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Long term balance concept.

Elite4Runner··15 votes·791 views

This post is about two things, balancing the gold distribution, and how this could ultimately impact the overall balancing of items and champions.

So lets get it out of the way, I'm betting most people who haven't already turned away after seeing that this post is more than two sentences long will turn away after reading the next sentence.

I would like to see a support summoner introduced to the game which will rework support items, in very much the same way that the jungle items and smite were reworked a few years ago.

If you haven't turned away yet, thank you. Please keep reading, and please, continue to keep an open mind

SUMMONER SPELL Activating this summoner spell in it's base form will work very much like the Favor passive from item 3301 item 3096 item 3069 & item 2302 over 10 seconds. The summoner spell will then go on a cooldown which is scaled in a way that it can be used every few waves. There would also be a visual/audible indication that shows that this summoner spell is active which could be beneficial for enemy laners to expect an aggressive push, or to then to take a more aggressive stance to try and prevent the added gold income.

Having this summoner spell will give you the ability to purchase a support item that augments the effect of the summoner spell.

SUPPORT ITEMS I am still thinking of what would be the best set of changes available, and it is possible that Favor may be better as one of these, however I'm not sure what the base form would actually be, if not simply the same with a different amount of gold awarded, or to decrease the cooldown upon upgrade, allowing it to be used more often.

One of the other forms would be similar to the Spoils of War passive from item 3097, and it's respective upgrades, but I would really like for this to not be limited to melee only, and maybe not give health to the allied champion champion, just equal gold. Also, it would not be based on stacking charges, but simply gives the support an execute for the duration of the active effect, they collect gold and give equal gold to the nearest allied champion. I think this would be good because some supports can actually have decent wave clear.

And if you haven't guessed my next idea by now, I would recommend a form that would be very similar to the Tribute passive from item 3303. The main difference I would want to highlight with this option would be, that once again it would not be based on charges. There would need to be a limit to how many times it could be triggered over the course of a single activation. Lets say 8 up times, (in order to scale in a way similar to a full minion wave, 3 melee, 3 range, and 1 cannon which gives more gold) over 10 seconds, dealing damage to enemy champions will grant you gold.

I would really like for there to be more options, but I'm just going to use the support items in the game for now.

ITEM ENCHANTMENTS Now, just like with the jungle items, each of these items would be able to be built along with a complimentary component in order to determine which stats are granted as part of the final support item. For example the Warrior and Runic Echos enchantment can both be purchased for the Skirmishers Saber jungle item. Similar enchantments would be available for these support items which would be more relevant for the support role.

HOW DOES THIS IMPACT THE GAME So great, this basically creates a different way to do exactly what already exists, right? Well, it is my theory that these changes would decrease the amount of situations where non-support roles will abuse support items to gain an early advantage. Also, by decreasing this abuse, these summoners can actually be buffed in order to more significantly increase the amount of gold income a support can maintain, keeping them closer to the same level as that of other roles throughout the game. By doing this, the non gold income support items can be reworked in a way that will increase both their stat values as well as their cost, in order to make supports utilize those stats more effectively.

But how will this impact other roles? This is where you really have to stick with me and think long term. If you balance the gold income for all roles, you can not worry so much about which non-role-specific items (so the jungle, and now the support items) work better on a top or mid laner, a jungler, or a adc vs a support, or the other way around. Balance all of the items by their respective gold costs and stats alone, then balance their respective effectiveness on a specific champion by balancing the scaling numbers in each champion's kit.

So to try and explain what I mean, currently, supports who utilize AP have the difficulty of not being able to purchase items with a lot of AP because they don't have the gold to do so. As a result, their kit needs to utilize a larger percentage of the little amount of AP that they are able to afford. The problem with this is that this same champion can often be able to be played in another role where they are able to afford more AP, and as a result are able to be significantly more effective. If this is not the case, support items will need to provide more AP, or other base stats, to compensate. By doing this without increasing the cost, this item becomes more effective on non support champions.

So if mid lane mages and supports were both able to afford 100 AP, the mage would easily be able to be balanced to utilize a larger portion of that AP and the support would be balance to utilized a lower portion. Win/win!

