New Mechanic - Physical Shield

Today I was watching a league game and noticed a Morgana spell shield.  I liked that it wasn't just a normal shield, that it stopped disables and only absorbed spell damage.  I liked that it wasn't white on the health bars but green.  So I started thinking to myself, "What other kinds of shields could there be?"

And I thought up an idea of a new kind of shield, similar to a Morgana shield, but instead of magic based, it would be physical based.  The color on the health bars could be a different color as well, I was thinking perhaps green orange or red.  And instead of stopping disables, it would stop a different brand of debuffs, such as resistance reductions and vision debuffs.  Instead of absorbing all damage or just magic damage, it would absorb physical damage.  This new ability could be given to a new champion or perhaps an old one during a rework.

Here is the description of Morgana's shield:

ACTIVE: Places a shield around target friendly champion for up to 5 seconds, absorbing magic damage and preventing disables while the shield holds.

Here is what the new move might look like:

ACTIVE: Places a shield around target friendly champion for up to 5 seconds, absorbing physical damage and preventing vision/resistance debuffs while the shield holds.

This kind of mechanic wouldn't be game breaking in any way.  In fact if you were to compare it to Black Shield it has a much smaller impact.  However it's something new that might be interesting, especially if it was given to a support.

Hungering Strike - The Chomp Treatment

As of now I would say that Warwick isn't a strong champion, especially as a jungler which is really what I believe to be his main purpose as a champion.  His pre-6 presence is almost non-existant and his post 6 presence is only dangerous is his ult is ready to use.  And unlike champions like Diana his post 6 ganks won't all be with his ult ready to go unless he ganks very infrequently.

However, because of how he works, between his sustain, damage and his skillset, I don't think it would be wise to buff him in too significant a manner.  But one change that I think would really help to give him at least Some pre-6 pressure would be to give his Q, Hungering Strike, the same treatment that Trundle's Q, Chomp got.  That is, give it a significant slow that is very short in duration.

This would essentially give Warwick a little bit of pre-6 CC without making him imbalanced.  And in specific it would help him in getting to a target in order to apply red buff which is a major problem he has.  The cooldown isn't short enough that this change would cause major problems and it isn't a big enough buff to push him over the top in any way.  Essentially it would give him that little extra kick in order to no longer be an almost non-factor.

The change could look something like this:

ACTIVE: Warwick swipes at a target enemy, dealing magic damage for the greater value between a flat minimum amountor a percentage of the target's maximum health (if the target is a champion), plus additional bonus damage based on his ability power and slowing his target by 75% for 0.1 seconds. Hungering Strike can only deal the flat damage to minions and monsters.

Warwick heals himself for 80% of the damage dealt (after reductions).

Quinn - Vault

This particular mechanic might be working as intended, but I don't believe that it should work the way it does.

As of now, Vault interrupts channels and casting, which is fine, I think it's a good mechanic for Quinn ot have considering her kit.  However, also as of now, if Quinn is kitting and uses vault to make distance, champions can have casts ready such that the moment she hits them, she gets hit by those spells.  The main problem I have with this mechanic is in regards to spells like Flip from Singed.  Using your kit as Quinn to kite actually gets you thrown into the enemy team, which in my opinion is kind of silly.

At least with other abilities that Flip overrides, they are in a position such that they would be flipped had they not used their ability.  Vault is different.  You are actually outside of Flip range before you use it, but you use it in order to make more difference.  The tool that Quinn is given to kite shouldn't work against her just because of what I believe is an unfortunate mechanic.

So I suggest this change.  When Quinn is using Vault on an enemy champion, she cannot be targeted by the champion she is vaulting towards near the end of her leap.  This leaves counterplay by other members of the team to stop her.  Which I think is fine, some counterplay is always a good thing to have.  But to have your major kitting skill be hardcountered by certain champions without any actual thought involved seems a little too much.

Item Sets - A Small Tweak

Item Sets are both a very cool and very useful addition to LoL.  I like them a bunch and they're the answer to a lot of different problems that people had with baseline builds and having to waste time searching the shop.  

However that doesn't mean that I believe there is no room to improve.  There is one small change that I believe would be very nice for Item Sets.  And that's a Buy All option.

What I mean by this is that you should be able to toggle a button on any section of your item set, or perhaps even have different kinds of items sets that have this option, which would enable you to click this new button and buy everything that is in the set.

Example:

You have an item set for support Thresh.  The first "Block" which is your starting items has rejuv beads, two green wards, one pick ward and two health potions.  Now suppose you have enough gold to buy all of these items (which I would were I to run Thresh since I run extra starting gold).  If you have the gold for these items, the button which I suggest be added would be clickable.  And if you were to click that button, it would buy all of these items instantly.

If you did not have enough gold to buy all of these items, the button would not be clickable, it would be as if you were trying to buy anything else in the store that you didn't have the gold for.

Essentially this change would make getting out of the starting area easier for champions that have to buy a large amount of items.  It would even the playing field on getting to important destinations quicker against champions such as ADCs who many times only need to buy a Doran's Blade.

Viktor - Changing The Hex Core

As of now Viktor is the only champion that essentially has only 5 item slots instead of 6. I believe that it is this and not so much the rest of his skill-set, laning, end-game, etc that is the reason that he is so underplayed.

