Let's talk Grievous Wounds!

RiotZenonTheStoic·4/8/2014, 8:38:48 AM·13 votes·15,564 views

There are two wonderful threads out there where the inimitable FeralPony talks itemization, and in the older one of the two he quickly touches on Grievous Wounds (GW) and calls me out by name. As well he should! I am working on Warwick's relaunch and part of that is "how do we deal with GW on a tank that derives his tankiness from self-heal?" As you may expect, I have some thoughts.

I posted a long and ranty post on that old thread and then realized that no one was going to look at a week old thread, so instead I'm reposting my original answer as the first post in this thread.

My argument is this: I don't think our game needs GW. The things GW "fixes" can be fixed on their own. I may be wrong--hell, I expect I'm wrong since that's where disagreeing with FeralPony usually gets me, but let's have a conversation! I'll repost my rant and then open the floor for all of you: how do you feel about GW? How do you feel about the ITEMS that currently provide GW? (And let's not forget the skills, such as there are--Tristana E, Varus W, Fizz W, Miss Fortune W and Katarina R) Is it okay that I can counterpick your Volibear/Swain with a Tristana?

65 Comments

RiotZenonTheStoic4/8/2014, 8:45:56 AM8 votes

Yup, that thought indeed came out of the Warwick discussion. Basically, IMO there's roughly three use cases in which people might theoretically be considering grievous wounds (and I'm not sold that 3) is actually a thing)

High burst sustain self-heal champions. This is the likes of Mundo, Swain, Warwick, Volibear etc. There is usually a single, expensive (i.e. non-spammable) event where you want to apply GW: Mundo/Swain using ult, Warwick jumping in with ult and trying to spam Qs after (something he can't do constantly as Q is STUPID expensive on live), Volibear's passive proccing etc. I believe the reason people want GW in these situations is because the effects themselves may either be overtuned or feel like there's no counterplay once the champion gets ahead. Introducing a special item to "fix" this feels like a design crutch to me. It's taking away those champions' high moments.
Strong in-combat sustain healing. I don't know if this really is a thing anymore, but imagine having a support soraka, a top-lane nidalee and a mid kayle on the enemy team, and something like a jungle Xin who jumps into your team and starts being a man. In those cases it feels like you require GW to counter the enemy's setup, because the usual counterplay to Xin jumping into your team (burst him down) isn't available. Again, I don't think GW is the answer here. The problem is that there are strong offensive champions who get a big heal for free by itemizing in the most aggressive way possible (Nid, Kayle). As for support healing, whenever we push our supports away from in-combat healing, we make out-of-combat sustain ("top up" healing in between interactions) the stronger choice, and I think we generally find that to be the less healthy pattern (hence Soraka's armor buff on her heal, Taric's big CD chunk on basic attacks, Nami's bounce heal/hurt spell--all of these mechanics are meant to push the optimal use case of the spell to in combat rather than out of combat. I don't think they work, but the intention is there.)

IMO, if the enemy wants to build a team that enables a strong deep diver to live much longer than normally, they should be paying for it in some other way. If there is a legit setup with such tradeoffs that manages to get to the point where Xin can dive and wreak havoc, cool! Your entire enemy team coordinated to do a cool thing, they should get rewarded for it. I don't think it's fair to offset coordination through the pick phase, the laning phase and inside teamfights by simply buying one item and saying "hah! You're screwed now!"

End game ADC lifesteal sustain. So a lot of designers throw this one around as the reason for GW, but call me doubtful. End game ADCs, no matter what reddit and the forums say, are still absolutely insane in our game. There is no role that scales anywhere near as massively as dudes who right click you. They have access to more multiplicative stats than any other role (AD, AS, crit chance, crit dmg, procs, armor penetration) combined with the single most powerful innate tool in our game (range) and some of the sweetest deals in terms of itemization. The theory here is that if they mix in lifesteal in their build (which they can do easily enough; both BT and BotRK are great items even WITHOUT the LS on them) they can feel unkillable and as such, GW should give you a window to try and solo kill an ADC in the late game. I cannot argue with this intellectually; it makes perfect sense.

