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Why does Relic shield exist?

VDc0zCqe0w··2 votes·1,175 views

Supports have strenghts and weaknesses, and usually poke supports > tank all-in supports > sustain- utility supports > poke supports

Poke supports can buy spellthief edge wich adds some damage to their spells: that's fine, there is nothing really strange about that.

Sustain-utility supports can buy ancient coin wich gives them more regen: nothing strange about that.

Then why tank all-in supports can buy relic wich gives them something that they shouldn't have in the first place? Why are tank supports allowed to have sustain, thus negating their main weakness? (being weak to poke)

Relic shield is single-handedly crowding out a whole class of supports (poke/sustain ones or just pokey supports) and simply shouldn't be in this game.

Are you still surprised Janna got the highest winrate out of any support? It's next to impossible to play any poke support, sure as hell she got high winrate since she will be facing a tank (wich she hard counters) every game, and the problem is this item item 3302

item 3303 being insanely bad doesn't help either

19 Comments

disregardable6 votes

How do you make an engage support item that wouldn't be equally good or better on poke supports? Removing item 3302 entirely isn't a fair option so what would you replace its current passive with?

VDc0zCqe0w1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The AFK Farmer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oowyUh3l,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-08-05T12:44:44.145+0000)

How do you make an engage support item that wouldn't be equally good or better on poke supports? Removing item 3302 entirely isn't a fair option so what would you replace its current passive with?

such an item shouldn't be good vs poke supports, that's the whole concept of all-in support: you suck dicks vs a poke support and win against sustain

you shouldn't have something that helps you vs poke: you should lose against that

kJs3 votes

No. That's not Riot's philosophy. That's Valve's philosophy on Dota 2.

Riot doesn't like super hard counters. They actually try to keep the variety of playstyle where it is while giving plenty of counters to it.

I agree with Riot.

VDc0zCqe0w1 votes

{quoted}

No. That's not Riot's philosophy. That's Valve's philosophy on Dota 2.

Riot doesn't like super hard counters. They actually try to keep the variety of playstyle where it is while giving plenty of counters to it.

I agree with Riot.

well fuck you then

i'll keep spamming my Janna and shitting on every single cancerous garbage tank i find, that's fine to me, i would like to play something else tho

kJs1 votes

Well then great for you, you found a good counter, Janna. Annie also shits on "garbage" tanks if played correctly.

You can match tank supports with your own tank supports. Nautilus vs Braum Leona vs Thresh Blitz vs Taric

I think there are plenty of support tanks that also vary in play.

kJs3 votes

I don't understand this. It's based on exaggeration and misconception.

Relic Shield doesn't heal much at all. Your Vayne can keep poking the Braum, it won't matter how high tier his Relic shield is he's not going to heal much of it. A proc of Relic Shield isn't going to heal back all of Vayne's or Corki's or Lucian's likely 2 or 3 autoattack harass. This doesn't even include the harass you get from Sona, Soraka and Nami.

Find and look at the numbers.

Relic Shield actually gives tank supports a chance at staying in lane as long as the Sona, Soraka, Nami etc.

Spellthiefs isn't a bad item either.

VDc0zCqe0w1 votes

{quoted}

Relic Shield actually gives tank supports a chance at staying in lane as long as the Sona, Soraka, Nami etc.

if by "staying in lane" you mean "completely making poke supports unviable" then you got a point

kJs4 votes

"Staying in lane" as in "survive the heavy poke that Sona, Nami, Soraka, Annie , Ezreal, Vayne and every other ADC that's good at it dish out every few seconds."

