Saving the Season: How to Reduce AOE Waveclear

Season 4 is a season of change in League of Legends. There have been numerous shifts, in both Meta and in mechanics, that have caused the playing of games to change quite heavily in comparison to earlier seasons. In my opinion, the main concert that has been wrought from this season and its changes, is the length of games, which have increased steadily throughout this season, and have been becoming a bit ridiculous recently in both length and intensity.

There are many factors that have influenced this change in the length of games, which, once researched, breaks down to several factors including the consecutive nerfing of various aggressive mid laners, the shift to the life-stealing tanks that we see in this meta, and most importantly, the widespread availability of AOE waveclear that is rampant in this season. It is my opinion, that by reducing the viability of AOE wave clear, (specifically from dedicated AP mages such as Ziggs and Gragas), we can tone down the length of games that we have been seeing, and add more depth and intensity to League of Legends.

       
Firstly, let me discuss my problem with AOE waveclear. On champions such as Ziggs and Gragas, (as well as other AP mages in this Meta), these champions have the ability to farm effectively from range, and, come late game, to effectively nullify a push with a single combo. This ability crowds out most other champions that can be played in Middle lane, (unless they can also clear or poke), and stops pushes that should, under other circumstances, end games. This ability forces games to go longer than they should, and forces long, stalemate conditions in which a winning team is unable to press their advantage without Baron buff.

Let's start with a look at these mages.  In a ~42 minute game, assuming level 18 with a hypothetical 450 AP, the mages' powers will be:

With melee minions having 735 health, and 19 MR at 42 minutes, and caster minions having 500 health and 28 MR at 42 minutes, without crunching numbers, it is easy to see that Ziggs ult will clear the wave. This is fine. However, the problem lies with these champions' other abilities, and the fact that with a Q + E combo, both champions can completely clear a wave, (albeit Gragas in a less safe manner).

My proposed fix for this problem lies with the Aegis of Legion/Locket of the Iron Solari. With live values, both of these items give nearby allied champions +20 magic resist and +10 health regen per 5 seconds at a 1100 unit range. My proposed change is to allow the +20 MR to also be applied to nearby friendly minions.

After crunching numbers, with the additional 20 MR from the proposed changes to the unique Legion passive, caster minions will now survive Ziggs Q, (surviving with 67 health), but will die to Gragas Q at this AP and time. With this taken into account, and with the additional MR to resist their other abilities, each champion's respective E will do far less damage to the minions as well. Thus, it will require more than a single combo from both of these champions to completely clear a wave, thus giving a pushing team more time to attack an enemy tower and press objectives.

If this change were to go live, it would allow teams to push objectives late game without the need for Baron buff, (to tank towers after the minion wave is immediately vaporized). Further, this would force the losing team to engage a teamfight, or to attempt to pick off enemy champions, as they would be unable to simply stall the game until it was more even. With this in mind, games would go quicker, (theoretically), and though the disadvantaged team will have a lesser chance to win, clever play and good wards could still win the disadvantaged team to win the game, while the team with the advantage will now have an actual way to press their advantage and win. This would lower the necessity of risky Baron calls, and would increase the importance of teamwork and careful positioning in the game overall.

With this slight change, the Legion passive will be buffed, and will become a very useful item against AOE teams, (as was its intended use), while still not being a mandatory pickup in other team compositions. With this change, we could lower the length of games, slightly reduce the effectiveness of AOE clear champions, and simultaneously carving an effective and necessary niche for Aegis/Locket in one fell swoop.