Has there been any thought given toward a "Healer Pet"?

darkdill·Feb 17, 2018·42 votes·1,601 views

Current pets like Tibbers, Maiden of the Mist, etc., are all about either damaging the enemy or tying them up with crowd control in Daisy's case. But what about adding in a pet that heals an ally over time?

This could make for a really interesting support ultimate, IMO. You'd basically summon a pet that has a spammable single-target heal and it'll go patching up the nearest wounded ally it can find (or will focus on whoever you command it to target). Very different dynamic from Tibbers.

Counterplay? Obviously you can either kill the Healer Pet (Smite will make short work of it) or kill the one that summoned it, or you can use Grievous Wounds to make that healing less effective. Displacement can also help by separating the pet's ally from it. The list goes on.

What do you think? Could something like this work, or is it somehow toxic gameplay?

30 Comments

Done25Feb 17, 201843 votes

I'm pretty sure we already have one. Her name is "Soraka" iirc.

darkdillFeb 17, 201810 votes

Funny, but doesn't count.

Tails9016Feb 17, 20184 votes

https://i.imgur.com/xmwEEZC.jpg[/img]

Jk, I always sucked at soraka, she can't engage so I can't play her.

SpoofghoulFeb 17, 20181 votes

healing pet banana

i think we could use a healing pet orange o nvm gp already has one

hmm what about a healing pet durian fruit if you stay near it too long it also fears you with it's smell

kattzkittiFeb 17, 201817 votes

Considering how much Riot hates healing and the champions that utilize it, don't hold your breath on this.

RendrexFeb 17, 20184 votes

If they did, they would actually put a meaningful nerf to lifesteal.

darkdillFeb 17, 20181 votes

They hate PASSIVE healing and infinite sustain. Any healing that requires risk or is costly is fair game.

It Hertz When IPFeb 17, 20188 votes

Much as I would really, really, really love for this to be a thing... it won't happen.

Riot's drive over the last few years has been to ~~shit all over healers~~ make healing less automatic and more interactive. Soraka's a perfect example of this; her W, once a braindead "Press button, heal target" now massively sucks if you aren't A: tagging enemies with Q first, and B: managing your own health pool. Having a summoned minion that automatically does healing for you without ANY real need for input on your part is the exact opposite of what Riot wants.

5000000000000000Feb 17, 20181 votes

This would have plenty of counterplay and skill expression, I think. Maybe it shouldn't be just a single target heal over time, but maybe pulses of AoE heal (to reward good positioning), for one example. Healing pet can definitely be implemented in an interactive way.

darkdillFeb 17, 20183 votes

This. It'd also have to be an ultimate ability to gate it behind a meaningful cooldown.

NielarkenFeb 17, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=It Hertz When IP,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=UfAVd9Lf,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-02-17T03:44:18.110+0000)

Much as I would really, really, really love for this to be a thing... it won't happen.

Riot's drive over the last few years has been to ~~shit all over healers~~ make healing less automatic and more interactive. Soraka's a perfect example of this; her W, once a braindead "Press button, heal target" now massively sucks if you aren't A: tagging enemies with Q first, and B: managing your own health pool. Having a summoned minion that automatically does healing for you without ANY real need for input on your part is the exact opposite of what Riot wants.

Yeah that's wrong, soraka had a high cd on her old w where you had to use your q to reduce that cd faster because back then getting cdr was hard. Not only could you heal yourself you could heal minions to make people miss cs. You use to have to time your healing so that you would not only heal damage but also stop burst with her armor buff. Now you just spam w whenever someone gets touched until you run out of hp. Then you base and do it again.

MorganFreemanBotFeb 17, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Yeah that's wrong, soraka had a high cd on her old w where you had to use your q to reduce that cd faster because back then getting cdr was hard. Not only could you heal yourself you could heal minions to make people miss cs. You use to have to time your healing so that you would not only heal damage but also stop burst with her armor buff. Now you just spam w whenever someone gets touched until you run out of hp. Then you base and do it again.

Except it's not wrong.

