Boards›Gameplay

Barrier vs. Heal

Gaminon·11/15/2014, 12:57:42 AM·2 votes·4,031 views

Barrier and Heal are both summoner spells that fulfill the same role: damage mitigation. That's why one is always better than the other.

Riot could just scrap one of them and write the whole thing off as a bad idea, but I think there's room for some strategic diversity with these two summoner spells whatever-they-are-now-that-summoners-aren't-a-thing.

Thematically, Barrier seems like a desperate, last ditch wall of magical defense designed to save you when you're facing your imminent and grisly doom. Why don't we take that them and play around with it a bit.

**Barrier: ** Gives your champion a spell shield that can absorb multiple spells. Lasts for 1 second. Can be cast while CC'd (you'd still be CC'd, but it would deflect future spells).

The spell shield would allow some really clutch plays and have a lot of potential for damage mitigation, but the duration would be short enough that a skilled enemy might be able to bait the spell out of you and then blow you up. Strong against burst casters.

Heal is more of a magical rejuvenation that actually restores health and strength to your champ, so lets run with that.

**Heal: ** Restores 100-440 health over 3 seconds, during which time you have 25% increased movement speed.

Ever played Volibear and ended up cackling with maniacal joy because an opponent thought they had you beat, but that last hit that should have killed you actually didn't? And neither did the next one? Or the next one? And then they're dead cause you chomped their head off?

Yeah, me too.

This, to me, is the way Heal should be. A lot of damage mitigation, but spread out over time. Strong against sustained damage, with some mobility thrown in there as bonus.

Personally, I'm tired of having barrier just be a worse version of heal (or the opposite, based on whichever spell was last buffed/nerfed), and I'd like to see a little more diversity in how the spells play. Thoughts? Ideas?

7 Comments

kanacho11/15/2014, 1:06:08 AM3 votes

The problem is that a spell shield like that could be a huge Slap in the face to a large number of champions regardless if timing it might be difficultly to get the hang of or not. Just look at Sivir, it's like taking her spell shield and then giving it to EVERYONE in the game. Saving yourself from 1 spell came make all the difference especially If it's something like a Darius Ulti.

What I could see however, is that another spell (this would be of course cleanse) does not get any love because of how terrible in practice it really is (huge CD and doesn't even negate All CC or summoner spells like the text seems to imply as it doesn't fair too well against suppression, nor does it seem to have fun trying to deal with ignite or even exhaust). Why not just combine Cleanse and barrier into one? Barrier seems like that ability to bail you yourself out of a particular situation which is very similar to cleanse. Heal gives a movement speed buff for a short duration and can heal a 2nd allied champion which gives it a huge advantage over barrier to begin with. If you combined these two unwanted spells (which occupy similar roles), you could come up with a powerful self-oriented bail-out card. Here's an example of what it could be like.

Intervention: Activate to shield against X amount of incoming damage for 2 seconds, and remove non-summoner non-suppression based CC reducing all incoming CC durations by 70% for the next 2 seconds.

Heal would of course still have its place as a more sustained mitigation ability which can heal yourself AND an ally, while this ability would occupy an entirely different role being about short-term bail-outs targeted to yourself only.

Lord Dusteon11/15/2014, 1:26:56 AM1 votes

The problem is, now you have squishy channeled people like Kat who's main weakness is cc being immune to cc for one second (which is more then enough time for a kat to hurt you quite a lot). In addition, it's protection vs autos (large sources of damage late game) and DoT's would be extremely weakened, making it useless against adc's or to survive ignite/red buff/DoTs.

SparrowPriest11/15/2014, 3:44:02 AM1 votes

I always choose barrier over heal and think it is superior for many reasons. Barrier blocks more damage initially than heal heals for. Barrier will not be reduced to half effectiveness by an ignite, executioners calling, or a champ like Tristana that reduces amount healed. Furthermore, during late game on a champ with high lifesteal barrier can block damage when you are at full hp or allow you time to over heal from lifesteal to charge your Bloodthirster passive. I do believe barrier has a shorter cooldown as well. I honestly think supports should take heal over flash as their escape and give the adc barrier for several other reasons.

Rebonack11/15/2014, 5:38:48 AM1 votes

As is usual with topics like this, I'm in favor of removing Cleanse and giving Ghost and Barrier a Cleanse effect.

Three birds with one stone.