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[Discussion] I thought of ways how Enchanters or Supports in general could be improved (Detailed)

BLIGHTBRINGER··4 votes·2,931 views

https://i.imgur.com/wlY4Ml3.png

##Introduction

Hi everyone, i'm Darkin Hybrid, a Marksman/Support main who plays other roles as well. Today I wanted to discuss a role that not a lot of people enjoy to play or play against...

So a lot of people have frustration with supports because they can either lock you in one place for a while (Leona, Morgana) or they are able to shield and heal their ally for any damage you deal (Janna, Nami). For some of these reasons is why I believe why some people skip on playing Support. What I believe needs to be changed is to make Enchanters or Supports in general more interesting/fun to play, and to be more interactive.

So here I will begin listing some changes and features that Enchanters or Supports in general could use, to have more tools up their sleeve other than just healing, shielding or stun locking an enemy in place.

https://i.imgur.com/wlY4Ml3.png

##summoner 1 Buffing Allies (the right way)

So instead of giving more shields or healing to Enchanters, what I believe they should have is more buffs that they could provide to allies. I mean even in the champion class name it says "Enchanters" meaning enhancement of some kind, in my opinion that doesn't really fit well with shielding because that goes into a more protector role which Enchanters aren't suppose to be to a certain extent.

##What I think when looking at Enchanters, is that they are suppose to give beneficial effects to their allies such as Buffs.

I will use Janna E as an example, because ignoring the shield part in her E it also gives bonus AD that scales with AP and I feel that, that is an excellent example of what Enchanters should bring to the table.

##Another good examples of abilities that are fitting to the Enchanter role are:

##Enchanter like abilities

Sona (Q - Grants bonus Magic Damage on allies next auto attack, E - Gives bonus Movement Speed) Nami (E - Grants a 3 hit Slow on basic attacks that scales with AP) Lulu (W - Grants bonus Attack Speed to an ally)

The other unmentioned Enchanters: Taric Soraka Karma

Reasons as to why I didn't mention these 3 other Enchantments is because they offer no other tools besides shielding and healing, and invulnerability on Taric's R. These 3 remaining champions should have a separate Champion Class that I will call, the Protector Class.

https://i.imgur.com/wlY4Ml3.png

##summoner 3 Debuffing Enemies

So it seems that it is quite typical and expected that all supports and the new one's that get released to have CC, which is fine but I believe we need to move past in making CC a priority when it comes to designing a Support. I'm not suggesting to not have it included but just not have the CC part the major focus in future Support champion designs, instead we need to think of creative tools that Supports could use.

Instead of having you or someone on the enemy team be frustrated because of the amount of pressure that an Alistar can provide with his point to click CC in lane.

What Supports need is more unique Debuff effects that would make them stand out more than any other roles who might also have some sort of Debuffs in their kit. So I decided to list down different Debuffs that came to mind.

##New Ideas for Debuffs

  • Mind Deconstruct - An enemy under this debuff has their ability slots randomised.
  • Damnation - An enemy under this debuff cannot be targeted by their ally or be effected by allies summoner spells.

I'm not always good with generating ideas and these two ideas might sound too strong for them to be balanced debuffs but you kind of get the idea i'm trying to suggest that Supports need to feel unique in being able to apply Debuffs.

https://i.imgur.com/wlY4Ml3.png

##Write your thoughts in the comments if you agree with some of these changes and thoughts of mine, and what you personally believe needs to be changed.

https://i.imgur.com/8lUTmO1.png

6 Comments

Bijeesny1 votes

I think old Soraka is the perfect example of what you're saying here. Her old Q was Reducing mr and she could give allies some mana/silence enemies (at least I think it was like that) Btw your signature looks dope af :D Nunu did a good job on that one :)

And if i could share some ideas--> Some sort of an item which on activation could give all allies in the area a stealth for couple of seconds (like Twitch's) Or AoE under which all enemies have reduced resistances/healing/offensive stats..think of it as a triforce for supports, an item which could be expensive af, even for solo laners, and you can switch between debuffs (so you can choose which debuff you want, one at a time)

Edit: MY last idea could be spells for a champion...I'm imagining some sort of a void type of support, but be doesn't have materialised body (imagine IO from dota) Who has kit similar to Udyr, every spell is actually a buff to his basic attacks, for example: Q- basic attacks reduce ap/ad by 1/2/3%, stacks 3 times W- basics reduce healing by 1/2/3%, 3 stacks E- reduce defenses by same mount, same stacks R- basics reduce everything for 4/6/8 seconds by 2/4/6%

BLIGHTBRINGER1 votes

Btw your signature looks dope af :D Nunu did a good job on that one :)

Yeah I was really happy when created one for me :)

But as for your ideas, those sound really interesting. Something I wish Riot could look at in the future.

https://media.lolusercontent.com/api/embedly/1/image/resize?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FzNYvpek.png

Aptest1 votes

on buffs.

buffs have 3 problems associated with them, as abilities: they have very low visibility and "awesome factor" for their impact, they generally transfer agency out of the character doing the buffing, to the buffed character, and they function in a way that require the player, in advance, to commit to synergy with a specific partner.

the first problem. a buff for a stat will generally be worth more on people who have supporting stats. Therefore an attack speed buff is balanced with people who have attack damage and crit, as possible recipients. An armor buff is balanced with people who have massive HP pools as recipients. And so fourth.

