New Dark Harvest is Poor Design

Dessem·12/4/2018, 2:11:07 PM·15 votes·9,242 views

The new Dark Harvest version (do damage to enemy champion in any way, deal stacking bonus damage if they are at 50% or less health) is poor design comparitive to the rest of the rune designs.

Chiefly because it lacks counter-play and gameplay incentive both. Please consider.

Every other keystone rune fits specifically with a particular group (Aery for Enchanters, for example), or encourages a specific sort of gameplay, either laning style (Fleet Footwork, Conqueror) or battle style (Electrocute for combo'ers, Aftershock for balls deep divers).

Comparitively, neoDark Harvest fits well with any champion who can in any way damage another champion who is at 50% or less health. It offers a greater reward for champs who do this consistently, but it's extra damage, no questions asked, so long as you do anything to a champ at half HP.

There is no interactive gameplay in Dark Harvest at all currently. The only thing the opponent can do is "be at more than 50% HP", the only interactivity for the user is "do at least 1 damage to target by any means". Okay, one other thing: someone at 49% HP can trigger the bonus damage on themselves so it can't trigger on others, but given damage levels in League, that could mean you're dead, or as good as dead after laning phase.

Resetting on kill encourages some gameplay (clean up teamfights), but not to the level other Runes do. It's insufficiently engaging.

I think either making Dark Harvest more restrictive (triggers at 30% HP for example) or more of a gameplay element (only triggers if your attack does xx damage, encouraging building raw damage) would take away from its current issues.

I'm not saying it's overpowered necessarily, but it needs to fall in line with the rest of the runes regardless of power level. Be for a specific champion group, encourage gameplay patterns or encourage build paths. Don't just be "generic scaling bonus damage for everyone under a common condition."

13 Comments

Robert Smith12/4/2018, 3:03:50 PM7 votes

The fact that it can proc with ignite is something I find poorly thought out

XL BENCH PRESS12/4/2018, 3:16:21 PM4 votes

The best thing about new Dark Harvest is that EVERYONE IS RUNNING IT! Even ADCs.

Since the rework I'm seeing about 5 or 6 Dark Harvests each game.

I even saw Hecarim with it instead of Predator now.

Great job fixing an OP rune Riot

[slayer-jinx-wink]

Mordius12/4/2018, 2:53:42 PM4 votes

It does electrocute's job, but better.

It made bursty champions, more bursty. And gave DoT champions, burst mechanics.

So yeah. Pretty poorly designed

Instead of putting a CD timer on the stack portion of the ability, they should have it on the damage portion. So you can still farm stacks while the damage portion is on cooldown. So when it is off cooldown, it is stronger because more stacks, but you also dont have champions getting a free kill reset damage ability, because now it has a proper cooldown

Rabbi Shekelberg12/4/2018, 8:49:47 PM2 votes

What did you expect from the lie design team and balance team? these two ruined the game step by step since season 5. constant random toxic reworks, failed reworks, failed class updates, failed item designs, failed item balances, toxic ruin designs, failed rune balances. overall failed balances across the board because the dying Esport is getting all the attention.

xDogMeatx12/4/2018, 3:47:43 PM2 votes
CloakAndGrenade12/5/2018, 2:34:51 AM1 votes

To think that it was only used by a few junglers and Miss Fortune and Riot decided to 'fix' it by making it viable on literally every champion in the game. "Hmm, this is broken, let's break it more!". Do they even have players on the balance team anymore?

Alzon12/4/2018, 6:52:33 PM1 votes

Compared to Electricute, Dark Harvest is better: on champs who have trouble getting the triple hit, in deathballs, and in the late game. It is worse in every other case.

The recent turret changes were decent for discouraging early deathballs... unless someone gets a lead. Then it’s even stronger than before because the team with the lead owns the entire map.

KennysDreamGirl12/5/2018, 12:49:10 AM1 votes

I don't think its a bad design. I just think they overtuned it and didn't think it fully through on what should proc it (I just read a comment here saying ignite can proc it? that's kind of dumb) I like the way it works more than the older version, it just needs some tuning

FartboyExtreme12/5/2018, 1:54:41 AM1 votes

It indirectly hard nerfed my favorite champion, my 92% wr vladimir which is now 70% after dark harvest, because i've just stopped playing him now to stop the tank in my winrate. I literally can't predict when to W or Zhonya's because supports' poke dmg will sometimes just oneshot me. If this rune doesnt get removed after preseason, i'll play a different game until it does.