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Brainstorm Thread: Ideas for abilities/mechanics to make melee more fun/viable

MinEpiphany·7/23/2014, 6:50:36 PM·13 votes·3,691 views

I was reading through a recent thread posted in by Ghostcrawler where, among other topics, a discussion about melee champions came up.

They don't mind melee's. They might have a hard time balancing melee top laners, though, but that doesn't mean they hate em.

Exactly. We are trying to formalize (for want of a better word) what strengths melee should have to help them offset the huge advantages that ranged champions have. The traditional solutions have been that melee are hard to kill, or they really mess you up if you fail to kite them. Both of those cause a lot of balance problems though. The first means melee slap fights are boring. The second means that melee vs. ranged encounters can be binary -- either the melee zeroes the mage, or the latter escapes.

I thought it would be a good idea to create a thread where people can post their ideas for new and interesting melee interactions. This can be anything from items, abilities, kits, interactions, etc.

My idea: To start off the thread my idea is to give melee dps champions something to do when they are cc'ed. It seems that one of the biggest issues with melee is how easily they are kited or locked down. I was thinking it would be cool if melee champs had abilities that changed based on the status of whatever cc they are under. This would give them an inherent strength that ranged dps don't have.

For example say a melee dps closed the gap but got instantly stunned, they would gain a new set of abilities for a short time during the cc that would allow them to contribute meaningfully to the fight. Perhaps a buff to their nearby allies or some sort of reactionary offensive ability. These new abilities would not have the raw power of their non cc'ed abilities but would allow them to DO something to meaningfully contribute.

This idea is not completely fleshed out, but hopefully others will be able to expand on it or provide some feedback and criticism.

Edit: Also for clarification, this would not be a cc removal. The target would still be fully cc'ed (can't move, auto attack, or use their normal abilities, while stunned for instance) but would have a completely new set of abilities (probably not high damage, I'm thinking more utility) they could use to contribute to the team.

39 Comments

RiotMorello7/23/2014, 7:22:46 PM7 votes

Ghostcrawler is right-on with melee; they're hard to deal with because they both have limited gameplay (especially when dealing with other melee- why top lane fights are so formulaic) and too much raw power when they're good.

Cool to see this thread. Warning; no one mechanic, skill or ability will fix this ("how you do melee combat" is a deep problem space) but hearing what you guys would want to add so we could not rely on raw stats is intriguing.

Hellioning7/23/2014, 7:48:32 PM5 votes

Add BKB, rebalance all melee to compensate.

More seriously, I don't see much of a problem with melee as an idea so much as how every melee is designed. Very few melee champs have their own identity, they tend to be balls of stats, so of course they aren't particularly interesting to fight, especially against each other. I'd focus on giving each melee champ their own identity, first, and revolving gameplay around that. Irelia, for example, might be the 'comeback fighter' so she's never as disadvantaged as she might seem, while Olaf could be the 'berserker' who is at his best when he's almost dead.

I think saying 'melee are difficult to balance' is a bit disingenuous when they're difficult to balance because they have nothing to do but 'throw all buttons at enemy and hope they die.' Of course the Shyvana/Mundo slapfight is going to be boring when all you give them to do is 'one skillshot, maybe autoattack reset, press all buttons.' All of the interesting gameplay there comes from minion management, and that falls off as soon as laning ends.

John Berserk7/23/2014, 9:31:58 PM3 votes

Hmm.. Maybe if Champions had their attributes broken down into 4 things:

Offenses (This includes all forms of damage output and related things, such as Physical/Magic/True Damage output and frequency, cooldowns for offensive spells, etc etc. This may also include CC, as CC can enable you and/or your team to go on the offensive, score kills, objectives, and win the game as a result.)
Defenses (This includes all defensive stats and defense-related things, such as Armor and Magic Resist both base and per level, Health Regen, base Health and HP5, stats on defensive spells, etc etc. This may also include CC, as CC can be integral in keeping you and/or your team alive.)
Range (General range at which they prefer to and specialize in playing at in comparison to other Champions, in terms of both auto attacks and abilities, and for how long/often they play at that range.)
Mobility (This includes anything that allows the Champion to move outside of their basic movement and movement speed. MS increases, dashes, blinks, gap closers and escapes, etc. As the game evolves, 'mobility creep' becomes a very real thing, and it's beginning to outshine a lot of older "traditional mage"-like Champions. Mobility is a very necessary attribute to have nowadays, and the lack of it calls for an excess of something else to compensate.)

I chose these four categories because, to me, these seem to be the core defining aspects of any one Champion.

You can start to think of it like Pokemon EV's. You have 4 categories, and a limited amount of points to allocate. Let's say by default, a very middle of the pack Champ has 50 or close to 50 points per category, for a total of 200 points.

