Relic/Targon rework - How to fix it

, as it stands now, is an odd support item. Used by AD carries to share extra gold with support, and hard to use in solo queue, because you can't properly communicate which minions you want to execute. Reworking it makes sense to me. However, making it a good item for solo queue is hard, because it means that your allies can't do anything to mess it up, and also only be usable by supports.

Relic shield starts with two stacks. Any time a nearby allied Champion takes damage from enemy Champions, a 50 (+20 health per level) shield appears on them for 5 seconds to protect them from further harm, and they heal 10 (+1.5 per level) health. If the shield is destroyed during its duration, you gain 30 gold. If it expires without taking any more damage, you gain 10 gold. Any damage in between will give anything from 11-29 gold. Another stack cannot be consumed before 15 seconds after the shield has expired.

The cooldown on these stacks will be balanced to give the item a fair gold generation. Killing lane minions will result in the cooldown being prolonged, just like .

The idea of this new dynamic is to force fights, like relic shield users tend to do, and force the enemies to engage you or your ally if they want to come out on top. If you are tanky, the best option would normally be your ally. Being aggressive is a must with relic shield. This way, each support item represents one combat aspect: Sustain (coin), Poke (spellthief) and Engage (relic).

Each of these combat aspects have a weakness and a strength. Sustain counters poke. Poke counters engage. Engage counters sustain. For the most part anyway.

Passive supports like Soraka would not be able to use this effectively as a gold generation item. Enemies could simply harass your carry, triggering the shield and then backing off. You have no way of getting in their face, forcing huge amounts of damage on them if they don't fight back. However, Champions like Blitzcrank, Thresh, Alistar, Leona, Rakan etc. would make great use of it, as they are able to lock down an enemy, either forcing them to run away without retaliating (or just attacking you, the tank), or fighting back and triggering your gold generation.

Trying to play around it, poking your ADC and removing the stacks would be the only thing stopping you from gaining huge amounts of gold. However, a good tank support would be able to play around it themselves, engaging on the enemy whenever they move in to trigger it.

I know, it's a scary change. What if your favorite tank supports becoming totally broken, and gets nerfed into the ground? What if it ends up being so easy to play around that nobody will ever buy it? Well, that's why it needs to be tweaked and tested first. Nothing would be better than the item working as intended, and the problem of relic being vastly inferior in solo queue compared to in teams would be gone forever.

[slayer-pantheon-popcorn]