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General Balance Ideas

Aheadatime··6 votes·857 views

http://th00.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2013/165/9/d/zed_by_wacalac-d68zbou.jpg

Hey all. I realize that I'm not the most qualified to be dishing out balance concepts. I was a g1 player last season who has reset to g5 this season. I've been playing this game since season 2, though, so I have a good idea of how the game has changed over time. There's been many changes over the years; some good, some bad. This post is just me brainstorming regarding how to improve upon the delicate balance this game offers.

If you like some of the ideas but really can't stand one or two of them, please, don't be that guy. Don't downvote because I recommended a nerf to one of your champs. Just quote the section that you're not a fan of and let us know why you think it's a bad idea. Constructive criticism is welcome. Senselessly emotional outbursts are not. Keep in mind this post is light-hearted and imaginative. I don't believe for the life of me Riot will ever read this and think "This guy's right! Balance team, chop chop!!"

**Outer and Inner Turrets **

  • Third consecutive hit on a champion now stuns target champion for 0.5 seconds (unaffected by Tenacity)
  • Health increased to 2,200 from 2,000

Inhibitor Turrets

  • Slow now unaffected by Tenacity/Slow Resist
  • Maximum "Heat" lowered to 96 from 120 ("Ramp Up" duration lowered to 4 seconds from 5 seconds)
  • Damage per point of "Heat" increased to 1.30% from 1.05% (Max damage unchanged)
  • Health increased to 2,300 from 2,000

Nexus Turrets

  • Slow now unaffected by Tenacity/Slow Resist
  • Maximum "Heat" lowered to 72 from 120 ("Ramp Up" duration lowered to 3 seconds from 5 seconds)
  • Damage per point of "Heat" increased to 1.65% from 1.05% (Max damage unchanged)
  • Health increased to 2,400 from 2,000

Item Changes

item 3135 item 3035 Penetration reduced to 30% from 35%

item 3075 Passive now 50% effective (Increased from 0%) against true-damage-enhanced autosVayne MasterYi Irelia Corki (Does not work against DoT, Ex. Twitch) -50% of the item's 30% damage-return, meaning 15% damage-return. Not 50% damage-return.

item 3022 Now builds from item 3044 item 1011

  • 625 Combine Cost (Reduced from 1,025)
  • 2,950 Total Gold (Reduced from 3,300)
  • +600 Health (Reduced from 700)
  • +30 AD
  • Unique Passive - Rage (Unchanged from Phage)
  • Unique Passive - Icy - Autos slow targets movement speed by 20%[10% for Ranged] (Decreased from 40%[30% for Ranged] -Most people would suggest a new passive that leaches MS. This isn't a good idea as you could stack this with Rage via Trinity Force so that any champion can become Kalista. I wanted to ensure that doesn't take place.

item 3124 Now builds from item 3108 item 3134

  • 743 Combine cost (Reduced from 865)
  • 2,900 Total gold (Increased from 2,600)
  • +30 AD
  • +40 AP
  • +10 Armor Penetration (New)
  • +10 Magic Penetration (New)
  • +20% Cooldown Reduction (New)
  • Passive Removed
  • Unique Passive - Falling below 35% health (Reduced from 50%) grants 50% attack speed (Removed) 10% lifesteal and 10% spellvamp until out of combat for 5 seconds. 45 Second Cooldown (Increased from 30).

item 3050 Health increased to 300 from 250. Passive no longer stacks.

item 3027 Stacking passive now unique

  • 800 Combine cost (Increased from 740)
  • Upon reaching full stacks, now transforms into "Rod of Oblivion", providing;
  • +700 Health (Increased from 650)
  • +700 Mana (Increased from 650)
  • +80 AP
  • Unique Active - Regenerates 5% maximum health and mana over 5 seconds. 100 second cooldown.

item 1043 Now builds out of item 1042

  • Cost remains unchanged (450 Dagger + 450 Combine)

item 3085 Now builds out of item 1043 item 1037

  • 725 Combine cost (Increased from 600)
  • 2,500 Total cost (Increased from 2,400)
  • +50% Attack Speed
  • +25 AD
  • Passive remains unchanged

