Sona: The return of actual auras?
So i was looking at Braum today and i thought "wow wouldn't it be cool if a champion has an AOE version of Unbreakable? Like knock the % damage reduced way down say 12% start with a 2% bonus per rank, But make it so that all allies in a certain area around the caster are affected. The skill is powerful but requires a bit of limited range (thinking 700) and champions have to stay in it to keep it active. Basically rewards tight good gameplay with your allies but doesn't punish you by making you group into a tiny tiny easy to AOE ball. Of course keep the skill on a mild duration and cooldown, don't want champions having perma 20% damage reduction, but also don't want it to be on such a long cooldown you can only use it once per team fight, maybe something like a 15 second base cooldown, with a 2-3 second duration + .5 seconds per ally tagged. Makes it feel like getting additional allies with it really reward you, BUT doesn't make you feel like if you miss an ally the spell is running at a weak level. Could even give it a semi hefty mana cost 80 +5 per rank. Enough that the champion can't use it everytime it's off cooldown but low enough that the natural mana regen helps offset the cost per time. So people know that the ability is active maybe have all allies effect having some kind of bright green bubble around them.
Also have some ideas about an AOE damage boost. It gives bonus AD & AP so that all allies benefit from it being active not just those who want to cast spells or those more auto attack focused. Of course same basic idea, powerful skill on a mild cooldown but a constant effect while the spell was active. I'm thinking start at like 15 AD/AP and let it rank up by 5 per level. Base effect lasts 2 seconds with a bonus .5 seconds per ally tagged. Again it's good for laning (2.5 seconds of + 15-25 AD/AP) but really shows off it's stuff in team fights where you can get your whole team with +35 AD/AP for 4 seconds. Was thinking maybe make it have a base 10 second cooldown, and maybe 55-60 (+5-10 per rank) cast mana cost. Enough that spamming in the late game has can put a serious dent in your mana pool but low enough that you don't have to worry about casting the spell 2-3 times early game and running out of mana. 700 range of effect, keep things equal across all abilities. People would know it's active by having the allies hands glow bright blue
The last idea I'm a bit more unsure of. I was thinking it would be cool to have a group mobility buff. Either slow enemies when you/ your allies auto attack them, offer some kind of blink effect, or maybe something as simple as a movement speed bonus that lasted long enough/ gives a big enough boost to actually matter. I think the last one is probably the safest. I'm just unsure if i like the idea of an aura that offers a small boost that when activated again offers a much bigger but short lived bonus, or just a big bonus on a slightly longer duration. For the first idea i'm thinking maybe 4 Movement speed per rank with a bonus 20-25% movement speed for 2-3 seconds upon activation. Or something like a 25-30% movement speed bonus on a flat 4 second duration. Thinking this ability should be on a 12 second cooldown. Long enough that spamming isn't a thing, short enough that the bonus can be possibly chained for serious effect. People would see the effect is active when the character gets a bright purple glow around their feet.
Since a character with just these aura's wouldn't be all that good when the aura's aren't up, maybe give them all a second effect. The damage reduction could heal an ally for a bit of health (not a lot but enough that you might notice it). The damage boost could send out bolts that hit nearby champions (or minions if no champions are in range). The last ability.... well that aura would probably be it's thing, not sure how to balance any other ability with it.
Since Riot loves abilities with power ups on 3rd use. Maybe the characters passive does a bit of bonus damage every third spell. Tie it to an AA so that the character has to take some risk to land it. With bonuses based on your last spell cast. Damage boost does some bonus damage, damage reduction either shreds resistances or debuffs the target hit (let's also have it shrink the target's model by 30-40% since that would make it super clear the champion is affected by the debuff. The last ability.... How about a 1 second stun
To keep the character from balling out of control, make all the bonuses have very bad ratios. This means that if you build a ton of AP they are stronger, but you neither need nor often want to go glass cannon with the character, since their basic abilities are already pretty good.
For those who don't get it, this is basically
with actual auras rather then one time use abilities. It changes her from a bad mix of support and mage, who needs super high levels of AP for her utility to be useful (and thus means her poke is insane), into a character who opens up little windows of power for her allies. You keep the range of the aura's semi low so she can't buff the whole team from complete safety, but also isn't dancing around the front lines of combat. Basically you split the difference between her pre-rework aura's and her current one use abilities. With low scaling on the secondary effects you make it so that building her as a glass cannon isn't needed to get utility. Longer cooldowns means a lower risk of spam even in the end game when she maxes out CDR. Most importantly she stops being balanced around tagging your entire team, BUT if you manage it you get some pretty impressive power, rather then the "well that was what you were suppose to do" feeling it currently gives.