Now is the perfect time to buff Clarity (the summoner spell)

PentaJump·1/22/2015, 4:41:25 PM·33 votes·2,555 views

With the mana regen item nerfs, champions are having a great deal of trouble making it through lane, when they have to fight people like Akali, Zed, Yasuo, and Katarina, who have not been hurt my the regen nerfs. Potentially, we could fix this by buffing clarity so that champions who have mana issues will actually want it. By taking clarity instead of ignite or exhaust, they have a meaningful weakness that the lane opponent can play around.

33 Comments

Beerstein1/23/2015, 2:09:03 AM6 votes

Merge cleanse and clarity.

broccoliman0011/23/2015, 2:06:22 AM5 votes

Why not give clarity some combat perks, such as giving the user a shield equal to how much mana was restored or something to help you out if combat. Similar to how heal gave a speed boost, clarity could then help in more ways than one.

killd0zer1/23/2015, 2:12:23 AM2 votes

Clarity has issues because it interacts with Mana. Unlike Health or damage, the value of 1 point of mana is DRASTICALLY different to each champion.

Many people say to have it interact with Cooldowns, which is even harder because every champion treats it's cooldowns differently.

Quantum Weeb1/23/2015, 3:54:50 AM2 votes

Well, I'm not sure it's the best spell to buff, or even keep around for that matter. Unfortunately, there's a number of problems with it.

When it's strong, it's only purpose is to remove a lever that champions are balanced around. It essentially deletes a pretty decent way to balance certain champions such as Ziggs simply because they can take Clarity. Worse, these champions could start being balanced with Clarity in mind, making it near impossible to take any other spell on them. With Flash, these champions have almost no choice of summoners.
You can't counterplay Clarity. Barrier could be countered by focusing a different target, heal is countered by hard or soft CC and grievous wounds. Flash and Ghost are countered by hard CC. Ignite can be countered with shields, to some extent heals or even using mobility to get to your second tier turret. Clarity has none of that, you cannot stop someone from gaining mana, and there's almost no way to rework the ability to give it counterplay. What's worse, mana is a large part of counterplaying certain champions, so Clarity doesn't just have no counterplay, it removes counterplay from the game!
Clarity is just plain annoying to fight against. Other summoners create moments of intense action and suspense. Flash allows for interesting plays, Ignite means a serious fight is going down, and Teleport allows loners in top lane and the jungle to join big fights. Clarity has no excitement attached to it, it just makes certain champions more difficult to outsustain, that's about it. Summoners are meant to make the game more interesting, and clarity definitely doesn't do that.

Teridax681/22/2015, 10:42:16 PM1 votes

I think the idea of buffing summoner 13 would just be a crutch to champions' mana issues, much like the summoner spell itself. The better way to go would probably be to take a comprehensive look at mana as a system, and figure out how to make it feel like something fun and interesting, rather than the constraint it feels like now. Ideally, buying mana or mana regen should feel like getting a sweet power-up, so more like "yes! I can do cool stuff with my mana and spellcasting!" and less like "finally, I can use my spells normally now", and once that happens, Clarity wouldn't even need to exist (I don't think it even does now, as it's a spell that carries little interesting gameplay and only serves to patch over a problem that shouldn't be a problem in the first place, i.e. mana issues).

Magma Lux Mid1/23/2015, 1:50:03 AM1 votes

Odd as I don't have that much trouble vs Kat and Yasuo, am having less trouble vs Zed, and stalemate vs Akali as Lux.

Auryiel1/23/2015, 1:58:56 AM1 votes

Why should mages have to rely on this awful, non-combat summoner spell to be able to lane against ressourceless champions? Taking clarity = never be able to duel anyone but the enemy support

maikokk1/23/2015, 2:01:08 AM1 votes

approved!

would be nice to be able to sit at a safe distance and spam for long stretches as a mage without having to B every few waves. since riot seems to want everyone to buy tear, a clarity buff would give every spammy mage a reason to rush it (assuming it stays as a % based value) as they would be able to stack it efficiently.

L7xLoTek1/23/2015, 6:10:49 AM1 votes

If you haven't experienced the glory that is ClutchClarity(tm) you haven't truly experienced League. :p

But yeah, it's mostly a dead spell. More useful with the current mana nerfs, but still kinda questionable.

Daddy Sloth1/23/2015, 6:50:55 AM1 votes

Maybe make summoner 13 similar to Blue Buff in certain aspects? Or just a less-powerful Blue Buff.

5G8Nri0B541/23/2015, 7:48:15 AM1 votes

Of course now you essentially took away a Summoner Spell slot from said champions while those who dont need can actually have TWO summoner spells...

chriserit1/23/2015, 4:05:08 PM1 votes

give clarity mana stealing when applied on an enemy, would give a real reason to pick clarity over another one

PentaJump1/22/2015, 8:13:48 PM1 votes

Bump!

Dingding1231/23/2015, 4:37:48 PM1 votes

Actually I don't think it's bad right now.

I had a really successful time as Galio vs. a good Azir in lane a few days before the dank reset. 40% more mana back every 3 minutes is a big deal.

Beerstein1/22/2015, 8:17:55 PM1 votes

I already started bringing it, but only in games I don't care about winning. It gives less of a headache in lane but still isn't worth bringing when I'm trying to be competitive with my opponents.

RadiantWings1/22/2015, 8:33:06 PM1 votes

The Smite version of Clarity was really good. You could basically take it in place of any mana item and almost never run out of mana as long as you don't spam every single one of your abilities off cooldown.

It gave a ton of mana regen and its cooldown was pretty low. It only became teamwide with a certain upgrade.

Rikari1/22/2015, 9:24:15 PM1 votes

I hope you dont mean the summoner spell because the moment someone is sighted with clarity they will be focused to hell,not to mention it falls off late game.