The problem is: I've never in my 1000+ games of League actually seen anyone use GW in such a way. I've never seen it on a stream, never seen it in a competitive game, I've not seen it in Silver II ranked, I've not seen it in normals--I'd love to be proven wrong here, but I don't think it's a thing!

So to back off and reassess the problem space at hand: sustain is a thing in our game, and in many cases it's totally fine to have. However, there's a handful of cases where sustain can feel so overwhelming that players want a "NOPE" button to turn off the enemy's sustain. That NOPE button should be GW.

Jingerbeardman4/8/2014, 9:38:15 AM4 votes

I personally feel that Grievous Wounds should be broken into two categories, so to speak, for this discussion. Zenon already eluded to this in that you have ignite and items that apply GW and then there are champion abilities that apply GW.

Tristana in particular comes to my mind. She is the one Marksman/ADC that does not have a regular "poke" skill. Because of that I feel grievous wounds is alright on her E as it makes the damage impact-full and not simply washed away with sustain. I also feel that it is an interesting element to have on Varus's E as well since it is truly temporary and in a fixed location giving it strategic value. Miss fortunes W on the other hand is not the same, it has no real strategic value because it is tacked onto her auto attacks which means it just gets reapplied over and over again. The counter argument is that this only occurs by activating her W and for a limited time. While this may be true, when it is on she is able to apply it to multiple targets. In my mind this defeats the purpose of it being there. The same can be said for Fizz and his W. As for Katarinas R I could take it or leave it.

If there was a way to add limitations to drain tanks I do feel that GW on ignite and on items would no longer be necessary. I would still keep it on champion specific skills as it adds additional flavor to the game and increases strategy. Except when it is simply being applied by auto attacks by activating an ability.

PS: thanks for calling my threads wonderful xD

RCIX4/8/2014, 12:28:06 PM4 votes

After ruminating on it some, my main thought is that Mundo, Fiddlesticks, and possibly Swain are the only cases where you're really saying "I need GW to counter something". Any sort of support sustain-heal, poke-heal, or engage-heal situation is currently at the point where heals will prolong a fight but they won't win a fight (URF mode aside). And the issue with drain tanks is that there's no gameplay associated with the heals. The one possible drain tank that DOES have that ( Zac ) was only ever played when his kit was overtuned.

Mundo in general is a big ball of stats (W = sunfire cape, E = BT or maw, and R = a zillion HP regen items) and a broken as hell % damage nuke; he is, as you put it, the biggest "stat check" in the game right now. Super spitballing here, but if Mundo had an ultimate that was like "Increase all self-healing by 500%" and was given 2 more abilities with situational, partial health refunds I feel like he'd be a lot healthier. I'm just having trouble with the concept of a tank whose sole fantasy is "I can ignore whatever you do to me while beating on you with a foam stick".

Other than that... I honestly can't think of a single case where Grievous Wounds couldn't be removed and replaced with appropriate tuning and mechanics tweaks. The corner case about ADCs is more where you apply Grievous Wounds to try and let DoTs + ignite finish them off instead of letting them right click sustain through them. In-combat, they're fragile enough for lifesteal to not really matter against any target on semblance of even ground.

JackYAqua4/9/2014, 1:01:36 PM4 votes

I think the solution to item 3123 is to simply remove Grievous Wounds and replace it by something that's supposed to fulfill the same role.
Maybe an Armor, that makes it so enemies cannot LifeSteal or Spellvamp off of you.

Hellioning4/8/2014, 9:18:07 AM4 votes

In my opinion, remove GW entirely and rework or rebalance all the champs who relied on it to not be amazing. I almost never see someone use an ability that causes GW for the GW effect, it's just something that happens when they want to go in. As a caster support main, I almost always buy a item 3165 entirely because late game ADC lifesteal is strong enough that it's a good idea to lower that, even with the conditional GW effect. item 3123 is a badly itemized item; the only class that cares about crit, ADCs, are also some of the most selfish in the game, because they only get their supreme damage potential by building the 'correct' path every game. This means the only ones who MIGHT get it are non-AP champions who are fine with giving up a bit of power for team utility, which means, like Thresh or Leona .