I don't know what game you're playing but it's definitely not League of Legends.

dannykun2 votes

ATM Relic shield is way overtuned, if you really honestly thought about it the health and health restoration is extremely significant because it has almost no downside. and a tank support that uses this item literally only needs to survive until they can get whatever their main engage tools are online, and then it's smooth sailing in the kill lane. the point of the poke hard counter is to stop them from reaching their critical mass engage timer (usually level 2-3) and allow your adc to safely farm. so yeah I'd say the 80-120 health you+your partner get is a HUGE negation of some really important counterplay.

sorry numbers aren't 100% on the dot accurate, but it's a fair representation of how the item seriously destroys poke lanes.

oh and as for your "heavy poke" champs, 2-3 casts of sona's q is almost half her mana pool, 2 casts of nami's tidal waves is pretty much half her mana pool at lvl 2 (so if she isn't landing more than one or two parts of it it's not really mana efficient), soraka's q is probably one of the cheaper ones with 3-4 casts of it being closer to half her mana pool, and annie has some really high mana costs if she isn't getting refunds on her q with 3 casts of q being close to half her mana pool.

I'm aware that a lot of these champs will build a ton of mana regen to try to make their poke more often available, but doing that makes your one easy to kill squishy. also poke champs generally don't have the damage to just kill off a champ, they are poke champs because they have short cd harrassment that allows them to zone opponents and keep them off your adc. their damage is generally ass at best in a real engage.

kJs2 votes

Add the damage that an Ezreal can dish out by the time a support finishes Face of the Mountain. Typically I'm stuck with Targon's Embrace for the majority of lane phase because I need to buy SIghstone, Warden's Mail or something similar and some boots of mobility for quick engages. Relic Shield, Targon's Embrace or Face of the Mountain doesn't provide any "damage mitigation" like armor does.

One bad moment of positioning (your adc not being in range to back you up) can end up in you easily receiving over 200 damage with spellthief's and ADC abilities and autoattacks. At level 5 with a targon's you heal at most 150 of that back (3 passive procs) for a moment , not mentioning you being harassed even more trying to cs minions in melee range bcz range abilities on CD. Any damage you receive after that you can heal at least 50 health/30 seconds assuming you use it every time a stack comes up. ADCs easily outdamages Relic Shield's and Targon's health return with them usually having over 100 AD a couple of minutes into the game.

Good poke players won't get caught. I've played with really good Sonas and really bad Sonas, the difference between them is that bad Sonas get half healthed at level 1 trying to poke me as Braum and that significantly releases pressure. Bad Sonas also don't realise that their basic attacks (unbuffed) deal good damage early as well. Ezreals have no trouble staying out of range. The constant Q spam is vexing for tanky supports. Braum, Nautilus, Thresh can't shield every single Q Ezreals land. We're forced to dance around.

If they pick Leona support and the leona can land her Zeniths really well then you got counter-picked. You shouldn't have any real trouble against any other support.

Other champions that do really well at poking are Caitlyn, Vayne, Kog'Maw, Tristana. All whom have really nice disengage abilities if they ever do get caught besides Kog of course.

If a Braum smashes lane because of a couple of bad trades early and rushes Face of the Mountain, then you're going to have trouble keeping the poke up. You fed them and now your paying for it.

Relic Shield, Targon's Embrace and Face of the Mountain give a bit of sustain to help tanks survive in lane. The items are balanced.

dannykun2 votes

well unless you just stand there and take it in lane (assuming you're not completely retarded) there's a reason this item is considered really powerful. it tips the scales in the opposite direction of what is supposed to be an unfavorable match up far too early. poke champs rely heavily on the first few levels to force one of their opponents to be too low to engage, and an item that trivializes heavy costing poke is bad design. I honestly think the item should function more like the current black brawlers support item. give them a shield that helps them mitigate poke or dmg from engaging. it's far more healthy design for the item. and yes face of the mountain has that as an active, but I think the way that black brawlers has it designed is much better balance wise.

