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Should Dark harvest be removed? what can be done?

IArs3lynI·12/15/2018, 3:57:54 AM·2 votes·1,350 views

Hello everyone, today I really wanna dip in the idea, whether if riot should look at this Dark Harvest and determine rather or not if it needs a sudden change or if it needs to be removed from the game. in this post rather instead of making it a hate moment for Dark Harvest because i do see potential it in a way but not in the same way as Riot Game does. I do see their ways sometimes but i do sometimes my ideas being a good angle for what goals they are trying to make. I'm not here to give ideas to that will satisfy the community because they all have different ideas on how things should be in League of legends. This subject is about whether or not if there's something wrong with Dark Harvest"

how should i look at this Since this is a infinite scaling with base damage ill be bringing out 2 particular things from the rune reforge and compare them to Dark Harvest. Reason being is because those are the two best example within the League of legend's system that is close to comparable and hit these 3 category. Easy to use, scales goods and anyone can take it. Dark harvest will be comparable to Electrocute and Gathering Storm. Reason i'm bringing Gathering Storm is for one main reason, it scales infinitely like Dark harvest, even though it a rune and it only gives Adaptive damage it will evidence on where "it broken but balance" example, Electrocute base damage is higher and scaling is higher then of Dark harvest but lacks infinite scaling, so comparing it maximum potential power to Dark Harvest will show how much damage it needs to be greater then Electrocute (which can get very scary in team-fights as you all know), there also a hidden flaw to it in which i'll explain it later on.

Dark Harvest VS Electrocute First thing is when we just look at the base line of Dark harvest and Electrocute, Dark Harvest can increase in damage each time you used it, this does scale infinitely. I will need to show how much damage difference they have and how many times you need to use Dark Harvest to outclass Electrocute in base damage. I will show the base damage between the two keystones, the difference in damage, and how many times you need to activate Dark harvest to put it in the same amount or even more damage then Dark Harvest. note: This analogy involves 5 parts of levels of the game, early game, early game spike, mid game, mid game spike, and late game. this will make things simple instead of doing all 18 levels of one champion

Level--------------------1-------------------6-------------------12---------------------16----------------18| Dark Harvest----20-----------------31-----------------45---------------------55----------------60| Electrocute------30-----------------74-----------------127------------------162-------------180| Difference------(-10)-------------(-43)--------------(-82)----------------(-107)--------(-120)| Procing--------------2--------------------9-------------------17---------------------22-----------------25| Summary: Base Damage The damage as it show, Dark Harvest can make it if you proc the keystone many times and it possible to get pass 25 procs as long as you can survive and takedown the enemy champion to be able to proc it again, but it takes a lot of times and the right calls for this damage to ramp up to get such potential.

Now we got the base damage down and over with we should look at the scaling parts of the Dark Harvest and Electrocute, in this case we will look at the base number that is easy to go with for both AP and Bonus AD. AP (meaning Ability power if you don't what AP means) will have a base line of 100,200,300,400, and 500, some champions like Viegar can go pass this and go even further with efficiency but you will see why i dont go to 1k AP as my limit. Same goes with Bonus AD, a thin line, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250. Electrocute has 25% AP ratio and 40% bonus AD ratio while Dark harvest has 15% AP ratio and 25% bonus AD ratio.

AP line--------------------100-------200-------300---------400------500| AD Line-------------------50---------100-------150----------200------250| Electrocute AP------25--------50-----------75------------100------150| Electrocute AD-----20--------40-----------60------------80--------100| Dark Harvest AP---15---------30----------45-------------60-----------75| Dark Harvest AD---13---------25----------38-------------50----------63| Difference AP---------10--------20----------30-------------40----------50| Difference AD----------7----------15----------22-------------30----------37| Procing AP---------------2------------4-----------6----------------8-----------10| Procing AD---------------2------------3------------5----------------6------------8| Summary: Part 2 As you can see here, There is a flaw in scaling wise, since the more AD or AP (or both since it a flaw either way) the more procing you need to do, below this text will show the range amount you need to proc it starting from the beginning of level 1 to the end of level 18 (without showing the level up process part) > AD Example 4 to 33 times > AP Example 4 to 35 times

Summary: DH vs Electrocute

I think this damage alone can show being able to proc too easily still so it might come out too strong early game as to be expected for ranged champions.

