage to splitting them up and balancing them directly. Thanks for reading!

tl;dr: I don’t believe that the correct balance numbers for healing and shielding happen to be the same exact number on enchanter items. “Healing and shielding” are lazily brought up together when they are different problems with different solutions. Please split them up.

EDIT: I wasn't very clear in how I worded this: I'm proposing that the heal/shield amp stat be split into 2 passives on the same item, not moved to separate items. So a +10% heal/shield passive would become +10% heal power and +10% shield power as two passives on the item. Then the numbers could be tweaked separately to tune heals or shields as needed, separately. Hope this clarifies!

54 Comments

Kitten of Evil6/1/2018, 3:03:03 AM19 votes

Shields need their uptime WAY reduced.

Lulu's shield can be up 100% of the time. Janna's and Karma's can be up 5/6 of the time. Rakan's can be up 5/12 of the time but it can be used twice within 5 seconds and it stacks. And Lux's shield can be up 1/2 of the time, but it stacks and refreshes if she catches the ally on the way back.

They should all be reduced to short durations, like 2.5 seconds at the most, to ensure that they are used only in anticipation of damage rather than just throwing them on whenever.

NorthernRedStar6/1/2018, 7:46:46 AM8 votes

Reduce the overall damage in the game first.

Zeromatsu6/1/2018, 11:07:51 AM7 votes

Nami is actually one of those obnoxious sustain supports no idea how you can talk like that about janna/lulu/soraka when Nami is way worse.

Sustain supports just need to be nerfed in general, cause they simply don't allow trades. It's all about farming and hard engage if jungler comes...

I don't mind if shields, heals or both gets worked on, but something should change.

ModKnightsKemplar6/1/2018, 4:57:32 PM5 votes

And again, I am in the enviable position of coming to a thread to try to disagree and being completely persuaded. You make good points, and you changed my mind.

Let's separate those bad boys so they don't ruin Taric with these changes :P

Ragnaveil6/1/2018, 2:38:58 AM3 votes

This could solve some issues, but hopefully a Rioter sees this and is able to elaborate if they ever thought about doing something like this.

The Great Duck6/1/2018, 6:42:40 AM3 votes

If anything, shields are in a much stronger position. 1) Aren't countered by ignite or grievous wounds 2) easier/faster cast time 3) lower cooldown. I'd rather have a Luiu or Janna spamming shield on me every 6 seconds.

PokladnicaZla6/1/2018, 6:46:08 AM3 votes

For starters they should adjust shield CD and duration, then take it from there.

  • There have been stated to be cost adjustments to item 3114

Dividing H&Sp is an interesting approach,but that also require a few new items to be added and reworking old ones. Tho,I'm not a fan of that idea. It's like the new mana items, supports are just gonna buy the best healing or shielding item. Honestly,it would be a good idea on some items,but on some yeah. That would be good, but not generally. It could also lead to binary playstyles, healers going Healing Power than going item 3174 and item 3107 and shielders going Shielding power and item 3190 . Healers wouldnt benefit from shield from Locket,but on shielders*; it could be too strong, vice versa for shielding.

Same logic should be applied to attack damage to AAs only empower AAs and not abilities. Depends on what RIOT's take on this is.

Done256/1/2018, 12:25:17 PM3 votes

Not all shields serve the same role. Some are for negating damage (Lux barrier, Rakan shield dash) while others provide buffs for their duration (Morgana+Janna shields.)

The former should be high power short duration/CD to promote blocking damage, but the others should have longer duration/CD to promote good buff placement.

YuGiHo6/1/2018, 1:33:12 PM2 votes

u know how many new items the would have to make to do this?

JarodDempsey6/1/2018, 3:20:06 PM2 votes

Shields should be stronger than heals because theyre significantly less permanent than regenerated health and they also require prediction. Shields are in a good place right now. I can sympathize with you about not wanting to let heals get fucked but I'm not a fan of throwing shields any further under the bus than riot already has. If people think they need tweaking then just make them be effected by grevious wounds, problem solved.

Anyone who thinks shields are a problem should also think heals are a problem because they accomplish the same thing albeit in different ways, imo neither are a problem in the least atm except maybe that overheal effect.

Daddy Ants6/1/2018, 12:01:49 PM1 votes

I don't think hitting the Heal and Shield power numbers on Enchanter Items is going to be enough.

Rakan, Lulu, Janna and Karma need direct changes to their shielding spells.

{quoted}

Nami is actually one of those obnoxious sustain supports no idea how you can talk like that about janna/lulu/soraka when Nami is way worse.

Sustain supports just need to be nerfed in general, cause they simply don't allow trades. It's all about farming and hard engage if jungler comes...

I don't mind if shields, heals or both gets worked on, but something should change.

Nami has the most expensive sustain spell out of all the enchanters.

Sona's heal is 100 mana at maximum rank.

Soraka's is like 70.

Nami's is 130.

The main issue I have with Nami's W is that it's both a heal and a damage ability.

Same for Lulu's E being both a shield and a nuke on the enemy.

ChaddyFantome6/1/2018, 11:26:57 PM1 votes

Shielding also uses the target’s resistances

So does healing....

In my opinion, it’s far more problematic with less counterplay.

Gonna have to disagree. Shielding has the counterplay of being useless unless used correctly. In essence and theory a shield that isn't properly timed doesn't accomplish anything, can be ignored and is thus wasted. A Heal on the other hand is the act of removing damage all together and is therefore always useful and effective. The only time it isn't is when your team is full health and therefore already winning.

This is why things like Grievous wounds exist because one must invest into actively stopping regen.

Whether or not Shields are too strong right now and or stronger than heals currently or not (because that is a different discussion, in of themselves Shields have far more innate counterplay than heals, because the only innate answer to heals is killing the target faster than they can can heal.

One thing we agree on tho is that healing and Shielding are different. This is true. However I do not believe that separating the Heal/Shield Stat by itself is really necessary.
One problem with separating the two is you splinter off certain champions scaling too much.

Janna for example would have to buy both heal and shield power because she has her E and her Ultimate. Sona would be screwed because her W does both. Every champion that uses Summon aery would get less mileage out of it as well if they are a Healer and not a shielder, like Soraka or Nami.

The reason this is a problem is because champions like Lux and Orianna still get SOME scaling on their Shields from building AP, even tho it isn't as much as if they build Heal/Shield Power.

All they would really need to do is just assign scaling values on individual spells like any other stat. This way they can balance the scaling on each individual Heal and Shield without having to worry about gutting one or the other too much.

5050BS6/2/2018, 6:52:50 PM1 votes

We need some items that pierce shields

Athenes Lulu6/3/2018, 4:35:56 AM1 votes

Or first things first, give "heal and shield power" a separate name.

Then we can make it a new scaling stat alongside with AP/AD.