Thread:Willbachbakal/@comment-7709681-20150131182542/@comment-1330314-20150412214128

I'd love to hear what ideas you had with Haemokinesis and monsters. I guess if it were levels of mini-interaction, that would be okay, but I'd just be very wary of adding more mechanics to an already loaded kit.

Generally, when I brainstorm ideas, if there's something that just feels really awesome I save it: if it works for the concept I'm working on, that's good, but I'd rather not force it if it just doesn't fit in. I don't think this is so much a balancing thing as it is a design thing, but generally I think having something "just because it's cool", without stopping to think about how it impacts on the rest of the concept or how good it actually is in terms of larger interaction and the like.

From experience, implementing a mechanic I thought was cool without really taking into consideration the bigger picture (is this fun? is this interactive? how would it play out?) ended up creating more complications than anything else: the first ever kit I posted on this wiki was Rheya, an element-based champion who combines her abilities one after another. I thought the elemental combo mechanic was awesome, and basically just filled my kit up with random abilities to go with that, including her ult (it originally was three different steroids, each with a completely different set of bonuses), and the end result was this kit that was so bloated and confusing that it was difficult to just read the thing on paper (or on-screen), to say nothing of how it would actually feel in-game. I've worked on her over the past few years to improve her and simplify her kit whenever possible, to a degree I'm pretty satisfied with now, but I think the combo mechanic might just be too complicated on its own to ever work in-game. Another kit I posted, User blog:Willbachbakal/(Champion Concept) Rasputin, the Abomination, was based around an ult that reflects spells, and I think that effect would just not be a good idea in League for many gameplay reasons, so he needs a complete redo. I think I might be a bit too much of a reductionist, but generally the first thing I look for in any kit is stuff to simplify (does this mechanic add to this kit? Is there a simpler way to do it that loses none of its depth?).