RED BUFF Basic attacks deal 2.5% of target's maximum health true damage per second and PREVENTING HEALING ON THAT TARGET.
What? You just flat can't heal?
That is literally the core mechanic of some champion's abilities!
This AT MOST should be "cuts healing by 50%" or even 75%
.. but to eliminate healing completely is broken!
This is so limited though. The damage from it really is minimal compared to other item combos, and it is only reducing healing to what they attack. Very few actually are based on healing. I rarely see this, and I only build it when it gets late game and either I have no other options, or I am in the final matches and one of the threats has a high heal champ, then it is played specifically as a counter. Otherwise I am not even taking this. I would do so many other items before this one.
Other examples of direct counters.
Phantom dance--> divine sword. Dragons--> magic Rapid fire cannon--> yordles/phantom dancer Dragons tooth(I think its called)--> magic Demons/kassadin--> people who like spells.
Are these a problem? Not really. The healing options on items are bloodthirster hextech and redemption. Which arent very many overall. So if you see someone has redbuff position your comp better. These counters are made to make tough decisions happen in game. These hard counters are good for the game because they push you to keep your strat secret for as long as you can and make a comp that counters your opponents. In fact I think we need more of them. make knights scale to immunity to cc for one.
Demons, are meh overall, so i don't feel like the mana leech breaks them.
Phantom is really strong, but a complete build will still overcome it. It means you cant build a pure crit team. I think that is true for all of this. If you go full one way it is strong but easily countered, strongest is to have multiple synergies then you cant be countered full out.
But the items it builds out of are incredibly inefficient with most champions that can effectively apply a red buff. It's only basic attacks so aoe abilities, like Garen, don't combo well with it. The only champion in the game that can effectively utilize a red buff is Graves, which is a fairly weak champion to begin with. He's an adc that's forced to front line and usually just gets instantly killed anyway. I personally think red buff is fine. If anything, Tear of the Goddess and Recurve Bow items need huge nerfs. Tank items need buffs except Zephyr.
it's not just redbuff, Morellos does the same but potentially on aoe. Imo it should at max give 40% reduction like in normal LoL, it just makes focuseing on sustain champs utterly pointless. Got a lvl 3 darius with sojin? to bad, 3 opponents have items that remove his heal and he's usless, can't allow a melee to carry...
