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"Why Riot doesn't limit Smite to 1 per team?"

YumaS2Astral··64 votes·5,012 views

Because then people could troll during champion select, by selecting summoner 11 then prohibiting other people from selecting it. This could be a problem during blind pick because even if another player called jungle first, you could just select Smite, and not de-select it, you would be guaranteed to go jungle. During draft pick, it would be harder to steal other's lane, but it would be a lot more impactful if it was a ranked match. If you were quick enough you could just steal your teammate's lane, and even if they were to choose to go jungle because they were above you, they would be forced to go into another lane. This would cause countless affrays and would foment toxicity.

I am saying that because some people are proposing that as a means of solving the problem of laners abusing jungle items that Riot introduce. Not that I agree with that, but if you want to solve a potential problem of laners abusing those jungle items, there are better solutions, this one could cause a lot of problems due to the above reasons. To limit Smite to 1 per team and still avoid that problem, Riot would have to rework the entire jungle system and that would be a lot of work and time spent into that.

61 Comments

Helmight18 votes

I think that, especially after today's LCS matches, AP Ezreal with Runeglaive is not overly broken, first of all.

Second of all, I see no reason why taking Smite on a laner is a bad thing. You forfeit a Summoner spell that's more powerful in--lane in exchange for access to specific, jungle-centric items. It's a trade-off - I'll bet a lot of AP Ezreals wish they had Heal or Exhaust instead of a Smite that only works against minions, for example. So there's no reason to limit teams to one Smite.

Orisi6 votes

The problem is, the 'specific jungle-centric items' are providing way too much utility and power OUTSIDE of the jungle. If a midlaner is seeing a viable build that includes building Runeglaive, and the power it can potentially give them is enough to make most players take note, then either that champion or that item hasn't been balanced effectively.

Part of this is why I didn't like the extent of the smite changes to begin with. You're exactly right in saying that taking smite should be a trade-off. But the passive benefits of the new smites give enough utility on their own that, in several circumstances, they've shown to provide a net gain when combined with the items they allow access to. You used the example of maybe having Heal; The Ranger's Trailblazer Smite can actually heal more than Heal would at low health, whilst also providing mana regen, giving you both more sustain and access to Runeglaive.

Should smite be limited to just one per team? probably not. But at the same time, I don't feel that right now smite is fairly balanced against other summoners spells in all the circumstances it should be.

YumaS2Astral5 votes

On my opinion this is a proof that Riot makes items that give very good stats or effects for laners, but junglers can't take advantage of them enough, or those effects are balanced on junglers. Let's take an example, item 3715 this item has an effect that is very powerful, and even laners want it, it is so powerful that laners are willing to give up a summoner spell that would be a lot more useful to them otherwise, just to get it. Challenging Smite is powerful because it is essentially an Exhaust on a low cooldown.

Another example is Cinderhulk, which is essentially a Rabadon's Deathcap for tanks, but you can't get it without Smite.

I wonder why Riot doesn't make effects like those for laners, but toned down so that there would be a reason to get their jungle counterparts on junglers.

AbodyHUN6663 votes

I think it's because laners already have access to a lot more gold and exp than junglers. In fact lane tanks rarely had problmes with getting those expensive tank items, but junglers need these very cost effective items because of their low farm, and giving up a summoner spell.

Samflash31 votes

Yeah but I feel like I'm sacrificing a bit of gold in getting machete.

What Is Smite2 votes

The payoff for getting a machete is much more than the initial investment in the item for a jungler, however for a laner the item is pretty much a loss for them unless they are given the raptor camp. Then again Raptor's smited give a really strong buff that is better used by the jungler rather than the mid laner

Dingding1231 votes

summoner 4

Although is Smite "fun" enough to warrant 2+ players per team picking it?

TheRainInSpain1 votes

Flash is fun enough to find all ten players with it.

Wheatloaf1 votes

It's mostly Ezreal's fault in this case. AP Ez's power curve was pretty bad, but Runeglaive did quite a bit towards fixing it.

Helmight3 votes

There's definitely some truth in Smite upgrades being too strong outside of the jungle - that much is clear from Runeglaive and Skirmisher's Saber. However, I think for the most part the upgrades are jungle-centric. Most of the benefit of Trailblazer comes from smiting monsters, Stalker's is of minimal use when not used during a gank, and Poacher's Knife is both worthless in and out of the jungle. The enchants are relatively jungle-centric as well, with Runeglaive as the big exception.

