We’re going to take a look at the currently planned changes for the upcoming PBE 4.5 Patch regarding Summoner Spell & Boot Enchantment changes. Remember of course, these are tentative and subject to change or removal for the Live Server patches.
Boot Enchantments:
In late game (especially defending inhibs/base) you can immediately make use of the enchantment, even by running on and off the summoner platform to grab some healing and mount a proper defense, making Nexus area defense much stronger than before.
Previously, once on the platform, you’d have to wait before the Homeguard enchantment kicked in. Now, Homeguard’s benefits take effect once you step on the summoner platform. After using Homeguard and returning to defend, you may not always come back defending ‘topped off’ at full HP like you were before, but a lot of the time you may not need to be, and can mount a quicker defense with less wait time.
– The REAL question to be asked here is regarding the Movespeed portion: When does it activate?
This alone is essentially what’s going to make or break the Enchantment as a nerf or buff. – This is because most of the time, it is that Movespeed buff that matters for defending, not your HP pool. (Getting to a tower in time with 70% HP will make a better defense than getting there later with 100% HP where the tower may have already fallen, or is bound to fall before a fight starts, rendering the additional HP meaningless.)
If the Movespeed buff takes place immediately when you step on the platform and the healing begins, this becomes a significant buff to both the late game and the mid game.
- Champions with close to full HP who don’t care about the healing factor can step on the platform to receive just the Movespeed buff to quickly mount a defense, which is a significant buff in comparison to the previous version who would still have to wait for movespeed buff out of combat since the entirety of the Enchantment happens at once.
- Champions with low health can wait a shorter duration than before, to receive less healing but still get the Movespeed buff whenever, to mount a defense even on moderate HP.
This does not appear to be what Riot intended, as this would be a buff to both mid and late game, where as they are looking for a nerf to this Enchantment. Thus, this situaton is unlikely, and most likely the Movespeed buff will remain the same, and still activate upon 8 seconds of being out of combat.
If the Movespeed buff takes just as long as before and you need to wait for it, it’s a nerf because many would sit in the fountain to both receive the movespeed buff, and wait until they are full HP, rather than rush off the fountain without full HP, and without a Movespeed buff. (as 8 seconds of waiting for an out-of-combat move speed buff is more or less roughly the same time it would take you to heal to full HP). This means you might as well just wait for the full HP and the full movespeed buff before mounting a defense, as you would cover more distance with that movespeed buff than if you had left the fountain with 70% HP or something.
This more likely change, would then makes it a significant nerf to the mid game (since you can no longer recall and instantly homeguard away as you must now wait even after recalling). However, as I’ve stated, it does buff the late game, as often when defending inhibitors or nexus areas, you just want some quick instant healing, and may not need the movement speed buff to reach locations so close to you.
– Strengthens late game, but weakens mid game.
Just a small buff. Most notably, this is so that adding this Enchantment to the previously nerfed Boots of Mobility, will allow you to have the same movespeed IN-combat as with any other second tier boots., while also providing you more movespeed out of combat.
Shouldn’t change anything too much besides what’s mentioned above. Aside from not many people buying it already, a 5 Movespeed buff is nothing, as most players would buy Furor Enchantments (12%+ Movespeed) if they wanted more Movespeed on the regular.
– Boots of Mobility users, looking for the same speed buff engage potential while keeping up with targets in team fights, or Supports that buy Boots of Mobility to be able to still have a chance at running & surviving if engaged in combat (as opposed to the current state of Boots of Mobility, which more or less means certain death for a Support who gets caught out)
Price falls more in line with other Enchantments since it seemed too expensive before.
Also, makes life easier for people like Marskman players, who could really make use of this Enchantment for kiting/chasing, and buying this over completing an item like Phantom Dancer.
– Cheaper = Some may want to grab this enchantment for better team fighting, chasing, and kiting, rather than finish an item such as Phantom Dancer or Statikk Shiv. Also gives you a ton of Movespeed rather than starting a far more expensive item like Zephyr.
Price again, falls in line with other Enchantments by becoming cheaper, however it’s still not seeing play as much, which is why they’re increasing the Movespeed strength too.
