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The Viability of a 1 Summoner Spell limit and the Improvement of Summoner spells

Vexilus·10/4/2018, 10:18:32 PM·11 votes·28,655 views

I feel that summoner spells are in need of some work. The most recent summoner spell added to the game was Barrier in the beginning of season 3, over 6 years ago. And as time has gone on the game has changed a lot while the list of summoner spells actually dropped with the most recent removal of Revive(2015) and Clairvoyance(2016). As such this post is on my thoughts on the 3 most seen summoner spells, my thoughts on limiting players to 1 summoner spell. And some new additions and improvements to current summoner spells to allow more options working off of the idea of having 1 summoner spell to choose from.

The Big Three

Currently the top 3 summoner spells are Flash, Teleport, and Smite.

summoner 4 being the primo defacto movement summoner is the top because it gives champions so much ability to move offensively and defensively. You will never enter a Draft or Ranked game without seeing it. Flashy plays are always exciting to watch and there are many memorable uses of it like The Insec, Flash juke, The Doublelift, etc.

summoner 11 Smite is arguably the most important summoner spell in the game and that is a major problem. The fact that it is a necessity in order to play the jungle role greatly limits summoner spell diversity in the game. There are currently only a small number of champions (Hecarim, Olaf, and Udyr off the top of my head) who you could see in the jungle without having Flash and Smite as their summoner spells, and these are the two top summoner spells in the game.

summoner 12 is picked in nearly every game because it's essentially another movement summoner, it's distinction from flash is the channel and global range. It's an extremely essential summoner for top lane, thought the recent cooldown increase has opened up other summoner spell uses. Lane ganks, Teamfight flanks, Teleporting into the enemies base to end the game are among the most notable and impactful uses.

These three are the most game changing summoner spells in the game. And because they're so impactful, and because there are so few and so less useful summoner spells, these three crowd out the others completely. And Smite is the biggest offender. The jungle role is almost completely locked with smite as currently you cannot function in the jungle without it.

Limiting Players To 1 Summoner Spell

There has to be drastic changes in order to shake up summoner spell usage. And limiting everyone to 1 to me sounds like the most reasonable option. When selecting your summoners it's always Flash + The actual summoner you need in the game. My theory is that because we have 2 spells to choose from, Flash is always the second option. If Flash is no longer that default second option, people will instead choose the summoner spell they need for that game.

The benefits of a 1 Summoner Spell game

  • Greater summoner spell diversity in the game
  • Flash is no longer "the" definitive summoner spell to take
  • Allows the buffing of summoner spells to make them feel more impactful

The Cons of a 1 Summoner Spell game

  • Dealing with Smite and its overbearing nature on the game
  • Flash being crowded out in favor of other summoner spells
  • Immobile champions feel more vulnerable

I feel that the good out weigh the bad, and by introducing new summoner spells and changing old spells you can make up for the power difference that 2 summoner spells bring while bringing out greater diversity in summoner spells. Below are a few ideas on new and adjusted summoner spells to fit the idea of a 1 summoner spell game.

New Spells

Airburst - Release a powerful force of air from your champion, pushing back enemy champions.

  • Disengage focused summoner

Bolt - Summon a bolt of lightning dealing true damage to all enemies struck. Deals 350% bonus damage to shields

  • Anti shield summoner spell

Summon Minion - Instantly summon the next wave of minions, later in the game summon a super minion in place of the next wave of minions

  • Roam countering and wave management summoner

Abscond - After a delay become immune to all CC effects and quickly travel towards your base for a few seconds

  • An escape summoner

Old Spell Adjustment

Revive - Instantly revive yourself at the summoner platform, or revive a dead ally from their death location. Revived ally gains invulnerability as they recover up to 50% of their health and mana

  • adding the ability to revive an ally to increase its power

Clairvoyance - Reveal an area within a large radius of yourself. Enemy champions in the revealed are marked and reveal their location (does not remove stealth/camouflage). Enemy wards and traps revealed permanently lose their stealth.

  • Would be added as an available summoner spell in unsealed spellbook

Current Spell Adjustment summoner 7 - Aoe heal based on missing health that removes grievous wounds. Increases health regen for 30 seconds, but reduces subsequent uses of Heal during that time.

  • Giving aoe to have more power in teamfights, adding regen during the 30 second debuff window as I feel summoner spells shouldn't have drawbacks

summoner 6 - After movement speed buff ramps up allows you to move through walls. You remain in vision and targetable while inside terrain.

