New Support Item Talisman of hope and upgrades

[Nayurian]

This item should be a starting item, kinda like the golden gooseegg it gives souls over time but in a way that benefits supports.

Tier 1 Green "Talisman of hope"
-10% dmg penalty
+ 5% Heal and shieldpower

Passive:
You gain 90 souls per minute. You gain only 50% of souls from jungle camps.
After holding this item for 10 minutes it automaticly upgrades into "Archmothers Decree"

Tier 2 Green "Archmothers decree"
- 20% dmg penalty
+ 20% Heal and shieldpower

Passive:
You gain 90 souls per minute. You gain only 50% of souls from jungle camps.
After holding this item for 10 minutes it automaticly upgrades into "Archmothers Blessing"

Tier 3 Green "Archmothers Blessing"
- 30% dmg penalty
+ 40% heal and shieldpower
+ 10% item and ability duration
+ 2 movespeed

Passive:
You gain 90 souls per minute. You gain 0% of souls from jungle camps.
If you strike a kill while a teammate gets a kill assist, he will instead get the souls as if he has gotten the kill while you will get the souls of a kill assist. You gain 100 flat souls for every kill assist and kill with teammates nearby.
Your minions and tower in 20 range, gain 20% bullet and spirit resist and 30% dmg boost.
After holding this item for 10 minutes it automaticly upgrades into "Archmothers Champion"

Tier 4 Green "Archmothers Champion"
- 50% dmg penalty
+ 50% heal and shieldpower
+ 20% Item and ability duration
+ 3 movespeed

Passive:
You gain 90 souls per minute. You gain 0% of souls from jungle camps.
If you strike a kill while a teammate gets a kill assist, he will instead get the souls as if he has gotten the kill while you will get the souls of a kill assist. You gain 100 flat souls for every kill assist and kill with teammates nearby.
Your minions and tower in 20 range, gain 40% bullet and spirit resist and 50% dmg boost.
Dealing dmg to enemies lowers their dmg by 20% for 5 seconds. Healing or Shielding allies gives them 10% more dmg for 3 seconds.
You gain + 2 movespeed when moving towards allies in 30 range.

What do you think about this item? Numbers are open to change, I think this item could make supports actually feel like they provide more by supporting without losing the ability to defend when getting pushed. The stats and penalties also avoid the problem of being abused by hypercarries.
Hope to see some opinions on it, I love the concept of supports in moba games since they are more then just healer and shielder tho it is one of their main pushes that should also be supported to make sure they don´t become just a debuffer since those don´t feel as rewarding as saving a teammate with your heals and shields in the last second.

 

[jaxcy]

this would make pockets pick rate sky rocket

 

[Nayurian]

this would make pockets pick rate sky rocket

poket t3 ult will get reworked anyway, let´s not balance the game arround one broken mechanic XD his existence makes any future heal support unplayable so my guess is it will be reworked rather sooner then later, it also makes poket to a ultbot in lategame because of the powerbudget this uses.
I´m open to changing numbers, it´s just the concept that I care about, a support item that punishes carries for abusing it, heal and shieldpower is the only stat that can benefit only supports so that´s why it is the main part of the item currently but as I said I wouldn´t mind lower numbers. I think compared to other mobas supports in deadlock are really lackluster you barely see them having good winrates and their main impact is CC locking enemies which is even more unfun and annoying or people just go full dmg because of how bad their support abilities are.

 

[Nayurian]

League has many healers and shielders and the best think would be for them to have one of 3 restrictions.
1. you have to hit another ability to enhance your Heal and shield (for example rem hitting pillow could make his Heal and shieldpower stronger for a short duration after hitting.
2. you have short uptime, like shields lasting shorter but being stronger (for example paige)
3. higher CD, for example like dynamo heal should be much stronger but on higher CD therefor he has to use it at the right time.

 

[ReportingBugs]

This item should be a starting item, kinda like the golden gooseegg it gives souls over time but in a way that benefits supports.

