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Balance Summoner Spells With Cost?

the14baller·2/1/2015, 4:28:21 PM·2 votes·618 views

So, I noticed that, when hovering over my spells, all of the summoner spells have "No Cost". If all of them have no cost, then what is the point of those two words being there? To let new players know that they have no cost, you could put a message in the spell select screen saying that spells have zero cost.

Anyways, I thought we could do something else about that, and actually have certain summoner spells cost something. For example, you could buff summoner 12 to make it non-visible to enemy champions, (unless they have sight of the object that is being used as a teleported) but make it cost 50 xp or something like that (a bit less then the average amount of xp that you would lose by not being back in lane or at team fights). Or, you could have summoner 4 cost 5% or something like that of your current health.

I believe this is another way to balance the summoner spells without having to completely, straight out, break some of the other ones to bring them on-par with summoner 4 summoner 7 summoner 11 summoner 14 summoner 12. I know my ideas for summoner 4 and summoner 12 are very questionable (what if you are level 18 but use teleport?, etc.), but I think adding a cost to some summoner spells would help balance the pool out.

1 Comments

redniwediS2/1/2015, 4:37:22 PM2 votes

Blitzcrank is a good example here. Bad Blitzcrank players will spam his pull all day, trying to grab someone but usually failing. Good Blitzcrank players will hold on to their pull until a perfect opening shows up. The threat of a pull is often enough to force your enemy to act in a way they normally wouldn't. This threat goes away the moment the pull is used.

The same can be said for summoner spells. A summoner spell being off cooldown gives it potential combat use. This can be an enormous boon to you and your team, depending on the type of spell. The built in costs are designed around cooldowns. If you're against a Riven in lane who has ignite, and your flash is down, you will be forced to play far more defensively than you normally would or you risk dieing to an opponent who has more resources than you do.

You already pay a price when you use a summoner spell (the price of playing without that resource for a while). Perhaps this price is not enough, but it still is something that must be taken into consideration.