Boards›Gameplay

Runes Reforged: Keystone Suggestion/Concerns

Luskeutua··2 votes·1,133 views

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, or throwing this in the wrong forum or whatever have you, but everything I'd seen regarding the final keystone seems to just be a wonky Bandit mechanic that's probably going to force every single support to pick it up no matter what. Something I'm not keen on myself - especially in the environment of 'get Ardent faster scrub' that we're currently in. Link if you need proof: https://mobile.twitter.com/Sparkly_Julie/status/912429100672851968 The case was made many times in the past that a role shouldn't be defined by keystones, which is why we saw Strength of Ages disappear, I just worry that Bandit's going to go the same way but with Support.

So, basically I'm wondering if Riot are fielding suggestions from the community at all. If so where would be the best place to throw my suggestion?

If there's nowhere decent, might as well put it here.

See, I once upon a time played when Eleisa's Miracle was still an item in game... Link here: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Eleisa%27s_Miracle For those who don't want to click on it: Gave regen stats and Summoners CDR on support summoners (well, the support summoners back the day, exhaust used to be an ADC thing), and after 3 levels it'd vanish from your inventory but you'd keep the stats and effects. Suffice to say, I was sad to see the item go. Not that it'd have much place these days, with two of the summoners it buffed no longer in Summoner's Rift and that even today support budgets would struggle with having a 7th 1100 gold item squeezed in, but the concept of an item becoming 'part' of the character was always one I liked.

Was just thinking then: Why not have a keystone that provides an item like that?

Hell, it could even be as simple as 'You may only purchase one 'Doran's' item this game, but after ten minutes of carrying it in your inventory, the item is consumed and the stats and effects become a permanent part of the character.' If more gold is the primary goal of this keystone, could even add 'and you are refunded its gold value (or it's sell value to the store, whichever works better) upon consumption.'.

Alternatively, if that turns out to be a bad idea, my other suggestion was allowing the Doran's items to be used as a component for other items (i.e. Doran's Blade can be built into Phage with an 850 combine cost) to allow for faster power spikes. The role of that rune path is to bend the rules of the game, right?

I mean, doesn't have to be complex or 'exciting' to still be an interesting mechanic that offers some choices, right?

Anyway, cheers for humouring me.

10 Comments

AntiAlias2 votes

Got on to my pbe account, Kleptomancy is literally exactly as I predicted. It's better early and mid for every support by actual miles and gives consumables and wards almost exclusively, so every support I've seen has taken it. RIP support variance in the new rune kit. The worst part is that the only reason it's good is because the chance is so overtuned that I'm seeing supports at level 4 with an already full inventory, with 3 kinds of potions (health, mana, and biscuit) and almost infinite amounts of control wards.

And, by the by, the gold generation wasn't buffed so it's a must take regardless of how good Aerie or Guardian are, because unless it's scaling for 40% AP on aerie and 25% HP on Guardian, it's not gonna make Klepto worse and supports get such a go-ahead in lane to buy practically every item they need not only faster by gold generation, but by the literal hundreds and possibly thousands of gold they're saving on control wards. it takes only 14 Control wards to hit that, and in 5 minutes you can cap on your control ward inventory without placing. It's almost a wasted rune simply because you get so many control wards that you can't make use of it without putting them down practically any time they get noticed.

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

Doozku1 votes

Haven't read the post, but I don't think looter is gonna be mandatory on supports. It doesn't give the free gold on minion deaths like bandit does now, meaning that you'd have to actually hit the enemy to get the effect, something most enchantors don't want to do. Especially since it works like sheen where the active doesn't appear until you cast a spell which will also be bad for enchanters. I'd see this being possibly decent for mage supports but imo this is more of a cheesy keystone for champs like GP if they want to give up an offensive keystone for more gold.

AntiAlias2 votes

{quoted}

Haven't read the post, but I don't think looter is gonna be mandatory on supports. It doesn't give the free gold on minion deaths like bandit does now, meaning that you'd have to actually hit the enemy to get the effect, something most enchantors don't want to do. Especially since it works like sheen where the active doesn't appear until you cast a spell which will also be bad for enchanters. I'd see this being possibly decent for mage supports but imo this is more of a cheesy keystone for champs like GP if they want to give up an offensive keystone for more gold.

