Rammus' Powerball Should have Momentum

davidhinton23··5 votes·4,057 views

It is frustrating to play around Rammus when, if he is coming for you, he can turn on a dime to avoid crashing into minions or an unintended target with little to no skill. The only way to stop Powerball is Hard CC, and this is typically costly, or non-existent in many champion kits.

I came up with this idea of adding momentum to Powerball the other day when a Rammus was coming straight for me (he was between me and my tower) and I flashed THROUGH him. This got me pretty close to my tower, but he was able to instantly reverse the direction of Powerball, and still pull off his combo, the enemy laner caught up, and together they quickly removed me from the rift.

One could argue several things to discredit my anecdote. I am predicting comments like "You should have had better vision/map awareness", "You should have used your minions for cover," and things to that effect, but that isn't the point of this post. The point here, is that I made a pretty good play by flashing through Rammus, but because of his Q mechanics, he had no trouble turning around and still getting me.

I think that, if when using Powerball, Rammus builds stacks of momentum as he speeds up, which make it impossible to turn on a dime, he would have a slightly higher learning curve, feeling more rewarding to the players who master him, and he would be a bit easier to play around when he is coming at you at mach 10. I'm not screaming, "NERF RAMMUS", but I feel like this mechanic, if added to his kit, would make him fit better into the game as far as Physics is concerned, especially since the mechanic already exists as a component of Sion's Ultimate. (I'm not saying that Rammus should be as restricted in his turning radius as Sion is, just addressing the fact that the mechanic already exists)

Additionally, if a Rammus did want to stop on a dime after the implementation of this change, he could still cancel Powerball while it is active to regain precision control. I'd even be willing to concede a reward to a good Rammus for landing his Q, by buffing Powerball slightly on impact either in damage or a longer knock-up.

The point is, one should be able to play around an enemy champion, especially when using summoner spells, however, this inability to play around Rammus by using Flash (widely regarded as the most powerful/valuable summoner) is a clear outlier on the balance scale of League as a whole.

17 Comments

SuperLuigiLXIV2 votes

Only if we implement turning time as well, so ADCs can't retreat while instantly spinning around and landing accurate shots on their targets every second or so.

MistaFarenheit2 votes

so remove kiting from the game, brilliant idea.

1Maza2 votes

{quoted}

so remove kiting from the game, brilliant idea.

Ever heard of DotA? You can still kite, it just actually requires skill.

SuperLuigiLXIV2 votes

About as brilliant as nerfing the unholy hell out of the ONLY form of gap closer Rammus has.

Like ranged don't have it ridiculously good already?

Immortal Fenix1 votes

Sion has momentum with his ultimate, and I can still land that.

SuperLuigiLXIV1 votes

And so can I. In point of fact, I main Sion, because I love his kit so much.

Which doesn't change the fact that when I DO miss, I am 110% boneroned against a ranged champion. And that's stupid.

Immortal Fenix1 votes

Melee champions are always going to have trouble closing the gap. Maybe as a tradeoff, he can no longer hit minions (Normal, Large Monsters still collide) but has a fairly large turning radius? You can't hide behind minions anymore, but if you get caught out, you're screwed.

SuperLuigiLXIV1 votes

Or we could leave him as is and ranged can suck it up, since that's what most melee have to do.

PimpStickNasus

{quoted}

so remove kiting from the game, brilliant idea.

Turn rate wouldn’t at all remove kiting go look at games like Starcraft, Dota, pretty much any game where kiting is a big thing

50000000000000002 votes

Sion ultimate can at least go through minions because he can't turn easily.

Sixtysix2 votes

Would be something id like to see, this would enable atlease some kind of way to avoid the Speedster from Hell... if he gets a full build speed... theres often no way to run away from him if you are ganked unlike other jungler

davidhinton231 votes

Yeah I was thinking like give him a pretty tight turn radius. Like idk, he could do a full circle about the size of half the dragon pit.

Like if there was no dragon he could do a figure 8 in the dragon pit without hitting the walls.

Is that reasonable?

theminiom1 votes

Like if there was no dragon he could do a figure 8 in the dragon pit without hitting the walls.

Is that reasonable?

if it wasn't the fact that i play rammus then this would be alright, However league doesn't really have much appreciation for physics, take for example the classic meme of a full size cho'gath hiding in a tiny bush, or the fact that Corki 's ROFLcopter can fly. also game balance, this would be a severe nerf (regardless of the turning speed) and rammus's playstyle is, like skarner, bringing/holding enemies for your allies to come and kill them with a bit of Ap damage as opposed to skarners Ad.

Finally i would like to point out that they tried to implement momentum into his Q with it gaining speed over time as opposed to just a bunch of movement speed Instantaneously.

davidhinton231 votes

{quoted}

Finally i would like to point out that they tried to implement momentum into his Q with it gaining speed over time as opposed to just a bunch of movement speed Instantaneously.

That's called Acceleration, not Momentum.

theminiom1 votes

{quoted}

That's called Acceleration, not Momentum.

thanks for correcting me

Lord Phazanor 1 votes

Did a pretty good play
Died
Was not a pretty good play

Paroe1 votes

@thread

This would only be acceptable if powerball were a toggled ability that constantly drained mana while active OR didnt have a wind up time.

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