Role Defining Items, a fresh perspective on possible in-game Itemisation.

These are some item concepts I have been thinking about when considering all the different roles I have had to play throughout the games on Summoners Rift.

As you know, often-times you can't just pick a champion and "play him out". Sometimes the same champion can serve multiple roles, and you have to itemise for the one you wish to carry out. This role can change depending on how the game is going (eg: how your lane and your allies' lanes are going).

But by the time mid to late game approaches (depending on ELO) you already have in mind the type of role you will have until the end of the game. Whether you will be the main tank, an off tank, the main DPSer, the ranged auto attack carry (often an adc), the AP or AD assassin (Zed/Talon, Ahri/Fizz), the Healer (Soraka), the teamfight Engager (Malphite) or Disengager (Janna), the CC-bot(Alistar), the Poker (Ziggs/Varus), the sustained damage Mage (Cassiopeia), the Kiter (Ezreal) etc...

I have had these roles at least 20 times each (which might not be a lot). And in those times, I found certain roles almost Impossible to employ in a perpetual state (or near perpetual in the case of the very very late game where everyone has full builds and things can change drastically), even with a gold tie/lead.

Those roles are:

• The Main Tank. Sometimes, no matter what, the enemy team just has unfair access to my team's back-line. No matter how well we play, we are just countered, and I find myself unable to absorb damage for my team.
• The ADC. Sometimes, on the so called Tank-Meta, there is just nothing you can do. No matter how much you auto-attack with more items on a gold lead, you just deal insignificant damage to the champions you have access, which oftentimes is the enemy front-line. The amount of armour and health they have is just ridiculous, and there aren't items available on the shop to enable you to deal with them before their base-damage with zero offensive items kills you.
• The support. Without a good gold lead, unless you are Annie vs a team of squishy champions, or Janna on a poke team vs an engage comp, or Braum vs poke, or Alistar; you can never be more than a ward bot and an extra cleanse for your adc. You don't have access to much gold, nor levels, and there isn't something unique you can choose to do.

There is a reason midlaners and junglers often steal the show (midlane is my main). They have access to much more tools in both items and abilities (and summoner spells in case of junglers) to give them more versatility. They can be jack of all trades while at the same time be master of one or two. They also have the easiest access to all other lanes, so they often times impact them greatly. Midlaners can freely choose flash plus ignite /teleport /cleanse /barrier /heal /ghost without much drawbacks to them, while toplaners loose a lot if they don't carry teleport, adcs if they don't carry flash plus heal, and supports if they don't carry flash plus ignite/exhaust.

Of course, it wouldn't make sense to give these special items just for Tanks/ADCs/Supports. Every role would need one, but these were the first ones I thought about, to solve some issues with the game. The dorans items and similar early items could be incorporated into these "role" items (into their stage 1 forms).

Note: Only one Role item allowed per champion. Items have different stages, up to 3 (aka: 2 upgrades). Optional: Inventory reduced to 5 slots + Role slot + Trinket slot.

Now, for the Item Examples:

/ / / / / / Defense Commander (Main-Tank Role)(Stage 3): / / / / / /

• Rest (Unique Passive): (Can be the warmogs passive but only when not moving... also, change/delete warmogs XD).

• Captain (Unique Passive): Receive +25 armour/mr and movement speed per nearby ally.

• Testudo Formation (Aura)(Active): 1 second to activate. Gives nearby allies the Back-line buff and reduces their Mspeed by 50. The user receives the Front-line Buff. Aura ends after 5 seconds. 120 seconds cooldown.

• 80% of the damage done to those with "Back-line" buff is done instead to the one with the "Font-line" buff in the form of a 10 second bleed effect. This bleed can stack infinitely (eg: 100 different 10-sec bleeds, each with different damage and timers).

• (Note: The 80% damage is calculated based on the armour/magicResist of the "Front-line" champion.)

/ / / / / /

/ / / / / / Designated Hitter (Ranged Auto-attack Damage Dealer Role)(Stage 3): / / / / / /

• Know their Weak Spot (Unique Passive): Crits deal 50% additional damage in the form of a non-stack-able but refresh-able 5 second bleed effect.