If you want a champion with a particularly long range AND high damage, then their mobility and their defenses should be low. Lets say... Offenses: 70 points Defenses: 26 points Range: 75 points Mobility: 29

This would allow a champion to ONLY be able to excel at most at two things, as excelling in more would start to go into OP territory ( LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin ). This would also allow for a clear design pathway for champion design I think. Does the game need more higher range carries? Or maybe another mobile glass cannon? How would a tank with high range play out? What about a highly mobile tank?

As for the kits of these champions, thats where the creativity comes in. This "stat allocation" is simply meant as a sort of general direction, and the kit is supposed to represent that in a unique way.

BASICALLY, I think if a Champion is going to lack range, they need to be better at something else to compensate, whether that means having a higher damage output, higher mobility, or higher defenses. This might seem very obvious, but the way to go about deciding what a Champion REALLY needs is very tough I would think, especially if not all of the Champions he/she/it interacts with were designed with the same philosophies in mind.

idk, just my thoughts. Brainstorming, as the board title suggests. :P

Nyhver7/23/2014, 9:12:32 PM2 votes

Interesting mechanics, ability design and outplay as the paradigm would be how the melee interactions would be made interesting- for the most part, with strategy and game design out of the way, with the focus on champion interaction between kits/items.

There's a lot of mechanics that add 'outplay' or reaction, prediction and mind games, which aren't in the game yet, here's a few;

Spell reflect, suppose for up to one second it reflects any spell (not physical damage) back, which can include AOE or not, so if a Brand throws out his ultimate at you and you reflect it, it could ruin him and/or his team. It can be all abilities, just physical abilities or just ability power abilities, it can be unlimited reflects within the whole duration, part of the duration or a set number of reflects, like 1.

There aren't aura cleaves either, there's just consistent auras like sunfire cape, but no such instance in the game where an aura persists on a player and every X amount of seconds activates to deal damage- thinking about changing Garen's 'e' here. Similarly you could change his 'e' to function more like Riven Q- it can still be AOE, but it's not automatic damage that has essentially no combat management.

Swapping placed with a teammate still isn't a thing- Urgot's ultimate except for allies

A champion with 'combination finishers' in their kit, so with a certain amount of stacks on a target, they get something else out of it based on which other ability they activate, can be 1, 2 or the other 3 buttons of their kit.

There's some really complex ideas that can be implemented to the game, and more simple ones, however, not a lot of ideas are coming to me, but there are definitely many ways out there to make more champions more interactive with more outplay involved in melee. Their design can be really simple or complex, but the idea on making the abilities and kit would be that there's an emphasis on outplay for both parties, which a lot of current champions lack. While gold is a threshold for good picks or play being rewarded, that gold threshold can still be there with more emphasis on mechanical outplay, because with too many champions it comes down to "I have more gold" or "I reached X point in the game" then they press a few buttons and kill you, or don't even need to, and auto kill you to death or press 1-2 buttons, there isn't much outplay to it. As opposed to more mechanical outplay where you have mobility mechanics, blocking mechanics, dodging mechanics, absorb mechanics, skill shot mechanics, AOE mechanics, and usually that ends up fueling the skill cap for reaction, prediction, mind games and player mechanical skill, too,

LilStacey877/23/2014, 8:46:36 PM1 votes

I honestly think Riot is doing a great job with what they're doing with the melee champs. While it's true that CC is their biggest set back, it what makes League, League. Champions like Master Yi, Jax, Irelia, Yasuo, Fiora and Xin Zhao all are fun melee champions to play and do lots of damage when closing the gap on opponents. I feel only a few melee champs (specifically fighter types) need reworks. Darius being one of the main ones in my opinion. And with the league community growing by the day it's really the supports who need work. Most of the time you only have ONE on the battlefield and I feel they should be just as much of a threat as their ADC partners in Team Fights. But not with damage, with protection.

cshakes7/23/2014, 9:40:18 PM1 votes

I suggest adding more skillshots. Either slows, debuffs, stuns or, well, anything. Instead of 1 basic skill skillshot, how about 2? Gives melees something to do while CC'd, adds more to fighter battles than just "auto-attack" (dodging skillshots!) and creates more interesting moments.

Mindworm Jim7/24/2014, 2:54:35 AM1 votes

While reading this thread I kept thinking about fighting games (like Street Fighter). Obviously these games have no problem with characters duking it out at close range, and this is almost entirely due to both fighters having different Attack options at the same range. Low attacks that go beneath the target's guard but can be jumped over, vertical swings to strike airborne foes, etc.