New Item - Cloak of Honor - Builds from item 1033 item 1029

  • 20 Combine cost
  • 820 Total cost
  • +20 Armor
  • +20 Magic Resist

item 3105 Now builds from Cloak of Honor + item 1028

  • 500 Combine Cost (Decreased from 820)
  • 1,720 Total Cost (Decreased from 1,900)
  • +15 Armor
  • +15 Magic Resist
  • +200 Health
  • Unique Aura - Legion - Nearby allies gain 5 MR and 5 Armor (including item holder)(does not stack)

item 3190 Recipe Unchanged

  • 430 Combine Cost (Increased from 50)
  • 3,000 Total Cost (Increased from 2,800)
  • +15 Armor
  • +15 Magic Resist
  • +400 Health
  • +10% CDR
  • Unique Aura - Legion - Nearby allies gain 10 MR and 10 Armor (including item holder)(does not stack)
  • Unique Active - Unchanged

Champion Changes

Zed

  • Passive now 50% effective against minions and monsters (Decreased from 100%)
  • Living Shadow (W) energy cost increased to 60/55/50/55/40 from 40/35/30/25/20
  • Death Mark (R) shadow-spawn lasts for 4 seconds (Decreased from 6)

-Even with the increased energy costs, he can still full combo at level 3 with spare energy. I didn't want to remove the passive's effectiveness on minions entirely, as that may hurt his early game too much. Death Mark's shadow is one of the reasons he is viable at all atm, so rather than removing it, I thought reducing the window of time Zed has to get out would potentially make him think harder about when to ult in. Note that I didn't change his damage, ratios, or cooldowns whatsoever.

LeeSin

  • Sonic Wave (Q) AD ratio reduced to .8 from .9
  • Resonating Strike (Reactivated Q) AD ratio reduced to .8 from .9
  • Iron Will (Reactivated W) lifesteal/spellvamp reduced to 4/8/12/16/20% from 5/10/15/20/25%
  • Dragon's Rage (R) AD ratio reduced to 1.8 from 2.0, and now deals 60% damage to enemies that the target collides with.

-These nerfs equate to between 1-5% less lifesteal/spellvamp, a 0.4 decrease in his full-combo AD ratio, and the long-overdue (imo) damage decay on his ult. Note that I didn't touch his energy costs, cooldowns, base damages, slow%/duration, passive, or general mobility. I'm expecting alot of discussion regarding this proposal, including how soft I went, how I hate Lee, and Lee's pick/ban/win ratios. My body is ready.

Zac

  • Cell Division (passive) blob regeneration increased to 5% max health from 4%
  • Unstable Matter (W) %max health damage increased to 5/5.75/6.5/7.25/8 from 4/5/6/7/8

-Specifically designing changes for jungle Zac can get messy. These changes buff both his lane presence as well as his jungle presence, as I don't like cementing champions into a single role. Due to the counterplay inherent in lane (stepping on his blobs), however, these changes do buff jungle Zac a bit moreso than lane Zac.

Talon

  • Cutthroat (E) no longer slows enemy by 99% for .25 seconds
  • Cutthroat (E) now interrupts channels

-Nothing to see here folks. Pretty self-explanatory.

Galio

  • Resolute Smite (Q) mana costs decreased to 40/50/60/70/80 from 60/65/70/75/80
  • Iron of Durand (R) no longer suffers range penalty upon cancellation

-The early game mana buffs would really help Galio's awful early-game laning period. Penalizing Galio for having his ult cancelled makes little to no sense to me personally. He's penalized enough as-is by the cancellation's reduction in damage.

Hecarim

  • Rampage (Q) deals 75% damage to minions and monsters (Increased from 66%)
  • Spirit of the Dead (W) minion and monster heal cap 100/130/160/190/220 from 90/120/150/180/210

-These caps exist for a reason, and removing them would make Hec insanely strong. However, given the current state of the jungle, these changes might be a gentle push in the right direction.

