(Summoner Spell Concept) Streamlining Summoner Spells
Out of all of LoL's novelty features at launch, summoner spells have been one of the most successful systems around. Bar a few tweaks, removals and graphical updates, summoner spells have largely stayed the same since Season 1, which is good, considering they bring tremendous amounts of gameplay for relatively little complexity. However, the system isn't without its issues, many of which have remained unanswered for years. Here are the changes I propose:
What are your thoughts? What do you think of the current state of summoner spells? Are there different effects you'd like to see in summoner spell form?
(Champion Rework) Rumble, the Mechanized Menace
This is a tentative rework for Rumble, the Mechanized Menace. While Rumble's sometimes surfaced as a slightly overbearing top lane bully, he's mostly harmless now, and has a pretty fun core playstyle that has attracted quite a few players, many of which have even expanded him to the jungle. So what's wrong with him? Nothing too serious, but for one, I kinda feel he doesn't fulfill his fantasy to the fullest extent: originally designed to be this jumpy, spammy bruiser-mage caster, with a focus on resource management over cooldowns, Rumble often doesn't really play into that system when he should be, overheating in all-ins and exerting a ton of power when he should be at his most vulnerable. This, in turn, has led to him receiving a stream of…
Classes & Subclasses My Way
For those of you who don't know already, Riot recently posted a dev blog outlining their classification of League's champions. This is a massive step forward in setting the grounds for discussion on what classes should do, how each champion fits into this system, how they stand out, what tradeoffs they make for one kind of power over another, etc. Personally, though, I don't entirely agree with the classes and subclasses they put out, for a few reasons:
- Unintuitiveness: The biggest issue I take with the system is that it tries a little too hard to avoid typical names and notions of classes, which have been ingrained in players' minds for years, and often reinforced by other games. Case in point: Controllers. This archetype is meant to group…
(Champion Rework) Karma, the Enlightened One
This is a tentative rework for Karma, the Enlightened One. Those of you who know me probably know my opinion on her: I think New Karma is fun to play and relatively problem-free, and Old Karma was so jumbled up and dysfunctional that she desperately needed an overhaul. So why rework her again? I think there are at least two compelling reasons: the first is that Karma currently has no real niche, and so doesn't especially shine as either a mage or a support unless her numbers get far too high. The second is that, for all of her old problems, Old Karma did have a lot of interesting aspects that got needlessly taken away when they could've been improved: putting aside the unnecessary loss of her fans and Yin-Yang dress, Karma had this cool nic…
(Item Concept) Fixing Mana
Let's talk about mana. As a resource system, it's fundamental to the workings of most champions in League of Legends, and is the most common resource in gaming, right after ammunition in shooters. It's a simple, easily recognizable and effective way of gating the use of abilities, and in League it also plays an important part in forcing certain champions to return to base, as they would otherwise be able to stay indefinitely in lane. However, in League specifically, mana isn't really in the best state, for several reasons: many champions feel gated far too strictly by mana, and that's often a deliberate decision to have them integrate into mana itemization, yet mana and mana regen aren't fun or interesting stats to buy. There's much more t…