Soraka's old W didn't have that high of a cooldown. It was 20 seconds, and CDR really wasn't -that- difficult to find back then, plus there were runes. It wasn't unreasonable to run into a Soraka with 20% CDR by the time laning phase ended, even if she didn't stomp her lane.

The old Soraka's heal massively discouraged interaction in lane. At rank 1 it healed and gave a tremendous 50 bonus armor, which more than doubled the armor of most ADC's. This led to a situation where trying to hurt the enemy adc was pointless, because the heal would remove poke and then make them able to win any trade through the extra mitigation. You couldn't move her and her adc out of lane because of her sustain, and you couldn't actually fight them (if they got ahead) because of the huge amount of effective health her W granted.

Lastly, her old E was a huge problem as well. A manaless ability.. which gave mana. It truly compounded the problem of "cannot be moved from lane". But, in true fashion, it could also be used as a point-and-click silence which came with a hefty nuke.

ApocalypsicFeb 17, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=It Hertz When IP,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=UfAVd9Lf,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-02-17T03:44:18.110+0000)

Much as I would really, really, really love for this to be a thing... it won't happen.

Riot's drive over the last few years has been to ~~shit all over healers~~ make healing less automatic and more interactive. Soraka's a perfect example of this; her W, once a braindead "Press button, heal target" now massively sucks if you aren't A: tagging enemies with Q first, and B: managing your own health pool. Having a summoned minion that automatically does healing for you without ANY real need for input on your part is the exact opposite of what Riot wants.

It's still a braindead ability. Enchanters as a whole take literally zero effort to play and do good on.

Z3SleeperFeb 17, 20183 votes

That's a great idea actually.

Acheron16Feb 17, 20182 votes

Riot hates healing and has problems balancing pets.

Lets combine them in one! Great idea!

Brooks107Feb 17, 20181 votes

to problematic with ardent most likely

PopcornBunniFeb 17, 20181 votes

Funnily, a couple of weeks before Rakan and Xayah were announced, I was trying to think of a support that tossed debilitating or beneficial quills with a "giant bird of paradise" ult that had just this kind of effect. It wasn't fully fleshed out but it was neat seeing the quill-tossing character come to life just a little later by riot themselves.

Meep ManFeb 17, 20181 votes

I think Bard Shrines are the closest we'll ever get to that.

BlåbæretFeb 17, 20181 votes

Healing isn't a fun mechanic to play against, so no.

Chromatic EagleFeb 17, 20183 votes

Why? Why not kill the healers?

darkdillFeb 17, 20181 votes

This. A healer pet would be easier to kill than a Champion, though you could always kill the one who summoned it to get two birds with one stone.

Humble AatroxFeb 17, 20181 votes

Soraka ??

PinkajFeb 17, 20181 votes

Janna

Furious DelishaFeb 17, 20181 votes

JUGGERNAAAUT

jmp231Feb 18, 20181 votes

Soraka

FlameHalbrdOkidoFeb 18, 20181 votes

The single target healing pet would be nice, to increase the interactivity it could probably heal them champ with skill shots, additionally the heal could be increased from suboptimal to great whenever the Supp hits an enemy with an ability which would steal the enemy hp and give it to the ally thru the pet

darkdillFeb 18, 20181 votes

Ehh, that'd be too complicated and would work sub-optimally in a lot of situations.

ElkingtonFeb 18, 20181 votes

You mean something like the Scholar class from FFXIV. That's my favorite job in the game, but I imagine that kind of flexibility would be game-breaking in LoL.

darkdillFeb 18, 20181 votes

Perhaps not to that level of complexity, but something like that. (I'm unfamiliar with FFXIV mechanics, though.)

ElkingtonFeb 18, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Perhaps not to that level of complexity, but something like that. (I'm unfamiliar with FFXIV mechanics, though.)

Scholar in FFXIV is a support class centered around both mitigating and dealing damage, while micromaging a pet that can either heal over time or boost a party's damage output. Has a pretty high skill ceiling and imo is one the most rewarding jobs in the game when played well.

A kit like that would be hard to bring over to LoL without issues. It would be like a mix between Orianna and Lulu, and Pix had its own moveset/cooldowns and could heal people.