@Community: Help me make a League-balanced version of Spirit Link (WC3)
For the unfamiliar, Spirit Link is an ability used by the Spirit Walker, a Tauren spellcaster you get when playing as Orc. It works as follows:
"Links 4 units together in a chain. All units with Spirit Link on them will live longer, by distributing 50% of the damage they take across other Spirit Linked units."
As it is above, it'd be undoubtedly broken in League. You'd never be able to snipe someone. However, that's just numbers, which aren't the important part.
The underlying principle of the ability is what I am looking at: the ability to link together teammates so that any damage you take is distributed to your teammates, making you harder to focus down, but making your teammates suffer some of your pain as a price.
I'd like to see if this ability can be balanced at all for League. How would it be repurposed into a League-worthy ability? Who would it best be put on? What limitations should it have? What would be its counterplay?
For my own contributions, here are some jot notes that I think could work. They are only for brainstorming, so take them with a grain of salt.
- Spirit Link should be on an ultimate ability with a significant cooldown and only a modest duration, meaning you need to time it for when a team fight breaks out. It can't be a fire-and-forget long-lasting buff, or it won't require enough skill.
- Spirit Link should only work for physical and magic damage, and not work on true damage or tower attacks.
- Damage distributed to a teammate via Spirit Link should never be fatal. At worst, it can reduce you to 1 health, at which point you would have the Spirit Link buff removed.
- Spirit Link's distribution should be calculated AFTER resistances. For instance, if your team's tank is the one who is focused, your teammates should take less from the Spirit Link. As such, it's still most-favorable to focus the enemy team's carry even if he/she is Spirit Linked.