Cut the pretense: Summoner Spells

Firellius·6/19/2016, 7:10:59 PM·2 votes·1,176 views

It's been clear for years that there's no choice in summoner spells. You need to stop pussyfooting around the issue and just lock the spells in for all players outside of their control.

Remove summoner spells, then

Automatically assign flash to everyone, because you've shown no interest in fixing it in over, how many years now?

Automatically assign heal to the bot laner, teleport to the top laner, smite to the jungler and ignite to all others.

There is no variety in this because there is no choice. The imbalance of these things is so excessive that the option is fake. Going outside of the above is just a flat-out guaranteed loss.

6 Comments

awdaf6/19/2016, 7:12:20 PM5 votes

Ghost > Flash on Olaf

Marshbouy6/19/2016, 7:29:13 PM2 votes

ghost is better on certian champions like olaf, hecarim, possibly garen and nasus. Smite is OP? no, smiteless jungling was cancer. flash is OP because it gives mobility, so what? not every midlaner takes ignite. TP heal and barrier are all good. ADC's take heal because it gives them sudo peel for themself.

The Last Ballad6/19/2016, 10:35:07 PM1 votes

So if me and my sister want to do a Lissandra/Brand bot lane, I would be forced to take Exaust, despite the fact that a surprise post-6 Lissandra teleport gank is just ugly for the poor soul being ganked, and my sister would have to take Heal, instead of taking Ignite to have extra secure kills(what with the brand passive)? What happens if mid wants to take Exhaust to deal with Talon/Zed/Le Blanc? They are just screwed over right? Or if a Shaco Jungle wants to take Ignite instead of Flash to have a better counter jungle? There goes that strategy. Oh, and if Soraka wants to take Heal to not only have another source of healing, but to allow the adc to grab Ignite? Oh well, I guess the healer that uses her health to heal couldn't use Heal effectively at all.

Riot is trying to INCREASE diversity in games. How on earth would forcing people to take x summoner spell be helpful towards that goal? Just because people do not want to be diverse does not make removing the choice a good thing.

Nameless Voice6/19/2016, 10:38:22 PM1 votes

Just because most people follow those conventions, doesn't mean that people shouldn't have the option not to.

I don't take Flash on some junglers ( Evelynn Shaco ) I don't take Flash on some top laners ( Nasus Olaf )

Sometimes I take teleport mid, or barrier, or exhaust. Sometimes pros take flash/ghost on some mid laners.

Supports often take exhaust.

Ruin Lance6/19/2016, 10:39:14 PM1 votes

how about no lol

Archxgabriel6/27/2016, 6:25:34 AM1 votes

Love how people point out a couple situations where flash isn't mandatory, except even with those situations it is still a consideration. To make it worse, can't unlock summoners until you hit a specific level, and yet they are so core to the current game that not having access to them is heavily punishing to low level summoners.

Summoner spells also restrict creative design of champs and items as they have to be balanced around summoners. I do think summoners should be removed as they are now. Making items to give similar effects might be an option, but as they are now they are not very interactive, not very fun and have little to no counter play. All of which are against Riot's design philosophies.

As a connected issue, Runes should also be removed for many of the same reasons. With the core of restricting champion and item design. They also create false choices for leveling summoners, but not having them can net upwards of 1500 g in stats lost. Also means summoners are spending IP on useless items in the long term when they could be unlocking more champions. At least runes need to rank up as the summoner levels so they only need to buy each rune once.

While the OP isn't the most eloquent in addressing the issues, the point is solid. Summoner spells are no longer good design and need to be removed at least until they can be better designed, if not permanently.