Can we make Banshee’s and Guardian Angel pure defensive items again?

Pierce The Veal·May 22, 2019·9 votes·3,631 views

Or at least make them usable by everyone again?

GA is highly abused nowadays by AD champions while banshee’s is outright not used for the most part because of its niche use scenario. GA is too strong and banshee’s is too wonky, I, for one, want them to be usable by tanks, mages, AND adc’s. I don’t know how this will be done, but my best bet is to simply revert them to pure defensive items. Perhaps make banshee’s also be an armor+mr item like GA to get rid of the “everyone is building banshee’s” issue (as health+mr made it a very strong item).

11 Comments

xDogMeatxMay 22, 20193 votes

i want pure defense utility items that is mage/adc friendly which old guardian angel banshees established back then. (i dont remember if banshees was a pure defense back then :p go figure.)

Pierce The VealMay 22, 20192 votes

I want to use this comment to go off on a slight tangent, I furthermore think that we should have fewer hybrid offensive/defensive items and way more pure items. This allows for stronger defensive items and stronger offensive items as well. Nowadays we can just go builds that barely sacrifice either, and the champs that can best abuse said builds + rune that accentuate said play style become “OP.” If someone wants to go full damage, please, give them the old 100+ AD/insane AP items, but make them pop easily. And if someone wants to go tanky, let them build items that make them VERY tanky. I don’t like how a lot of the game now consists of items that are so good at both offense and defense, and I think it really kills off a lot of the fun of the game.

Exin0May 22, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pierce The Veal,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bqxQWmjU,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2019-05-22T14:02:16.227+0000)

I want to use this comment to go off on a slight tangent, I furthermore think that we should have fewer hybrid offensive/defensive items and way more pure items. This allows for stronger defensive items and stronger offensive items as well. Nowadays we can just go builds that barely sacrifice either, and the champs that can best abuse said builds + rune that accentuate said play style become “OP.” If someone wants to go full damage, please, give them the old 100+ AD/insane AP items, but make them pop easily. And if someone wants to go tanky, let them build items that make them VERY tanky. I don’t like how a lot of the game now consists of items that are so good at both offense and defense, and I think it really kills off a lot of the fun of the game.

I commented about making items "pure" not long ago practicaly same idea as you to create real build paths with pros and cons . There is 0 AD an very very limited AP itemization,for AD everyone is buying from same 10 item pool with little to no changes and why not? These items give all stats you need and more, like BC-AD,HP,CDR,pene and MS. Riot need split these bags of stats and make itemization more conditional like if you decide go full CDR or AS ok but without extra damage on these items, damage items dont give you extra HP,LS etc. just make paths and let players decide if for match is best sacrifice damage for blasting abilities faster, or go full damage but remain slow with long CD and slow AS or take little bit from everything. But this can work only if all item stats get reworked and if item who will have more then one stat is made so they dont have synergy like put damage and AS on on item but something like damage+mana (not ap+mana) otherwise it just slip to full damage builds. Also very important thing is make defense strong and pene strong against tanks but bad against others maybe something like pene will kick in only if target have 150+ and dont lower it under 150 same for lethality if this broken feature is must just with adjustment to 50 or so.

Sinister AnubisMay 22, 20191 votes

I still miss zonyahs ring, forest of nature, heart of gold, sword of divine. Yet only soul stealer still exsist :(

SnowbrandMay 22, 20191 votes

Don't give it back on tanks, it shouldn't be a tank item.

ZephyrDrakeMay 22, 20191 votes

yep, that's what we need entire teams with nothing banshees and GAs such a fun game that would be

Pierce The VealMay 29, 20191 votes

Implying that GA wasn’t build on every AD champion when possible?

Just because banshee’s and GA were overtuned then doesn’t mean they have to be overtuned now.

ModKnightsKemplarMay 22, 20191 votes

Your post doesn't address a key question here: why is a revive item good design for tanks? And why is a spell shield good design for tanks? What need is the current defensive itemization for tanks not meeting?

This items were specifically reworked so that squishy champions had healthy, viable defensive options. It wasn't an accident. If GA doesn't have AD, there is no armor item that feels good on marksmen. The same is true for Banshee's and mages. Meanwhile, tanks have tons of good defensive items already.

Pierce The VealMay 28, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Your post doesn't address a key question here: why is a revive item good design for tanks? And why is a spell shield good design for tanks? What need is the current defensive itemization for tanks not meeting?

This items were specifically reworked so that squishy champions had healthy, viable defensive options. It wasn't an accident. If GA doesn't have AD, there is no armor item that feels good on marksmen. The same is true for Banshee's and mages. Meanwhile, tanks have tons of good defensive items already.

Why are they good design on carries and why is a spell shield a good design on mages? Why do hybrid offensive defensive items make up the best defensive items in the game?

For the longest time Riot refused to release an AD armor item because a dps class having something that makes it last longer vs other dps classes was comsidered bad design.

A spell shield on the other hand should be very clear. There’s no reason mages need to avoid one spell. If they are in range for one spell they in range for everything else that will kill them. Hence why you don’t really see mages building this item, despite it having AP.

