Honest question: why is it popular opinion that shields/heals need nerfing?

JarodDempsey·Jun 1, 2018·2 votes·604 views

I heard about nerfs to shields and now to shield/heal power for a while now but I cant seem to figure out why they need nerfing in the first place. Damage is about as high as it has ever been and shield/heal items havent seen significant buffs since they came out 2 years ago, in fact many of them have seen significant nerfs since then.

As side notes i'd also like to point out that lethality was added last year, grevious wounds was made far more accessible, and mana growth was significantly nerfed as well.

5 Comments

dunder killJun 1, 20184 votes

Extremely low risk, extremely high reward, high reliability, super easy to use

JarodDempseyJun 2, 20181 votes

they have comparable mana costs and cooldowns to most damaging abilities and only block 1-2 damage instances while also requiring squishy enchanters to be in a usually relatively dangerous position. They should also have higher reliability (instant effect) than damaging skills because theyre meant to counter damage and require quick reaction to be most effective in battle.

HethaleanJun 1, 20181 votes

Because I think part of the reason damage is so high is because shields are so strong. It's kind of an arms race between needing to kill things (raw damage output), and needing to survive (heals/shields/tankiness). That and shields take almost no effort and are really effective.

AzadetheJun 1, 20182 votes

Push for lower damage, and then we could have that discussion. Shields aren't even that effective atm in the meta of 1300+ hit adcs. Shields average out at about 300 damage at max, have cooldowns, and generally are the only defense vs this True damage meta Riot is pushing. Armor/Resist don't do crap anymore.

I pull a 68% win on a 46% win average Ornn. How? I don't build Armor/Resist. I build AD, or HP. How's that work? HP works well with Second wind while Armor/Resist don't do much, offers very little move speed, gets destroyed by penetration. Not much really destroys HP.

JarodDempseyJun 2, 20181 votes

Heals tend to require less effort than shields but tend to be less mana efficient. Shields on the otherhand require accurate prediction of enemy attacks, granted i would agree that with slightly lowered durations for a few enchanters ( Janna Lulu Karma ) they could still have that prediction check and would still be rewarded for good timing. In general both shields and heals are for the most part in a good place considering they tend only to block 1-2 instances of damage and most often come from extremely squishy enchanters while having average ability cooldowns. I feel like the current meta is completely neglecting strategy these days and constantly focusing on fighting the adc when they should be focused on taking out the support first in many instances because theyre usually easier to take out and will then leave the adc vulnerable to itself being killed. In most instances of botlane all it would take is one ability or an auto or two from an enemy to bait an enchanter to shield the adc, at which point you have 5+seconds to dump on the support before they could shield themselves again. They would likely die and then you could either focus the enemy adc or disengage if you feel ouve taken too much damage or the fight has moved out of a favorable position. Shields almost always work on only 1 target so target switching is super important to maximise damage efficiency when fighting against an enchanter. I main shield supports and I love it because i mostly just sit back and use my adc as a meat shield in conjunction with my shield skill because people are so focused on them they completely neglect my super squishy ass and let me freely support, as soon as someone engages me im either dead or forced to disengage support my ally but either way im out of the fight which is why it's really not shields that are a problem it's mostly people's lack of strategy. Heals counter dot and dps, they cant do much for burst and are in a perfectly good spot as well, simply poke an enemy to bait the heal and then you have 5-10 seconds to freely melt the enchanter.