Tier 1 Green "Talisman of hope"
-10% dmg penalty
+ 5% Heal and shieldpower

Passive:
You gain 90 souls per minute. You gain only 50% of souls from jungle camps.
After holding this item for 10 minutes it automaticly upgrades into "Archmothers Decree"

Tier 2 Green "Archmothers decree"
- 20% dmg penalty
+ 20% Heal and shieldpower

Passive:
You gain 90 souls per minute. You gain only 50% of souls from jungle camps.
After holding this item for 10 minutes it automaticly upgrades into "Archmothers Blessing"

Tier 3 Green "Archmothers Blessing"
- 30% dmg penalty
+ 40% heal and shieldpower
+ 10% item and ability duration
+ 2 movespeed

Passive:
You gain 90 souls per minute. You gain 0% of souls from jungle camps.
If you strike a kill while a teammate gets a kill assist, he will instead get the souls as if he has gotten the kill while you will get the souls of a kill assist. You gain 100 flat souls for every kill assist and kill with teammates nearby.
Your minions and tower in 20 range, gain 20% bullet and spirit resist and 30% dmg boost.
After holding this item for 10 minutes it automaticly upgrades into "Archmothers Champion"

Tier 4 Green "Archmothers Champion"
- 50% dmg penalty
+ 50% heal and shieldpower
+ 20% Item and ability duration
+ 3 movespeed

Passive:
You gain 90 souls per minute. You gain 0% of souls from jungle camps.
If you strike a kill while a teammate gets a kill assist, he will instead get the souls as if he has gotten the kill while you will get the souls of a kill assist. You gain 100 flat souls for every kill assist and kill with teammates nearby.
Your minions and tower in 20 range, gain 40% bullet and spirit resist and 50% dmg boost.
Dealing dmg to enemies lowers their dmg by 20% for 5 seconds. Healing or Shielding allies gives them 10% more dmg for 3 seconds.
You gain + 2 movespeed when moving towards allies in 30 range.

What do you think about this item? Numbers are open to change, I think this item could make supports actually feel like they provide more by supporting without losing the ability to defend when getting pushed. The stats and penalties also avoid the problem of being abused by hypercarries.
Hope to see some opinions on it, I love the concept of supports in moba games since they are more then just healer and shielder tho it is one of their main pushes that should also be supported to make sure they don´t become just a debuffer since those don´t feel as rewarding as saving a teammate with your heals and shields in the last second.

"Hope" item has a harsh damage reduction penalty. Put it at -3 to -5% damage reduction and now we are talking. It can build into healing booster just fine. That would be a very nice transition into support lanes.

As the tiers go up, you essentially gut itemisation for offense, but then make healing so oppressive, heal cut won't even work and would cause it to make a broken healing meta (League constantly has broken metas, which again, takes away individual agency and instead incentivises meta slaves).

Also, I see what you are doing, you are doing a support item quest similar to League. I am strongly against that, simply because it will hard force laners into roles, one of the aspects that made League incredibly toxic to play. Those stats are incredibly overloaded, which, again, made League hard to balance and awkward to itemise against because it is trying to serve multiple purposes instead of limiting it.

Soul funnelling that would break the scarce nature of resources in Deadlock? To force into team fighting? Completely gut their damage to make them essentially make them cc bots? Very low use case there. And the ones who use it will absolutely destroy the game. Built in mini banner of command aoe at all times? Here is banner of command, a removed item that made 1 minion super juiced up. This is the effect it had on Tyler1 (got rank 1 in all roles btw):

And then it gives a free damage reduction, negating inhibator purchase? Items should never be anti-synergistic. Ever.
And then move speed to help parkouring, which is another aspect completely unrelated to sieging? Make that a singular item instead! That would be healthier! Split it up!!!

This is unfun, unbalanced and even if you get the right tunings, it will be incredibly hard to balance around, creating situations of awkward low pick rates and being abused by the very few.

No one will have fun with an item like that. I quit League because of all those aspects I described. And that's not getting into the compounding pysche and community damage it does to the base. And I'm coming from the perspective of someone who played one time against Diamonds in League, as well as starting to enter the "high elo" of Deadlock, specifically around Diamond equivalent (they even have the egos of Diamond players), particularly Oracle 5-Phantom 1. I think I'm around Oracle 6?

Hopefully this does not come across as scathing, but constructively, these are the worst items that could be suggested to Deadlock, as it is importing a game that has caused so much pain and frustration and boredom. Across streamers. Low elo, high elo, pro players, etc. Why you think many League players quit the scene and moved on? Imaqtpie? Brofesco? Hashshinshin? Tarzaned (he blew his head off with the game)? Redmercy? BunnyFufu going down in post activity? Wood division adventures? UberDanger? Professor Akali?

