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Fixing Ohmwrecker - making it a proper Tank item

EnvyDragon··3 votes·644 views

So, I think we can agree the Point Runner passive hasn't made Ohmwrecker worth buying yet, right? Ohmwrecker is a cool idea, but it needs more work.

I'll start with the suggestion. Changes in bold.

Ohmwrecker 2600g, builds from Raptor Cloak, Kindlegem, and 750 gold for recipe

+300 health +50 armor +100% base hp/5 +10%cdr

Passive: Point Runner (as on live)

Active: Taunts any towers in range, forcing them to attack your champion. Grants 70% reduced damage from towers that falls off quickly after 3 seconds. 120-second cooldown. (Values are up for debate, particularly the duration.)

Ohmwrecker on live is very clearly a tank item - that's what the stats seem to suggest. Why, then, does the active feel more at home on an assassin or support?

That's one of the problems with the item as I see it. The niche of "tower-disabler" is a confused one, and it doesn't instantly feel at home on any role. I could see it being an assassin item (tower dives ftw), or a support item (facilitiating other players ftw) as well as a tank item (preventing team damage ftw). Riot has pretty clearly decided it's a tank item, and I'm not going to get into the reasons I agree with them here, but that active - the "disable a tower for 3 seconds" active - is totally not a tank active.

The tank role can be summarized as follows: keep damage and harmful effects from being inflicted upon your team by placing yourself in harm's way. Sometimes that's literally what happens Braum and sometimes not so much Amumu but the biggest thing tanks tend to have in common is that they are effective by being present. They bodyblock. They drop localized CC. They knockback or stun or glare menacingly at the enemy because the fact that they can do so causes them to generate threat - and if they're generating threat, the enemy is expending resources against them that would otherwise be used against vulnerable teammates.

When you disable a tower with Ohmwrecker, that gives your team a 3-second window to wreck as much as they can before the tower starts shooting again. There is no way to work around this for either side, and when the tower starts shooting again, it decides pretty much at random (or based on who's been dealing damage to champions... which is more likely to be a squishy than anyone else). This is not a tank ability. You can drop this and walk away if you want to and it will be just as effective. You can breakdance under tower for the entire duration and that won't make it more effective.

But if the active becomes a taunt, you are forced to play the tank.

3 seconds isn't enough? Then the tank can choose to stay and keep taking the hits while the rest of the team cleans up. Tank doesn't feel like committing? Then he has failed - he walks out of tower range, it reselects its target, and his team is in serious danger. This also forces the enemy team to make a decision: do they kill the tank quickly to get the tower back into the fight? Or do they fight as normal, mindful of the fact that they've lost most of their defender's advantage?

It helps earlier on as well, especially if the tank is a jungler. Feel like diving a tower as Hecarim, but your allies in lane can't get in safely? Turn on Ohmwrecker and hold the door for them for just... one... more... second. Friendly Zed has drawn turret aggro? Pull it off him and give him the opening he needs to melt faces!

...And while we're talking about Ohmwrecker anyway, maybe we could make the Point Runner passive work on dead towers too, like the PreS5 patch notes said it would. By the time you get Ohmwrecker there frankly aren't going to be many towers left to use it on.

9 Comments

MPendragon1 votes

I think they should make Ohmwrecker scale reverse linearly.

Have the duration you may use it on tower last a longer period of time earlier on in the game, than it would otherwise later on in the game.

For example, in theory;

Level 1: Lasts 15 seconds. Level 6: Lasts 12 seconds. Level 11: Lasts 6 seconds. Level 16: Lasts 3 seconds. Level 18: Not available

I mean sure, the numbers seem unbalanced, but really, you aren't going to have an Ohmwrecker at level 1, unless you Firewall Crashed, and couldn't enter into the game until the 20 minute mark, which by then it almost seems logical to give an advantage to being a lower level.

EnvyDragon2 votes

What? But... but half the problem is that Ohmwrecker becomes practically useless as the game goes on already. Why would you want to make that literally the case?

Early game, Ohmwrecker isn't worth buying, and if it was, it would destroy the lane phase by removing towers as a threat (especially with 10+ second duration jesus fuck). Lategame it stops being valuable because towers aren't the problem, champions are. The enemy players defend towers from your aggression, and you need to dislodge them to secure the objectives. Ohmwrecker lets you shut down the tower so it becomes a 1v1, not a 1v1+tower.

I say 1v1 not because it's always 1v1, but because the more enemy champions there are, the longer the fight will take, and the less likely that 3-second window will make enough of a difference to matter. When was the last time you saw a full teamfight conclude in 3 seconds?

A taunt is better because it forces you to commit. It rewards your team proportionally to the risk you are willing to take on as an individual. This scales well lategame, giving you an answer to towers without trivializing them, but can be used in a pinch early on without breaking the damn game.

MPendragon1 votes

Well you would sell it late game, of course, when you're powerful enough to swap it out and you don't need 'as much' protection against towers, because they're already all destroyed.

Numerous champions have built in kits that give them tower diving invulnerability, which is the bane of the balance forum itself, yet why not modify the item to give that potential as counterplay?

EnvyDragon1 votes

...This is a 2600 gold item, you realize. You can't invest that much money into something you plan to "sell lategame." If I buy it at 10 minutes and sell it at 30, that's 20 minutes I could have spent with a Sunfire Cape, Athene's Unholy Grail, or Statikk Shiv (plus 100 gold).

And if you reduce the price, you're increasing access to an item that you've given a 12-second tower disable to before level 11. I'm not sure you realize how long 12 seconds is. Hell, the reason Ohmwrecker only works for 3 on live is because if you increase it beyond that, you break the game. Even the 6-second duration you've suggested for level 11-16 is enough that a lot of champions can literally wait for a minion wave to pass, walk up, activate Ohmwrecker, and kill it before it can attack again. Without help.

Numerous champions have built in kits that give them tower diving invulnerability, which is the bane of the balance forum itself, yet why not modify the item to give that potential as counterplay?

...Because it's the bane of the balance forum for a good reason?

I'm trying to make Ohmwrecker HEALTHY, not overpowered.

MPendragon1 votes

But why not make it overpowered? It's the least purchased item in the entire game.

Junglers sell their jungle item late game, because it's less effective than other purchases they can buy. If you disagree, what's the point of gaining increased gold per minion slayed if you're already 6 slotted with enchanted boots, an upgraded trinket, and an elixir?

EnvyDragon1 votes

Because if you make it overpowered, it will become the most-purchased item in the game. Then it will ruin the game because its design makes it very prone to screwing up the balance of play. Towers will cease to matter, people will rush down lanes super-early, the game will change completely, players will leave because everything has changed for the worse.

Jungle items are different because they're essential until you hit 6 items (and even then sometimes the player will keep the item - Devourer enchant, for example) rather than simply being good. Your existence as a team member, as a jungler, relies on having a jungle item up until the point that the jungle becomes obsolete.

MPendragon1 votes

And why downvote my posts? I didn't downvote you, I was just the only one who commented.

If you disagree, then disagree, no reason to be toxic about it.

EnvyDragon1 votes

Downvoting posts isn't toxic. It means "I disagree with this post."

If a post has a lot of downvotes, that means it's an unpopular opinion. I think your opinion is wrong (dangerous to game health, in fact) so I downvoted the post. Other people did too.

Tis a nice day1 votes

I quite like the idea. It secures the item's position as a tank item.

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