New item ideas: Warding items for non-supports.

SIayton·5/18/2017, 8:45:44 PM·2 votes·445 views

I was thinking about how we could make players more proactive in warding and thought "Why don't we just make a ward line of items that benefit the various class types instead of just support?"

For example, for ADC:

Blade of the Watchers

40 AD (some other random stat Riot wants to give them) Active: "Gain ward charges every 60 seconds. Stores up to 2 wards" Passive: "Increase warding range by X amount" (to make warding safer for ADCs) Passive: Every time a ward is placed using this item, gain 2 attack damage. At 20 stacks, gain 15% attack speed.

Or for a Mage:

Staff of the Watchers 60 AP 10% cooldown reduction Active: "Gain ward charges every 60 seconds, stores up to 2 wards" Passive: Every time a ward is placed using this item, restore 15% max mana.

I think these kind of items could go a long way in getting everyone involved in the vision game and help lessen the burden of warding on support. I'd love to be able to opt into warding without completely gimping my build. Plus the benefits for warding actively encourages the players to ward consistently.

4 Comments

ModThe Djinn5/18/2017, 9:16:45 PM2 votes

{quoted}> Blade of the Watchers

40 AD (some other random stat Riot wants to give them) Active: Gain ward charges every 60 seconds. Stores up to 2 wards Passive: Increase warding range by X amount (to make warding safer for ADCs) Passive: Every time a ward is placed using this item, gain 2 attack damage. At 20 stacks, gain 15% attack speed.

This is pretty cool, and I quite like the quest idea. I'm less fond of the fact that it encourages you to just spam wards though, rather than using them strategically. The stacking mechanic helps mitigate this slightly, but I'm not entirely sold on it. I also don't think it needs the increased warding range.

Staff of the Watchers 60 AP 10% cooldown reduction Active: Gain ward charges every 60 seconds, stores up to 2 wards. Passive: Every time a ward is placed using this item, restore 15% max mana.

This one I like a bit less. The mana regeneration is a little worrying but not overly so, but the fact that it locks out non-mana users is something I'm not sold on. I also like the quest structure and building power of the first item, even with the downside of strategic ward placement being a potential issue. Finally, you'd want to make these rewards and actives unique, I think, so that you can't get multiple items like this.


I REALLY like the base concept you have here though, and I totally encourage further exploration of the idea.

Warlord Scrap5/18/2017, 8:57:42 PM1 votes

Staff of the watchers is a no besides cutting out all non mana ap champs. The passive would be a free 60% mana every 2 minutes. Maybe keep it a stat buff likeyour blade idea.

SIayton5/18/2017, 10:21:06 PM1 votes

Re: the staff, ideally you would want this during the laning phase, so it would have to be atleast a little comparable to morellos and the like. 15% might be too high of a number, these are just general concepts though. For ADCs, I think the quest line keeps in line with ADCs starting out weak and gaining strength over the course of the game, but for mages, they tend to power spike earlier, so you might want something that's better early on for them.

Having one that works for manaless champions would probably be better though. There could be lots of these, and there's tons of rooms for ideas though. Thanks for the feedback =D

DrugsForRobots5/19/2017, 8:40:07 AM1 votes

I get what you're shooting for, but try to follow me on this:

The way wards grant vision is detrimental to the vision game, because players don't have access to how wards grant information. If I'm roaming and I pass over a ward, I have no idea I've done so beyond reading the enemy's movements (assuming they're even visible). This means it's very difficult to play stealthily, as to play stealthily I need information, which wards don't provide inherently.

Even if I see you place a ward, once it turns invisible I can't interact with it unless I have a specific counter-item. This makes it very difficult for players to tune into the vision game - wards grant sight but 2 of the 4 ward constructs are invisible by default, and the other 2 can become invisible by being placed in brush, and none of them telegraph their presence to me besides the Control Ward, and only then if I have put a ward into it's range for it to disable.

Wards granting vision in the way that they do is not very appreciable, as none of their forms of vision are really unique. They all light up the map in the same way.

The implication:

If different ward constructs telegraphed their presence, they could be played around without needing a specific counter-item. This is actual stealth gameplay. If wards had different fields of sight, maybe a cone here, a literal line-of-sight there, then wards could potentially 'miss' enemy champions. If wards can 'miss' enemy champions, they can afford to be more powerful in the way their vision is expressed - larger AoEs, longer durations, effects like TS and other forms of invis detection. If wards can be played around, if they can 'miss', if they are fallible, then they can afford to be FREE. And at the same time, vision becomes easier to appreciate, as players of all skill levels (but especially lower skill levels) become aware of how wards operate, how they cover space, how they control an area and in what ways they're doing all of those things. It also means that ganking becomes very skill intensive, as players have to navigate the enemy's ward defenses, dodging and weaving their way thru the various vision cones and skirting lines of sight - whereas now it's: '1) approach for a gank --> are they running away? OK, it's warded, I'll come back later / use Sweeper or Scryer Bloom or Control Ward and then come back later. 2) approach for a gank --> OK, they don't know I'm here, GOGOGOGO, successful gank resulting in Summoner Spell uses or their deaths.'

Does that make sense?