I will concede that Trailblazer gives a lot of sustain, at a faster rate than Heal ever could, but it lacks some of the utility of Heal and first-building it gives champions that can abuse it - like Ezreal - mana problems early. Instead of getting Tear, they basically have to rush Runeglaive, which then means that they have to poach jungle camps to keep their mana up. This hurts the jungler, in exchange for making your midlaner more powerful. So I don't think it's necessarily the best choice in every situation.

Smite does need work, that much is sure, but I'm actually happy that it IS a viable pick on a laner nowadays, instead of just being "the jungler Summoner spell." If Riot can balance it so that it's primarily useful in the jungle, but also an okay pick on a Champion, I'd be quite pleased indeed.

SwiftKitten887 votes

{quoted}

Because then people could troll during champion select, by selecting summoner 11 then prohibiting other people from selecting it. This could be a problem during blind pick because even if another player called jungle first, you could just select Smite, and not de-select it, you would be guaranteed to go jungle. During draft pick, it would be harder to steal other's lane, but it would be a lot more impactful if it was a ranked match. If you were quick enough you could just steal your teammate's lane, and even if they were to choose to go jungle because they were above you, they would be forced to go into another lane.

.... how about instead of calling the person who called jungle first a "troll" you guys work as a team to decide what roles each of you can play decently and do whats best for the team ensureing everyone gets a role they can play by giving someone else a role they are really good at even if it mean your 2nd or third best role.

honestly in freaking tired of idoits saying "pick order" or other bullshit like that.

teamwork starts in champ select, i dont care if your first pick or last pick, your job is to make the best team possible out of the players given and the roles they know. if you get TWO people than can BOTH only ADC, then yeah, one of them isn't getting that role.. but most people know at LEAST two roles and the majorty know 3 or 4.

If your going to "lock in" the role you want before even asking or even considering roles what your team wants or more importantly "KNOWS HOW TO PLAY", then your being an ass.

i am in no way defending people who only play 1 role. knowing only 1 roles is unacceptable for playing ranked games. but it is also no worse than auto locking the role you want just because your randomized number was above the other teammates in the pick order... because the order you are put in IS RANDOM.

act like a team. be nice and your going to win a LOT more games.

i win almost EVERY game i get first pick in.. and its NOT becuase i instalocked my best role.. its becuase i ask all my teammtes what role and what champ they want... who they want banned and who not to ban. what lanes they would prefer and what lanes they absolutely CAN'T do. and we try to make a decent team from there. and by doing that i get about an 80% win rate when im first pick. grant i only get first pick 1/5th of the time.. but trust me... it makes aHUGE difference when you WORK AS A TEAM.

#TEAMWORK STARTS IN CHAMP SELECT

BetaDude403 votes

You missed the purpose of the post entirely. The reason why smite shouldn't be limited to one per team is because of the amount of abuse from trolls and feeders, who can simply deny a role from a player, or make their jungling living hell. They don't care about teamwork or sportsmanship; they just want to ruin everyone else's fun for their own enjoyment. If such a change were implemented to smite, I would never even bother to play this game anymore just because of how much it can easily be abused.

Maliginant6 votes

A weird interaction this change would create is the rise of fiddlesticks jungle to allow a laner to take smite.

Nameless Voice6 votes

Limiting to one smite per team would also eliminate unusual team strategies like double-jungle.

Llanite4 votes

Basically the first one having smite set up is the one with fastest load time, who should have gotten his role before others anyway. If he called but does not pick a champ, tough luck, keep in mind, it's PICK ORDER, not CALL ORDER.

In draft, the two people allowing to pick at the same time has the SAME PICK ORDER, period.

atomicwit4 votes

I have a better question. Why do you want to kill alternative strategies? LoL already has some of the most cookie-cutter and boring builds of any MoBA. You want to limit choice and adaptation even more? There might as well not even be a Shop in most games already. I can close my eyes and list the build of nearly every ADC.

Dr Poro4 votes

IMO Smite isn't currently being abused. It's being used for something it wasn't intended for, but is that a bad thing? As long as it doesn't skew the balance of the game, I think that's an amazing thing. Runeglaive Ezreal is viable, but far from dominating. He's really popular but in general still performs pretty poorly (probably due to the massive amount of players picking him up for the first time).