  • Making it a more versatile roaming summoner spell

summoner 21 - Shield additionally blocks spell damage over its duration

  • Differentiating it further from heal (original idea for change blocked 1 spell and granted allies the shield as well) -EDIT: changed from spells to spell damage

summoner 12 - Gain CC immunity during channel, can channel to any location within allied vision

  • Removing the ability to interrupt the channel and removing reliance of a ward to join teamfights

summoner 4 - Cooldown reduced by 1 minute, gain decaying movement speed after flashing

  • Small changes as I feel flash would drop in value with the limit to 1 summoner spell

summoner 1 - Break free of all CC excluding knockups and removes debuffs. Grants CC immunity on cast

  • Cleanse should not be weaker than QSS

summoner 3 - Stronger slow that decays, duration increased to 3 seconds. Additionally removes any beneficial buffs on the enemy champion.

  • Exhaust is underrated, so no drastic changes

summoner 14 - basic attacking the enemy you ignited extends the duration by up to 3 additional ticks of damage

  • Giving some small power making it more impactful

summoner 11 - [Removed] Instead added as an active on starter jungle items.

  • Best option for this summoner is to move it to an active slot on the jungle items, both freeing up a summoner spell slot for players while not needing to make major changes to its effects, and by proxy, jungle itself.

My Thoughts

  • Limiting Players to 1 summoner spell would greatly increase the summoner spell diversity in the game
  • 1 Summoner limit allows for the spells to be buffed to feel more impactful
  • There's a potential for flash to still be picked over everything else, but with my proposed changes I feel the opposite will happen
  • Smite being moved to an active item may cause problems with people re-learning the right button to press for smite, but could be solved by binding the jungle active as needed
  • Smite was the hardest thing to think about, because of all the intricacies of jungle. Took a couple days of thinking before realizing the best option would be to have it as an active item. As junglers build those starter items already, so this change doesn't affect jungling at all. Laners who want to be an additional smite on the team would have to take up an item slot to do so. Also means Unsealed Spellbook doesn't allow for an overwhelming smite advantage.
  • Ghost might still be a little weak even with giving it terrain ghosting
  • Summon minion might be too strong with a super minion, but also too weak without it. late game grief potential if a team opts to send 5 super minions down one lane. But they would sacrifice a lot to do so

43 Comments

MasterDClone10/7/2018, 6:44:45 AM12 votes

Aside from flash isn't ignite the most picked spell in the game, i see like 7-8 ignites a game. The new summs you proposed are ridiculous, in that they are just new get out of jail free cards, I also don't see the problem with smite. Overall i don't like the idea of summs being too strong and too interactive, because they aren't meant to. If i go jg with this system would that mean that u need the upgraded jg item or just the base

Shahamut10/9/2018, 8:16:23 PM4 votes

  1. Im not a fan of Ghost allowing wall movement. Only because that is kind of Kayn's thing already. Im sure something else could be done.

  2. My only problem with Smite is: What prevents it from being picked up by everyone later to secure baron/dragon? I suggest a solution, that the smite damage should have a base damage that ramps up with jungle camp/epic monster smites. So, smiting a jungle camp and securing the kill with it is what would ramp up its damage, making it impractical for people outside of junglers to use.

This would also leave the option open for, say, a roaming support to pick up and attempt to steal jungle camps etc, but it would be a risk/reward scenario.

The other thing though, is you would really need to look into the jungle enchants, as I think it would also open things up like Sion (and other tanks) getting the %HP increase from cinderhulk as well as access to things like challenging smite for duels. I like what you have as a base idea there, but there is definitely a lot more that goes into it. XD

ValyrianBlade10/8/2018, 1:06:59 PM3 votes

Don't these changes insanely buff junglers?

Jungle is balanced at the moment around having one less summoner as smite is mandatory. Now, everyone else loses a summoner, but junglers don't (they just get it moved).

Further, the lost summoner is often a mobility one or combat one, which means ganks are easier.

If this actually happened, jungle roles' already large influence on the game goes through the roof.

Asobi Spirit11/14/2018, 9:55:22 PM2 votes

This is a weird idea. I read comments saying "Junglers are gonna be crazy buffed as they get smite and BLANK whatever summoner spell they pick, I agree with those. One way to compensate without giving everyone 2 summoner spells would have to be a role specific starter item. As you suggested smite be the Jungler starting item, imagine if supports had exhaust or ignite, ADCS Heal or ignite, Mids Ignite or shield, Tops Teleport or ignite. But then that's just giving us 2 summoner spells.