I'd also like to express my opinion on something that Xelnath said about Drain Tanks in this thread. I like drain tanks. The most fun I've had top lane was me as Irelia fighting a Warwick and attempting getting into a good 30 second long duel in which we attempting to out lifesteal each other. It may have been stupid and not at all mechanically difficult (our strategies were 'PRESS BUTTONS WHEN THEY ARE OFF COOLDOWN) but damn if it wasn't tense as all hell. I'm fine with in combat sustain as long as it's a strength that has associated weakness; maybe in exchange for their ability to regen up, they're a bit less durable than standard tanks, or they do less damage, or something.

Also lifesteal is terrible, lifesteal itemization is way too good, and lifesteal is way too cheap, so please do something about poke supports, because I like them.

Felaeris4/8/2014, 1:58:10 PM3 votes

Once upon a time item 3123 applied GW as an active effect that required people to give some thought to when to apply it. It wasn't much thought. considering the CD was very short in itself.

item 3123 was changed to a passive so it would be less micro-intensive and to try and improve the chance WW, Swain, Mundo, etc, could escape the effect that was temporary in duration. I think there was also a part in there where they removed the lifesteal on it so that it could maintain a low price (15-20% lifesteal for barely more than the intial Vamp scepter was crazy.)

But now we've come to a point where it's bringing a broken lawn chair to a brawl. It's a broken "I win" button that nobody likes to touch because its nasty, doesn't bring a lot of 'visible' DPS that all the little kids are fond of, and is itemized very poorly for the slot.

Also the ADC is the only one to even think of touching it as a result.

I still buy it. I still use it in place of the defensive slot against WW, Voli, Mundo, Swain, and even Akali when I play Draven. And as incredibly awkward as it is to do that.... if I don't they tend to roll face.

Arguably Varus has the best incarnation of GW's in the game. Not necessarily because it's effective, but because you can -do- something about it as a team to escape or trap the above champs in it.

But mobility creep and the small area of effect tend to bar it from being useful anywhere but on paper.

Maybe it should go back to being an active effect but apply a 'Tainted ground' effect similar to Varus ?

Sire Hippington4/9/2014, 11:29:11 PM2 votes

I think with the current GW, there are 2 problems.

Ignite, having a source of GW free for everyone without any tradeoff as Ignite is picked anyways for it's truedmg by 2-3 players per team every game somewhat makes GW as a choice to counter healing pointless.
GW has to be removed from Ignite, or ignite has to loose a good bunch of dmg so u realy pick it for the GW, not as free dmg that somehow happens to have GW on top.
It currently reduces heals by 50%, wich is to much imho. 50% means the difference between GW and no GW is realy huge, makeing champs like Swain or Mundo feel overhelming if u face them without GW, but pretty underwhelming if u play them and eat some GW, wich ends with playing against and playing as feeling bad.
with a lower value like 25%, u could still use GW to counter Healing, but realy heal dependend champs could get tuned in a way that makes them strong but not oppressive without GW, while they still would heal enough to not get totally destroyed by GW.
With GW beeing less strong, u could also give a bit more power to skills and items that currently apply GW, and Executioners needs a rework anyway.

Kurasami4/9/2014, 11:11:24 AM1 votes

not sure where the thoughts on WW Q changes go but i really dont think the ap scaling should be changed, yes the healing is absurd but when you build full ap and aim for that high dmg/healing champion you become a glass cannon and can be burst down just as fast as an ADC - been attempting it in URF and hes a lot better than normal. AD tanky just doesnt feel very ww like. he should be an all in hunt you down and kill you champion. not sure how many wolves sit around waiting for there dinner?

Felvyne4/9/2014, 11:22:06 AM1 votes

I really feel that GW shouldn't exist without being tied to a champion. However, I feel that the heals should be tuned with its own stat: as well there is a stat to decrease the duration of the CC (Tenacy), champions should be able to have a stat that increases heals and, imo, too the CC, but items more supportish for prevent being abused (Mikael's Crucible is a nice item but only sups use them, for example).