Cinderhulk was another story, though. Champions that were able to use this in top lane became significantly stronger than other top laners due to this item. But that has been fixed without the need of such restriction. Runeglaive will also be changed (in that it won't trigger on-spell effects) which will probably make it a lot less appealing for Ezreal

HeeroTX4 votes

Here's a better question: "Why doesn't Riot make a big effort to crack down on f'ing trolls?" I mean, you'd think they could at least devote resources to following up reports in ranked and shift people "behind the scenes". I realize you'll never get rid of the problem entirely, and I honestly don't care about the smite thing, but I'm sick of solutions being proposed to problems and the immediate response from the community is "but trolls..."

AxlRose092 votes

{quoted}

Here's a better question: "Why doesn't Riot make a big effort to crack down on f'ing trolls?" I mean, you'd think they could at least devote resources to following up reports in ranked and shift people "behind the scenes". I realize you'll never get rid of the problem entirely, and I honestly don't care about the smite thing, but I'm sick of solutions being proposed to problems and the immediate response from the community is "but trolls..."

Good fcking point

Glory to God3 votes

xD every post right here is below zero upvotes.

Paress3 votes

Allowing one Smite would just kill the diversity. Smite on lanes is not overpowered, it's just a build.

And IN CASE it'd needs a nerf, something like the impossibility to Smite minions would be a healthy way.

Partholonian1 votes

Or maybe just the impossibility to AOE smite minions? I.e. trailblazer only gets its bonus effects on monsters?

But maybe they should wait and see what happens after the bug that allows runeglaive to proc spell effects (like luden's) is fixed. It makes a big difference for Ezreal specifically, because his Q doesn't normally proc spell effects.

UPfreely2 votes

but then you could go nunu smiteless jungle and donate smite to your mid ezreal xD

gaby1best2 votes

Bec4use Riot doesn't w4nt met4 to become rule. You c4n go 3 jungle 4nd it's 4ll fine.

P.S. Keybo4rd bugged, sry.

BetaDude401 votes

Because Riot doesn't want meta to become rule. You can go 3 jungle and it's all fine.

Just copy and paste that into your post.

gaby1best1 votes

Hehe, nah. But I have "a" on my clipboard so to type it I just Ctrl+V. anyway, really need to buy keyboard, q a z ` 1, Tab and Escape all stopped working. I hate On-screen Keyboard.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

{quoted}

Bec4use Riot doesn't w4nt met4 to become rule. You c4n go 3 jungle 4nd it's 4ll fine.

P.S. Keybo4rd bugged, sry.

If that was the truth, they wouldn't nerf Soraka so that she was impossible to use on lanes

TheRainInSpain1 votes

The original Raka kit was ridiculously oppressive to play against. Go anywhere near her (meaning, 70% of the champion pool), and get showered by spammable shooting stars that increased infinitely based on the number of enemies near her (infinite enemies, infinite stars). It hit hard, it was cheap, and it was spammable. She dominated Top and Mid for a short time when people figured out the Support could solo lane bully people to oblivion. Sona was in a similar position. Instead of constant Sona nerfs, Riot opted one big super nerf for Raka.

That being said, the mana costs on Raka's kit basically made me stop playing her as a support and whenever I'm forced to play her, I use her as a lane plug and rely solely on her ultimate to assist my teammates. Every one of my games post-rework has been me trying to push and split push lanes because I have a stupendously stupid kit otherwise and literally no health. Veigar is like a full blown tank compared to Soraka.

AxlRose092 votes

I don't understand why people are so pissy about this in the first place

Anidan2 votes

Because a lot of people tend to get very pissy when something is abused by an unintended audience and the item gets a nerf due to that unintended audience. However, AP Ezreal really isn't dominating super-hard, but he is the only one that can reliably use the item to its fullest when outside of the jungle. It's not Cinderhulk, where the top laner/support carrying it felt extremely overbearing at least.

What Is Smite1 votes

I would say that TF and Kayle would also be able to abuse Runeglaive in lane

Partholonian1 votes

But they're not nerfing Runeglaive (aside from the bugfix); they're buffing it.

The bugfix, on the other hand, is going to hit AP Ez but pretty much no actual AP junglers. Their actual spells will still apply on-spell effects; Ez Q is one of the few that doesn't because it's an AA modifier. I suppose it might affect jungle Nasus, if he built it rather than Cinderhulk, but how likely is that? (Well, he does work really well with sheen items... maybe it would be worth it to go Runeglaive and then tanky. But that wouldn't involve Ludens or Liandrys anyway, so he still wouldn't care about the bugfix.)