you also forget that an ADC that focuses on poking a tank isn't farming, and will end up pretty far behind. another good assumption is that the adc isn't positioned aggressively as that makes getting harrassed too easy. your argument is based on the assumption that there aren't any external factors to the lane, leo gets to hide in a bush and wait for a critical engage at lvl 2, braum can hang back behind minions and thresh can wait for you to try to poke to land his hook on you. all in champs are at their weakest at lvl 1 and naturally outscale all other supports just by getting bigger because they can capitalize on that. **without a lasting punishment for that leo or thresh standing in the brush you can't expect any other supports kit to compete. **

aside from cait, who's the queen of lane bully, the rest don't have a very good set up for poking until it's too late. kog maw needs w to really get harrassment going without being punished (most likely very heavily with a stun and quite a few auto's), vayne's three hit combo isn't really going till lvl 3-4, trist doesn't have the range to poke another champ till at least 6, at least not without putting herself in a dangerous situation. very few adc's are designed to poke, ez lucian and corki are the few that have kits that are designed to do just that, but very few others have kits that are good for it. auto harrassment comes with the punishment of minion aggro, so assuming you don't want to take too much unnecessary damage from them you have very small windows in which this is a viable option for poking.

also you used vayne and kogmaw in the same sentence as good disengage...

kJs1 votes

Oops, I'll correct that. Vayne has condemn for any engaging support tanks. A dash for better distance and invisibility (lvl6) for disorientation. I think she has good disengage throughout the game, personally. Her invisibility can be complemented with movement speed buffs that a lot of mage pokers seem to have. For quick poke or skirmish engages Vayne has her passive. Her W gives her a extra damage against any tanks that try to engage on her.

Kog'Maw is a bad example of a disengage ADC. That was a stupid mistake on my part. However with proper positioning, W range/% damage buffs and E slows he can seriously dish out some long range poke. He has everything he needs for taking down tanky champions except for escape/disengage abilities. The support has to cover that. Sona is a great example, good poke with movement speed boosts for the Kog'Maw that is skirting the edges of the battle.

Tristana can lay down really strong harass/poke with her bomb timers. Her being able to deal AoE damage with her autoattacks and receiving AA range/level gives her plenty of room to deal damage whilst simultaneously CS imo.

dannykun1 votes

there we go proper positioning is different than actual disengage. vayne I can hand you, though usually vayne players think of condemn as a stun only use, you're right that's a ton of ground covered if you condemn and tumble away.

tristana has the least safe laning phase as her AA/casting ranges are all extremely short compared to most all adc's her explosive shots is the only semi reliable harrass she has, and assuming you aren't total derps you won't stand near creeps she will cs, or you will severely punish her trying to cs. she simply doesn't have good harrass, she DOES however do really well when you get the chance to all in, that bomb hurts quite a bit if she can get someone locked down long enough to get 3-4 auto's into it. however both koggy and trist have the downfall that they rely on someone else to keep them safe in order to get harrassment out. unlike cait or ez who can dish out pain without much worrying about someone raining on their parade. the skills and theory sound nice, but you have to realize almost everything comes at a price in a duo lane, and right now that price is that you get lept on by a tank sup for getting close.

VDc0zCqe0w1 votes

{quoted}

One bad moment of positioning (your adc not being in range to back you up) can end up in you easily receiving over 200 damage with spellthief's and ADC abilities and autoattacks. At level 5 with a targon's you heal at most 150 of that back (3 passive procs) for a moment , not mentioning you being harassed even more trying to cs minions in melee range bcz range abilities on CD. Any damage you receive after that you can heal at least 50 health/30 seconds assuming you use it every time a stack comes up. ADCs easily outdamages Relic Shield's and Targon's health return with them usually having over 100 AD a couple of minutes into the game.

your whole argument is "if the tank is a retard then he gets poked", well i don't play vs retards

{quoted}

Relic Shield, Targon's Embrace and Face of the Mountain give a bit of sustain to help tanks survive in lane. The items are balanced.

no, there's a fucking reason if no one ever picks poke support: because it's impossible to break through the imbalanced sustain before it's too late and he starts outscaling you

why does the spellthief deal only 5 damage while relic heals for 40 and targon halves the CD? the numbers are totally off keep in mind that healing is not mitigated by mres or armor while spellthief damage is

kJs1 votes

It's also possible to fuck your positioning and receive over 300+ damage.

