"Strategic Diversity" Thoughts
Before i start let me say that the definition of diversity is as follows: the state of being diverse; variety. OR a range of different things. (taken from google) So that being said with strategic diversity into play as a main objective for season 5 its should not just be "Play" Items, such as how the zzrot portal is good for split pushing, But there SHOULD (feel free to give feedback on this) be a "diverse" response to anything the enemy can throw at you. For example, against hard cc ults like Warwick and Malzahar, we have thinks like Quicksilver Sash or Mercurial scimitar, for bursty ults we have zhonyas hourglass, for tanks we have last whisper, (this is gonna be another tank rant) Why is there no such thing as "True Armor" opposed to true damage? So the armor item wont have +100 armor like a randuins but it would say have +30 TRUE ARMOR for playing against champions like Irelia, Master Yi or Corki, who heavily rely on true damage which, when snowballed can be very over powered. What im saying is just a prototype theory, and riot will likely never implement such a thing, but if we have counter items to champions like Zed (Zhonyas) or Warwick (QSS) what's to say we cant have true armor?
If riot plans on showing true meaning to strategic diversity then they cant just make items that go one way, they need a diverse response of possible items to counter that, For example, Maybe there could be a portal (like zzrot) that would find and kill zzrot minions and portals, this might not be such a bad idea, (This idea comes from being stuck under my turret while i am vs a heim top, who has me locked with 3 turrets and a zzrot portal that hammers my turret so i auto lose lane). Or what if there was a champion ability or an item (item may be op for this) that could remove champion buffs such as Zileans ultimate.
Starting items: Why is it that starting items are now so limited? we used to have elixirs which now are reserved for level 9(not a bad thing) but for say a champion who is energy based like shen or zed, could it be a good idea to give an item that expires at say level 9, and is purly for the start of the game? say this irem might increase max energy at the start by +20, or increase energy regen by 5. Or perhaps for supports there could be an item that allows them to block an enemy basic attack with a reasonable cooldown( looking at sonas low q range). Lastly why is it that now junglers seem to be forced into on specific path of "hunters machete". By making the 4 enchants it has widened the "strategic diversity" of that one item yes, however, junglers are now forced into that path. Can there ever be an alternate start to jungle instead of hunters machete? Jungling is hard nowadays, if you start gromp and you only have hunters + 2 health pots you can likely only clear 2-3 camps and when you return to jungle you are lucky if you had enough gold to wait for your machete upgrade but likely dont have any potions unless you wait longer.
Junglers are often underleveled when it comes to teamfights, and by often i mean literally ever single game ive played. So what if there was an alternate jungle start item that gave +XP on large jungle monster kill instead of +gold? This would widen the possible meta of junglers and it would introduce jungle champions that rely on utility through leveling up rather than items. An example of this would be an amumu ganking mid while mid is level 6 and he is level 4, compared to if amumu and mid were both level 6 and the gank wasnt a waste of time because amumu is XP broke.
Final point: if riot thinks strategic diversity is a good season goal then items should be implemented to counterplay. Mikaels crucible, Zhonyas hourglass or QSS are all great examples of this. But there is not enough "Play" and "counter counter play"(if that works?) Feel free to leave me some feedback as im interested to see what everybody else thinks about this.
