@Riot Any chance you'll look at summoner spells in the future?

IGotScuttleCrabs·Oct 3, 2016·4 votes·753 views

They're honestly kinda bland except smite. Top Mid Adc Support

And we all know what the second SS is for all them. Sure every once in awhile top might take ignite or mid (which has the most variety) will take tp, barrier, or heal. And sure some people will show up saying "I take X when I play Y" but overall every lane pretty much sticks to these spells.. Meanwhile rarely see much play.

SO as any good complaint post should have, my suggestion. Make all spells work like trinkets where you can change it up in game. Things like: can be changed to a spell shield change to smaller heal but restores mana

Nothing to crazy but something to spice up the spells. Id like to see reasons to care about other spells. Or not see flash on 10/10 champs.

Feel free to post suggestions for Rito and I can add them to the post [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

11 Comments

ÝonesOct 3, 20164 votes

Barrier rarely doesn't see much play? Boi, I see barrier all the time.

inplaneOct 3, 20162 votes

To make summoner 21 a little more interesting, it could shield a percentage of the user's HP instead of a flat amount. Maybe 20% or so? 25%? That way it could be used as a "late game wonder" to sort of speak. summoner 7 is used for it's early game power, so it's not very great later on.

WoodakoodashoodaOct 3, 20161 votes

Barrier is a great spell for ranged mid champions who don't bother getting close enough to an enemy unless collapsed upon to necessitate the use of ignite.

summoner 1 is a spell that should be reworked, removed, or replaced.

IGotScuttleCrabsOct 3, 20161 votes

Yea I run Barrier or Heal on things like Veigar and VelKoz. And it does see play more than the other outcasts but its not that popular. Summoner spells are like champions. Only a small portion are used a lot and the rest are niche picks for certain people

ViiLLAiNOct 3, 20161 votes

i see what u saying but i think there is bigger issues at hand that needs changing

Truly PridefulOct 3, 20161 votes

Ghost has come back a lot since the last buffs to it. Cleanse makes sense that it's not common, it's a situational summoner. I don't think Clarity would ever be popular outside of ARAM, just manage mana and take a better summoner.

Now Barrier could use something, it's generally overshadowed by Heal. Maybe castable on allies for a slightly reduced shield? Not sure what to do with it to make it a choice between Heal and Barrier.

Sire HippingtonOct 3, 20161 votes

Mid has far more varity than ignite, Top going Tp can't be fixed on a summoner-spell level, as it right now is the only way for toplaners to actually participate in the game outside of snowballing out of controll while splitpushing. We would need pretty drastic changes to the map to allow Toplaners to impact the game befor ~25min if they don't go TP.

Also, ghost is very strong since the buffs and very underestimated, and cleanse does it's job just fine. Barrier simply doesn't have any real reason to get picked over heal right now and needs changes, and clearity doesn't exist on summoners anymore, and if it did, it would need some changes to actually give enough mana so you don#t have to built any(for example playing varus with clearity instead of manamune)

Braum MechanicsOct 3, 20161 votes

I thought of an idea of having a fifth dragon called Arcane Dragon that specifically reduced the cooldown of summoner spells.

Athenes LuluOct 3, 20161 votes

Your overgeneralization is pretty far off.

Supports are taking ignite and exhaust at a roughly 50/50 ratio.

I see Barrier all the time on midlaners. Teleport mid is still a thing.

Exhaust is pretty much a ticket to free wins in duels as well as a stupidly powerful utility spell in teamfights, and is taken also by solo laners.

angery poutOct 4, 20161 votes

Clarity isn't a spell on Rift anymore so that one doesn't really count. I think that spells are actually not in that bad of a place. There are obligatory ghost and/or flash (unless you're Evelynn or Shaco) for champions but most roles have the freedom to choose their other spell with the exception of the AD and jungler.

Supports go Exhaust (v assassins) or Ignite (v healing teams) for the team utility. Midlaners have the most freedom. Top usually goes TP just because of how isolated it is relative to where the early game objectives are and how well it scales for split pushing (better than ignite.) Considering that the best spell for each player isn't the same for everyone else I think it's fine. The only one that I really think has an issue is Barrier since it seems so underwhelming compared to the rest.

As a note, (not sure how related this is but I was thinking about it the entire time I was typing this) I am one of those people who doesn't like keystones and feels like the old masteries system was more balanced and had more of a skill curve than the current trees. Summoner spells, runes, and masteries are all a relic of older seasons when I think the game might be easier to balance if every champion every game had the same stats as someone else playing the same champion.

As an example, Anivia can take Thunderlord's, Stormraider's, or Deathfire Touch. She is balanced around Thunderlord's because it is the most popular mastery on her and thus made the other two weaker due to her nerfs across this season. The nerfs due to mastery abuse crowded out diversity. She had hardly been touched prior to keystones and most of her changes had to do with changes to how her ultimate works, bugfixes, and the projectile speed on her autoattacks.

Regarding summoner spells again, EVERY champion is balanced around having access to flash. The examples I mentioned earlier who take neither ghost nor flash as well as those who take ghost are excluded from this. I'm not sure what effect removing flash from the game would do, but I've seen speculation on what would happen if summoner spells were reduced to one option and flash was an innate ability that had a cooldown similar to what it is now. This wouldn't affect most champions, but some such as Olaf, Hecarim, Shaco, and Singed would all suffer due to being locked into having flash over Ghost or another summoner.

I don't think that summoner spells need to be looked at as there are worse problems in the games (keystones.)

TLDR: I am super tired and if anyone actually cares (low probability) I can probably edit and clarify after I've gotten some sleep.

SylvantOct 4, 20161 votes

currently the summoner spells diversity is laid in the spells being fit for a specific role. This gives a practical use for most of the spells. summoner 11 for jungling, summoner 12 for top, summoner 7 summoner 3 for adc and supp respectively, few situational summoner 21 summoner 14 summoner 6 working on certain champs or to counter them and the standard summoner 4 . The real problem is they became obligatory. You dont really get to choose from the different options, well not in most cases. As a jungler you need Smite, as support you want Exhaust to shut down treats for the adc and your team in general, as top you want Teleport to actually join and be part of the game at earlier stage. We dont have the chance to choose from different options most of the time, like do i want to be more aggressive, or more defensive. This is possible only in the minority of cases. You can very rarely pick Ignite as a jungler for example, or even shield to preserve yourself, not to mention its totally absurd to stray of Smite.