Now, League isn't really built for such nuance within the frame of auto-attacks, but I feel like this is a good jumping point for ideas. Say any melee character can charge their auto-attack for a brief time to enhance its damage, but the attack hits and area in front of them (and thus can be dodged), and if they suffer damage the charge is canceled.

odyessus7/24/2014, 3:04:19 AM1 votes

Not to be the tyrant here but I have never been a good melee player, except for nocturne who btw took a massive beating with the item changes. Yes I know he's a jungler and I use him quite often in the jungle, but to come out attack and get your face handed to you with him when he reaches level 6 is kinda ridiculous. Everyone knows Garen too is broken since some of his main items got either removed or changed, I have tried and tried to find a working build for Garen and have pretty much given up on this quest. Don't get me wrong, I have looked up the mobafire builds as well as the lolking builds for Garen and Nocturne after the changes and the suggested builds are just dismal at best. An item that would help only melee such as the ravenous hydra to build both attack speed, health, health regen and a unique passive which allows for cc cooldowns would be awsome, that way it is something worth buying if going against ranged characters who can just snipe you before you get to them.

Wicked Shiv7/24/2014, 5:07:24 AM1 votes

My idea:

Melee champions receive reduced auto-attack damage from ranged champions. The reduction scale with the distance between the two champions: X% at 700 range, 0% at melee range.

MalikCaesar7777/24/2014, 5:34:23 AM1 votes

While not a buff for melee, creating sweet spots for ranged attacks could help.

For example an attack at max range would do 90%, and at close range range it would be about 95%

but somewhere in the middle it would got to around 105%

That way if the ranged user wants to stay back and play safe from melee they lose damage, and they would have to move closer to melee range while being at a disadvantage up close.

Obviously melee attacks would not be subjected to this (probably would make gap closers take the damage change though)

For melee duels this obviously wouldn't apply.

so for those I guess I would want to add a charge system. Where the melee champ has to move in and auto/use another ability to ready a stronger one.

So, a passive melee champ would be at a disadvantage since they don't accumulate charges. It would also make more trading happen rather than just running in and blowing your load.

You can also vary the amount of charges accessible. more charges=more power, but less ability usage as well.

Cloud Potato7/24/2014, 7:26:22 AM1 votes

The main issue with melee champions is that they aren't consistent in how they perform throughout the game. This isn't a problem exclusive to melee champions, but they're one of the most egregious cases. Consider the following scenarios:

Melee vs Melee in lane Melee vs Range in lane Teamfights

And let's take a great example of a champion whose inconsistency has gotten them in the pending rework dumpster: Gangplank.

Melee vs Melee: Gangplank has ranged poke, giving him an advantage over melee's which don't. He can harass them without retaliation in a similar manner to a ranged champion basic attack. He also has CC removal and extra movement speed, so he's hard to lock down. In short he is very safe vs a melee champion, being very hard to trade with and can survive if behind.

Melee vs Range: Gangplank has ranged poke, but other than that he is hopeless. Q's CD is too long for him to consistently damage his opponent, leaving him in an easily harassable position. He has no gap closer, so he has to run up to his opponent to deal proper damage, leaving him open to being hit by skillshots and the like. He does have a cleanse and extra movement speed, which gives him an advantage compared to other melees without gap closers, but he will likely take a fair amount of damage engaging. On top of this, he has no damage in melee range beyond basic attacks and his passive, meaning he doesn't really deal that much damage in melee range anyway, and additionally he has no disengage other than running away. On the plus side, he at least has a slow on his autoattacks to help him stick to his opponent once he's there (although mobility ruins him).

To sum up against ranged all he can really do vs ranged is poke with Q, which is not enough to keep them from zoning GP out of CS, meaning he has to use Q for last hitting purposes. Gangplank is a very passive laner without much interaction against ranged.

Teamfights: Gangplank's movement speed is not enough to engage properly, he can only cleanse CC once, and unless he builds tanky he will probably die before doing anything, and even if he gets close enough he will not do much besides basic attacks. Q does not have enough range for him to poke safely. In teamfights he has to play passively, and he has no team utility beyond his ultimate's slow and a small amount of AD/MS for the team, both of which have downtime. In other words, he sucks.

Now the problems have been identified, solutions must be come up with. However, the issue is that trying to fix one of the scenarios will not make the other scenarios any better.

Melee vs Melee: Higher mana costs stop him from dominating the lane forever, and his power at close range must be less than other melee champions to prevent him winning when he is engaged upon. Q was given a mana cost refund on kill mechanic and his passive was weakened, solving this problem. However, his ranged matchups got much worse and weakened his teamfighting even more so.

Melee vs Range: Lower mana costs and CD on Q so GP can interact more often. His movement speed and melee power need to be increased so he can do something other than poke his opponent. These things will make him dominate melee champions, but without them he can't do anything to ranged other than play passive and farm.