Kalista

  • Rend (E) spears now last for 3 seconds (Decreased from 4)

*- Clearly, most would argue that mobility is the biggest issue with her kit. Riot has stated that they have some sort of plan for that, though, so I didn't want to fiddle with that mess. Given that the max attack speed a champion can reach is 2.5 autos per second, reducing the duration of her Rend spears by a second reduces the amount of stacks she can realistically accumulate by 2.5. Whether that gets rounded up or down is beyond me. At the very least, this is a minimum reduction in Rend's active damage by 64 + (.6 AD) at max rank. 60% of an ADC's AD ratio can be a pretty big deal. There is no way for me to know how this would pan out without testing it first-hand, however. Perhaps a better idea would be to reduce the AD ratio on the non-initial spears. *

Summoner Spells

summoner 1 - Removed

summoner 21

  • Shield strength reduced to 50-200 from 115-455.
  • Duration increased to 3 seconds from 2.
  • Now removes all disables and debuffs and grants 50% Tenacity for 3 seconds.

summoner 6

  • Movement speed increased to 30% from 27%.
  • Duration reduced to 8 seconds from 10.
  • Now grants 30% slow reduction for duration.

If you've made it this far, thank you for your patience! There was a lot more on my mind while creating this thread, but I didn't want to be up all night and bore you guys to death. I appreciate any and all feedback (besides the insulting, over-emotional kind), so let me know what you think.

11 Comments

OhOkYeah2 votes

Nice job with all that. Must have taken some time. Time you'll never get back.

Aheadatime1 votes

Thanks man, appreciate it.

OhOkYeah2 votes

What other ideas do you have for summoner spells? I only see people using 3-4 of them not including smite.

Aheadatime1 votes

That's a good question.

summoner 3 summoner 4 summoner 7 summoner 14 summoner 11 are in a pretty healthy spot imo, which leaves summoner 13 {{summoner:2}} .

{{summoner:2}} is difficult to improve upon due to the availability of things like scanner trinkets, orb trinkets, etc. It's hard to make this summoner spell unique. It might make sense if it passively allowed the user to have 4 wards on the map rather than the default 3, and/or make their wards last 30% longer.

summoner 13 is tricky too, but the difficulty is more specific. Basically, it's hard for me to imagine making it useful late game without making it stupid powerful early game. The idea I had was to attach a sort of cooldown-reset to it along with the free mana, but the question is how powerful? Passively give 10% CDR for X seconds after casting? Give an instant reduction in current cooldowns by X amount? Could people like Karthus abuse it for constant ults?

{{summoner:10}} is, from my perspective, for beginners. It should stay just the way it is. Not every summoner spell needs to be LCS approved.

OhOkYeah1 votes

I've been wanting to try a revive+teleport combo, maybe with a top lane tank. Seems like the only situation where revive could be useful.

The idea about Clairvoyance is awesome. Would become a good pick for jung/supp but not so amazing that you'd take it over exhaust/flash every time. The fact that it only lasts 5 seconds just makes it completely un-usable.

Aheadatime1 votes

That's the thing; imagine it lasting for 7 seconds.. or 8.. or 10. It can get pretty OP pretty quicky, especially given it's short cooldown. I think tacking on that passive we mentioned and slightly buffing the sight radius **or **the duration would be a good change.

You just gave me an idea with the tele/revive combo!! Imagine if revive refreshed your other summoner spell cooldown upon revival. So you tele into a teamfight, die, revive, tele back in since it's refreshed. I dunno, sounds kinda cool to me.

Downrun2 votes

Interesting ideas. I especially like the itemization changes.

Aheadatime1 votes

Thank you :D

Gunpoint2 votes

Agree on all of it but Frozen Mallet, it used to build from Phage and Giants belt, they changed it for a reason, slow + speed boost on one item is op.

Aheadatime1 votes

Yes, even after ensuring it couldn't stack with Trinity and nerfing the slow heavily (Current - 40% melee/30% ranged), I was staring at it thinking "man, this could get messy". Perhaps a better option would be to simply clean up the build path and lower the cost. Maybe take the ruby crystal out of the recipe, lower the combine cost and the item's HP and call it a day? Makes it a slightly more rush-able mid-game item and retains it's uniqueness?

One thing I didn't want to do is buff the AD on the item. Having an item that gives a slow on every auto rushed by ADC's would be a nightmare, so I kept the AD-slot-efficiency low on purpose to encourage it being picked up by bruisers/tanks.

Aheadatime1 votes

Updated some of the numbers/explanations.

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