And one way to counter heals... I think that shields could be some kind of counter (less or none drain)

Meep Man4/9/2014, 11:45:42 AM1 votes

Most of what I see here is exactly what I think everytime. Truly, I think the Executioner's Calling needs a buff item wise, like giving it some attack damage. Then maybe so its not as "pick this in lane to destroy heal champs" maybe make it to where it uses a stacking Grievous Wounds system such as 10% Grievous Wounds per attack, stacking up to a set number of stacks. I also think spells for Grievous Wounds shouldn't be continuous Grievous Wounds. Maybe make things like Fizz's W and M Fortune's W apply on the first attack with a slightly longer duration. But Im really wanting you to consider stacking GW so their heals will be good for a bit, but eventually be much less insane. If the Drain Tanks really hate GW, then they can just get Heal. So my suggestions...

Stacking Grievous Wounds for On-Hit GW Items
Buff Executioner's Calling
No More Continuous Grievous Wounds

As far as getting great healing with offensive stats (Nid Kayle) maybe make a unique resource for healing? Or make it scale with an existing defensive stat.

Onegarion4/9/2014, 6:46:42 PM1 votes

Now i stopped about halfway though this thread because everyone had great points and its hard to really read so many great points in a limited time. Yet while i was reading I had 1 thought always coming to my head and it was brought on with all the talk about ignite being the main use of GW. So i like to build items like on supp champs like nami or instead of on mid champs when i know champions like mundo and swain are starting to roll or become a problem since healing is a big part of their kit. Other than that these GW items aren't really useful for their stats alone. Now has some nice stats for AP supports, but when else do you actually see it consistently and doesn't stand with many champs other than adc and crit focused champs. which is a very select few.

My idea

Now my thought that i have initially strayed from is that what if we took the the GW off of ignite and gave GW its own summoners spell. Now this would in itself be a huge change for ignite, but would this at all change the way ignite is used and maybe make GW more situational and not so easily obtained. This way maybe GW wouldn't have to be removed, but instead just slightly boost it since it would be on its own. This way it would be more strategic to use it and it would work at any time its activated for X amount of seconds. Make it a 60% reduction for about 6 secs we say. This way its use more widely against more than just the DrMundo , Swain , and Warwick .

With this you would in turn take it off of item 3165 and item 3123 and itemize them differently for other things. So you would still have it on champions, but maybe make them have less influence with it or it would again instill their position to actually counter these kinds of champions. If we take this route will we need to add more options of using it through champs because only , Varus , MissFortune , Katarina , and Fizz can do it. While fizz and kat are popular at the moment I don't see to much MF or varus play and mixed tristana play personally. So with this point I think it would be beneficial to have some other champs have it as well in their kit in other lanes because at most you are going to have 3, but how often do you see fizz/kat top, trist/kat/fid mid, and trist/varus/mf in a game at the same time? More than likely you would have 2 with kat or fizz mid and trist/varus/MF adc. even then you don't have varus really using his E trying to get GW on someone since its an area o the ground and they could just move out.

overall i'd have to say that at this time i think it would only perpetuate the raw power of drain tanks if we were to remove GW without some massive changes to the champions many have listed. Those that rely on that healing to do their job.

Zorella4/9/2014, 11:13:14 PM1 votes

I use GW to counter absurd health regen, like when facing Mundo, because otherwise there's no way I can live in lane, let alone kill him. Perhaps looking at health regen and healing would be a productive angle? Healing, especially heals like Soraka's, I find to be useful for making a champ "pseudotanky". They can still be bursted down, but they have the illusion of tankiness. I find the same effect to a more extreme degree in life steal. There, not only are they healing, they're healing faster when they're actively killing me (as opposed to hanging out on the back lines, avoiding poke). I like the dynamic of "attack and heal", but it feels about as futile to try to kill an enemy with tons of LS as it does to kill a tank. But, if talking about GW opens up a discussion on healing, I will be happy about that.

ModIts Yuu and Mi4/10/2014, 12:03:08 PM1 votes

Hmm. Sure let's talk.

I think that it could be removed, but the better question is, should it?

I think no. I think Grievous Wounds should feel good to the player using them however.

I think this could be achieved in a few ways.