DISCLAIMER I also want to strongly stress that I am completely aware that any suggestions I have made are made without any chance to test or balance any actual numbers of features I have provided. Any number of subtle changes could be made to these suggestions to be implemented in a similar way that could still improve the game.

THE END/FEEDBACK So yeah, I'm sure this will get zero attention, and will probably be downvoted as soon as people read 'support summoner'. If you have read this far, and if you don't like it, I don't mind if you downvote, but I would ask that you at least let me know that you read it by commenting with what you don't like or agree with. ... or at the very least, .. um, .. tell me your favorite support character. lol

8 Comments

DarkRitual3 votes

Putting gold gen into a summoner spell would be a 100% failure. We aren't going to give up exhaust/ignite. Put it in a tier 3 keystone instead. Support items, maybe could use some tuning, but then again, they are already very cheap for the stats they end up giving. I think it helps keep them from just being another carry. I'd much rather see other supportive items gold balanced more towards them. I'm sure they could also have items that require a sightstone item in order to purchase, which would help keep non-supports from abusing them without also watering their builds down with a sightstone item. I like the item enchantment idea, but again brings up the potential problem of non-supports abusing free gold gen and access to whatever stat they care for. So the available enchantments would either need to be severely limited (like jungle items) to the point there's no actual choice which one you build, or they will be toned down so hard that it's not even noticable.

Elite4Runner1 votes

{quoted}

Putting gold gen into a summoner spell would be a 100% failure. We aren't going to give up exhaust/ignite. Put it in a tier 3 keystone instead. Support items, maybe could use some tuning, but then again, they are already very cheap for the stats they end up giving. I think it helps keep them from just being another carry. I'd much rather see other supportive items gold balanced more towards them. I'm sure they could also have items that require a sightstone item in order to purchase, which would help keep non-supports from abusing them without also watering their builds down with a sightstone item. I like the item enchantment idea, but again brings up the potential problem of non-supports abusing free gold gen and access to whatever stat they care for. So the available enchantments would either need to be severely limited (like jungle items) to the point there's no actual choice which one you build, or they will be toned down so hard that it's not even noticable.

Isn't that the whole point of summoner spells. They are a limited resource and they're meant to be a very valuable, to the point where it is supposed to be a difficult, game changing choice as to which to take, and ultimately when to use it in the game. If you really think Exhaust or Ignite are best for the way you play as a support, take those. There is a good chance that these will help you get a kill/assist, which will ultimately net you more gold.

Having any items in the game that are cheaper and more cost effective than others causes imbalance in the way that I explained toward the end of my initial post. Requiring signtstone would not prevent these items from being abused because non-supports could still build them. Watering down the stats the items provide makes the supports even weaker.

Also, as for exhaust/ignite, this could be the active effects. Frost Queens Claim has a built in slow effect, it's comparable support item could have a much stronger effect to compensate.

DarkRitual1 votes

I'm a support main, and I'm not giving up the ability to secure/deny kills from a summoner spell just for gold gen. I don't need the extra gold nearly as much as my [adc in lane, rest of team later on] needs to stay alive. I don't think putting those effects into items to compensate is going to work out well either. Again because other roles would abuse them and get them nerfed to where they are no longer attractive to supports.

Elite4Runner1 votes

More gold means more stats, meaning that you are more effective as a support with your kit, meaning you can help secure kills more effectively because that is what your champion is designed to do, not because you have a summoner spell that any champion can have.

Elite4Runner2 votes

I actually forgot to say that adding these items to the game would actually remove the gold income items from the game. I bet that was pretty obvious, but I should have clarified anyways.

Also, one, some, or maybe even all of the actual support items could still have active effects. They could either be the same active effects as the previous items, or something different, .. or they could simply be wards like with item 3711

Rendarkan2 votes

Zed "Balance is a fool's weakness."

Haven King2 votes

I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now and just didn't get around to posting anything. Good to see I'm not the only one thinking about it. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

JedenVojak1 votes

This is stupid, in the same way requiring junglers to have smite as a spell was stupid.

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