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

PentaJump·Jan 22, 2015·33 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

BeersteinJan 23, 20156 votes

Merge cleanse and clarity.

Hyrum GraffJan 23, 20151 votes

I like this idea. Heck, maybe even take 2s off your cooldowns on cast. You could think of clarity as the "I'm ready to go" option.

broccoliman001Jan 23, 20155 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.

killd0zerJan 23, 20152 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.

McAllisterJan 23, 20151 votes

I'm not convinced. Clarity restores % mana, not flat mana. If you're building mana to make clarity restore more, you just didn't build something that's more helpful.

Quantum WeebJan 23, 20152 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.

PentaJumpJan 23, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Quinntuple Kill,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZUsWQlPO,comment-id=000c,timestamp=2015-01-23T03:54:50.114+0000)

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.

By taking clarity, you limit your ability to commit to a fight, and lower your chances of surviving a fight that your opponent commits to. Clarity doesn't help you in a brawl. That's its counterplay.

{quoted}

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.

It's okay to have certain summoners be better on some champs than they are on other. Pretty much no champ uses flash as well as Annie. Olaf and Hecarim both use Ghost extremely well. You wouldn't balance clarity around people who don't really need mana - that would make it op. You balance it so that the most mana-dependent champions may want it.

PentaJumpJan 22, 20151 votes

Bump!

BeersteinJan 22, 20151 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.

RadiantWingsJan 22, 20151 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.

RikariJan 22, 20151 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.

PentaJumpJan 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

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.

..that's exactly why I think it should be buffed! At the moment it would help a lot of issues with the current state of the game, but it is just too weak to actually be useful.

{quoted}

I think the idea of buffing 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).

Perhaps there is a better way to do the mana system, but it would take a lot of time and effort to figure out how to improve it.

RikariJan 22, 20151 votes

sorry but clarity will never work this meta. mid lane it means you have no ignite,bot lane no heal/exhaust. the other spells are too good. only 6,maybe summoner spells exist.

PentaJumpJan 22, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=TheRi fo,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZUsWQlPO,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2015-01-22T23:00:43.193+0000)

sorry but clarity will never work this meta. mid lane it means you have no ignite,bot lane no heal/exhaust. the other spells are too good. only 6,maybe summoner spells exist.

It could work for mid lane, with some tweaks. Champions like Xerath don't run ignite anyways.

ModWulf HelhammerJan 23, 20151 votes

I do. Why wouldn't you run ignite on Xerath?

HeWolfJan 23, 20151 votes

Because almost 80% of your kills are taken from afar, and so you deal your damage. Even if somebody approaches to you anough for you to be able of igniting them, it is more useful for you to have a survavility summoner spell as Heal, Barrier or Exhaust to avoid your death (which usually happens since he has no mobility).

j jJan 23, 20151 votes

Running ignite on xerath is probably one of the worst things you can do... That's like running ignite on velkoz, orianna, ziggs, lux. It just wasn't intended for those champions...

maikokkJan 23, 20151 votes

every summoner outside of flash/ghost/ teleport falls off late game

RikariJan 23, 20151 votes

Ignite's greivous wounds helps a lot with Olaf Swain Nasus Irelia Fiora Fiddlesticks Soraka Tryndamere and every adc,while heal can save your life.

Fargo79Jan 23, 20151 votes

sorry why are they focused??? i run Clarity on my Lux when i play mid.. and rush unholy grail and morello.. so by then i wont need the blue buff.. you want to focus me?? go ahead... cause ill snare and burst your azz.. i use Clarity to stay in lane longer and also to mana bait people in.. i dont know how many times i get dived under tower cause they see i have no mana.. and i pop clarity and throw out my entire combo on them.... so to say they get focused cause they have Clarity i think is false... people will get focused if they have no escape spells or no ghost or flash...

RikariJan 23, 20151 votes

there is so much wrong here,the mana regen on athenes isnt that great anymore,so im guessing thats why you have two mana regen items. Clarity also means that you have less kill potential in smart trades,honestly who dives an oom mage with clarity. When your combos aren't enough to kill them and they need to heal immediately,ignite is preffered. seems like your competition hasn't been playing that smart.

Fargo79Jan 25, 20151 votes

u know that some summoners spells arent good for all champs.. why would i as a Lux player even want to get close enough to use ignite? id rather run barrier then iginte.. but with the addition to no mana or resource champs period you just cant trade with them in lane unless u have some sort of boost to mana replenishment..

Teridax68Jan 22, 20151 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 MidJan 23, 20151 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.

AuryielJan 23, 20151 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

maikokkJan 23, 20151 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.

L7xLoTekJan 23, 20151 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 SlothJan 23, 20151 votes

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

5G8Nri0B54Jan 23, 20151 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...

PentaJumpJan 23, 20151 votes

{quoted}

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...

Yes, you're trading a summoner spell for raw stats (mana regen) However, ignite and heal and barrier could also be considered raw stats. If you have enough extra damage (ie, you build pure damage instead of mana regen) it will be similar to if you had ignite. If you build health instead of mana regen, it will be similar to if you had heal or barrier.

If RIOT was to buff clarity, they'd probably want to change it slightly so that it is more interactive, or at least, so that there are occasions where using clarity is a better idea than others. I haven't given it much thought really, but I guess one way they could do this is by rewarding the user more if they have little mana remaining. Similarly to how grail works, but as an active instead of a passive.