[Item Concept] Mid-snowball Items.

So before we dive into the item concept lets start by getting some definitions down. Soft-snowball, mid-snowball, and hard-snowball.

Soft-snowball is best represented by items like Eleisa's Miracle. If a lead is gained and this item is built, it gives an advantage in the form of the permanent stats and passive, as well as freeing up an ever important item slot for more wards.

Pros:

• Allows for small leads to be turned into minor advantages.

• Frees up an item slot.

Cons:

• The lead gained is minor indeed, and its hard to see it in action.

Hard-snowball items, on the other hand, are ones that provide a huge bonus at the cost of being fairly risky. This represents items like Mejai's Soulstealer and Sword of the Occult. These items gain stacks with kills and assists, giving direct combat stats as a reward. When one dies, however, a good chunk of these stacks are lost, and the combat stats with them.

Pros:

• Very fun to have when everything is going right.

• If you are ahead, and play smart, they keep you ahead.

Cons:

• They aren't fun to play against. I think we all have experienced the terror of 20 stacks Mejai Lux at least once in our league career.

• When you aren't ahead, they are very discouraging and a waste of money. This is part of the risk of buying them, which also decreases how often they are bought.

"Hey, you skipped Mid-snowball!"

Yes, yes I did. Mid-snowball items are actually what I'd like to propose here.

Mid-snowball items would be ones that combine the small leads of soft-snowball items and give them the potential to change into the lead given by hard-snowball items. The defining feature of these items would be a unique passive similar to Eleisa's Miracle's that consumes the item after X levels, but also allows players who fulfill a requirement in that time to instead upgrade the item to something stronger. So it would look something like:

UNIQUE Passive - Blood Cost: Upon gaining 3 levels with this item, all effects of this item become permanent, and this item is consumed. Grants 1 stack on kill or assist. At X stacks, this item can be upgraded to ~.

"Can be upgraded? It doesn't work like Archangels staff?"

No, it doesn't, for two reasons. Firstly, this removes a choice the player might want to make. The upgraded item won't be consumed, so there is no getting that item slot back without selling the item. While unlikely that this choice would be made, it should still be in the hands of the player. Secondly, by having the upgraded item have a gold cost on top of the passive cost, the upgraded item can be made more strong without being inherently unbalanced. It also forces players to consider how they spend their gold if they start to get ahead, forcing them to play aggressive to get the kills so they can spend their gold, or buy other items and sacrifice the change to upgrade this item. However, the item that is created by the upgrade wouldn't be stack reliant, and instead function like Seraph's Embrace with stable stats that do not change. So, with that in mind, lets get down to the pros and cons of mid-snowball items.

Pros:

• The item rewards investment and aggressive play without overly punishing not getting super far ahead.

• Having the item go the soft-snowball route frees up an item slot.

• Isn't as punishing to play against as it doesn't immediately scale into power.

• Losing a strong lead won't destroy you.

Cons:

• Less power in the opponent's hands to shut down players who get the upgraded items.

• Potentially doesn't feel as fun to buy as hard-snowball items like Mejai's.

• In order to not be OP in both forms, the consumed form's buff needs to be small.

These cons can be addressed however.

By making the items slightly more powerful than other items at their cost, you reward a player for getting them without also punishing the opposing team for not feeding the mid-snowball champion. Hard-snowball items scale to a point that they are much stronger than anything else. These items would simply scale to a slightly stronger than normal point.

By freeing up a slot when the item cannot be finished, the player is freed up to build other items. This doesn't make the item more fun on its own, but keeps it from being a discouragement for the player as well.

By making the core item cheap, and the upgrade the most expensive, the permanent combat stat buff can be kept small without feeling entirely useless. Depending on how high the buff is, the cost can scale accordingly.

So, are there any thoughts, concerns, questions, or ideas related to this concept?

Sorry if this is the wrong sub-community for this. I considered Fan Creations but it isn't artistic in nature, and I considered Ideas and Feedback, but this is more about in-game than posts there se3m to be.

And thanks for reading!