New Active Item: Shield Smasher

[Nuclear Piñata]

One of the most dissatisfying things for me quite frankly is nearly landing a kill and then seeing that 400 barrier jump on who I'm fighting and then seeing them weasel away. Whilst I don't think there should exactly be a cure for that as it would invalidate a few items and character abilities, I believe there should be a counter for whenever someone gets double their health in barrier and gets to run down any fight with way more HP than you can fight.

I introduce Shield Smasher, a weapon type alternative to Knockdown where instead of stunning the opponent, you remove their Shield with a notable delay, the delay allows for it to be counter spelled/dispel magic'd so its not a full shutdown.

So its not useless whenever shields are down and not totally useless in laning, it still serves as an easy 100 spirit damage non scaling. I think this damage is fair because as a 1.6k item you can easily do that damage and MORE without a 45s cooldown, but it also opens the door for a comical finishing tool if they're just out of reach.

 

[SoftServeDemo]

Really interesting counter item! Part of me has the thought of a mild antiheal in place of the spirit damage- possibly only to outside healing sources as a true "support counterpick active." Very interesting as-is either way though.

I do think it mmmaybe should only be able to remove a certain amount of barrier, though- 500, maybe- to not completely shut down the tier 4 shields. A tier 2 item cracking Diviner's Kevlar open like a peanut feels like a bit much.