Heckin Support2 votes

Anything that isnt teambuilder can just be pure cancer. I don't understand why riot just doesn't make teambuilder a thing for ranked. I have a pbe account and I never use it because I absolutely hate blind pick and thats all they offer for summoners rift.

Sammystorm1 votes

long queue times is a major major major turn off.

TheRainInSpain2 votes

We should limit one Flash per team. Maybe Clarity will be used for once!

Dalanin2 votes

Solution: Players with smite receive 50% less gold form lane minions for the first 20 minutes of the game

Anidan5 votes

Why are we trying to gut laner's ability to use Smite? This sounds like a non-problem, and this would also affect Junglers when they would want take a "lane tax" as well.

A lot of the problems I'm seeing in League are exclusive to League - extreme build stagnation, a desire to separate jungle and laners, etc.. You should not be seeking to restrict strategies and builds even further in this game.

Dalanin5 votes

The item was Designed for junglers, When laners startted abusing these items riot came in and nerfed them, hurting even more our current junglers pool to a point where only 5 to 10 champions are viable junglers Atm. Others just fall behind or fail to reach the late game.

TheRainInSpain1 votes

It may have originally been designed for junglers, but it should also be a meaningful pick for anyone else. You're trading: A. a more useful Summoner Spell B. early game dominance

to get the Smite effect, which is about 850 gold down the drain. In that same time, I could have my Dorans AND a basic item, putting me on a roll towards beating you out of lane. You have to get a kill on me and an assist elsewhere to get back up to parity. If I get First Blood, game over for your lane. You're risking a lot for that item. And for most people, risk does not give you guaranteed reward. So once the FOTM dies down, only overly confident/experienced/smurf players will get it regularly.

ClockHead1 votes

Also, you couldn't do an all smite team. Those are fun. summoner 11

Draven Wun Trick1 votes

they already said they like it when new and exciting plays come into the meta. i like the diversity in the game, i like when people do weird things that break the meta. but i agree that some things are broken about it and need to be addressed. just don't limit 1 smite per team. that would be dumb :/

What Is Smite1 votes

Riot could have setup the summoner spells similar to the game: SMITE's active items where you can literally buy your summoner spells instead of picking them at the start of them game, granted SMITE does have better gold gen system per second than League's 1.25 gold per second

IcyPepper1 votes

Not to mention some people run double jungle team comps.

I know I used to. No point in enforcing one meta, though.

kile1471 votes

Laners picking smite and using jungle items is not an issue. Laners have as much a right to use the jungle items as the junglers themselves, especially since Riot is intent on giving the jungle items very unique passives that can't be gotten any other way. Cinderhulk is the only item in the game that gives +%Bonus Health, just like Runglaive is the only item in the game that can turn an AA to magic damage. You notice that item 3707 enchant never had this issue because it doesn't offer anything unique that can't be aquired any other way.

viybez1 votes

{quoted}

just like Runglaive is the only item in the game that can turn an AA to magic damage.

item 3057 item 3025 item 3091 item 3100

kile1471 votes

Sheen and IBG adds bonus physical damage. Wits end and Lich Bane add bonus Magic damage which is nice but doesn't convert the base attack value to magic damage. One reason AP Ez likes Runglaive is that it converts his entire Q damage to magic damage, even the base damage from the Q. This allows for mpen to help his Q as well. They did a similar thing to Viktor by making it so that his Q automatically turns his next AA into pure magic damage.

AP Ez might still get item 3724 even without the super unique passive because of the combination of stats, but honestly if they changed Lich Bane so that it converted base attack damage to magic like runeglaive does, then this wouldn't be as much of an issue.

OperationDEEZ11 votes

Runeglaive is an early game crutch for AP Ez. Lich bane gives better overall damage output overall. Just get a item 3028 and there, mana problems solved. I know some people take it for the waveclear. But really, that isn't worth giving up a whole summoner spell for.

Lynxonyx1 votes

I main Singed, and I personally LOVE building cinderhulk on him. It makes playing him way more fun, but there is a distinct trade off of being much weaker early on, and having less of an escape. I wouldn't call the cinderhulk build on him any more stronger than a normal proxy build, just different, and certainly more entertaining.

Phoenix Kotori 1 votes

Players we want: Variety on Summoner Spells!... But not smite being viable on some laners!

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