[Support Concept] Could this kind of champion work, given the state of the game?

Rakvir·8/15/2016, 8:41:22 PM·1 votes·257 views

So healers are generally disliked, we know this, and Riot likes to mostly avoid the issue as long as they can keep champions very niche or keep numbers low enough that building towards something other than your standard support items has reasonable trade offs unless fed (in which case you were more likely to win with said champions, regardless).

But what about a support that passively heals the enemy for a very small amount over time when they are nearby as this hypothetical champion uses their actual abilities to buff teammates.

However, the trade-off is that during the HoT's duration, if the affected player is struck by an enemy ability (not auto-attacks), a debuff of some sort would be applied depending on which kind of buff was applied to the aggressor.

The buffs themselves would work universally as your standard, generic steroid but merely have an additional bonus if a nearby enemy was in range when the buff was first cast.

A small slow, resistances reduced slightly, reduced vision (not an outright blind, I feel that would be too much), nothing tremendous but basically things that inconvenience rather than outright double-dip (except maybe the resistances thing, it would have to be a very very small flat amount or have super-bad scaling).

The theme of this champion would basically be the promotion of balance and fair play (or go the opposite direction and be semi-sinister, being over-confident and being generous to make things more "sporting").

I feel this would appeal to players that like to hang back as an enchanter if they are behind to avoid feeding and giving a possibly risky heal to key enemies while feeling pro-active that they helped the team make plays if they build to be more as a frontline enchanter who can assess risk/rewards effectively.

Most enchanters feel very one-dimensional in their build paths and playstyle but here would be an opportunity to offer a kind of, I don't know how to put it, archetype(?) system in a single champion outside of those who would play around in the domain of bruisers, divers, tanks, and juggernauts. Mages are usually defined by their kits almost to the level of marksmen outside of a few outliers so it would be nice to promote one that can not be so hyper-focused into one role.

If such a champion was well-received, perhaps alternate takes on the design of marksmen could be explored, too!

Also, if deemed necessary for balance, the different abilities could be a mix-match of AD and AP scrapings to promote different team compositions and what the overall goals they have in individual games instead of being a blanket-pick that isn't quite strong enough due to base numbers being too low across the board to justify allowing such a champion to exist, given the jack-of-all-trades feel to it that I'm sure many would be concerned about.

5 Comments

Rakvir8/15/2016, 8:46:40 PM1 votes

I can't scroll down inside the text box itself to edit out spelling and grammar mistakes on my phone so I'll have to wait until I can access a desktop to comb through this.

CobaltTheMadMage8/15/2016, 8:48:35 PM1 votes

So... buff an ally, but heal the enemy in the process, necessitating the ally to use their new buff to undo the healing you provided and hopefully break even? Would be counter-productive in teamfights and everyone would hate people who play this champ regardless of how beneficial they could theoretically be in the right hands. Because too many hands would be the wrong ones and you can't tell for sure which is which until the ones that get away do so with progressively larger chunks of health remaining.

Rakvir8/15/2016, 11:01:22 PM1 votes

I'm at a loss as to how strong the heal should be while maintaining relevant at all stages of the game (assuming neither team is significantly ahead of the other).