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Spellvamp needs to be addressed.

Holy Malevolence·7/17/2014, 4:11:46 PM·12 votes·2,511 views

For years now, spellvamp's been a problematic stat. Either it's been neigh useless, present only on weak items and barely seen ever, or it's overpowered on champions like Akali and Vladimir.

Why?

Lets not answer that, and instead ask what the world would be like if AP worked like spellvamp does. Where every single single target ability, like Disintegrate and Transfusion, had 1.0 AP ratios and every single AOE ability had .33. The problem with that becomes apparent immediately. Single target burst champions become overpowered, and AOE champions for the most part struggle to do anything in comparison. In order to keep the single target burst champions from ruining the game as a whole, AP would need to be kept weak to a point where every AP champion who wasn't primarily a single target oriented caster was neigh useless.

This is circumvented by giving abilities AP ratios. With AP ratios, you can give transfusion a .6 AP ratio, bouncing bomb a .65, mark of the assassin .9, crescent strike a .7, and if any AP champion is too good with AP, you can nerf their AP ratios.

You should very easily be capable of doing the same with spellvamp. Give every ability a spellvamp ratio, and get rid of the notion of AOE abilities simply getting one third the amount of spellvamp. Then, release new, good spellvamp items. And if a champion like Vladimir or Akali or Udyr or what have you uses it too well, nerf that champion's spellvamp ratios. Yes I mentioned Udyr. Yes this would allow AD spellvamp items.

This is a basic change, and it's long since overdue.

25 Comments

Funster7/17/2014, 4:45:38 PM15 votes

This is NOT a basic change! This would require hand tweaking of over 400 abilities (add another 100 for passives). That's a pretty serious undertaking. Even if the workload were a non-factor, I believe this would go against some of the principals of League of Legends due to just having another form of bookkeeping by needing to know every individual skill's ratio for an item that may or may not be purchased.

I don't have any better ideas though. I think Spellvamp can be really good, but no one is willing to drop 2500 on item 3152 as there is really no room for it when you are basically required to use some combination of item 3174 item 3157 item 3089 item 3135 .

Arcus Veles7/17/2014, 5:24:30 PM4 votes

I think the main problem they have with spell vamp (especially with AoE) is how it can be used to "burst heal" in the middle of a fight.

Think of how Irelia duels once she hits 6. She tries to line you up with the minion wave so she can get a large amount of sustain from hitting you and all those creeps with her ult, which usually turns things in her favor. Now imagine... Syndra doing that to you, or Ziggs, or Orianna, fighting you at or near a minion wave and destroying your dueling potential because they can suck up a few hundred health on demand from any local creep wave or camp.

I think that could be fixed by making single target spells heal instantly, and AoE spells heal over time. The healing could be 100% instead of reduced, but absorbed over X seconds so it doesn't become a giant spike of health all at once.

Visually, it could be represented by a weaker version the green swishies that come from monster sigils lingering on the character.

67chrome7/17/2014, 6:09:56 PM3 votes

The problem with that becomes apparent immediately. Single target burst champions become overpowered, and AOE champions for the most part struggle to do anything in comparison.

Area Effect skills should predominantly be used for their Area of Effect. Which can hit multiple targets in an area - and with minions and team-fights, you're doing something wrong if you're just hitting one guy with a wide chunk of AoE skills. The AoE reduction on spell vamp isn't there to shaft AoE champions - it's there to prevent it from being fundamentally broken on AoE. Spell Vamp is reliant on the damage a champion deals, which means targets with no MR (minions) are naturally going to see greater vamp returns. If you harass with an AoE skill that manages to hit an enemy champion and 2 minions, you're much better off than a champ that used a single-target skill against an opposing champion.

And single-target isn't what defines who uses spell vamp. Vladimir and Mordekaiser are very much AoE champions.

The major treand I've noticed is Mana.

Every champion that feels good about grabbing spell vamp has no mana. Or rather, they don't need to spend mana to benefit from it (in the case of Nunu and Jax). Vladimir, Mordekaiser, Kennen, Akali, Rumble, Jax, Nunu, Katarina.

Spell Vamp kills your mana sustain in exchange for health sustain for the majority of the early game. And going OoM is seriously bad if a champion is so reliant on abilities they went for spell vamp over life steal.

This is a basic change, and it's long since overdue.

That's not a basic change.

But it's not a terrible suggestion.

I'd go something more universal with it though, like on-hit effectiveness. Which is an ability field I've been playing with in my own game creations.