(Optional: Delete current crits from the game, and have them be a non-stack-able but refresh-able 5 second bleed for 150% extra damage, which then you could change this item's passive to a 300% additional damage bleed. This change would keep the significance of crits in trades but take out the stupidity of multiple crits in a row. And maybe even present a chance to get out of the RNG crit system.)

• Piercing Rounds (Toggle): 1 second delay on the toggle. 3 second cooldown. Ignore 100 armour on your auto attacks. If the target has more than 250 armour, then ignore 50 additional armour. If the target has less than 150 armour, you deal 25% auto attack damage to that champion and you cannot critically hit him.

/ / / / / /

/ / / / / / Filthy Scavenger! (Support Role)(Stage 1): / / / / / /

• Receive X amount of gold per nearby unit death (doesn't matter if units are allies, neutrals or enemies). (This change can make gold revenue if supports decide to help out with jungle clears, or anywhere they decide to roam)

/ / / / / /

/ / / / / / Oh Nurse! (Support Role)(Stage 1): / / / / / /

• First Aid (Targeted Active)(3 uses, unlimited inside base): Heal target nearby champion for 40% missing health. Takes 5 seconds to heal, and target champion is rooted for the duration while the user is rooted and disabled for the duration (can be cast in combat). It can be self-cast, which would make the user rooted and disabled for 8 seconds instead.

/ / / / / /

Note: Support role items can be similar to those already available for the support role, but at the end, the support can choose to upgrade them into a Stage 3 role like "Main Tank" or "Designated Hitter" or whatever role he wants.

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/ / / / / / Predator (AP/AD Assassin Role)(Stage 3): / / / / / /

• Scout for Prey (Active): Select which enemy champion receives the "Prey" debuff. Debuff is lost on user or target death. You can choose/switch prey every 10 seconds, but only if you don't have vision of the current prey.

• Play with your Food (Unique Passive): When one of your abilities or auto-attacks hits your Prey, you receive +10% hybrid penetration towards it. (Can stack up to 100%, but only one stack can be added every 2 seconds) (Stacks are lost on target change/death, on user death, or after 30 seconds of no additional staking).

• Game on/Game off (Unique Passive): When in vision range of your Prey your champion gets excited, receiving 100 movement speed. However, when not in vision range, you champion gets cautious, loosing 50 Mspeed intead.

/ / / / / /

These next two are just added without much thought, just for the sake of there being one for these roles.

/ / / / / / Caster (AP Mage Role)(Stage 3): / / / / / /

• Knowledge of the Void (Unique Passive): +30% Magic Penetration (VoidStaff passive, change voidstaff xD).

• Infinite Wisdom (Unique Passive): +25% AP (Deathcap passive, change Deathcap xD).

/ / / / / /

/ / / / / / Saber (AD Bruiser Role)(Stage 3): / / / / / /

• Wide Reach (Unique Passive): +50 auto-attack range.

• Bloodlust (Unique Passive): While you are in battle, with enemy champions nearby, receive +10(per nearby enemy) armour pen, every 3 seconds. Loose all stacks after 6 seconds of not being in battle with enemy champions nearby.

• Endless Struggle (Unique Passive): (Insert Guardian Angel passive, change Guardian Angel xD)

/ / / / / /

/ / / / / / Joker (kappa Role)(Stage Fright): / / / / / /

• Yu's Blind (Massive Passive): Reduces your cooldowns by 1 second for every 3 seconds that you have enemies nearby without taking damage from them.

• Lust Cena (Crack Active): Become instantly invisible for 10 seconds, but you are rooted and disabled after 3 seconds of activating this. You receive a cleanse after 9 seconds (1 second before invisibility ends), resulting in you doing nothing worthwhile.

• Xpecial Performance (Passive-Aggressive): Every 2 gold you receive stacks 1 extra damage for your next ability or auto-attack on an enemy champion. Maximum of 2750 extra damage.

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All this just serves to give any Riot reader a fresh perspective on items and champions. You can use any ideas you get from here. Well, that's all from me xD See ya