Ignite that can do 40% max health in true damage... gross. 3 autos isnt hard to get, so that would be dominant. That may REPLACE flash as #1 summoner spell, unless it was changed to MAGIC damage with grevious wounds removed then sure, have it do that.

I also read Flash deletion comments, it's an idea sure, but is it a Good idea? Imagine all the rage after people hit D or F to find that their Flash was replaced by some other spell that they had to put in its place. That's one way to lose a playerbase. 99.99 percent of players use flash, it would not be smart to force a change to the entire playerbase.

Ghost that goes through walls. Thats basically taking it literally. Like some people said that is buffing ghost to be stronger than Flash in all scenarios, unless flash was given a longer distance (which erases it's current potential) with a short speed boost, like half a second.

Your new spell ideas are neat aside from Summon Minion and .... Abscond? . Air burst could give a non mobile mage who didnt take flash a means to escape. Basically an insta cast Janna Q. Bolt which removes a shield can be neat. Itd stop Sions everywhere, XD. Maybe lower it's TRUE damage to shields though, heck remove it entirely and make it a short slow that damages Magic and Physical Shields. That can stop a fleeing Karma or Janna.

Summon minion is just not a good idea. Zzrot is already a thing. Abscond is basically a shorter recall that doesnt put you on fountain based on my guesstimates. It's not needed.

Overall I don't support the idea. But I can humor it.

Dicerson10/9/2018, 8:19:17 AM2 votes

I like the idea of reducing the number of spells people have to 1, and then making the entire selection of summoner spells significantly more powerful. Of course, many of the specific changes you've outlined here sound sort of ludicrous, but the thinking is definitely on the right track.

Honestly, I think riot should consider something like this. Everyone get's one summoner, and all the summoners are blatantly OP specifically because everyone gets one. So long as no one summoner is universally more useful than any of the others (Which is why flash is the perma-spell that everyone always takes forever). This means flash should stay somewhat close to it's current form, while the rest get buffs. Flash is more generally useful, and so it's effect is weaker compared to the others. Just need to be careful about creating god-spells, such as the AoE heal or "everyone is kayn" ghost XD

ModUlanopo10/7/2018, 4:42:43 PM2 votes

I like the fact that you're challenging the fundamental assumptions behind summoner spells, but mobility probably has too high a value for spells other than Flash to be competitive unless they're square broken, which would be really unhealthy for the game.

I've long thought that you could achieve some diversity and modulate mobility creep by locking out Flash (and Mark/Dash on Murderbridge) on champions that already have mobility.

Anraton11/7/2018, 11:24:10 PM2 votes

About summoner 11 you forget, that being able to buy a jungle item is tied to having smite as summoner. Why it is tied? - because jungle items were stronger than "regular" items - even that strong, that laners took smite to be able to use the jungle item.

So removing smite completely and giving everyone easy access to the jungle item agains is kind of a bad idea.

Rekkon10/7/2018, 8:17:49 AM2 votes

You propose some good changes to make up for the loss of that extra spell slot. There are few problems though:

  • Airburst should not deal damage (if it was ever intended)
  • summoner 6 making you travel through terrain is just summoner 4 but much better because of the extra mobility.
  • Summon Minion shouldn't allow summoning an extra Super Minion at later stages of the game. That is a lot of potential for a comeback.
  • summoner 21 is going to be stupidly overpowered. Spells shouldn't be just blocked like that. The shield's strength is already high enough.

My thoughts about these changes are the following:

  • summoner 4 will have little usage. People will really love to have something more valuable and adjusted to their playstyle than have an escape tool ever 4 minutes.
  • Imagine 5 people with summoner 7. No thanks.
  • Same but for Revive. It's like giving everyone a second chance. This will have to be somehow limited to up to 1/2 summoners per team being equipped with that. They would have to communicate about this in the loadout preparation window, otherwise the game will be either cancelled or someone's spell will be changed to something random or most fitting depending on data.
  • Summon Minion also comes at the cost of giving extra gold to the enemy team. On the one hand it can extend pushing by a lot and on the other it can get an enemy back easily with a free extra 105 gold.
Xavanic10/12/2018, 8:16:03 PM1 votes

This would be a neat idea, but flash would have to be nerfed into the ground or deleted entirely, its easily the best summoner spell in the game and the only one we would see

Qukslice10/14/2018, 7:00:14 AM1 votes

This is a great idea, but I don't think adding more summoners would be very beneficial. A lot of the ones you added are honestly not useful (Why take Airburst over Flash, Why take Abscond over Ghost). Buffing the ones we never see in play like cleanse or ghost while keeping the others in check is not only more familiar to every player, but it's also easier to balance.

