[Diamond Design] Why is Invisibility so Problematic?
Hey guys, sorry I missed last week, I got rather sick. Next week should probably be good again though.
The Lore vs Gameplay article will still come I promise, but it’s hard to produce something for that with my current schedule that I am willing to put out. If you guys missed our previous discussion, go check it out. I’m actually kinda excited, since we’re seeing more diversity at the competitive level (not enough, but it’s progress). If you read that and still have an unquenched thirst, go to the Central Hub and check out the rest of our discussions so far.
With bookkeeping out of the way, let’s take a look at today’s topic!
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#Why is Invisibility so Problematic?
Invisibility and stealth are parts of the game that have been around basically since the game was first released. A number of different parts of the game function importantly with relation to things that can be invisible. A lot of the champions that have invisibility aspects have been really problematic, dominating the game at different points in time. Unfortunately, I have not been playing since beta, I started shortly after Rengar was released in the second half of Season 2, so while I’ve heard stories and seen videos of some of the more egregious offenders, I can’t really speak on Invisible Female Singed Eve with much authority.
Let’s start by looking at all the different ways stealth is used in game!
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#Champions
Akali, Evelynn, Kha’zix, LeBlanc, Rengar, Shaco, Talon, Teemo, Twitch, Vayne, and Wukong. All of these champions can go invisible, and most of them have had periods of time where they were some of the most dominating picks. Rengar is probably the most obvious example at the moment, with Elements’ Shook flash snaring targets for Froggen to follow up on, but Twitch and LeBlanc are also fairly dominant at the moment.
Before going too far talking about stealth, it’s important to distinguish how different characters use their stealth, and I’ve come up with two basic categories for characters: Quick Repositioning and Ambushing.
Quick Repositioning
This is the invisibility that someone uses to quickly shift around within a teamfight or duel. Vayne, Kha’zix, and LeBlanc all use their invisibility primarily to help in dodging skillshots and making it harder to track them.
Ambushing
The characters that use their invisibility for ambushing like Teemo, Twitch, and Rengar use it in order to take an opponent unawares, using invisibility as extra fog of war. These two are probably the worst examples in terms of counterplay, as we’ve seen in the last couple of days. A decisive Rengar will jump on your face before you have a chance to respond, and if layered with crowd control from someone like Lissandra, you have basically no time to respond.
These two concepts primarily serve as ends of a spectrum. There are very few examples of champions that use their invisibility strictly one way or the other. Shaco seems to be pretty squarely in the middle, using his stealth both to jump around a fight and to effectively position himself during a gank. Teemo’s is almost strictly used to ambush targets. The other end of the spectrum seems to be Vayne.
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#Traps
Noxious Traps and Jack in the Boxes are some of the most hated skills in the game. Functioning in a similar way to ambush stealth, traps sit still and wait for someone to pass by and then they erupt dealing a hefty amount of damage and crowd control to whoever they hit. Effective Teemos can control huge sections of the map through the vision and damage they provide. They can also be used in other fights, as small zone control during teamfights, if someone knows where a shroom is, they aren’t likely to step on it.
#Wards
When talking about wards, it’s important to note the substantial re-haul Riot took in relation to them. As such we’ll look at the changes they made to this system.
Pre Rework
From the time I started, and presumably since the beginning of wards, both kinds of wards were invisible, both green and pink, or as they used to be known, Sight and Vision wards. It was rather entertaining when one person chose to buy a pink ward as a support or top laner, destroying the enemy’s green ward. Your opponent was forced to buy Oracle’s Elixir, or buy a pink of your own to regain vision and destroy the enemy’s ward. Trinkets didn’t exist, so pink wards and elixirs were the primary ways to reveal invisible objects, both of which were substantial investments, especially Oracle’s, as it lasted until death, marking you as a significant target to kill for the enemy team.
Post Rework
In early Season 4, Riot decided to change the way this system worked. Pink wards became visible and less expensive, and Oracle’s was removed from the game, instead replaced with the Sweeping Lens and Oracle’s Lens. This will be important later.
Now that we’ve taken a brief look at how stealth is used in League of Legends, we have some idea of the “play” of stealth. However, we have not looked at the equally important counterpart, counterplay. Bad pun fully intended.
#Counterplay
Generally speaking, invisibility doesn’t have nearly as many counter-options as other systems, at least in the perceptions of the players.
Vision Wards
Akali’s not op, just get a pink you noob! This has been the go-to argument of ragers since I’ve started playing the game. As far as counterplay goes, it’s not very interesting, though it can be quite effective. It reveals everything invisible, champions, traps, and wards. When watching competitive play, pink wards are dropped all over the place whenever someone goes, or is likely to go, invisible, as well as to control of vision points. The problem with this response is that it requires a repeated gold investment for something your opponent has access to for free. This feels unsatisfying and helps to create a somewhat artificial gold advantage.
