The latest LoL patch included both a range and cooldown nerf to Flash, the game’s most popular Summoner Spell. As a result, I’ve been trying to rely on the skill less, choosing skills like Cleanse and Ghost to pair with my combat spell. It hasn’t been great. In fact, most of the time I’ve just wished that I was using Flash.

It seems most of the pros agree. I watched a little bit of the MLG tournament today and saw 10 Flashes in several of their games. That’s right. Every player in the game took Flash. I can’t imagine Riot is too happy about the change, but it’s also difficult to imagine a Flash nerf that doesn’t completely remove the skill from viability. The big problem, at least as I see it, is that the strength of Flash is binary. It’s either a big enough jump to be useful or it isn’t. There is no middle ground.

So much of LoL is about seizing the moment that Flash will always be strong or completely useless. Even if Flash had a cooldown of eight minutes, the threat of a Flash-stun would probably be enough to keep the skill in play. Positioning is just too important to the game.

I will say this – making the other spells more appealing might be a decent way to compete with Flash. I’ve been using Cleanse a lot but I’ve been disappointed by the cooldown. I’m not saying Cleanse is the spell to fix Flash – I remember the days when every single carry took Cleanse and I don’t want it back – but reducing the cooldowns on and improving the effectiveness of the rest of the Summoner Spells could do a lot for Summoner Spell diversity.

What have you seen? Has the nerf had any effect on how often you see Flash? Are players using any other skills in its place?

Summoner Spells have long been one of the hottest topics of debate, despite the fact that they rarely received significant changes. Back in the AoE and ranged harass meta days, Ghost/Cleanse or Flash/Cleanse was pretty much the gold standard. Flash still has its place these days, but Cleanse was one of few Summoner Spells to get significantly nerfed, to the point that I rarely see anyone take it today.

With the release of Season Two (nope, I don’t know when that will be), Riot will be making significant changes to the current Summoner Spell lineup.

Flash/Clairvoyance Nerfs & Heal/Cleanse Buffs

Here’s the word from Riot’s post today:

Flash will now have both reduced range and an increased cooldown to make summoners feel less obligated to select it. Clairvoyance will also be receiving an increased cooldown and reduced duration to make it require more tactical use and be less punishing to junglers.

Heal and Cleanse, on the other hand, will each be receiving buffs to make them more attractive selections. Heal will now scale much more strongly into late game, while Cleanse will now remove summoner spell effects such as Ignite and Exhaust.

Holy crap, a Flash nerf! I can’t believe it’s actually happening. Though the Flash nerf is long awaited for many players, I have to say, I think it’s actually the least exciting change on the docket. As long as Flash has a long enough range for players to jump over terrain, it’s still going to be a top pick, unless of course that cooldown nerf takes the CD up to something like 5 minutes.

I’m very happy to see a Clairvoyance nerf. I still maintain that jungling encourages passive laning, but jungling + clairvoyance encourages the mind-numbing farm-off we see in games today. I’ll wait to pass more judgement until I see some numbers on this one.

The buffs to Heal and Cleanse look interesting indeed. I couldn’t be happier about the return of Ignite-Cleansing. I think Ignite remains a highly toxic part of the game. Having an option to remove it will be fantastic. That said, the spell vamp situation could spiral quickly out of control without careful consideration from Riot. Certain champions (*AHEM* AKALI *AHEM*) already make devastating use of the spell vamp items available in game. If those same champions can now pack cleanse to avoid heal penalties, well, it’s going to be a scary Field of Justice out there.

I’ll be curious to see how the Heal buffs look. It could produce some sustain issues, but it might be nice to have that bait tool up my sleeve (keep it clean, perverts).

The Return of Promote

Also on the changelist for Season Two is the return of Promote to Summoner’s Rift. Promote is coming back in a form familiar to Dominion players. The spell will only work on cannon minions, so no promote stacking in one lane. That change is so simple I honestly can’t believe it took two years to get put back in the game. I’d like to think this could herald the return of push comps, but I’m honestly not sure if it will be enough.

The Demise of Rally/Fortify

Rally and Fortify are both going the way of the Dodo this season. Neither spell will be available for selection during Season Two. I’m not going to miss Rally a bit – let’s be honest, that spell sucked – but I do think Fortify could still have a place. If push comps do return, why not offer a way to protect and enhance the powers of turrets for a limited time.

