Skip to content

An idea for barrier

Fyrion··15 votes·4,674 views

As it stands on live, barrier has been almost completely eclipsed by heal, despite barrier having slightly better numbers. This is for two primary reasons: the health gained from heal is permanent, and it offers more interesting gameplay moments due to the ally healing and the move speed. I had an idea to help give barrier a more interesting presence in game.

My idea is for barrier's cooldown be reduced if the barrier is broken, instead of timing out. This would reward players for properly predicting incoming damage, while giving opponents the opportunity for counterplay by stopping damage to force the longer CD.

34 Comments

RiotMorello5 votes

We're doing some explorations on what Barrier should do, now that (as you said) Heal is the superior option. Since the comparison between them will always be a numbers game, it should have a different function (so you decide on what strategic benefit you want as opposed to comparing nuanced differences).

Nine Ravens13 votes

Have you considered something like combining the Barrier and Cleanse effects? Then the decision is between more potential healing with multiple players and the movespeed, or being more reliably able to selfishly escape.

Ace Cmdr Neyo1 votes

I was just about to type this my friend, this man has my vote ^_^

RiotMorello8 votes

We have - it's not a bad idea, but I think we can make it more distinct on the "protect" aspect.

My favorite and fucking-terrifying idea so far is 1.5 second 100% damage reduction. Does a forbearance-style effect with Hourglass and pool/etc.

Fomorian274 votes

So... kayle's ultimate? Doesn't that kind of negate what makes kayle special though?

By forbearance style effect, do you mean that it somehow slows/immobilizes you so that you lose your damage? That could actually be kind of cool.

Knight Devout2 votes

Forbearance was a debuff (it still exists AFAIK). After you cast a strong defensive spell, like Divine Shield (total immunity to damage and cc) , you get a debuff that prevents you to cast that and other similar spell on the same target for a while.

Dunno how that would apply in LoL. For example I'd say by intuition that it would prevent the target from being targeted by Kayle Intervention, but would that also affect Shen Stand United and Lulu Wild growth ?

Fomorian271 votes

I think the way it would work in lol, and the reason he mentioned zonyas and pool is that it would prevent you from autoattacking. I don't think making you unable to be kayle ulted afterwards would be all that fun, but giving up damage to be completely immune to a whole burst of enemy fire could really help an adc, who traditionally have a problem with being oneshot.

Knight Devout1 votes

Oh, well, that makes sense, but it's not forbearance :P Forbearance didn't limit your damage output. Divine shield does for the duration, but you can remove the buff with a macro if you need the damage.

exec32 votes

Kayle's ult? Please for the love of god NO! Kayle's ult is disgusting and frustrating enough without anybody and everybody having the ability to do the same. :( Granted a lot of Kayle's problem is its super low cooldown and long duration but still i'm not a fan.

Ryne19951 votes

Have you considered maybe keeping the same protection only adding a spell shield like effect like maybe blocks the first ability in addition to the shield or even just making it like Morgana's shield?

Knight Devout1 votes

Wouldn't that be , like, stealing one , if not the strongest of Kayle's identity?

This said , I also agree that something like that would be a nice strategic addition , especially for squishy champions who simply don't get enough mitigation(i.e. the shield value is not increased a lot by armor and mr) to survive something like a Zed ultimate or LB combo.

What about something like 50% damage reduction BUT still with a shield? That way it's also still useful against true damage,as the shields would absorb it. Unless you meant the 100% damage reduction to also negate true damage, but that would be a weird exception considering not even Exhaust or Alistar ultimate work that way .

Moreover, a on-demand Kayle ult that doesn't require Kayle to be in range would make Marksmen really scary in the lategame, don't you think?

o0ClownFiesta0o1 votes

maybe a "100% dmg reduction vs autoattacks for 1.5 seconds"(then if needed a **SMALL **scaling shield to compensate?) ? after all its desinged to be an adc summoner(isnt it?), that would be quite strong on bot's laning phase.

Lyanol2 votes

You could reduce the time on barrier to 1.5 seconds and make the champion who uses it cc immune while it is unbroken, I feel numbers wont matter so much between heal and barrier since with heal its just, "I'm low? Better get some health back" or " I'm chasing I can use some health and movement speed" with barrier your choices are limited by your reaction time and whether or not your quick enough to block the burst of damage coming your way and if you use it to late, you take a chunk use barrier and walk away with it unbroken

RiotMorello2 votes

I've liked this as a "combine with cleanse" model too.

Tobasco da Gama1 votes

I love this idea. Like a Black Shield anyone can use.

Crimson Mutt 22 votes

While the barrier is active, grant X% damage reduction.
There, fixed. They are now completely different spells with different uses.

Heal against sustained damage, supporting allies.
Barrier for self-protection vs burst.

Sir ArmaMalum1 votes

I was about to say "Let's wait and see for the 4.6 changes to settle before anything is said" but then I saw the idea and liked it in a general manner.

I think I've seen this proposal tossed around before, but it's still a good idea imho, although will naturally cause some number tweaking.

dodgethisbuddy1 votes

hmm that seems like an interesting idea and i totally agree with how barrier is of almost no use compared to heal imagine supports running heal as well...i know the new patch reduces the affects of heal if more than one heal heals a champ but still it would be quite the lane dominator. For barrier thou if they were to reduce cd like u said it would be kinda unfair since u can basically block a certain amount of damage and in almost every team fight and that would make it harder to kill adc and imagine how hard it already is because of all the peel adc's get. i would suggest making the numbers on barrier lower than what it was before or something around that lol

Bot Support Lulu1 votes

Make it to were you can use it on others too.

