Sustain: Why It Needs a Rework.
As a long time League player, one of the most reoccurring(and highly frustrating) problems I have encountered is Sustain. But it's not just any sustain, it's item sustain.
Since the beginning of my time playing, players have always had access to sustain through items, for a while (S1) it wasn't a top stat to have early game and typically was something a Carry or Hard bruiser got later on in order to keep them alive throughout the fights. This was fine (although the stat balance was not). But Then S2 hit. Since S2, sustain has become a huge early game stat that is heavily relied upon, to the point that things like Dorans Blade/Shield are extremely common place, alongside other sustain items like Cutlass or Spirit Visage.
Typically the passive sustain stats are just enough that if your opponent isn't aggressive enough, you will eventually regen your health, there isn't much we can do to this stat without completely ruining it's one intended purpose: Keep you alive early.
On the other hand, on-hit sustain, particularly Lifesteal, is now a dominate stat on any AA champion in the game. Given how cheap AD is now alongside how lifesteal scales with it, it's almost insane not to get it. The ability to constantly AA your waves, CS and heal at the same time is just too good an ability to not utilize. What this leads to is the inability to keep damage on your opponents. Early game, especially bottom, any non-burst damage is easily shrugged off after a few autoattacks, so much so that even harassing an enemy with AAs isn't even worth the effort; they just heal it back again in a second or two.
Now, I will not contest that sustain is something we need to have in our lanes, it's an option players need in order to counter harass/poke in lane and then have it transition to later-game survivability. I get that and I accept this. What I don't accept is how much of it we currently have. In the past we looked at champions like Warwick, Soraka, Sona and Irelia for ability to top off and out sustain anything...But for the most part we have kept item (Lifesteal)sustain the same, just lowered it's overall stats. That is only a band-aid fix.
Why?
Because of how Lifesteal works. Since AAs are free and reliant on hitting something, anything, so long as a champion can safely farm they can regenerate any missing health. Some champion Archtypes, like Marksmen, can do this easily from a distance. Others, like Bruisers, can fortify their health gains with Armor and Magic Resist. What this does is in essence make putting any harass on a champion with Lifesteal a pointless endeavor. Unless you can outright kill the champion from 100-0, that champion will health a good portion of their health, by just naturally farming.
What I suggest is giving Lifesteal a reduced benefit similar to Spellvamp, except instead of applying it to AoEs, we apply it to Minions (Not Monsters). This reduced benefit could range from 50-75%, just enough of a reduction to let damage stick if you make good (Constant) harassment plays, but not enough to make the state itself so weak it can't regenerate health at a decent pace.
Lifesteal, as a stat, is supposed to allow squishy, easily demolished characters the ability to augment their health pool Mid-Late game by linking their health bar to their ability to deal damage. I don't feel that Lifesteal was meant to allow players to top off their health constantly, even when subjected to good harassment plays.