I really like your idea for smite. The only thing I think would be a negative is that everyone can buy one and help smite objectives, so we might see 5 smites in play for both sides. Maybe that's what you want, but personally I think maybe moving junglers toward healthier clears and making so smite is added with the enchantment is the best call. That makes it an investment to buy the smite item rather than anyone with extra gold picking it up for some health or objective control.

JavelinJoe10/18/2018, 11:46:29 PM1 votes

I feel like air burst would be too strong. The biggest weaknesses of many champions are their lack of hard CC. Also this can insainly buff Yasuo which is never a good thing. Also the Abscond is a nice idea as long as you are disabled for its duration. If not it just becomes a directed Olaf ult. As for flash, the decaying movement speed debuff would make it 100% worthless aside from terrain movement, which your new Ghost already handles. Think about it, you move a short distance to increase the gap only to have you unable to continue running to keep that distance.

DeathBurst10/29/2018, 2:00:35 PM1 votes

No offense meant, but I disagree on all accounts.

  1. Why is the current situation a problem? You vaguely talk about diversity, but you never tell us precisely why we need to change. Remember that even if the current situation is not perfect, there is a cost to change, so the issue solved must be serious enough to justify the cost, and this is not clear at all here. Sure it could be more diverse, it could be better, but why is it bad that everyone has Flash?

  2. Your theory that "Flash is always the second option" and so if we allow only 1 summoner Flash will drop in usage is entirely unproven. My theory is that Flash is always the first option, and that if you allow only 1 summoner, Flash will crowd all the other options. And my theory is backed up by the fact that if Ignite is sometimes the first choice (meaning it's better than Flash) and sometimes TP is the first choice (meaning it's better than Flash), then you should see people with Ignite/TP sometimes. And you don't (outside of a wild Shaco Top every couple hundred games).

  3. Why do we need new summoners, or to bring back old summoners that got deleted? Again, cost of change, etc. You shouldn't introduce new stuff just for the sake of novelty, so why these new spells? And especially for old spells that got deleted in the past, they were removed for a reason. Why should they get back?

  4. Why buff existing summoners? You say "because we only get 1, so it can be more powerful", but that doesn't work. Too much power concentrated in a single ability is a bad thing. See how they nerfed old Seju R, how they removed old Poppy R, how they entirely reworked old Galio R, how new Warwick R is not point'n'click anymore, etc. Basically, take any rework ultimate and compare it to the previous version. And current summoners are already among the most powerful abilities in the game. Making them even stronger is not a good idea, even if we get only one. You can see how other people already complained about your buff to Ignite, because they already perceive the current Ignite as strong, but in reality the same problem will apply to all your buffed summoners.

My conclusion: Flash is crowding out other options, and it might be interesting, but it's not needed, to see more diversity. I can agree on your goal, but not on its priority compared to other works or on its importance. Even more so with Smite. But your proposed solution to reach that goal, I'm highly skeptical that it will do any good, and it can do a lot of harm...

james2k10/30/2018, 1:06:29 AM1 votes

Having only 1 summoner spell would DESTROY low-mobility champs. They'd still have to pick flash 100% of the time, but now lose ignite and suddenly miss out on tons more kills, or lose teleport and miss out on reaching their team fast. Low mobility champs would just be unplayable.

Bârd11/1/2018, 5:57:59 PM1 votes

Airburst sounds interesting, but I don't like the idea of Zed turning himself into a living Gragas ult.

Bolt is gimmicky and I don't like it.

I'd rather have Rally than summon minion. This is a boring spell.

Abscond makes it far too difficult to punish late game champions.

I like Revive, but the ability to ressurect an ally is too much. Maybe if it worked like Chronoshift, but not in this form.

CV would still not be worth running over anything else.

Heal, Ghost, Barrier, and Cleanse changes are fine.

That TP change is absolutely busted. Caught out the ADC? Sorry, blue trinket into TP. They're gone now.

Flash is already strong. Don't buff it.

We had something like that version of Exhaust already. It was called Stifle and it was the most broken thing in the game. Kayle, Tryndamere, Zilean, Aatrox, or Twitch used their ults? Sorry I had Exhaust, your ult is gone now. League doesn't have distinctions between dispel types and dispel vulnerabilities, so having something that purges buffs would purge all buffs.