Sweepers
Sweepers are effective tools for dealing with wards, as they have demonstrated at more competitive levels of play, where many of the most effective teams will have 4 of these on their members. This is also not necessarily a good form of counterplay because it is not an ideal option for many characters, like ADCs. The other problem is the non-intuitive nature of the usage. When Akali throws down a smoke screen, many players will naturally try and scan the zone trying to reveal her. It works on traps and wards, why not champions? While the upgraded scanner gives you access to a version of the old Oracle’s Elixir, which does give you vision of invisible champions, this is not possible before level 9, at which point characters like Akali, Twitch, and Talon can already begin to start tearing through their opponents.
Abilities
Some champions have abilities that will reveal an area or a champion when used. Lee Sin’s Tempest and Sonic Wave (E and Q), Twisted Fate’s Destiny (R), and Rengar’s Thrill of the Hunt (R) all show enemies regardless of stealth. Others, like Talon’s Noxian Diplomacy (Q) and Nocturne’s Duskbringer (Q) provide semi-reveals that will show an individual’s position, and a number of other abilities will show particle effects when casted with an enemy in range. While this is a good thing, part of the problem here is that so few characters have access to stealth reveals. Most characters have only the above recourses when trying to destealth a character, and when left with no options they will oftentimes just try and run away. Rek’sai’s burrowed passive will also show the pings left behind by moving enemies.
Other abilities like taunts and knockups will also reveal a lot of invisible champions.
Specific Mechanics
While there isn’t really a general solution here, Eve is required to stay a certain distance away before becoming visible, and Rengar and Twitch can’t go invisible for longer durations while they are being damaged, giving their opponents a means by which to attack.
#What can we do?
The biggest problem, as discussed above, is there are very few options of counterplay. Before we go into potential solutions, let’s look at what I believe are the most well designed stealth mechanics introduced in the game, and what makes them well designed.
Vayne
This is where a lot of people might disagree. Vayne has, at times, been very popular in solo queue and at the professional level. Why would this character have well designed invisibility? Well in my opinion, Vayne only has access to invisibility for limited periods of time, as her ultimate, and further gated by the cooldown on her Tumble. By tying her invisibility to her mobility, she doesn’t have separate access to both of them, instead it’s all used up at the same time. This amplifies her dueling nature without giving her too much in her kit.
Wukong
There’s a good reason Wukong was Elementz’ pro pick (back in the day). His stealth on a decently long cooldown and leaves behind a clone. This creates a minigame every time it’s used, or importantly, pretended to be used. Where other characters have little to gain by not using their invisibility, Wukong has a distinct incentive to not use it. While not a big fan of the stealth into engagement combo, it is overall still interesting enough for me to really enjoy it.
#Proposals
As we’ve seen, there aren’t many counterplay options that are strong and feel good. As such, here are some possible changes to make, ranging from most to least radical.
More ability reveals
This is rather aggressive, as it quite strongly shifts the balance in favor of the defender. If all ground-targeted abilities revealed stealth within their area of effect, it would create a number of zones that the stealthed individual would have to avoid as well as creating more protection for the backline (since most stealth is assassination related).
Rework Clairvoyance
Clairvoyance? Like seeing into the future? No! It’s actually a summoner spell in League of Legends! Due to the niche nature which now overlaps with the Farsight Orb, clairvoyance is really only seen when people are kinda screwing around or with bizarre strategies. Perhaps if it was used to reveal stealthed characters, traps, and wards it would see more play.
Addition of a Mastery
By adding a mastery in the utility tree at 21 points (which would be mutually exclusive with the current Wanderer mastery), individuals could get access to true sight. This would incentivize a largely underutilized tree, though it could be quite overpowered. By allowing it to see stealthed champions but not traps or wards it could still see some conditional play.
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#Conclusions
There’s not a whole lot more to discuss in this topic without going really indepth into specific uses of abilities. Ultimately, invisibility, like silences before, suffers from a lack of effective counterplay. If you have solutions or ideas, or even designs for abilities that would work well with invisibility, let me know below in the comments! Similarly, apart from Lore vs Gameplay, I feel like the ideas for articles aren’t going to be getting necessarily stronger. Please don’t hesitate to offer up new ideas!
I might also start to open up the scope of the series. Would articles on item design, map design, and other games in relation to League be interesting to you? What about more insight into actually playing the game instead of this more theoretical stuff? Let me know!
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: What other ways do you have to make stealth more fun to play against?
Alright that’s all for this week. Hope you guys enjoyed reading this! Just a quick reminder, especially since this one has more opinion specifically in it, part of the reason I write these is not necessarily because I think I’m always right, but because the topic is worth talking about and it’s a good way to have at least some useful definitions to work with, and an argument to either confirm or refute.
Should be around more to discuss this one than I was last week! See you guys around!
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why they wont put these on summoners rift is beyond me. They said healing was a problem with no counterplay but instead of fixing the only ad item with healing reduction they just remove it and nerf healers.
