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Utility - The Third Power

JLR·4/8/2014, 3:21:58 AM·2 votes·434 views

With the Season 4 changes and the way Riot attempted to build Support kits into having the utility of their abilities scale higher with more AP/tankyness/etc. alot of individuals were nervous about high abuse cases where maybe a Janna could give an ADC 600 Attack Damage or the Lulu we have seen as of late in the LCS, even Soraka is making an appearance now. My answer to these concerns and end-all solution for this entire problem is this. Why doesn't Riot make Utility a stat? Change all supports ratios to scale off of Utility, make a whole line of Support items that give Utility points the same way Ability Power and Attack damage are given and make Supports scale off of those. Utility points do not necessarily have to be a damage stat but can result in better heals, better speed buffs/debuffs, better silences/stuns,etc. By making Utility a stat and creating a new line of items with Utility as a stat, you don't have to tone down Supports ratios or nerf AP items due to a Support abusing a utility stat with Ability power. These utility points can be placed onto Tanky items, Harrass items, Power items, Utility items, etc. and they cannot be abused by other lanes or classes because those champions do NOT scale off of the utility points that make the items worthwhile.

The perks of making Utility a stat:

It solves the current problem of Support characters being used in carry roles to gain a high amount of utility along with decent amounts of damage.

It saves tank items and AP items from being nerfed or altered due to any abuse situation brought about by a support character.

It adds more item variety for Support characters and players specifically.

1 Comments

Tulare4/9/2014, 5:38:46 PM2 votes

I'd say that it also pigeonholes them, though. Suppose that Janna's tornado scales damage with AP and knockup duration with UT. I don't think that's an interesting choice. MAYBE if they tune the scaling so that an AP dominant Janna can play mid while a UT dominant Janna is optimized for support. Worse, though, if you want to have a little of both, you have to buy an item to buff each. Supports are already pretty limited in the space available in their inventories. I can only see a UT stat taking away any hope of typical support characters ever getting to play any other role.

Then there's the flip side. What about non-support characters with light utility abilities. Do they get their scaling switched to UT? If so, that's a big nerf for them. If not, why do THEY get to have both damage and utility scaling with AP while supports don't?