Why do we have both Barrier and Heal?
What niche does it fill? Every other summoner spell fills a specific niche. Ignite is damage. Exhaust is CC. Smite is jungling in general, with 4 flavors. Flash is mobility. Teleport is for long distance mobility. Ghost is for long term speed. Garrison is for people who accidentally hopped in the wrong queue. Clarity is for Mana. Heal is for survivability. Barrier is ALSO for survivability.
Yes, Heal and Barrier each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Heal's health sticks around, works on you and a friend, and gives a bit of speed. Meanwhile, Barrier is slightly stronger, and doesn't have diminishing returns when multiple people use it in succession.
However, notice that none of the other summoner spells have any other close comparison. Heal is often considered better than Barrier for many reasons. No other summoner spell aside from that can be considered to be really better than any other, only different or more useful. Is it more useful to take Teleport than Clarity? Often times yes, but because mana is fairly easy to manage, and Teleport just does a generally more useful thing, rather than being better at the same thing. There will never be a situation in which one could take Clarity instead of Teleport, and still be able to function more or less the same*. However, you can absolutely take Barrier instead of Heal and not notice any change. Heal isn't even noticeably weaker than Barrier when just used on yourself, so its niche isn't "help buddies".
Why does Barrier exist? What new, unique option does it add to the game?
*Unless you're TF and bad at managing mana.