This doesn’t change much beyond what it already did besides making it stronger, cheaper, and thus, more efficient. The argument for getting this Enchantment is now stronger, but still the same argument as before:
Getting it on your front line’s bruiser/tank, or back line support essentially gives an aura for your team and everything in between (especially during fights) to have a Movespeed buff either way they run.
When winning a fight, Captains on your charging front line gives the rest of the team the same speed buff to charge with. (which shouldn’t be neglected on its strength as it’d be constantly providing 1/4th the Movespeed of the Active from Talisman of Ascension)
When losing a fight, Captains on your support (if they’re a back line ranged support like Lulu/Zyra), can allow your team to run away and make an escape over prolonged distances, especially if Talisman’s Active was burned in an unsuccessful engage.
– Having this enchantment on one front line member and one back line member means your entire team in between gets an aura regardless of which way they run. This could drastically improve mid-fight positioning as well as allowing you to chase after a fleeing team.
My goodness, did this Enchantment just get a major buff. It left me wow’d after reading through the changes that Riot would buff something this significantly.
Sure, the original cooldown reduction time did get nerfed a bit, but that’s more than made up for in the new additional effects.
Aside from enhancing Ghost by bringing back the bonus Movespeed effect it used to gain from “Summoner’s Wrath” of the Offensive Mastery Tree in Season 3, it also increases the duration of that movespeed from Ghost as well.
Flash’s cast range increase is actually quite a nice buff too (especially if you’re horrible at flashing over walls), but mainly to increase catch potential in the jungle, easier kill secures, and team fight engage potential anyone who possesses a hard engage that can synergize with Flash. This can be anyone from Annie, Thresh, Blitzcrank, to Morgana, Singed, Volibear, Zac, and the list goes on to people who could make use of this range increase such as Fiddlesticks, Zed, Talon, Le Blanc, who may need just a bit more increased range from Flashing to get a major spell off or secure a kill.
Teleport now gives you (practically) Ghost lasting 3 seconds upon a successful Teleport. This is a huge buff to make up for the early warning your teleport gives off, and this is even greater if you plan to synergize a Teleport into an engage using Ghost or Flash.
This is a huge improvement for anyone who runs Ghost (Singed, Nasus, Vladimir, Udyr), especially if you run any of those 3 Summoner Spells together (Ghost, Flash, Teleport). This Enchantment will definitely see a lot more upcoming play, even if not to make a flashy play or do something game changing, the buffs themselves that are provided to users of those Summoner Spells may make this enchantment worth getting.
– Enchantment gives buffs to Summoner Spells. Very strong when bought on champions who use these summoner spells for critical or game changing moments such as engages, or teleports for dragons/barons/teamfights/backdooring, but even further increases the strength of this enchantment significantly for champions who two summoner spells affected by this enchantment. This enchantment should see a lot more purchasing in the future, as well as much earlier in the game. (Especially for Teleport users)
Summoner Spells:
Hopefully “target” means champion, as accidentally healing a minion would make you quite mad (probably why they removed the ability to ignite minions too).
That being said, this is a significant nerf to the spell, you’re now losing what potentially should be 60% of the spell’s ability and healing, without even significantly reducing the cooldown or increasing the heal amount.
The bonuses are nice, as now this spell negates the effects of Ignite, as well as giving a nice Movespeed bonus, although from an overall standpoint, the evaluation is that the buffs don’t outweigh the nerfs, nor has this spell been made any better for you to take.
– Heal got drastically nerfed, but that’s not to say this spell is useless, but only to say that it’s very conditional.
It does serve the purpose of an ignite countering heal (kind of mini Mikael’s), as well as a mini Talisman active.
Highly situational, this spell can be taken for Supports who lack a heal, as well as don’t start the Ancient Coin route, nor do they plan to build it, as well as for Supports who don’t plan to purchase a Mikael’s Crucible. While many supports come to mind and may fit this profile such as Morgana, Thresh, Leona, or even Annie… It comes down to personal preference for build paths.
Heal was always a problematic spell for supports, to take this spell is to try to save the life of your Marksman, and meaning that you must rely on the skill of your Marksman to pull through.
Problem 1: In Solo Queue, it’s hard to rely on others, even when supporting. That’s why instead of choosing to rely and invest more in your Marksman, many Supports choose the route of taking away from their enemy instead, with either Ignite or Exhaust, giving them more control than relying on their Marksman.