Do a -minor- buff to GW Chamions. Right now it just doesn't feel like there's any benefit in taking Trist or MF over Jinx or Draven against a Voli or Swain. I'd say buff the GW part. If it starts to be overbearing for certain particular champions, then buff them in return. The reward for countering them should be greater-- but in such a way that it doesn't inhibit their existence altogether. I think overall it would be fine to buff the GW parts of Champion kits because then they'd be suitable counterpicks to healing-based Champs... But those Champs could then do just fine against most others anyways.
Make Executioner's Calling a real item. There I said it. Seriously. Feral Flare just came out, now Wriggles is viable. Do something similar with this. I could rant on about it, but really, just make this a viable option-- and give it an identity. Is it a niche pick for ADCS? Melee bruisers? Who?
Make Morellonomicon stand out. It's a great item, but Athenes is much prettier. Both have 20% CDR, both have AP... Athenes has better regen and MR, Morello has GW. Either buff it or nerf Athene's... I'd say the latter in my opinion.

Getting rid of Grievous Wounds just to get rid of them sounds silly in my opinion. I think there's a lot that could be done to make drain tanking a more interesting option, with GW as a reliable counterplay mechanism.

OtherMaTwo4/10/2014, 4:08:57 PM1 votes

Just make dissapear Executioners Calling item. No one uses it. Pass the GW buff to Zephyr item.

Glawal4/10/2014, 5:10:19 PM1 votes

Hello, I'm sorry if I do some spelling mistakes, I'm not english and I'm just learning this language. I think remove GW isn't a good idea, why ?

1. If you remove GW, healers and predominately self-healers will be played like gragas and ziggs or ban like... not kassa but... frequently, because without response they will be so strong. Then, the normal response to this is nerf them (heal for tanks and damage/heal for carry) but without heal they haven't real advantage over their enemies and they will probably become new urgot or skarner (I'm exaggerating but...), it's my opinion but I think is a likely outcome.
1. Take a GW for counter an ennemy is limitation, indeed if you take an item with GW for counter an ennemy, you lose a choice of item so power. but with GW removed, you can't counter a self-heal, and then, you lose more power than with GW don't removed because you can't kill a self-heal ennemy. So, it comes back to point 1).
1. For teams-based on heal, it's important to can counter them, and we can do this with GW or (a GW), and it's important for the healer to save his power, then the new or is a good idea.I like this principle : pick => counter-pick => counter-(counter-pick). but I think it's so narrow actually.

My answer :

I curb excessive in-lane sustain (immovable object type of problem) by halving healing against minions.

a) I think it's a good idea but I think is better with -33% and a GW nerfed with 33% than 50% (and only stay with 50%). It's a response for a team-based on heal : "you're all healers, ok I take this item" and the healer is now less important but not broken. The same in lane and for Swain, Mundo, etc. stay necessary if you want really have an impact (and response to the swain team is or if they want really befenit to the heal).

I haven't other idea to propose for the moment but I think a moderate change is preferable.

Cordially,

aureliend66

Remlap12234/8/2014, 9:57:32 PM1 votes

I like the idea of grievous wounds, because as Xelnath said that and summoner 14 is the only thing keeping this guy DrMundo (and to a lesser extent this guy Garen ) in check. Mundo's ultimate can just get so out of hand if he gets fed or builds well enough, in that he can actually heal more damage then the entire enemy team can output. I feel that if we could get grevious wounds to scale with total health, they'd be much more balanced. After all, tanks are natural damage sponges anyways, why have them heal away what little damage they took in 10 seconds? Having grievous wounds scale with health would also make adcs have more favorable trades against another opponent who is just building damage and lifesteal.

Critkeeper4/8/2014, 10:20:01 PM1 votes

What if "grievous-wounds" filled up black on the left side of your health bar as a function of how much health you are restoring, in other words it functions as temporary damage rather than permanent damage.

Its keeps the intuitive "when my health bar goes black I die" and it is clear just how much damage is temporary and how much is permanent (the temporary works off the left and the permanent works by taking chunks off the right)

You could extend the system to include "plain-old-regular-wounds" which aren't a function of how much you are healing, and instead have a flat value or a % health value, depending on the skill.