Riot’s reasoning is this: “Having a summoner spell that promotes stagnant play by completely shutting down pushes, while also being unpopular, doesn’t mesh with our Season Two goals.” Here’s the thing – Fortify does not promote stagnant gameplay. It just doesn’t. It’s an excellent bait tool and yes, it’s good for stopping pushes, which will be really nice if push comps return. Strategically timed Fortifies can be the saving grace of a team that needs to farm versus a fed opponent.

If anything, I’d say the fragility of turrets promotes stagnant gameplay. There are two reasons the last-hit meta has become so popular. First, pushing a lane gives the enemy jungler an opportunity to gank. We don’t like fed enemy junglers so we try not to push our lanes. Second, dying in the early game is too punishing. Towers are soft enough that one death, even before the five minute mark, often means the end of that lane. In my experience, early downed towers do nothing for aggressive gameplay. They don’t often open new opportunities for ganks. Once a tower is down, players collapse into the jungles, hiding in brush and allowing wards and Clairvoyance to utterly dominate the game. That’s not “aggressive” gameplay. That is snowballing. When towers are up, though, players try to dive one another trading the high risk for the hope of a reward. They overextend in lane because they overestimate the safety a turret provides. They skirmish more in the lane because an early death doesn’t necessarily mean the end of their farming potential. I really hope Riot reconsiders Fortify as a spell and, more importantly, tower strength as a whole.

A New Spell: Surge

In place of Rally, Riot is adding a spell called Surge. Surge basically does the same thing Rally did – increasing the combat effectiveness of nearby teammates – but it does so as an aura on the caster not a flag on the ground. I think we’ll be seeing this one a lot on supports and tanks.

Conclusion

I’m excited about the changes to Summoner Spells. I’ll be curious to see actual hard numbers on some of the changes – especially Flash and Clairvoyance – but until Riot lets us in on the Season Two launch date it looks like we’ll have to wait.

We’re coming up on two months since the end of Season One, Riot. Better give us some indication of a release date for these changes before someone takes my 5-to-1 odds that S2 won’t start until 2012.

I’ve had another weird streak of losses recently, so I thought it would be good to cover one of the basic concepts that can have huge effect on the outcome of your games. Summoner spell selection can be the difference between a win and a loss, as perfectly illustrated in a Twisted Treeline game the other day.

On opening my team was two tanks and an Annie. I thought we’d be okay, because Annie can actually do quite well on Treeline with good backup. The problem was, she didn’t take Cleanse. With two tanks and Annie, who do you think the other team will pick first? If I remember correctly, our opponents included a Shen and a Warwick. Every fight went just like you’d imagine. Either Warwick would ult Annie or Shen would taunt and she would die, almost instantly. I even asked her at champion select to consider taking Cleanse, but she called me a noob and told me to “just watch.”

Next time you’re struggling for a win, take a look at your team comp and think about who the first target will be. If you’re running on TT, you should definitely take Cleanse. It’s incredibly rare to have a team without a stun, and you’d probably beat those teams anyway, so making the sacrifice for cleanse won’t seem so bad. On the flip side, take a look at the other team’s skills at the loading screen. Note the players with Cleanse or another escape skill like Flash/Ghost and try to focus the others.

Riot snuck another change into the latest Test Realm patch, one we’ve been waiting on for quite a while. The patch introduced the Yordle Stompers, a new pair of boots with a Movement Speed 2 buff and an active that you’ve known up until now as Flash. Yes, Flash on boots.

The boots are expensive – 1400 in total – and obviously take the spot of one of those other pairs of sneakers you love. Personally, I think it’s the best option other than removing Flash completely. It forces players to make a choice between the utility of a Flash (on a 240 second CD, by the way) or the functionality of dodge/CC reduction. It also opens up player options for summoner skills, so characters that previously had to rely on Flash can now make some more interesting choices for their two skills.

If you want to see more of the community feedback regarding the boots check this TR thread. It’s worth reading through to see some of the opinions and the response from the devs. I really like the idea behind Phreak’s post. The basic gist comes from an article written by another game designer who says when there’s only one best way to invade France, you start the game after that invasion. I think that’s the problem overlooked most in game design. It’s not interesting when one spell, skill, rule, build, loadout, whatever is ubiquitous. It kills the variety of a game. It’s the difference between Halo 1 and Halo 2. Halo 1 it was pistol or nothing. While 2 still made heavy use of the Battle rifle, you always had the opportunity to take a strategic point with dual-wielding or a well-placed shotgun blast.