This situation is problematic for him because not only does it limit what he can build for endgame, it also limits what he can have on hand during the entire course of the game.  So he'd either have to go without buying a piece of a larger item or go without wards or pots when any other champion could do so.  It would be one thing if this were an option, but as of now the Hex Core cannot be sold back to the store.  So unlike someone such as Rengar with his Bonetooth Necklace, if Viktor wants traditional items he doesn't have that choice.

So my suggestion is that instead of making the Hex Core and any augment he gives it a permanent part of his inventory, make the Hex Core something along the lines of a reagent that can be used to augment an ability.

Here is the description of the Hex Core from Riot:

Evolving Technology - Viktor starts with a Hex Core that provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, and cannot be sold back to the store.

Here is the more detailed explanation from LoLWiki:

Evolving Technology

Hex Core: Grants Viktor 3 ability power per level

Viktor starts each game with  the Hex Core, an item that takes up one of his item slots, but provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities and improve its stats. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, for 1000 gold, and cannot be sold back to the store.

I would like to see it changed to something like this:

Evolving Technology

Hex Core: Grants Viktor 3 ability power per level

Viktor starts each game with  the Hex Core, an item that takes up one of his item slots, but provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities and improve its stats. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, for 1000 gold, and once upgraded disapears as the power is used to improve whichever ability he chose.

Basically the Hex Core starts as an item in his inventory as it does now.  But instead of upgrading it to a new item that helps one ability, it is used up in making one ability more powerful.  This keep his gameplay exactly the same, doesn't really mess with the idea of the augment choice but allows Viktor the same six item slots that everyone else has.

Evelynn - Agony's Embrace

I'm sure this suggestion has already been made elsewhere by plenty of other people but I wanted to make a post throwing my own opinion behind a change to this ability.

Simply put, it needs to have a base damage that it does if the % current health is too low.

The fact that Eveleynn can't use her ult and finish someone off at 10 health is to me ridiculous.  As far as I am aware there are literally no other abilities, let alone ultimates, which do only current health damage and have no base damage to speak of. So, I believe we should add something to Eve's ult so that it does some damage even if the enemies current health is very low

It could look something like this:

Agony's Embrace

• RANGE: 650
• COOLDOWN: 150 / 120 / 90
• COST: 100 mana

ACTIVE: Evelynn impales all enemy units in target 250-radius area, dealing magic damage equal to a percentage of their current health(100/150/200) damage minimum) and slowing their movement speed for 2 seconds.

• MAGIC DAMAGE: 15% / 20% / 25%(+ 1% per 100 AP) of enemies' current health
• SLOW: 30% / 50% / 70%

Evelynn siphons their pain, gaining a shield that grows in strength for each enemy champion hit and lasts up to 6 seconds.

• SHIELD STRENGTH PER CHAMPION HIT:150 / 225 / 300
• MAXIMUM SHIELD STRENGTH: 750 / 1125 / 1500

The underlined part is what I myself added to the ability.  Essentially it would be like a Mundo cleaver, that it does a base damage if the damage it would normally do is lower than the base.  It wouldn't affect the ability at higher health but would make it at do at least some reasonable damage when the target is very low.

I wouldn't say that this is a necessary change for Eve's viability so much as something I believe should be done in terms of spell balance.  An ultimate should not do 15 damage to someone just because they have 100 health left in my opinion.  And this change wouldn't buff her ultimate in other situations, just in the ones where it shouldn't do the low damage it does.

New Summoner Spell - Accelerate

So one thing I haven't seen since I started playing League of Legends is a new summoner spell.

So I figured I would come up with something that I think might be an interesting addition to the summoner spells we already have.

So let's take a quick look.  We have healing (Heal).  We have damage (Ignite).  Mana (Clarity).  Slower total map movement (TP).  Quick short distance movement (Flash).  Movement speed (Ghost).  Vision (CV).  Objective control/damage (Smite).  Revive.  Anti-CC (Cleanse). Slow/damage reduction (Exhaust).  Shield (Barrier).

These are the categories for items:

Attack:  Damage - Attack Speed - Life Steal - Critical Strike

Magic:  Mana - Cooldown Reduction - Mana Regen - Spell Damage

Defense:  Armor - Health - Health Regen - Magic Resist

Misc:  Movement - Consumable

One could argue that all of these are in some way shown to an extent except for one.

CDR.

CDR doesn't directly relate to doing damage, shielding, giving vision or anything specific because it is different to every champ.  It's pretty easy to say that Heal covers life steal, health, and health regen.  You could argue that Ignite covers damage, spell damage, attack speed and crit.  Clarity covers mana and mana regen.  Flash/TP/Ghost cover movement.  Shield could cover armor and MR.  But CDR could mean anything.

So what if there was a summoner spell that directly affected the cooldowns of your abilities?  We could call it:

Accelerate

Reduces the cooldown of all champion abilities with a baseline cooldown of less than 30 seconds by half of their current cooldown timer.

Obviously this wouldn't be set in stone and it would need extensive testing for balancing.  However I think this would be an interesting addition to our list of summoner spells.