Teamfights: Survivability. Either through defensive boosts or offensive ones (so he can afford to build defense and still be useful). Now melee champions can't kill him and ranged champions either kite him (hard to do with his Oranges) or get killed.

Wrapping up Gangplank himself needs a new kit to give him interaction with both melee and ranged so that he doesn't dominate nor get dominated. Hence the Fighter Rework stuff. However that doesn't fix the teamfight problem. Melee champions need a way to survive in 5v5s that doesn't make them unkillable in 1v1. Hypermobility has been an effective way of doing so, but we can't just go giving every melee champion that.

Thoroniul7/23/2014, 7:06:30 PM1 votes

Make a chaos champion that is high risk high reward that essentially forces his opponent to play a game with him.

One of his ability q is a channel ability that can be interrupted. The enemy that is attacked by it is invincible. While he is channeling the champion he can use w release some kind of mines that float towards the enemy, and the champion has too auto attack them to destroy them. once hit destroys them instantly. While hes under the channel he won't take damage, but if the channel is interrupted or finishes the damage is death. If the enemy champion clears everything both champions take no damage and can't deal damage to each other for a few seconds.

His e is a blink that is a mix between shaco blink and leblanc passive in which he blinks in front with two fakes beside him in a row of three. The place where the actual one is random. They disappear shortly.

His ultimate is mystery box, in what even the caster does not know what happens. It can deal a really high damage super nova, fear everything around him far away, make a dance party, or just make everyone in the circle, including enemies invisible.

Predatorator7/23/2014, 7:19:01 PM1 votes

Just putting my two cents, as nothing else comes to my mind atm: melees shall be able to autoattack on the move, or to make it more clear, without stopping. Not too much, but i think this is a fair point to start from.

lostbob1177/23/2014, 8:03:49 PM1 votes

I don't know if your mechanic would work. Like Melee Carries weakness is specifically being locked down easily. People like Yi, Trynda, Fiora, Shaco, Yasuo, etc. all has ways of getting to their target and do A LOT of damage, however to counter them they get locked up and die easily. Except maybe Trynda. What you're thinking about is like Scimitar. What melee DPS has though is built in defense anymore would be kind of too much.

SputtleTuts7/23/2014, 8:17:49 PM1 votes

Maybe a new passive on a big melee specific item that can mitigate CC? I think tenacity or QSS are the only defenses against CC (aside from certain abilities) but to me it sometimes doesn't seem like enough.

I'm thinking items that give primarily CC reduction, along with an additional low to moderate increase to standard stats. These additional stats should be low enough to make these items a significant trade off if used by a straight tank or carry, but high enough to allow an off-tank the power/defense needed to hang. We have dedicated items for mages, tanks, and carries; these would Dedicated Off-tank items.

Again to be worthwhile, it/they would have to be a decent reduction/block against CC. Specifically, something like a flat 50 percent reduction time for stuns and snares, or a 50% reduced slow effectiveness. Or maybe an active similar to Morg's shield. Have them build out of multiple basic or cheap mid level items like amp tomes, cloaks, daggers, etc. (like aegis.) but have only the initial stat increases from these basic items carry over to the new items, adding only the CC reduction passives.

This would allow a bit more customization options for melee fighters and would make them more fun and strategic to play. Secondly it could add another level of strategy to other character types should they decide to diversify their build to use an item like this in response to a CC heavy team.

This might easily throw the game out of whack though, if not handled delicately. I picture a Yi or kat that cant be snared and shudder a little. The sacrifice in overall stats (especially dmg) needs to be strong enough, and the cost high enough to make a carry think twice about sacrificing an item slot for it.

shazb0t7/24/2014, 7:45:40 PM

Making melee champions interact with crowd control differently would create way too many edge cases and "new rules" for players to learn. Melee not be as mechanically interesting as, say, ADC stutter-stepping, but it's sensible within the framework of the rest of League's gameplay.

If you want to "fix" anything, you'd have to do it with individual champion kits. I'm loathe to give any credit to him, but Yasuo is probably the best approach to this to date - he has a lot of offensive and defensive options that let him interact in interesting ways with lane opponents, despite being melee. His QWER becomes a crucial tool that enables the player to apply autoattacks to their target, without entirely replacing autoattacks.

You can say a similar thing about Riven (another champ I hate, but that's irrelevant): she uses her kit to navigate a fight, and the ability to right-click an enemy is her reward for doing that successfully. This design point is actually made obvious with her passive, granting her autoattacks spendable charges for every ability spent. TLDR: Utilizing QWER to navigate a fight gives these melee damage-heavy champions gameplay, and being able to autoattack is their reward.

If nothing else, don't make another Yi. Pressing Q and becoming untargetable over and over isn't fun for anyone except 11-year-olds who love to kill everything on their screen with minimal effort. #deleteyi2014