Spell Vamp isn't that useful in general on a wide range of ability-heavy champions just due to their play style, so making a universal change just for a stat that is fairly lackluster isn't an economical use of time and resources.

However, on-hit effects have the potential to give something useful for everyone, and the current 33% reduction on AoE doesn't do a solid job at addressing the incredible veriaty in abilities.

Some things like Akali's Crescent Slash currently just do not synergize well with spell-hit effects, where others like Singed's Poison Trail abuse them so heavily they largely force the most minor spell-hit effects from being created.

An on-hit effectiveness field would allow things like S3's Blackfire Torch to exist in a manner where they don't bump champions like Singed, Amumu, and Teemo to the top of the tier list while feeling lackluster on many of the burst-casters the item seemed to be geared towards helping, and such a field could allow champions that abuse spell-hit effects to be nerffed directly, rather than forcing nerfs on items that make only a handful of casters capable of even using the item.

Yordle Exodia7/18/2014, 1:34:39 AM3 votes

Alternatively, write good spell vamp items in the first place and perform specific fixes on champions who benefit too much (Akali, Vlad). This is 10% as much work for identical benefits and it doesn't even add more burden of knowledge. Champions do not need specific spell vamp ratios for the same reason they do not need specific life steal ratios on their attacks.

March of Dimes7/18/2014, 4:22:32 AM3 votes

I think yours would be a very difficult change and I think that, if your problems are 1 or 2 champs, that you'd do better to fix those champs rather than change how a stat works on everyone else in the game. I also don't think burst healing is going to be a problem, as most of the champs who burst are either on full health when they do it or don't care if they heal because they already made their contribution. If anything, I imagine reset assassins would become problematic, as they'd be the exception to those cases.

I would like to see spell vamp in a better place so manaless champs could actually exercise an itemization advantage for being manaless. It's only fair because their kits are already weakened for that fact (consider how manaless kit CC compares to CC on mana kits, how poke is weaker/blockable, how the other resource systems limit those casters lategame). I support a fix to spell vamp, I just don't think you need to create all new ratios to do it.

Linna Excel7/17/2014, 6:36:12 PM2 votes

Maybe there could be one spellvamp item that takes a cue from Ahri's passive and be a fixed heal amount (either per cast or per foe hit).

Fisk7/18/2014, 1:36:46 AM2 votes

You could do some massive reworks OR you could just add some decent spell vamp items that actually are decent late game (beyond JUST giving spell vamp) and have balanced amounts of scaling (idk what that would be balance team you figure it out).

SoloDragoon7/17/2014, 5:59:48 PM2 votes

Spell vamp as a whole has always seemed dull. Minor life sustain vs high damage. One is consistent while the other isn't.

However I am for making it better. But putting it into a item with high AP value would obviously make it to strong. So my thoughts would be - put spell vamp into some support abilities (buffs). That are very high for a short amount of time.

kayakninja7/18/2014, 2:13:36 PM1 votes

In all these threads(what is this, your third of these?) You mention Vladimir. I think that he's supposed to be making use of spell vamp like crazy for the vampire archetype, though. That's why Tides of Blood increases it.

I feel like the best way to go about this is less a new ratio than making some tweaks to Vlad/Morde and maybe Akali. Requires less recoding the entire game.

Sire Hippington7/17/2014, 7:06:50 PM1 votes

I like the idea, and i'd upvote if i could(damn bug...)

However, it's a massive work cause u would need to rebalance ~400 skills and some new items, so it would be suited as big change for a new season i guess

I also feel like we need a cap for lifesteal on aoe, atleast vs minions(like rene Q got, or deminishing returns on each target beyond the first), otherwise clearing a wave would grant evt to much health while dueling a champ would still be unrewarding(spellvamp wise)

RiotPsyKzz7/17/2014, 10:50:28 PM1 votes

Yes I mentioned Udyr. Yes this would allow AD spellvamp items.

Isn't that just lifesteal? Spellvamp is lifesteal applied to magical damage and lifesteal is the spellvamp applied to physical damage.

Spellvamp for an AD item literally is lifesteal.

Cloud Potato7/18/2014, 4:31:28 AM1 votes

At this stage I think they should just get rid of Spell Vamp on items entirely, and replace it with HP Regen items. AD Champions get Lifesteal, and Tanky champions build too much Health to want flat HP Regen. That leaves squishy Mages and Supports with their own sustain source that won't be used by other roles. It gets rid of the burst healing problem and it won't be overpowered on a small pool of champions, either.