Let's Talk about Anti-Snowball.

If you'll recall, one of the issues with gapclosing toplaners is that they can swing the game too hard and too fast through the ease with which they deny the other toplaner. This is why Sunfire was nerfed (if the other laner got 40-DPS Sunfire before you, they got to farm and you didn't), why Riven was nerfed, and why Top Lane, in general, has been a veritable hell, both from a balance and a gameplay standpoint.

So I wanted to talk to and hear from you about ways to make anti-snowballing a strong enough mechanic that going 0/2 in a lane doesn't mean you're not allowed to play the game anymore, because that's not a fun or engaging experience for anyone involved.

The first, and most important, imo, is Outplay Potential. That is, how much of a champ's success depends on decisions, rather than raw stats? Take Ryze or Akali -- there's little outplay potential when dealing with them because their damage is all point-and-click: if you're in range and he wants to do damage to you, he's going to do damage to you. Compare him to Lux, where a mobile enough champ can literally run circles around her while she misses her skillshots, or where a skilled-enough Lux can predict that motion and adjust accordingly, and you'll see that one matchup leaves a lot more satisfaction for both players involved.

Because outplayable mechanics are inherently avoidable, they're less-snowbally than stat-check abilities or autoattacks. It doesn't matter how much AP Cassio has if she can't land her Q.

The second one that comes to mind is counterattacks. For champs where a large part of their kit depends on their countering their opponent, they're denied that when the opponent chooses not to allow it. For example, Lane Nocturne depends on mitigating harass with his spell shield in order to achieve his stupid levels of attack speed to win fights. Because of this, an opposing laner that knows they can't fight Nocturne can disengage without taking the entirety of his damage.

Noct's spell shield is a good example of this, but I don't think it's the best possible use: what if some of a champ's gapclose ability were tied to a counterattack? That would prevent them from jumping on your face and killing you whenever they wanted to, but would still serve its function as damage mitigation and mobility in large fights, where it's not particularly difficult to get hit by an ability.

The third is sort of like the second, with some of the first mixed in: hard damage mitigation. Protective spells become more powerful as the opponent becomes more powerful: Trynd's Undying Rage, Kayle's Intervention, and Jax's Counter Strike are both great examples of it. Because these champs' abilities get more valuable as their opponents get more powerful, they're inherently anti-snowbally. Poppy might also belong here, with her ridiculous passive.

Some might say, "but wait, those spells also make the champs stronger when they're ahead!", that's also true. But take Kayle, for example, as she's probably the worst offender, here: imagine her with an offensive ult. She wouldn't have to tank turret shots, she'd just nuke you into oblivion, either before you got to turret or before it had a chance to get warmed up. You can choose to deny her use of Intervention by not forcing an all-in, but you couldn't choose to deny her choice use of melting your face off with a damage-dealing ult.

Fourth up: champions that naturally push the lane. This is a two-edged sword, since it means that they can roam and snowball other lanes (which might actually be healthier gameplay than just denying the shit out of one person), too, but this also leaves them vulnerable to ganks while in lane and to collapses while roaming. Further, it allows their lane opponent to enjoy the relative safety of their turret.

Those are all of the existing anti-snowball mechanics I can think of, but there's another that I'd like to see: items and/or abilities that get weaker when ahead or stronger when behind. For example, take an ability that straight-up reflects damage: the more damage the enemy does (they're ahead), the stronger the user gets. Or consider an item with strong damage mitigation that decreases whenever the user picks up a kill: probably a great starting item, but gives a lot of comeback potential to the laner that gave up FB.

The other upside of anti-snowball items like that is that they help to deal with conventionally-miserable matchups. I played Diana against Draven, earlier. As you know, Diana can't really hope to kill a ranged opponent before 6, and as you also know, Draven's a really strong early laner. It roughly boiled down to me only being able to farm under turret or with Q, and only then while my shield was up (taking an axe to the face with no shield was not kosher). An item that gave extra defenses while not killing things would've made that matchup a lot more reasonable. While its drawback is that it might mitigate champs' intended weak early games, my question is this: What're they going to do with the advantage? Snowball it away? I do see this being hugely problematic with champs that don't need kills to snowball out of control (looking at you, Nasus), or champs that would scale way too hard with easy access to farm (oh hi, Vayne), but I think that those could be managed on a case-by-case basis.

In what other ways do you think the game could be made more engaging for both parties when one's significantly ahead of the other?