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I don't like the Heal&Shield stat and think it pigeonholes future enchanter designs

Moody P··6 votes·1,717 views

Most enchanters already have the problem of being too closely related to each other in their purpose and function; they throw their heals/shields on you, they throw like one steroid on you, and they usually have at least one good, hard CC.

Given that we haven't seen a proper (laning) Enchanter since Nami, and we haven't had any of the enchanters reworked since way before Heal/Shield was even a stat, I can't help but be worried that whenever Riot DOES push one out it'll be bottlenecked into a more 'safe' package because without having a heal or shield, they'll be denied a huge portion of Enchanter items that involve themselves with the stat. And Enchanters are sorely lacking in unique and standout mechanics already, with their great potential heavily dampened by Riot's concerns of being too niche.

I don't think it was an issue when supports had more AP in their items. I know it makes them more obnoxious in solo lanes when they were like that back in the day, but this feels like it's a bandaid more than a proper fix, which would be addressing Enchanter kits directly if you don't want them to be able to go top/mid and just shut all aggression down like Lulu and pre-work Soraka used to.

I'm hoping that when Enchanters finally get the work done on them that they've been waiting far too long for that we can phase the stat out and not prevent new designs from feeling forced to include these two things.

8 Comments

ModKnightsKemplar3 votes

See, I'm on the opposite end.

I would love to see a "utility stat" that was for more than just shields and heals, but could help scaling on things like cc duration. I think that could help many champions be viable in other roles.

As far as enchanters go, I think Taric is a standout example of an enchanter that can have a neat design and not even be pigeonholed into buying heal/shield items. It's definitely possible to do but making sure that they have mechanics really help them synergize with teammates.

Unfortunately, they have traditionally done this much better with tank supports. Taric's W interactions and Leona's passive ensure that they never become oppressive in solo lanes, no matter how strong they are in bot (funneling strat excepted with Taric mid; he needs a partner, is my point). I would love to see more "traditional" enchanters have these restrictions.

Bonuses for casting shields on an ally or additional ally-centric mechanics are the key. There are good lessons to learn from tank supports. Riot just needs to apply them to enchanters.

Moody P2 votes

I'm totally fine with enchanters being solo laners. At least in concept; I think the execution of it, currently, is very poor, but that's more a fault of very old designs than it is with the very idea being wrong.

Taric doesn't need the H/S stat by having a lot of different ways to scale - health and armor (and mana). He's very opposite the standard support curve since his weak early is made up for by having arguably the best late game of any support except for Sona -- and unlike Sona Taric is pretty tanky. I don't know if traditional supports will have the same options he does.

Like I said to someone else, utility scaling makes me nervous. I already don't care much for Pyke's CC scaling with lethality after the last changes - I understand they really, really want him building the stat, but it doesn't bode well being applied to everyone since it would either have huge consequences for everyone else if you actually factor it in as a stat that anyone can or should buy, or it would be a complete passover for most of the roster but would muck up enchanters/tank supports in their value to teams by having their main contribution stuck behind gold when the entire point of a support is functioning well without gold.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

But I don't think Taric's status as a tank or a late-game champ has too much to do with that duo-centric design. His spells are just more powerful when he has a lane partner. That's a very easy concept to apply to other supports.

I maybe muddled two points here with my post, but I think we could do away with heal/shield altogether if Riot balanced the enchanters around duo-centric mechanics. Those two things are kind of opposite solutions to me. Riot chose to go with heal/shield stat and nerfing AP ratios. They could go the other direction, getting rid of the heal/shield stat and buffing AP ratios again if they just made sure that those spells didn't become oppressive in lane. And the way to do that is require the presence of an ally to get full effectiveness.

Lulu is the prefect example of violating that rule. None of her spells require an ally to be good, so if she's strong in an AP-only world, of course she's gonna be oppressive as a solo laner. That couldn't happen to Taric even if he had a vastly different power curve. He needs his ally to be 100% effective, imo.

Tulare1 votes

Once upon a time, there was talk of an actual 'utility power' stat. So instead of an informal stat like the heal/shield thing, you'd actually have a third numeric scaling. For example, on Janna, the damage of her tornado and zephyr would scale with AP but zephyr's slow and the strength of her shield would scale with UP. I don't know if it's a good idea but it would certainly shake things up.

Moody P1 votes

The issue is - a stat like that would be very finicky and would likely fuck up the support position based on who even has that stat in their kit to begin with.

I strongly prefer the concept that DOTA runs with, where supports have insanely good base values but their items are almost entirely utility-based rather than offering hard stats to scale with. That's also what League used to have back until they wanted supports to actually buy more items - around the time Sightstone was introduced, I think, is when they started making more items than just a gold gen item and a bunch of wards. I think the spirit of the old could still function perfectly fine with the newer design direction, though, and would be the best way to handle things than making utility scale with a stat you have to buy.

BLIGHTBRINGER1 votes

I think it's fine when it comes to healers (since there's Grievous Wounds to counter the overall healing), for shield users however I think it's a bit problematic.

Moody P1 votes

It's not that I don't like it because it lets healers/shielders scale their protection, it's more that having this as a stat, and as a stat that's on almost every utility item that enchanters pick up, is going to make it a necessity to design all future supports around having one of either in their kits, and it will heavily reduce the breathing room for more innovative kits to come out because at least one ability would be dedicated to a heal or a shield.

Noor Sakata1 votes

We don't need to complicate all roles there is no problem with having the enchanters role as a simple role , when someone says support , the first thing that comes to my mind is " Girl , Heal , Shield " that's the basic rule of supporting usually and there is no problem of keeping it this way there no problem having a new support that is a little hard to play , but the idea of healing and shielding shouldn't change , we really don't need more supports like Pyke

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