Therefore, the buff itself has to be relatively small and when used on champion who do not have supporting stats it has less visible, powerful impact. And you can see this clearly with how very powerful items like ardent censer, with a super impact buff on them, are hardly perceptible.

This can be partially solved by making buffs into refreshing dot effects whenever possible.

Furthermore, when a powerful buff is used, there isn't generally a feeling that the buff killed the opponent. The visibility of the ability is that the primary character did all the work and the support "helped", instead of the support being in control of the situation.

A second problem with buffs as a concept, is that the impact depends on the recipient's behavior. if the ADC is panicking and isn't standing her ground, no amount of buffing will be useful, for instance. Or, the initiating tank should plow forward with a MS buff. Granted, if you as the support player have managed to establish your dominance as the shot caller for the team, something like a shurelia's reverie buff has a lot of awesome factor... but in disorganized play these kinds of effects have a real reliability issue that prevents you from really getting the awesome to work...

A third problem with buffs, is that they natually are stronger on some champions than on others. Because of the supporting stats issue. Because of that a champion that relies on buffs have varying strength depending on who they partner with.

this limits the amount of choice that they support player is getting into the game with; And while for some people have a special synergy with another person is awesome, i think getting into the game with this as a designed property of your character is a recipe for trouble, because you will end up feeling very bad if the pertner is not useful and the character doesnt have a useful enough fallback pattern.

for these 3 reasons i think that buffs are overall a poor design choice for synergy-centric champions.

to be continued.

Aptest1 votes

On debuffs

What exactly is the difference between a debuff and a CC? In the same way that a slow is both a debuff and a CC, debuffs are simply on that spectrum.

We can divide CC on a scale of impact: CC that take over your character completely (displacements, charms) CC that remove all control form you over the character (Stuns) CC that remove Some control (silence, root, grounded) CC that remove the consequences of your actions (blind, exhaust) CC that reduce the effectiveness of your control inputs (slows).

So what's really different between CC and other status effects? not really anything special. Its just a game of impact VS other aspects of skill power s.a. range, duration, projectile speed, targeted, AOE, etc.

so i don't see you really have a specific point here, where debuffs are different than CC. If debuffs do the job, we will have the same amount of bitching and QQing from people who say, "stun is OP". They will say "wither too strong" or "exuast too strong", etc.

to be continued.

Rathar Dashing1 votes

Soraka has a buff, her Q-W combo gives allies movement speed. Karma also gives movement speed on her shield.

Also, wouldn't Zilean be an enchanter, then? He has a huge movement speed buff, which he can also use as a huge slow, and he has a free GA for his ADC on his ult. He also has that XP sharing bonus on his passive.

Your definition of "protector" is a little odd to me as well. Janna's whole kit is designed to protect her allies, but because one of her abilities gives AD is she then an enchanter? if not, does that mean we have a class with 3 champs in it?

BLIGHTBRINGER1 votes

That's quite true, I don't know how I forgot about Soraka's Q movement speed buff (since I main her lol).

Zilean is quite a tricky champion who is also quite outdated, but his official class is Specialist. Explaining what a Specialist is, is quite tricky I suggest to check this link to the actual definition ( http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Specialist ).

I was gonna do a table of which support belongs in which Class (Enchanter, Support)

But in the end they all kind of feel like protectors, because they all just have that one ability that enhances their ally in some way (ignoring movement speed buffs, since they can be seen as more protective tools then offensive). So essentially all Enchanters are just Protectors, for me anyway.

I didn't mean to say that Janna is an Enchanter because of her one ability, I only mentioned her E for the sake of it being a good example of what it provides outside the shielding part. I still believe that her E alone isn't that enough to make her fit the Enchanter class, thus making her more of a protector.

It would be good to get a new Enchanter Support champion in the future who doesn't Shield or Heal, but provide more tools for their team to be able to use in combat (Attack Speed, AD/AP, Penetration of some kind/Lethality) I don't know.

https://media.lolusercontent.com/api/embedly/1/image/resize?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FzNYvpek.png

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