Healing abilities scaling off AP, why thats an issue

St0rmln·May 5, 2016·3 votes·367 views

healing abilities thrive most on support champions but by the nature of the role support champions will not be able to get as large an AP count as a mage or assassin. This means that mages and assassins can actually fulfill a supports job better than a support can. In previous attempts to balance this effect riot has toned back on the effect of healing and tied it to level as well as AP. But i don't think this tok care of the issue because basically what has happened is that healing type supports have fallen off (unless they have other assets). I think healing abilities, and maybe even shields, need to scale off something that isn't AP. (maybe health? or something else entirely?)

what do you think?

5 Comments

Maximum MordeMay 5, 20161 votes

I think it's fine they scale off ap. When you talk about supports that heal, Sona, Nami, and Soraka all build AP. Taric and Alistar don't usually, but they could build a few items of they wanted. I ignored Janna cause her healing is on an ult that she uses for the displacement, not the heal, and Janna can build AP if she wants, and often does.

Besides, healing is an outright toxic mechanic anyway. Either it's too strong, or its weak and that champ would been better off with a stronger damage or shield ability instead.

ValexforMay 5, 20162 votes

While healing can be hard to balance it is far from toxic and is not meant to fit the same role of a shield. Shields are strong instantaneous protections that soak damage so that you don't take damage, they are strong during a fast trade but are overall weaker since they do not give you sustain and usually don't last too much. On the other hand healing abilities are not meant to block damage for you, they are meant to give you the sustain you need to get back on your feets after a trade or to help you sustain through a fight, they are usually weak during fast trades but are stronger for poke and sustained fights. You are comparing 2 mechanics that don't fit the same role, they might both reach the same result (saving your life) but in different scenarios (one during fast skirmishes the other during drawn out fights and/or after the fight is done). Again heals can be quite hard to balance but they are not a toxic mechanic, the champion who are built around them usually are since they tend to be spam bots with little to no interaction with the enemy. Take Alistar as an example: his heal is weak but spammable and he has to stay close and personal to the enemey else he's useless. Is this toxic? Nope, he has a lot of interaction with the enemy and his heal is a marginal part of his kit and also costs quite a lot compared to how weak it is, then take Soraka: she's the definition of a 0 interaction spam bot. Why do bots usually play with champs like soraka/sona? They're the less interactive champs of the game, it's easier to make a bot for them and to get away with a passive behaviour. Is this toxic? Yes there is just no counterplay to her since she just doesn't interact with you the whole game, her only interaction has the range of the whole lane and you can't do anything about her other than dodge her Q spam, also her heal has a low cd and is strong especially compared to the low cost (same with Sona and Nami). On another note Janna is also quite toxic since she's like Soraka: her only interaction has huge range and she can just stay back and shield the whole laning phase. Is she centered around her ult's heal? Nope, she's centered around shielding and disengaging, does that mean every shield and disengage is toxic? No, there are a lot of shield and disengage that aren't.

So tl;dr: while I do agree that heals are hard to balance and making them scale off of ap is just fine (champions with heals are quite strong early but can fall off easy mid game if they take no advantage, only to rise up again in team fights thanks to theyr strong utility), they are far from toxic.

Maximum MordeMay 5, 20163 votes

Well, Ali was actually pretty toxic when his heal was strong. They reworked him to make it not a central part of his kit and he's been much better for it. Sona and Nami are in a similar fashion that their heal has been toned down in favor of their damage to ween them away from that 0 interaction heal style. Nami could probably use another nerf on that front, but really Sona is fine at this point. Soraka is really the only one left that has healing as the centerpiece of her kit and it's why she so problematic balance wise. When she's strong, she is a toxic pile. When she isnt, nobody bothers with her because healing that isn't strong is crap. There just really isn't a middle ground to be found with that mechanic. Problem isn't her ult either, that's a one and done. It's her heal bot nature that I'd bad.

ValexforMay 5, 20161 votes

Yeah, but as you also said those champs were toxic when healing wa the center of theyr kits, because it gives no interaction with the enemy and lets you play a heal bot. ALso, while Sona is "fine" right now, she is still quite annoying xD (yeah, nami should be nerfed a bit, or at least they should incentivate people to use the heal in an aggressive way since she can). So healing isn't toxic, but shouldn't be the only center of a champ else they go from feast (when they are weak) to godlike when they are even remotely viable since they can just act as heal bots. That's why Soraka is so bad from a design standpoint, she will always be a healing bot if they don't focus more on the other utility and tone down on the healing a bit, healing should never be a priority in a kit, it should always be secondary (like with nami and sona) or even less important (like on alistar).

St0rmlnMay 5, 20161 votes

Thats fair, maybe healing should be removed entirely. But in the case that it is staying in the game the issue remains that a support played like a mage can play better and is rewarded more, Is that what we want? And now mages are playing the support role for that matter. I think things have gotten a little blurred in that category btw.