If the duo you're versing is good enough to, figuratively, dodge every single shot and stay out of basic attack range then you've already been hard countered anyway.

Spellthief's Edge deals 10 additional damage. So that's 30 extra damage in a burst of three attacks; like 2 seconds approx.

Every minute Spellthief's Edge can add: 10(1 stack)x6 (Assuming you didn't spend any stacks before an engage) + 30. That's a total of 90 extra damage depending on spell damage/basic attacks.

Say an ADCs base AD is 50. If the ADC gets to land a basic attack and one after every 10 seconds (matching the support's spellthief passive proc) that's a base physical damage of 350. Couple this damage to a support's base AD that is 50. additional 350 physical. 790 total "optimized" raw damage towards the enemy support and ADC. However you decide to split your damage output between the two. Support against their tanky support and ADC vs their ADC.

Every minute Relic Shield can heal: 40x2 in a few couple of seconds of proccing two relic shield stacks +1 if you count the few moments after the whole minute. 80 (or 120 if three stacks are consumed) health for you and for your ADC. Keep in mind this requires two low health minions half the time you aren't going to have one straight up, might even have to wait a bit more time for the safety of walking up to a minion and last hitting it. Or Spending one of your range abilities to finish one off. Situationally you could get two low health minions nearby after every fight. Almost forgot, Supports typically save one of Spoils of War for the siege minion. That skews the numbers even more.

However I am aware that if you spend your Spoils of War stacks ASAP by the time you get your 3rd stack of the game the enemy siege minion would be well into the frontlines, assuming your lane doesn't overwhelm nor your ADC attacks the siege minion for themself then you can get a stack off of that. Otherwise the Support isn't optimising their Spoils of War.

120 health back to the ADC who got damaged by the ADC with basic attacks for raw 350 damage. 120 health back to the support who got damaged by the Support with just basic attacks raw 440 damage.

Say the victims have base 25 Armor (for support) and 25 (for ADC). 280 Damage towards the victim ADC. 352 Damage towards the victim Support.

280 - 120 = 160 net loss health. 352 - 120 = 232 net loss health.

With this scenario, you're still out-damaging their heals from Relic Shield without abilities. So no mana wastage. Imagine if I put abilities in. Relic Shield, Targon's Embrace only work to dampen poke not outright negate or even heal off over it.

  • There are too many variables to put into one working "global scenario".

Tanky supports typically have strong base health regen but I doubt it can clearly surpass 232 net loss health in a one or two minutes.

You could argue that the damage is less because you can't fit six landing basic attacks in a minute well, I can't be fucked doing this over again m8 and if your support can't proc his/her Spellthief's passive every 10 seconds with either and ability or basic attack then get a new support that one is shite.

These items have been carefully crafted to not be OP or UP. The numbers are not totally off.

**You're over-exaggerating and misconceiving its effectiveness. **

Trash MammaI3 votes

This sounds like something a sona main would cry about because their Q did 85% of someones hp instead of 90% because relic healed that 5% back

Cowgirl Ed3 votes

"Hey guys pls let me use my stacks on minions" Ally proceeds tp waste half mana bar to destroy every single minion to be sure the support don't get a single one

Or even funnier: "WTF Alistar you stealing my minions gtfo my lane" "But dude I have shield" "suck a dick noob reported"

kJs2 votes

Yeah.

It's easier to pull off poking than it is to pull of minion last hits by the time your inconsiderate ADC has BF sword let alone with any crit item.

Nekusen1 votes

shield is actually OK, the one that isn't worth getting is item 3098 and item 3092 you are better off by keeping item 3303 because at least its gold efficient. but with the resent buffs item 3069 is just better most of the time

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