Champions should be forced to give up offensive power to get defensive power. The entire game was balanced around this historically, and as it is now champions that can abuse hybrid defensive offensive items while getting a select couple other items are the ones breaking the game/being most op/overbearing.

ModKnightsKemplarMay 28, 20191 votes

Why are they good design on carries and why is a spell shield a good design on mages?

Banshee's can negate engage. The use case is pretty clear. If you can negate one malph ult, or one bandage toss from Amumu, that can save your life. The counterplay is to pop it before you engage. Pretty simple.

Tanks, meanwhile, don't have a strong need to negate engage. It's not clear to me why you would even want a spellshield over an adaptive helm or a spirit visage. And if you had banshee's on a true AD juggernaut, it negates a huge part of their counterplay; now you can't cc them as easily and prevent them from getting to your backline. That's a design issue.

For GA, I would have agreed with you in times past; what changed is flat pen. Assassins now have access to lethality, and that does change how marksmen need to build. They need a small amount of armor on an item that still has something offensive they want for them to fulfill their role. It still costs them damage. It costs them either crit or lifesteal or % pen; marksmen builds are capped simple by the number of items now. And likewise, the counterplay is simple. GA protects them from one assassination, but it doesn't protect them against a lost teamfight. Anyone can tell you that having GA is only helpful if your team can survive without you for a few seconds. Otherwise, you just die again when you revive.

And again, this design strikes me as problematic on tanks, in particular. They are already incredibly hard to take down; if you've got the damage to do it, it should stick. There are already tank items that are supposed to be good at reducing damage from AD; frozen heart, thornmail, and Randuin's are all good choices, especially against marksmen. Deadman's plate is excellent for Juggernauts, and Sunfire cape is good for a little oomph in your damage. GA doesn't really fit in.

Back when GA was usable by everyone, tanks abused it. It was often a last item they would get after they were already tanky to have a disproportionate amount of threat on the backline. Two healthbars just isn't right for a tank. The one they already have is big enough. That's why it got removed. I'm not seeing a good argument to bring that back. It was game warping.

Pierce The VealMay 29, 20191 votes

Funny you use amumu and malphite as examples, because they’re two of the few champions that don’t get fully negated by banshee’s. They’re right there on top of you after their engage. Banshee’s is better for stopping one off long ranged cc/de-incentivizing a burst combo on your champion. It’ll make a leblanc think twice. It’s not going to stop a tank or a diver from coming onto you.

And while I agree that tanks don’t have a need to stop engage as badly, they didn’t dislike banshee’s when it was a full tank item. Tanks too can be engaged upon and killed quickly in many situations. Not getting hit by an ashe arrow, or intentionally blocking an ashe arrow with a banshee’s, is a great example. Plus, there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be full tank items that are intended as a one off defensive item for other classes. Just like triforce is a one off offensive item for bruisers, the same can and should be true for some tank items, significantly limiting a carry or a bruiser’s damage if they decide to opt in for some of the best defensive passives in the game.

And while you bring up lethality, it’s worth noting that assassins of old had 100+ AD items that they could stack. The story didn’t magically change just because we swapped those with ~50 AD lethality items. Nowadays everyone, assassins included, is running GA if they can make use of the ad. Juggernauts, divers, ADCs, assassins. There is not veritable sacrifice because the GA passive, while limited in ways you mentioned, is good against all damage sources. In a time when scalings are higher than ever, the ad on GA is universally applicable to AD champions, and doesn’t limit their damage enough. Surviving longer is more damage, so the tradeoff for not getting another offensive item is minimal. The loss of risk and the suddenly increased difficulty of killing a GA champion makes it so that the GA user dies much less simply because of the lack of incentive to dive a champion that’s going to revive, let alone when they actually revive. A damage champion should have to trade off significant damage to procure that power.

I fail to see how GA doesn’t fit the tank thematic perfectly. It allows them to maximize their survival time and is a strategic item that can allow them to, in certain scenarios when it is off cooldown, fight a lot longer. I question whether tanks should be going after items that let them do more damage as opposed to items that allow them to live much longer to then do that damage.

I understand that it was game warping, but are you implying second and third item GAs on carries aren’t game warping? That every ad champion having a stop watch isn’t game warping? Please. When it was cheaper you’d see GA on EVERY AD champion that could get it. It’s the core of most bruisers alongside sterak’s, it makes yasuo, jax, camille, master yi, riven, and others bullshit to deal with. Sure, Jhin isn’t the one broken with it. Having to deal with a Vayne, Kai’sa, xayah, lucian, or ezreal that just come back after you have to get through their whole to kill them is just utter nonsense. Not the mention what broke tanks was that it revived them with 30% hp that was then augmented by spirit visage and healing increase runes. Nowadays it heal by a flat amount which is by far more ridiculous on low health damage dealers. It’s fine to keep that flat number, but make it not have AD so that damage dealers really have to sacrifice damage to get it.

Heck, make it augment damage after you revive for a short time, but only after you revive. Boom. You have an item made for damage dealers that is simultaneously not making them stronger at every moment of the game.

TL;DR: as it stands, GA makes every AD assassin much tankier and leads to a tanky damage dealer meta, making pure tanks and damage dealers that can’t make use of GA and similar tanky offensive items less worthwhile.