Dark Harvest vs Gathering Storm Now when it comes to Dark Harvest and Gathering Storm comparison, we wont compare them to any champion nor are we comparing the damage, but instead we are comparing how well they both scales. below will show a line of text of how they scale, and below that will show the math behind it. if you wanna skip this part just read the "Summary: DH vs GS" below that math stuff and you will understand this more and not have a headache

Source: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Gathering_Storm Gathering Storm: >8,24,48,80,120,168 AP (infinitely) >Math: 8 x Z x (Z - 1) /2; where Z = 1 + (1 per every 10 mins passed) >5,14,29,48,72,101, (infinitely) >Math: 4.8 x Z x (Z - 1) /2; where Z = 1 + (1 per every 10 mins passed)

>Dark Harvest: >5 per proc, scale infinitely.

Summary: Stacking

Gathering Storm stacking starts out weak then as the game goes on it gets stronger, stronger then most players realize but still isnt taken all the time because it benefit late game and it risk early game, while Gathering Storm is a thing we called Exponential growth, a rate where it starts out super weak but comes out much more stronger as time goes by. Dark Harvest on the other hand has a linear growth, a steady growth rate from start to end. Even though this is shown be to be strong it don't mean it a good thing. Late game depending on who is using this will either comes out super strong with this or weak until it hits the right spot. But in all cases the damage from it from a few champions hits too early for damage(as in doing alot of damage with not even a crap ton of stacks still while at level 12 or below).

Should it be removed/changed?

I cant say that it should be removed, it nice to have something that sacrifice early game for late game, however this damage show to be too strong even in the early stages of it, and nerfing the base damage isn't gonna solve it being balance. which leads to a simple idea for what can work and work really well, that is to change the rate from Simple Growth to Cubic Growth (also known as polynomial growth). The link below will lead to a Google image of a picture which shows 3 different lines, Simple Growth (red line), Cubic growth (blue line) and Exponential growth (green), this shows how the graph should work and what growth Riot is looking for, in my personal feeling Cubic Growth fits perfectly to their idea, the damage should be very much weak and not really noticable but late game it should be, by changing how much damage each soul harvest until later level will do just that, early game maybe having it stand as 2-3 per stack then late game have something like 6-8 damage per stacks, that way each stack will still be worth it because the more stacks you can get in early game the stronger it will be during level 15 or level 16 where the power of souls will be much stronger from there.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Exponential.svg/300px-Exponential.svg.png

Any questions fill free to ask, ill comment to everyone as soon as possible and if need to ill explain more in the comment if needed to

10 Comments

iiGazeii12/15/2018, 5:08:24 AM2 votes

I think Dark Harvest needs to have a niche other than "more damage". There's no way to balance it as just a damage rune that stacks infinitely when it has to compete with other damage runes.

I'd love to see it becomes like a damage + sustain rune, like you're draining the life force of the people you harvest. Bring down the damage it does significantly, but also let it heal you for the damage dealt. That way, the rune would still fulfill the fantasy of "infinitely stacking rune that is good for teamfighting", but it would do that by healing you every time it procs on top of a chunk of damage.

Raxistaicho12/15/2018, 4:32:25 AM1 votes

The thing is, infinite stacking abilities (that aren't specific to champs) seem to have a habit of never working out very well. All the iterations of Feral Flame and Devourer can attest to that.

I'm kinda surprised that Riot made a keystone like Dark Harvest when we had this sort of history.

Crispy0Snake12/15/2018, 5:47:17 AM1 votes

I think the reward being flat upfront damage is so toxic.

I think each stack should slightly increase your passive gold income by a small amount. That way it's more of a harvest, there's not the issue of upfront damage and it maintains it's place as a snowball rune. It also means that the rune has a point where it falls off. Very late game having gold means nothing as you're full build +Elixir.

Moonscourge12/15/2018, 9:31:58 AM1 votes

It's really awful already. It didn't need the last nerf imo. In a 30 minute game it did as much damage as Electrocute would tbh. Before it used to be an option, now it's good for maybe a champ with an execute like Karthus who can simply proc it across the map for some bonus damage. It's a damn noob trap of a rune now.