Playing Deadlock made me learn a lot more about game balance, and here is advice you can take to make better items in the future, but also hopefully to see from my POV what makes Deadlock so fun to play:

1) Items should serve one purpose. This means do not include more stats than necessary.
2) Getting a feel for the game, which includes a feel for timing, range, damage, time taken to do a rotation, etc. Conditionals as well. I recommend Poshypop, Deathy. Stay clear from Metro. Here's why (he has a track record from Overwatch, presented nicely in this video):

3) Complexity comes from the combination of simple things, not one item doing multiple roles.
4) An item or role should not hard force you to do something. Every character has builds that can be weapon (includes melee) orientated, spirit orientated or vitality orientated. All characters can be played support orientated, or carry orientated. In any combination. Including hybrid (which League absolutely sucks at).
5) If you make everything just as good to each other, it will become boring - that is the point Daentes was saying. This is why K'sante and Aurora were absolutely hated on release, and are still are hated. (This does not apply to characters, if anything, the base characters should be just as good as each other). Make it so there will be item picks that are better than others in certain situations. And that some items for a particular character should either never or very rarely be picked. Never general or "do it all" items. Same thing goes for software engineering.
6) Items should not clash other items! Maybe variants, but never clashes! That takes away agency! Players hate losing agency. It is why League players are incredibly toxic!!!

Hopefully, what I say makes sense and isn't coming across as being a cunt. I really love Deadlock, but I really do dread these changes. Hopefully this post is accurate and you understand what I mean. Feel free to ask for any clarifications!

 

[Nayurian]

I see your point but I dissagree in some regards. I think the reason why league is the most popular Moba is because it has different play styles and rewards them accordingly, ofc it had broken champs and metas but deadlock is much worse in this regard, deadlock balancing has always a small amount of op characters currently and some totally in the gutter. The discrepency in winrates is enormous while in league every champion is viable no matter the meta. But we are also talking about a game that is like 15 years old so they had the time to balance over the years.
My biggest problem with deadlock is how it´s not rewarding different playstiles at all, now it´s a teamfight urn meta, then we had the jungle meta, we had boxes meta. We have some champions being OP to the point that you see them every game and they will most likely win, just 2 weeks ago wraith and doorman were crazy, then graves and so on. When pick and ban phase releases there will be a meta no matter what because there is always something that simply works better then something else, but currently there is little variety in gameplay. They can split up the item and make 2 different items but there need to be more playstiles arround macro gameplay since it´s a core moba thing.
There needs to be characters that focus more on macro aswell we barely have them. but that is another topic. Something like murky or abathur from hots would be really cool.

 

[Linktober]

Not sure I dig the large variety stats, but I do really like the idea of an item that evolves as the game goes on. I have no idea how feasible it would be balance wise though. Not too fond of the idea of giving support players the same sort of looming endgame threat a late game carry can bring w/o a good way to stop them. Maybe killing the person holding the item gets a big penalty from dying with the item? (like +3mins to next upgrade on death)

 

[ReportingBugs]

I see your point but I dissagree in some regards. I think the reason why league is the most popular Moba is because it has different play styles and rewards them accordingly, ofc it had broken champs and metas but deadlock is much worse in this regard, deadlock balancing has always a small amount of op characters currently and some totally in the gutter. The discrepency in winrates is enormous while in league every champion is viable no matter the meta. But we are also talking about a game that is like 15 years old so they had the time to balance over the years.
My biggest problem with deadlock is how it´s not rewarding different playstiles at all, now it´s a teamfight urn meta, then we had the jungle meta, we had boxes meta. We have some champions being OP to the point that you see them every game and they will most likely win, just 2 weeks ago wraith and doorman were crazy, then graves and so on. When pick and ban phase releases there will be a meta no matter what because there is always something that simply works better then something else, but currently there is little variety in gameplay. They can split up the item and make 2 different items but there need to be more playstiles arround macro gameplay since it´s a core moba thing.
There needs to be characters that focus more on macro aswell we barely have them. but that is another topic. Something like murky or abathur from hots would be really cool.

Weren't those metas more about how certain things had greater values than others? I feel incentivised to explore in Deadlock, whilst with League you are punished heavily for it. Theory crafting is pretty restricted. They really fit hard into those roles. A "new" emerging build that pops out from Moba analytic style videos would just feature a different item, still following the same playstyle. Notice the metas you describe are about things of value, instead of particular item rushes, restricted item pools, or one item being bought across multiple characters, across games consistently or character rushes/avoids, or being limited to 1-2 playstyles. In Deadlock, there is at least 6+ playstyles per character. Sure, there were outliars, but they got patched up quite quickly. Characters very rarely were F tiers, one being shiv pre-rework. Seven was the worst character for a bit, but he was more low D if anything (which is barely passable). Apollo was certainly one that pushed the limits, same with Celeste.