The Ignite change would be ok if you reduced its damage per tick.

The smite change needs something to prevent abuse in lanes, because this would make Hunters Talisman a broken starting item in mid. Need HP? Nuke the raptors, heal a quarter of your health. Want to back? Smite the cannon creep.

Boreas IX11/8/2018, 8:12:58 AM1 votes

Riot will nerf ignite, heal, barrier, or exhaust because everyone is taking it but never nerf flash. They want to encourage summoner spell diversity but removed things like surge, rally, and whatever one of those blue ones were.

That alone makes them a disconnected pack of apes. Out of season April fool's jokes.

Boreas IX11/8/2018, 8:22:00 AM1 votes

Also your ideas for flash, tp and ghost are trash. Flash needs to be discouraged as a 100% pick.

SanKakU11/20/2018, 7:49:06 PM1 votes

Even if there is not enough good reason to implement your idea in full, there is a lot of content here to get inspiration from. Nice post.

I personally feel like Smite shouldn't be the only summoner spell to get buffs by buying items. Imagine some of these spells getting buffed by your item purchases. Something I've been hoping they'll do for a while now.

nick20511/23/2018, 3:19:41 AM1 votes

The summon minion would be way to strong, imagine if 5 people took it and just pushed like crazy.

ModKnightsKemplar10/7/2018, 2:42:04 AM1 votes

Approved!

Inkling Commando11/23/2018, 3:32:03 AM1 votes

summoner 12 removing reliance of a ward to join teamfights

people don't know this but YOU CAN TELEPORT TO MORE THAN JUST MINIONS AND WARDS! teemo shroom? boom. teleport spot. J4 flag? boom teleport spot. cait snap trap? boom teleport spot. anything a champion can drop can be teleported to. hell even if zac explodes and is reassembling himself his disembodied blobs of slime can be teleported to.

zoliking10/7/2018, 8:31:08 AM1 votes

Having 1 summoner spell slot, even with all the changes, would result in everybody other than junglers using flass, not flash being devalued. It's just too nifty, and for many champions the only mobility on top of walking. It's not like flash is too good so it's necessary in one slot and the other holds the summoner spell the player really wants to use. It's flash is so good that the player really wants to use it and on top of it gets to pick something else as a seasoning, for a little additional utility flavor.

Warlord Dienekes10/7/2018, 2:36:40 PM1 votes

I’m not entirely sure if this will work like you want it to.

Mostly, because movement is power. With the increased emphasis on skill shots, and set up abilities, and combos. Any character without a quick any direction dash will need to take Flash.

Otherwise they are just gank fodder. There’s a reason why good players point out when flash is down so the jungles can start focusing in on ganking that land.

Knocking those low movement champions to just one summoner slot means they will just need to take flash with nothing else. Especially now that the cooldown is a minute faster.

Now having Smite become the active of your basic jungle items. That’s an interesting idea.

Pika Fox10/7/2018, 2:47:39 PM1 votes

Remove flash from the game completely. The only way youre going to see real diversity.

Evíl cookie10/7/2018, 3:38:20 PM1 votes

The Game is balanced around summoner 4 . Without flash immobile champions like Lux aren't playable anymore. We need more (situational) tools against (hyper-)mobiility in game.

A Time Wizard10/7/2018, 11:11:16 PM1 votes

Just making sure, but clairvoyance would be available outside of unsealed spellbook and would still retain its 60 second cooldown, correct? Also I find it funny that it is the only summoner spell being nerfed. Personally I used it as a tool to ensure that the botlane always knew when the enemy jungler was about to gank bot. I would be fine with its nerf as long as its at least the range of Twisted Fates ult's second cast (5500 units)

Actually while im typing this, is clairvoyance actually going to be a Quinn w that reveals traps and wards? I personally much preferred the previous one, though I can see how your new version makes more sense in the game.

In general, can you add a cooldown for each summoner spell in their description?

OJPhoenix10/8/2018, 12:28:10 PM1 votes

definitely like what you're trying to do here, especially the smite idea - though i should remind you, riot has been using the smite summoner as a way to lock non jungler's out of their items to prevent abuse (though I can't remember precisely why)

love the new summoner ideas too, those are pretty sweet

Von Brohenheim10/9/2018, 2:14:08 PM1 votes

We could have an entire thread on my favorite point you made: smite as an item active, not a summoner spell. Upvoting this for that great idea alone.