League of Legends Designers Further Discuss an Anti-Shield Mechanic

After receiving a bit of attention when a League of Legends player asked about introducing a shield-slaying mechanic that would lower the defense's power, the ideas has been discussed more through a recent Ask Riot post.

When the idea first began circulating, it was a question directed towards Riot Fearless, the design lead for League's game systems. The question was asked during a Q&A-type session via Tumblr, and after being talked about there, Riot Ghostcrawler, the design director for League, gave his take on the mechanic by saying that the team has definitely considered adding a mechanic to lessen the power of shielding champions.

"We have thought about it," Ghostcrawler said. "The situation we want to avoid is to have an endless arms race, where damage becomes so potent that we add shields, then shields are so potent that we add a shield breaking mechanic, and then a counter to that mechanic and so on."

The Rioter went on to say that should shields reach a point where they're pretty dominant overall, they'd much rather take a route where they lessen the power of shields or increase incoming damage to pack a bigger punch against the shields.

When considering the most obvious shielders that often find themselves supporting in the bot lane – Janna, Lulu, Rakan, and Morgana, just to name a few common ones – the presence of shields is definitely felt by any player trying to bust through the safety net. But the question also mentioned a counter to healing effects as well as shields, and with Grievous Wounds already existing in the game, it allowed Ghostcrawler to bridge the gap between anti-healing and a possible anti-shielding idea.

"That said, we do have mechanics like grievous wounds in the game, and we have mentioned recently that we might explore say an item with an active shield break mechanic," Ghostcrawler said.

Putting a shield-buster on an item could be a game-changer in either small skirmishes or teamfights, depending on how it would be implemented. A well-timed active in the bot lane on the ADC could leave them without extra defenses, or an AOE effect like Locket or Redemption in a teamfight could completely shatter shields when the enemy needed them most.

It doesn't seem like the interaction is ready to go live any time soon, but with an anti-shield mechanic being brought up a second time, it does shed some light onto where Riot stands with the idea.