Again, this is the company that had to argue to the fanbase that they were wrong and they had "200 collective years", not to mention the amount of spaghetti found by Vandril, with some pretty absurd bugs indicating some slop. Like somehow skins causing change of volume.

The best steelman I could give your argument (which I find perplexing, but I'm really trying here), is about how gun/spirit can be too overwhelming. They had to do "durability style" patches, and global gun/spirit adjustments - which what League did was actually very good. But again, high elo games have games where no 2 builds are the same. However, in League, they would vary at least 2-3 items, with lots of items that are "no goes". That's my problem in League. It's suffocating.

But you see, the argument about exact balance for League? That's what makes the game unfun! There needs to be some sort of agency, and not trivial selection of things in terms of what you build.

Tier lists of characters in Deadlock basically have characters going C and up. That's absolutely healthy than some characters being no picks and abandoned for so long. Yet again, League has a lot of characters.

I mean, how else do you explain League players being generally miserable, with pro, high, low elo players all pointing out the same exact mistakes?

In regards to characters more focused on macro, sure, we can add a bit more, but if we start making them too macro specific, then why add them to Deadlock? They are better suited for League/Dota 2. This is a movement shooter.

Please do elaborate on your points, because I find them strange. My apologies if I'm not seeing your point properly.

 

[Nayurian]

Weren't those metas more about how certain things had greater values than others? I feel incentivised to explore in Deadlock, whilst with League you are punished heavily for it. Theory crafting is pretty restricted. They really fit hard into those roles. A "new" emerging build that pops out from Moba analytic style videos would just feature a different item, still following the same playstyle. Notice the metas you describe are about things of value, instead of particular item rushes, restricted item pools, or one item being bought across multiple characters, across games consistently or character rushes/avoids, or being limited to 1-2 playstyles. In Deadlock, there is at least 6+ playstyles per character. Sure, there were outliars, but they got patched up quite quickly. Characters very rarely were F tiers, one being shiv pre-rework. Seven was the worst character for a bit, but he was more low D if anything (which is barely passable). Apollo was certainly one that pushed the limits, same with Celeste.

Again, this is the company that had to argue to the fanbase that they were wrong and they had "200 collective years", not to mention the amount of spaghetti found by Vandril, with some pretty absurd bugs indicating some slop. Like somehow skins causing change of volume.

The best steelman I could give your argument (which I find perplexing, but I'm really trying here), is about how gun/spirit can be too overwhelming. They had to do "durability style" patches, and global gun/spirit adjustments - which what League did was actually very good. But again, high elo games have games where no 2 builds are the same. However, in League, they would vary at least 2-3 items, with lots of items that are "no goes". That's my problem in League. It's suffocating.

But you see, the argument about exact balance for League? That's what makes the game unfun! There needs to be some sort of agency, and not trivial selection of things in terms of what you build.

Tier lists of characters in Deadlock basically have characters going C and up. That's absolutely healthy than some characters being no picks and abandoned for so long. Yet again, League has a lot of characters.

I mean, how else do you explain League players being generally miserable, with pro, high, low elo players all pointing out the same exact mistakes?

In regards to characters more focused on macro, sure, we can add a bit more, but if we start making them too macro specific, then why add them to Deadlock? They are better suited for League/Dota 2. This is a movement shooter.

Please do elaborate on your points, because I find them strange. My apologies if I'm not seeing your point properly.

it´s because I didn´t went into items, but I remember the dispel debuff rushes, the spirit burn rushes, there were and are always OP items in deadlock that are rushed. I remember when people rushed quicksilver on any spirit user or when cold front was rushed by anyone. There are item metas, does anybody really buy egg or trophy hunter? not really in high elo people call you a troll for buying them now. Playing lady geist without beserker is like playing a lee sin without ward stone back then, it´s a big difference. Stamina mastery if you play celeste. When did you see the last holiday? When she was OP she was in every game, I don´t know any moba with more meta play then deadlock because of how unbalanced the strong characters often are compared to the weak ones. The gap is much larger then in other mobas I think you just decide to ignore it which is ok. I don´t mind all of these, I embrace it and want to have more testing with support items. Anyway the point is I don´t mind changing the items, it was just an idea. I still think we need support items of any sort.
I think we have different views of the game, me and many of my friends don´t see it as a movement shooter at all, it´s a moba with shooter gameplay and the movement is a big part of it but those 2 aren´t all the game provides

