Spirit Shielding & Weapon Shielding Overlap: How to Fix

[The Last Eagle Flies]

I feel that Spirit Shielding and Weapon Shielding are a bit too similar in both function and tier placement. Since both items essentially serve the same defensive purpose (providing a barrier after taking damage and thus, countering burst damage) it feels redundant to have them coexist as separate tier 2 items. Even with the split between the two damage types. Barriers themselves are universal so the triggering damage's type serves very little purpose.

Which is why most people just build Spirit Shielding. It's much easier to get to proc, with sources of spirit damage naturally verging towards burst damage. You can get it to proc against most heroes, even if they build full gun, especially in teamfights. Reactive Barrier is fine too in my opinion, since it serves a specific niche.

Suggested Change:
I think it would make more sense to combine them into a single tier 2 item that procs from any damage type, rather than separating them by gun and spirit damage. This unified version could serve as a general-purpose defensive option against burst damage and as the foundation for more specialized upgrades.


My proposed item would have no changes to the two we currently have, besides making it proc from any damage. This is your bread and butter anti-burst item (no matter what exact damage type the enemy team is outputting) and a side-grade to Reactive Barrier.

New Items:
To follow up the unified tier 2 item, the item could branch into two distinct tier 3 upgrades that each emphasize unique defensive niches against specific damage types.


Designed as an anti-poke item, my take on Spirit Shielding would feature a higher base shield value and a heal, should your shield go unused. When the shield expires, you’re healed for a hefty amount, slightly less overall than Veil Walker (higher base, less scaling) but on a longer cooldown. This makes it rewarding against poke attempts and helps restore some of what you lost. The stronger overall Barrier also won't go wasted if your enemy goes all in on you.


Focused on anti-bullet defence, the new Weapon Shielding would give you some additional movement speed to help outduel your opponent. While the shield is active, you also gain bullet evasion, increasing your effective HP specifically against gunfire and mitigating the buildup of status effects that trigger from bullets (e.g., Infernus Afterburn, Silencer’s Silence).

I've also given both additional offensive stats. The upgrade to tier 3 is not cheap so I saw some extra stats necessary and I settled for offensive ones. As I see it, Barriers require aggression to take full advantage of them (i.e. spending the Barrier to tank damage). I'm not sure if the upgraded versions should need the specified damage type but I also felt it made more sense for the specialized upgrades. Don't want bullet evasion to get wasted against spirit damage, do we?

I was also thinking that the upgraded versions could count the specified damage as doubled for reaching the trigger goal (to funnel the triggering to happen more against the intended damage type) but that might just be overcomplicating things.

Summary:

• Reduce redundancy at tier 2.
• Create a clearer progression path from a general defensive item to more specialized counters.
• Make each version feel more purposeful and distinct, with unique stats and effects.

 

[Rosgath]

I like the concept, but am concerned about the implementation.

First, it is VERY easy to trigger 150 damage universal barrier, and then proceed to have the barrier be functionally worthless by letting it time out. The Cooldown on the item is also very long. I know it's the same length as the original inspiration items are in game, but it's also ignoring a key factor: those items aren't going to proc as quickly and are a bit easier to choose when you force them to activate.

Spirit Shielding is effective because you are generally going to activate it after getting hit by 1 ability, which is immediately going to be followed up by another enemy going in on you which will make the barrier more often more effective.

Weapon Shielding has the problem that it will most often trigger when you are getting chunked by big melee hits and/or getting focus fired by 2 big gun heroes. This is harder to trigger, which is why the item is much less popular.

Reactive Barrier is popular specifically because it's technically more situational, but has a substantially shorter CD and provides passive Spirit Resist. Not to mention that most heroes have a way to trigger it anyway and the fact it only triggers when getting hit by CC is mostly moot. Also, Reactive barrier scales with Spirit, which means it is very effective to pick up on slippery heroes (who are often focused down specifically during CC) who build into Spirit, giving them more barrier than Weapon/Spirit Shielding as well.

I will also point out that Guardian Ward is the same cost, but can be activated manually and on allies. It provides less overall barrier, but the fact that you get to choose exactly when it is active means it's almost always going to be 100% effective, whereas you can't guarantee the same for Weapon/Spirit Shielding.

My suggestion is to reduce the CD to something like 25-28 seconds. That or give it a secondary trigger that reduces the CD when you take a certain amount of damage while it is on CD (Maybe every time you would activate the item while it's on CD the CD is reduced by 2-3s?) This would make it much more competitive with Reactive barrier.

I do like the idea of the T3 shielding upgrades, but again the CD on them is prohibitively long. I also feel like the extra associated stats are kind of awkward, but not necessarily bad (given Battle Vest/Enchanter's Emblem effects)

 

[technicalwaffle]

I like the concept, but am concerned about the implementation.

First, it is VERY easy to trigger 150 damage universal barrier, and then proceed to have the barrier be functionally worthless by letting it time out. The Cooldown on the item is also very long. I know it's the same length as the original inspiration items are in game, but it's also ignoring a key factor: those items aren't going to proc as quickly and are a bit easier to choose when you force them to activate.

The ease of proccing the barrier being intentional or not and disregarding its specific number tuning, I do think it's valuable to have that tradeoff in concept when other 1600 resist options exist like Battle Vest and Enchanters Emblem. This option would be an easy pick against burst heroes and force them to try and activate it first before going for a trade, while still letting them easily proc it with an ability before using their full rotation.

Spirit Shielding is effective because you are generally going to activate it after getting hit by 1 ability, which is immediately going to be followed up by another enemy going in on you which will make the barrier more often more effective.

Weapon Shielding has the problem that it will most often trigger when you are getting chunked by big melee hits and/or getting focus fired by 2 big gun heroes. This is harder to trigger, which is why the item is much less popular.

I feel like the added bonuses help with this problem indirectly, since the added bullet evasion helps bullet shielding as gun damage is often consistent across a long period of time v.s. the more burst oriented sources of spirit damage, though the evasion only lasting for a short period of time still keeps this item burst oriented.

My suggestion is to reduce the CD to something like 25-28 seconds. That or give it a secondary trigger that reduces the CD when you take a certain amount of damage while it is on CD (Maybe every time you would activate the item while it's on CD the CD is reduced by 2-3s?) This would make it much more competitive with Reactive barrier.

Wouldn't a CD reduction just make it overlap slightly into T3 resist items though? Shields also take into account resistances so it would just automatically become better on tankier heroes.