Most burst mages that have enough damage to chunk a laner for half their health can also keep doing that over and over, and so they must be mana gated or gated by some other condition. Having a new type of damage instance "wounds" would remove the need for that additional condition because the damage doesn't "stick". You either make use of it or it disappears in a few seconds.

That means burst mages that are actual burst mages can have wounds based gameplay and those that aren't won't (and would sport some other strenghts instead).

The cost of such an implementation is a slight increase in complexity. I think its worth it if it allows you to implement burst mages and healers in a game healty way. The real question that follows is "Ok, if we implemented this system, HOW EXACTLY can we gate the burst of burst mages and the heals of healers, in a way that promotes gameplay?"

And the answer to that lies in the fact that the damage is TEMPORARY. That means it is naturally transient-- usually the condition will be elapsed time. It could be positioning or some other gameplay oriented condition however.

ModCaptainMårvelous4/8/2014, 10:51:29 PM1 votes

My main problem with GW is that it only seems to counter sustain abilities or short-term effects. Stop Soraka Heals, Stop Swain's Ult, Cut down Mundo, etc. I've NEVER felt that GW was super useful for, say, late game ADCs or people with egregious amounts of life steal. Sure, drop ignite on that Vayne. It's too bad she heals for a good chunk of her health regardless of the effect.

If GW was more expensive but offered a bigger effect on life steal yeah, I'd be interested in getting it more often. Asides, I don't feel a late game ADC should suffer just as much (If not more) than people who sacrifice portions of their kit for this sustain power.

LVNsNASmurf4/9/2014, 3:50:40 AM1 votes

Zenon: Hey man. You make a comment that lifesteal / healing tops you up but you remain fragile. Thats what you need to hit on.

You need to retune all healing.

Whats wrong now is that all healing is inherently more effective on higher resistance targets. Mundo not only heals 60% of max HP, but builds stupidly high resistances.

Mundo is a problem.

I can build 40% lifesteal on an ADC and still get gibbed in 2s by an assassin.

ADC sustain is not a problem.

So, I have a very simple solution: Have lifesteal and heal effects heal you for that amount of effective HP.

Say you have 200 armour and 100 MR: That means you take 33% of any incoming physical damage and 50% of any magical damage. You're a I dunno, shen, and on 300 of 2000 hp. Now, Your total effective HP is 6000 vs physical, and 4000 vs magical, for an average of 5000.

Now, your soraka Wishes back 500 HP. You have an effective HP-> Hp ratio of 2.5 You only heal for 200 real HP.

Your ADC teammate who has exactly zero mr and armour due to {reasons} heals for the full 500.

Boom. Now, we have healing is inherently less effective on tankier targets. This means that when you apply a heal of X, damage of X will exactly negate it.

In order to keep some champions balanced (mundo, garen) we change their passives to heal a percent of their effective max HP per second.

So, lets see what we've got for GW now. Well, tough champions inherently heal worse than fragile ones, so we can just redamage them rather than having our only option be GW away the heal. As for squishy champions, we can burst them.

There we go, we have no reason to have GW any more.

Lets look at the three main classes of healers: ADC's and fragile drain tanks (fid, swain). You can burst these champions 100->0. Or, you can grind them down. Basically, the fight will go as normal, but at the end of it, these champions will quickly hit 100% Hp again. No GW needed.

Next are tough drain tanks. Shyv, Xin, Trundle: Through lifesteal or other reasons, these champions no longer exploit healing more effectively than more fragile champions, since healing for X is wiped out with X damage. There's no need to inhibit their healing now.

Finally, there are champions with heal casts: These are now automatically less effective when cast on a tough teammate, meaning that you can't just top up a shen or something with some cheap heal requiring a massive damage spike to deal with. These heals can be tuned for use on ADC's / Mages, because even at full HP those champions can be spiked.

