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Should Dark harvest be removed? what can be done?

IArs3lynI·12/14/2018, 10:29:33 AM·6 votes·15,349 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

29 Comments

Gilgayu12/20/2018, 1:19:22 AM2 votes

I think it would be nice for DH to rely havier on farming minions/jg camps (the old DH) rather than farming champions. The biggests problem of the old DH is how hard it snowballs. If you can get over 150 stack before 15 minutes, it is really hard to lose, especially if you are a kha or graves. Now it is very ez to proc, and easier to stack in a even team fight.

By using the cubic growth mentioned by the OP, or even exponential growth since games are like 20minutes these days, DH will have a much steadier power curve, rather than just the straight feast or famine it is right now.

Btw OP can you please explain to me what you mean by DH having too much dmg (I'm certainly not disagreeing), since from your "tables" more damage are dealt by electricute.

DeathBurst12/18/2018, 8:58:37 AM2 votes
  • Gathering Storm is not Exponential ( 2^x) but Quadratic (x^2), which is Polynomial just the same as Cubic. It's apparent in your own math, you wrote the equation as 8 x Z x (Z - 1), which when developed gives you 8z²-8z which is clearly a second degree polynomial.
  • Why go for a Cubic scaling? Cubic and Quadratic are more or less the same kind of curve, with the same properties, Cubic is just a tiny bit faster.
  • Exponential on the other hand is MUCH MUCH quicker, even if in practice it doesn't really matter because you can play with coefficient. It's only important when you go towards infinite, which is not the case in a finite video game.
  • Your idea of changing how much damage each stack adds over the course of the game is interesting. It's equivalent to approximating a more "curvy" function like a polynomial with a linear-by-piece function, and it's a very common trick in physics :)
Hibeki12/18/2018, 12:02:39 PM1 votes

Dark harvest just needs reverted with number tweaks to higher champion and minion stacks.

this new dark harvest is just "more damage". no restriction to proc it, just Aery 2.0

And just like aery, if the numbers dont suport it, its not work taking. its just bad design

Moonscourge12/18/2018, 1:34:53 PM1 votes

Dark Harvest is basically the same as it was before in terms of damage. It's almost negligible and basically just a resetting electrocute. Thematically it could be very interesting. Something that gets stronger as you use it. It should scale entirely on Harvests imo and have some other form of restriction on proccing it.

KirbyCake12/28/2018, 10:32:20 AM1 votes

[deleted]

Olshaw1/2/2019, 10:48:26 PM1 votes

What I want for Dark Harvest is a tick that goes onto a champ for five seconds. If the champ would take damage that would drop him into a range that the DH stack would kill him it does. Otherwise, it does no damage. This would give it a unique image.

Jean Backdoor12/14/2018, 11:17:34 PM1 votes

The real problem of Dark Harvest is just that its so easy to proc it (any damage source as long as the target is below 50% HP). It is way too permissive, at least make it when the target is like 35% HP so its will fit its role as the finishing hit rune and will punish greedy laners.

Right now even after the damages and stack nerf, its still a rune picked by any champions for any lanes and any roles cause its just too easy to stack it and will always be better than any of the other runes who are more limited by a certain numbers or type of actions/attack/ability

Rıots Bad Client1/9/2019, 9:57:46 PM1 votes

I would like it if it scaled with cooldown.

Meaning you can apply it more often later in the game. and I also would like if it didn't do damage. just disabled champions Summoners/Items. then assassins would have a good tool to use.

ModKnightsKemplar12/18/2018, 5:19:59 AM1 votes

Approved!