KingSmizzy1 votes

The Heal summoner is so strong because it gives you that movement speed burst. It can get out you of whatever was damaging you plus stopping the killing blow, it far surpasses barrier in any survivability utility. reducing the cooldown on barrier might make it more appealing in lane, but in mid-late game where every teamfight counts youll want the extra mobility from heal over barrier everytime.

plus the numbers on barrier would have to be massive to even try to compete with the fact that heal spreads to allies as well.

I think they should retune barrier to have a special secondary like heal's movement speed buff. Maybe Barrier should be given something like 'stops debuffs while the barrier is active'. 1.5s is not an overbearing amount of time, plus it wouldnt stop hard cc like immobilizes or stuns, just slows to movespeed or attack speed or attack damage reductions like Tryndameres Mocking Shout. I think im gonna make my own post about this. :P

JsKingBoo1 votes

Alternatively, you can make barrier's shield stronger

RiotMorello3 votes

But then it runs into the same problem - which saves me better, outside of a few weird nuances.

Samflash31 votes

How about giving it a passive - active effect? A passive like Runic shield but current Barrier active. The passive has a recharge time (probably with a reduction in timer based on last hits or 90/120 seconds) but is easily exploitable early game.

JsKingBoo1 votes

The way I see it, Heal is more of an anti-DoT and anti-AOE damage while Barrier is an anti-single target nuke. Barrier is more selfish than Heal.

Making Barrier stronger will allow the user to survive the Garen ulti if barrier is chosen but will ultimately kill the user if stuck at low health and then ignited. Meanwhile, Heal may save teammates from a Ziggs ulti but in a 1v1 duel can't sustain the user long enough to penetrate through the opponent's Barrier, but Barrier's 2 second duration is long enough for the opponent to deal ~700 more damage or something

Currently, Heal is better in early game AND late game because it removes Ignite debuff (stops early kills) and heals more health than Barrier blocks.

Burnakai1 votes

I like this idea yet i feel like it would be a little op because anyone who know how to use barrier well will be really good with this instead i think you should go on the permanent end i think the sheild should be permanent but right when the sheild is out or u recall you lose the sheild and the cooldown now then starts and then give it a very minor speed buff for it has a little comparsion lets buff summoner 21 -thanks super sayan

TheLordPuddinCup1 votes

2 options i see, 1 make barrier a short burst survival skill ~500hp but only lasting 1 second or even 1k and .75 sec something thats like "HA i survived that ulti because i knew just when to pop my barrier".

Or go all out and make barrier something different, like a deployable snowglobe that protects allys within a short radius from external people for a % of damage, so like a braum E but round and only reducing ranged attacks/spells

Dianarrhea1 votes

Just make summoner 21 remove the ability to get summoner 14 ed while active, and remove it from summoner 7 . It will give a reason to use both. It might not make it as good as summoner 7 , but summoner 7 is currently maybe just a tad too strong.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

I'm going to disagree with you here. I think heal is at a really good place in patch 4.6.

As of a couple patches ago, flash has, for a long time, been so OP compared to other summoners that it's basically a requirement that you take it. I think Riot are trying to make it so that all summoners are at the same level as flash (because they've already tried nerfing flash (it's been nerfed as much as it can without making it useless) and that hasn't worked.

This approach, has finally been successful (as we can see from the top lane tele/heal mundos seen in the LCS recently). go rito!

Thryale1 votes

or we could just remove barrier, considering it was originally created for the alternate game modes in the first place, and was never intended for SR to begin with.

in fact, the reason barrier was brought to SR was -because- ppl were using heal for the same reasons they would normally use barrier...

Cynikul1 votes

The best step, too me, would include any (or possibly multiple) of these options:

  1. Remove the cleanse debuff from heal, move it to barrier, THEN creates the shield.
  2. Barrier decreases incoming damage by 35% for 1.5 seconds, as well as the shield.
  3. Decrease potency of Barriers shield, make it also slow/exhaust immune for the duration. Cannot be slowed for the duration of the barrier. Any** SLOW** is removed that was placed prior to barriers use.
  4. Barrier makes a champion completely invulnerable to the next source of damage, then creates a shield after that hit. Cooldown is reduced if the barrier is "popped".
  5. Same concept as #2, but Barrier reduces damage by 60% for 1 or 1.5 seconds, and no shield is created. If armor/MR is already greater than 60%, it has half effectiveness.
  6. All damage above X is reduced by X%?

Just thought I'd share some ideas. I think any number of these are in the right direction, a few of them might also make Tank engages less scary, while giving a few countermeasures for them to be ridiculous. Personally , I feel like most of these would work pretty well, but if I had to pick- #4 #5 and offer some interesting play and might even make barrier viable on other players.

Skarlath the Haw1 votes

Barrier has a shorter cooldown and i believe shield's for more than than heal gives health. However, Heal is better simple because its permanent health, IMO.

Sternbery1 votes

Have you thought about making heal more of a "run away" spell and making barrier more of an "engage" spell.

Heal currently gives a burst of movement speed but the amount given is reduced by healing reduction effects like ignite. Barrier only shields damage but it is not reduced.

midorii1 votes

What would be your opinion on having barrier as a reflect effect? Kind of make it the middleman between an offensive and a defensive spell.

I'm thinking absorbing and returning the damage onto the attacker. As far as numbers go it could both absorb and deal damage = to about half the damage an ignite would do.

Or less as it is a very powerful concept But I could see it being really fun and skillfull choice over ignite, and could lead to some exciting some pinch engagements

Fyrion1 votes

I've just had another bit of inspiration. What if you gave barrier a longer duration, and give it a flat % damage reduction that diminishes with every instance of damage you take from enemy champions.

This would retain it's effectiveness against 1v1 burst damage, while not taking away the enemy team's ability to pile onto and kill a carry, or reducing it's weakness to damage over time.

More from Live Gameplay Balance

More by Fyrion