 

[Nayurian]

Not sure I dig the large variety stats, but I do really like the idea of an item that evolves as the game goes on. I have no idea how feasible it would be balance wise though. Not too fond of the idea of giving support players the same sort of looming endgame threat a late game carry can bring w/o a good way to stop them. Maybe killing the person holding the item gets a big penalty from dying with the item? (like +3mins to next upgrade on death)

thx, yeah I don´t mind stat changes, the item is just one of many ideas to have some support items in the game that provide playing support effcient

 

[ReportingBugs]

it´s because I didn´t went into items, but I remember the dispel debuff rushes, the spirit burn rushes, there were and are always OP items in deadlock that are rushed. I remember when people rushed quicksilver on any spirit user or when cold front was rushed by anyone. There are item metas, does anybody really buy egg or trophy hunter? not really in high elo people call you a troll for buying them now. Playing lady geist without beserker is like playing a lee sin without ward stone back then, it´s a big difference. Stamina mastery if you play celeste. When did you see the last holiday? When she was OP she was in every game, I don´t know any moba with more meta play then deadlock because of how unbalanced the strong characters often are compared to the weak ones. The gap is much larger then in other mobas I think you just decide to ignore it which is ok. I don´t mind all of these, I embrace it and want to have more testing with support items. Anyway the point is I don´t mind changing the items, it was just an idea. I still think we need support items of any sort.
I think we have different views of the game, me and many of my friends don´t see it as a movement shooter at all, it´s a moba with shooter gameplay and the movement is a big part of it but those 2 aren´t all the game provides

Rushing an item, or an item being overtuned is very different from the hero/playstyle metas. The fundamental philosophy in league is that it restricts you in what you do. That was my point. Poshypop (was #1 in Deadlock in NA), made a video about how useful egg can be, even correcting himself that there was more use from the egg, despite concluding the egg was already quite useful. And it got buffed quite a bit, whilst nerfing the abuse of spamming egg at end game for extra golden stats. You're conflating balance of singular items, with over dominance of playstyles/characters. I'm talking about variability, not about balance. Balance is a universal issue. I'm talking the very nature of the game.

Just because an item is really good, does not mean you are incentivised into building it. League for example, there are some items you basically need to get 95% of the time, with a very restricted pool, as items are for the archetype classes, rather than being more open end with Deadlock. In league (as evident if you play yourself, or tune into streamer VODs of high elo (diamond 2+, commonly agreed boundary point)), if you pick a character not fit into a role, you will have people wanting to dodge or troll, some cases picking to force a dodge (disco nunu). Why else do people use third party softwares like Porofessor? To do exactly that. That's what makes League toxic - as you do not have the freedom to do what you wish to do, similar to Dota 2 (it's frustration stems from something else in regards to power scaling instead).

Also, isn't dota 2 more meta than Deadlock? I'm really confused, as I'm pretty sure mobas are all about itemisation and macro management.

"I think you just decide to ignore it which is ok." I mean, you are not citing any sources, any key players, or even statistics, just by how you feel, loosely wrapped up with observations. Otherwise, pure anecdotal. I think you're talking out your ass. Vague nations of "high elo". What does that even mean? People can't even properly come to agreement on the reddit forums on what consistutes as "high elo" in Deadlock - especially how jank the matchmaking system is. Weasel words. You clearly misunderstood the entire point of my critique. It's not about balance, it's about player agency.

"me and many of my friends don´t see it as a movement shooter at all" Again, anecdotal. At all? So it's normal for moba games to have bunny hopping, manipulation of the physics system? Aiming? You can remove the itemisation and macro of Deadlock, and it'll retain that Deadlock playstyle loop. The second you remove movement shooting aspect...? Is that even Deadlock? That's what I'm saying about movement shooters. If you start moving far away from movement shooters and add things in traditional mobas, again, why add it into Deadlock? Deadlock's niche is that it's a movement shooter template attached to an underlying moba. If you keep pushing League of Legends/dota styled bundle of stats, it will lose the uniqueness of Deadlock. Boxing characters into archetypes heavily kills the synergy of selection freedom and movement freedom. Dota 2/League can get away because the movement system already restricts greatly the z-axis, and do not have (with League at least) the "build and do whatever" items that it did in the earlier seasons.

"but those 2 aren´t all the game provides" Who argues that it doesn't? The moba aspects, shooting and movement is very clear in the game.