There you go Zenon.

pandaleon4/9/2014, 5:29:35 AM1 votes

Grievous wounds : Healers and Regen/Drain Tanks ::
Defense Penatration : Armor/Magic Resist Tanks

Grievous Wound should provides a passive counter play to and from strong healing champions. If I apply GW before heal I have reduced the heal efficiency of the spell and denies health that other wise would have to be dealt with by damaging the opponent. (note it doesn't completely negated the heal as that would make it toxic to the healer and the patient). On the FlipSide A healer that notices the debuff and hold the ability till after the debuff fades or is quick to heal before its applied is rewarded by successfully delivering the health to their ally/self and wasting the spell application of GW.

It makes me think of the waves of an ocean. back and forth till one side gets a better wave and wins.

The thing that I think GW abilities have to be careful with is the duration of the GW uptime vs the Time Frame it can be applied again. if there is no to little window to recover/heal then it becomes a poor mechanic.

Healthy examples are: Tristana 's Explosive Shot 5 second duration GW vs a 16-9.6 sec cooldown.

This leaves a 11-4.6 second window open to heal and recover. considering the possibility of full CDR.

MissFortune Also have fair time for recovery while the spell is on cool down.

One simply has to walk out of walk out of

Varus hail of arrows to stop the GW.

summoner 14 with a 5 second GW vs 210-189 second cooldown.

In addition to the availability to any summoner and the Heavy True Damage, this spell can be chained with an existing GW spells in a champions kit. Which is why it warrants such a long cooldown.

A Near Unhealthy example only because (condition must be met properly) is:

Fizz 's Seastone Trident with a 5 second attack application buff + 3 second application time for 3-8 seconds of GW Vs 10-6second spell downtime.

Best case is dodging/avoiding his auto attacks and making fizz wait 10 till he can try again.

Worst case Fizz manages to hits his Melee Auto at the start and the end of active duration and has 20%CDR. Grievous wound would never go Away as long as fizz has manna!

Katarina 's Death Lotus that applies GW for 2.5sec + 3sec duration to 3 separate targets best case Kat gets interrupted during the start of the channel and only applies a 3 second GW + damage gets minimized from ult. she gains no kills for the rest of the time her ult is on cool down Kat must wait for ult to try again. 3 second Gw vs 60-45 second down time.

Worst case with 30% CDR or max Rank Ult she gets the full channel off and gets two or more kills allowing her to cast ult a second time and potentially kill all remaining teammates while having GW on the who fight on 3 or more champions assuming they were not the ones that died first.

Two full ult channels for a possible 11 seconds Vs your whole team dieing... We all know we can't outdamage/outlast a Kat if you don't stop that ult. Kat is the game where the damage is real and life steal/spell vamp don't matter q_q

Maybelaterx4/9/2014, 11:12:09 AM1 votes

When playing support (or occasionally mid), I do actively buy Morellonomicon if I'm playing a character who can proc the passive on several enemies and if there are certain champions who really heavily on regenerative abilities (Mundo, Aatrox, Akali, Soraka, or a double bloodthirster Draven). I think it's a very smart way of countering specific champions, and as previously mentioned this logic can even be applied to champion select.

My friend and I have had great success playing a Sona/Soraka botlane, for example, and (aside from burst) the greatest counter is heal-reduction. (Arguably, with the new heal changes that could all change, but we haven't tested that out yet.) Playing into a Varus or Tristana gives us a really hard time, and if the enemy is smart enough to choose those champions for those reasons then they should be rewarded for that.

However, the problem lies in itemisation. Although Morellonomicon is a great option with a bunch of mixed and useful stats, Executioner's Calling is very rarely bought (if at all) because of the strange mixture of stats it provides. Crit chance would imply that champions who auto-attack should use the item: namely, marksmen and a few melee AD champions. The low amount of AD it grants means that it takes up a lot of space in your inventory for a late game item whilst containing the ingredient of a GP10, implying that it should only be upgraded later on in the game. I think avarice blade is the biggest problem here - if the GW passive were to apply on spell damage, it would probably be overpowered, and if the item were geared towards late game and more expensive with better stats it could become a must-buy. It feels like it is healthiest when laning against the likes of a Mundo, preventing his regen and dwindling his life down through lane, and then relying on the passive past level 6 to still be able to burst him with the help of your jungler.