"Most enchanters". bar Janna, who has literally no incentive to interact in lane right now, what enchanters don't poke in lane at all? and if you poke in lane at all (for some unknown reason), how have you never slapped an auto before or after a spell on an almost always ranged champion for literally free damage and gold from bandit before? Like, Soraka Q, Lulu Q, Rakan Q, and, probably most likely to ring a bell, Sona Q, are literally all poke tools for a reason.

Janna is being moved away from her afk shield role to actually be interactive for this reason: It is unhealthy for a role to play a one-sided part that has little to no bearing on interacting directly with the enemy team. Bandit is core because it in itself is a mini spellthiefs and for any enchanter who's worth their salt, or any melee tank who can get a trade in lane, it's free gold for doing what most supports should be doing in lane anyways, which is helping the ADC by applying pressure, if not by buffs or heals, then by poke.

Hell, Sona and Lulu have built in auto-attack modifiers to help them achieve that poke. By having a spell cast before the auto, and giving the auto increased range (as a redpost earlier on this board said), it's a method of allowing one to maintain the same gold generation as before (if you were appropriately interactive) if not more, considering runes numbers right now, and letting them disengage by getting just out of range of most other ranged champions and tossing the auto on your way out. If you really think the 6 gold per minion wave was actually what made the bandit rune good, you probably need to go back and re-study it, my guy.

Also, maybe read the post before you play contrarian. [sg-lulu]

Doozku1 votes

Also, maybe read the post before you play contrarian.

Actually I did read the post, just not the suggestion.

But I'm wrong about saying that enchanters don't interact at all. I don't play much botlane myself and so I don't know the matchups. I just immediatly thought of Nami, Lulu, and Janna as the three enchanters that came off the top of my head (wrote the last post on mobile hehe) and I thought that none of them would really want Looter (now called Kleptomaniac) because none of them could proc sheen very well, and Klepto works like Sheen. But I forgot about supports like Sona, etc.

I think tho, that this still won't be a mandatory keystone, only an alternative. I say that because bandit on the old system was not even a keystone, it was just a secondary mastery. This new mastery is a keystone, which means that you are giving up the possibility of getting Aerie or the shield mastery in resolve (forgot its name). That's basically like you giving up Windspeakers for a worse version of bandit (since you know, it doesn't give passive gold anymore and instead gives more in combat stats and things like potions.) While I think Klepto will still be a viable option, I doubt it will be THE option, like you say.

That said, I just read the suggestion. I think that those ideas are kinda cool but they really wouldn't make up for any kind of gold generation. But that might really mess up the builds for certain champs who upgrade their starting items. I know you would just not get the rune then, but for supports specifically they usually always upgrade their starting item at some point in the game, and how would that work with quests? Just too much weird stuff to change and loopholes imo.

Luskeutua2 votes

{quoted}

Actually I did read the post, just not the suggestion.

But I'm wrong about saying that enchanters don't interact at all. I don't play much botlane myself and so I don't know the matchups. I just immediatly thought of Nami, Lulu, and Janna as the three enchanters that came off the top of my head (wrote the last post on mobile hehe) and I thought that none of them would really want Looter (now called Kleptomaniac) because none of them could proc sheen very well, and Klepto works like Sheen. But I forgot about supports like Sona, etc.

I think tho, that this still won't be a mandatory keystone, only an alternative. I say that because bandit on the old system was not even a keystone, it was just a secondary mastery. This new mastery is a keystone, which means that you are giving up the possibility of getting Aerie or the shield mastery in resolve (forgot its name). That's basically like you giving up Windspeakers for a worse version of bandit (since you know, it doesn't give passive gold anymore and instead gives more in combat stats and things like potions.) While I think Klepto will still be a viable option, I doubt it will be THE option, like you say.