Problem 2: Many Supports already possess a heal, and some are very strong to the point they’d likely out-shine the summoner spell Heal. (Taric, Soraka), putting this Summoner Spell in the shadows or out of the spot light to be outshined by a similar BASIC spell, on a cooldown that is likely 10x shorter.
Problem 3: If your lane/Marksman is losing to the opponent, Heal is less useful and less impactful than Ignite/Exhaust or other spells. Needing to use Heal means that you’re likely behind, and losing a fight (as it’s not as useful when you’re ahead and not in need of a heal), where as Exhaust/Ignite can both be used in winning, or losing situations in order to help gain an advantage, or prevent the enemy from gaining one.
Many junglers can understand this in ganking lanes. Ganking a losing lane means you’re either only going to go even, do nothing, or potentially even die out to the opponents who are ahead (especially if there’s an enemy jungler to counter gank, so the odds *number of champions* are even, and you’re likely to lose). Most of the time, junglers will opt out of ganking losing lanes, in order to gank and snowball their winning lanes instead of setting themselves behind as well.
Using this almost irrelevant analogy, in other words: Why take heal to help out your already behind/losing Marksman who will likely die anyways (even with the help of heal), when instead you can take Exhaust/Ignite to suppress or set behind your enemy (likely enemy Marksman in the fight) to better help your Marksman survive the encounter.
– Heal got nerfed drastically, and therefore Exhaust and Ignite is even further better than they already were over Heal.
Extremely reliant on investing in the skill of your Marksman, Heal is not a fan-favourite of Solo Queue supports, though Duo Queue lanes may use it better and with more co-ordination.
Although this only really seems like a Quality of Life change if anything, the truth is, it’s quite the buff.
It grants vision of targets even if they enter fog of war from entering a brush, or flash over a wall…
The great thing about this is that if targets flash away and could potentially survive, you’re given the vision to snipe them down from afar with a spell that you would otherwise miss without vision, also giving way to using Global Ultimates from people such as Draven, Ezreal, or Jinx, to finish off a low HP target who didn’t die from Ignite, or even provide vision of a low health target using Ignite for a Caitlyn to use her ultimate on.
It also changes the dynamics of the 1v1 duels in top lane with brush juking between two low health champions, potentially turning a fight around with an out play.
Team fights in crowded areas with lots of brush such as the jungle, can be made a lot easier with a Support igniting a primary target, and allowing the rest of your team to follow up focus fire even through the fog of war (should the enemy flash or dash away), without needing to place plentiful wards in bushes and guess where they are as you chase them and they make you look foolish as they sit recalling in a bush while the ignite wears away. (The focus fire point is further assisted by the new Ignite particles being more prominent to the eye)
– Ignite granting vision allows global ults or long ranged spells to finish off targets who flash or escape into fog of war since they are still revealed. It changes the dynamic of early 1v1 duels between top laners in the bushes with juking and outplays, and it helps Support ‘mark’ enemy targets better during team fights or prolonged chases through jungle/brush/fog of war, so everyone can follow up easier.
It’s assumed the Attack Speed Reduction is still present for the spell, and unchanged.
The Cast Range increase is a buff, but more of a quality of life change as 550 Attack Range > 550 Cast Range with how ranges work, so it was awkward to need to walk into damage range to apply the damage reduction.
The Movespeed Slow is reduced in correlation with the Cast Range increase, as it potentially serves as a much stronger engaging tool now (especially for lane ganks), so this is to give the target a little bit more safety.
Damage Reduction increased so you’re more prone to using the spell defensively as a damage mitigation tool against engagement burst as opposed to using it offensively for a catch and engage tool instead (which would more or less make no use of the damage reduction portion of this spell). Landing Exhausts defensively against offensive engages/burst is now more rewarding as it drastically reduces damage and could save your carry’s life, as opposed to placing Exhaust on an Assassin, but your carry still dying anyways, making you feel as if the spell was more or less useless.
– Cast Range increased as a buff, but also QoL change. Can be used as a better engage tool, thus Movespeed Slow reduced. However, their intention is for it to rather be used defensively instead, and thus damage reduction power has gone up.