That said, I just read the suggestion. I think that those ideas are kinda cool but they really wouldn't make up for any kind of gold generation. But that might really mess up the builds for certain champs who upgrade their starting items. I know you would just not get the rune then, but for supports specifically they usually always upgrade their starting item at some point in the game, and how would that work with quests? Just too much weird stuff to change and loopholes imo.

Bandit is basically mandatory on supports currently. That's the key point. I did mention in my opening post that we're in a meta of 'get ardent faster'. People tend to copy pros and in the last worlds pros were getting ardent before sightstone - ADCs were getting relic shield so that the supports could get it faster still. I don't want my ability to support determined solely by my gold generation. I remember the days when you had to use gold/5 runes on supports - it took the combination of trinkets, sightstone, removing consumable wards and adding dedicated support items to the game that let supports pick up different runes.

But you're simultaneously hitting on why I'm concerned and missing it entirely. 'You're giving up Windspeakers for in combat stats and potions' - in other words you're you're getting a keystone that means you never have to spend gold on health pots ever again? Opportunity cost does matter. Honestly, as a support, I'd make that trade in a heartbeat. Imagine the healing throughput a Soraka can pull if she always has free health potions in lane? Imagine a Leona who can just keep trying to engage with no punishment due to that same potion access? You're saving gold by not having to buy potions and you've got higher gold item uptime because you're not being forced to leave lane.

As for loopholes, wasn't that the point of that entire rune path though?

Although maybe I misspoke, the suggestions I was making was for a rune that was specifically not a 'supports get this because extra gold' - it was more of a 'if Riot are keen on something that's focused on gold, here's an option that won't force supports to take it' kind of suggestion. Which means I wouldn't necessarily recommend either of the suggestions for supports.

Also to address your knowledge of enchanters: Nami is easily the most aggressive of the 'hard' supports, she wants to auto a lot with her E because the slow is oppressive (it's often easier to cast it on yourself than to use it on your ADC, it means they're spending less time away from farming too) and it's easier to Q people when they're slowed. Lulu's passive encourages using autos as cheap poke because it basically means that her autos scale off AP. Janna's being reworked soon so that she has a similar effect to Lulu. As for the statement of 'none of them can proc sheen very well' - umm... sort of? that's more to do with Sheen becoming active off ability use than actually hitting people. Janna's cooldowns are too long to abuse it and Lulu would prefer grabbing Nashor's if she's going damage. Nami can make decent use of it though, it's just most Nami players can't afford the spare slot because the item's expensive and half the time you don't want to go straight damage.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

looter is also going to give a spellblade like effect that increases range for an auto attack by 50 (for ranged)/125 (for melee).

im really looking forward to this one. maybe the other effects could be replaced with something else, but id prefer the range boost to stay.

it could really be a keystone for melee champions to deal better with ranged matchups.

Luskeutua2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cEObuetA,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2017-09-27T02:50:04.137+0000)

looter is also going to give a spellblade like effect that increases auto attack range for an auto attack by 50/125 depending if youre melee or ranged.

im really looking forward to this one. maybe the other effects could be replaced with something else, but id prefer the range boost to stay.

it could really be a keystone for melee champions to deal better with ranged matchups.

I mean, if they replace it with something interesting, that'd be awesome. I just don't want it to be 'beat face for gold'.

Critmaster Garen2 votes

i wonder how feasable it would be to make this almost a stack mechanic like the new grasp, and have the range of the effect increase by 1/2 every time you use it on champions.

imagine you use it off cooldown and at some point that attack added like 100 to 200 more range for melee and 50 to 100 more for ranged over the course of a game.

gettingfood1 votes

I have a suggestion for the lady keystone for the inspiration tree.

It's clear that this tree is not suppose to give you a sheer stat boost to win fights. I like this idea.

Deathly friend When you get a kill or assist, the enemy will have an increased death timer. Deal increased damage to recently dead champions.

For example, you'd have a easier time killing people after GA or any other champions that avoid death. Granting you a better chance closing a fight after it should been over. Unless you want to tune either property to be keystone worthy by themselves.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes