[2022] The problems with IXTALI SEEDJAR…is it the worst designed item in Wild Rift?

This post is a reaction to a post about the item Ixtali Seedjar a month ago and the follow up discussion in the comments section. I hope this post encourages further discussion on ways the item can be improved. In the future I hope to make a post about Hextech Megadrive.

I’ll preface this post by saying these two item’s (along with an increased passive gold accumulation for the lowest gold earning player on the team) are described as being an attempt to offer some much needed attention to support mains. As a support main myself with almost 4,600 games (!) in wild rift I was so glad to see some much needed attention given, even though I was somewhat disappointed with what was offered. I encourage other support mains to comment with their thoughts about the item and what they would change.

I’ll start off with some thoughts about what I like about the item…

- I love that it was an item intended to encourage roaming supports. I think this is something every support starts to learn around Gold rank and above. That you impact the game greater by roaming and treating your role as more similar to a jungler than anything else. Your role is TEAM SUPPORT, not ADC PET. Once laning phase is over (and a choice few times during) find your carry (or carriers) and help them. That player isn’t always your duo laner. Sidenote: I hope devs add more roaming supports like Bard to Wild Rift soon.

- I love that it created a fun new mechanic. Roaming around picking up seeds for your team was a great new way to have FUN. It brought JOY to the gameplay.

- I love how unique the item is. It’s an item unlike any other and showed me that Wild Rift devs are really flexing their creative muscles.

- I love that it‘s an item that encourages support flex picks. One of the things I hate about being a support main (and it’s something Junglers probably agree with) is that your teammates more often than not feel entitled to share their “opinion” about you. If anything goes wrong, it’s always the supports or jugglers fault. If you ADC is dead, blame your support. If you lose your objective, blame your jungler. I’ve often heard from my ADC when I miss a Morgana Q, but I’m never telling my ADC when they miss a Caitlyn Q. If I build an AP item on Soraka because our team composition is lacking it, I’ll get flamed. And one of the most annoying ”opinions” that I see get shared is that even though every other role is allowed to have off meta picks, your support is not. Fiora jungle, Vayne solo, Irelia Mid, Ziggs Duo = cool, let’s gooo! But flex pick Ashe support (or even a champion as designated by Wild Rift as a support option such as Teemo or Orianna) = “WTF?! GET THIS F**KING NOOB TRASH OUT OF MY QUEUE I’M INTING AND GOING AFK!” Hell some will even say that damage supports like Brand, AP Lux, AP Seraphine, etc aren’t even REAL supports. But with an Ixtali Seedjar, suddenly Teemo has a bit more tankiness and can heal your teammates with a Honey Fruit he stole from the enemy mid laner while camouflaged. I wonder who else would suddenly become a viable support flex pick with Ixtali Seedjar?

Now onto the problems with Ixtali Seedjar…

- Every other item in the game has a passive that is applied AUTOMATICALLY. This means that for the most part, you don’t have to do anything extra to enjoy the benefits of every other item. I already heal others as Soraka, but when I’ve built Ardent Censer my heals automatically also apply attack speed. But to enjoy the benefits of Ixtali Seedjar there‘s far too much planning and learning of mechanics for ease of use and the payoffs of learning those mechanics is not overly valuable. If I’ve coordinated an amazing gank using a blast cone seed as demonstrated in the dev video, I could still gank faster going around the wall and it would take less effort. In fact, MOST junglers have mechanics that allow them to gank through walls. If an item is HARDER to use, then the payoff should be GREATER. Fiora, Irelia, Lee Sin, Yasuo, Thresh, etc. are difficult champs for beginners, but once you learn how to use them they are some of the strongest in the game.

- It’s passive is of NO use in the middle of a fight while every other item in the game has a passive designed FOR in the middle of a fight. Thus, you rely on ixtali seedjar getting you ahead beforehand and I don’t see that as being appealing or as beneficial. I would rather give my ADC Zeke's passive to slow and burn our enemies to death during a fight, than an extra honey fruit or blast cone that I hope there is enough time to use beforehand. How is that even a comparable choice?

- It’s too expensive. If an item‘s arguably most impactful use (doubling your honey fruit) is most helpful to get us ahead during laning phase, then I should be able to purchase and use it during the laning phase. However, by the time us broke ass supports can afford the item, laning phase is over and suddenly dropping off some honey fruit isn’t valuable to a teammate that has planned to return to base to heal AND BUY SOMETHING. Once at low health, healing and purchasing are so connected that if you offer your jungler a heal, suddenly they have to decide if it’s worth staying on the battle field when it means giving up making a purchase. And due to the amount of Vamp items/runes/drag bonuses/etc in the game, taking time to break my dropped off honey fruit isn’t worth it when they can farm nearby minions and monsters to the same effect. So many times my teammates will literally ignore it making all my effort to collect the seed pointless. I would rather have an item that makes me a portable nexus shop thereby allowing my teammates the ability to quickly tap and purchase their next in que item while near me.

- The stats aren’t good enough. Because the passive is so weak and complicated to use, I would expect it to come with some great stats. 45 AR/MR and +5% MS are not good enough. I think this was touched on by the Wild Rift dev though. They mentioned they would rather improve what is wrong with the passive than make it a stats booster item. I agree with this.

- If it’s designed for ROAMING SUPPORTS, the item needs to be more geared towards encouraging and improving that experience. What do you need to roam as a support? Stealth, speed, and income. When I roam I want to get around quickly, avoid detection, and supplement lost XP/Gold income by making a successful play. The only stat provided by Ixtali Seedjar that encourages and improves that experience is +5% MS which is not good enough. Boots of Swiftness does this cheaper and Deadman’s Plate does this with better stats and a better passive. Hell, I’d rather use Youmuu’s Ghostblade as a roaming support item. It’s like saying Force of Nature is for roaming since it has +5% MS, when it’s clearly a defensive/escape item due to the passive, or saying Infinite Orb is for roaming since it has +5% MS, when it’s clearly an offensive/attack item due to it’s passive. Remember, when League of Legends PC designed Bard to be a roaming support they gave him the Traveller’s Call passive where collecting chimes made up for lost XP in lane, gave him a speed boost, and gave him mana. He also has Magical Journey to allow for some stealth while making plays/getting across the map (P.S. Give us Bard!).

- It’s passive is too complicated to use. There is so much more complexity and coordination involved in using an extra honey fruit, Schryer’s Bloom, and Blast Cone than anticipated. Wild Rift is too fast paced for these to be useful as the item currently exists. Let’s say I’m the dreaded support Teemo and I somehow manage to make enough Gold to afford this item during laning phase. I use Move Quick to run over to mid lane, where I use Guerrilla Warefare to steal my mid laner opponent’s Honey Fruit. Thinking to myself what a great job I’ve done I go over to my mid laner to give them an EXTRA Honey Fruit, however now I have to hope that A.) they haven’t already planned to go back shortly because the fruit I’m planting only lasts 30 seconds before it explodes on it’s own B.) They actually need healing/mana at the time of planting C.) They know it can’t be saved for when absolutely needed D.) how it even works or what I’ve just done E.) etc etc. So let’s say I realize oh crap, my mid laner is returning to base now anyway and they don’t need it, so I think hey I know! My duo laner or I could use it, I’ll just save it for later, but on my return back to dragon lane I realize I want to remove some enemy wards or place some wards of my own. NOPE! I can’t because the extra honey fruit has taken place of my wards so I need to go plant the seed first, thereby wasting even more time roaming around like an idiot. On top of this, I can only carry the seed for 60 seconds before it disappears and reverts back to a ward. And that’s all just an example using Honey Fruit. Now imagine the amount of coordination needed to steal a blast cone and use it for a gank with my jungler or how situationally specific it would be to use as a get away like a Zigg’s W. I can imagine this being barely useful for duo queue, but it’s still so situationally specific that the stars themselves need to line up for it to work out in the end. How is this a competitor to Zeke’s Convergence?

- In order to use the item successfully, your teammates need to be paying constant attention to what YOU are doing as THEIR support instead of the other way around. This is counter intuitive. As supports, we are almost ALWAYS the ones paying attention to everyone else while our teammates think they are the hero’s of their own anime. We are running around after them timing heals/shields mid battle, looking out for the perfect time to engage or peel, deciding when to CC an opponent, etc. Our teammates are RARELY if EVER thinking, ”Ok, Soraka healed me 1.5 seconds ago so that means she has .5 more seconds until she can again and she last used silence……” And rightfully so, I DON’T WANT my ADC to be paying that much attention to their support because I want them focused on the enemy/minion wave and what THEY are doing. So many times, I’ve tried to use this item mid battle with a surprise extra Honey Fruit that I so kindly dropped and even exploded for them and of course my teammate isn’t paying any attention to that because they are too focused on the enemy. So I’ve tried dropping it mid fight and not exploding it for them so they can replenish after battle, but who does that? No one. After a successful battle we want to go back to home base to heal and buy stuff.

So what would I do to improve Ixtali Seedjar…

- Make the effect immediate. Take away this idea of planting because it doesn’t work within the fast paced context of Wild Rift. I know this suggestion is a stretch, but the item needs to be reworked so that it is useful DURING a battle like every other item. Otherwise this item will always be niche and rarely ever used. Right now it’s in a place of being mocked and flammed by my teammates when I build it. How would I do this? Make the effect point and click. If I break a honey fruit and collect the seed, tap to use the extra heal/mana regen on myself or drag to a teammate to use the heal/mana regen on them. If I break a Schryer’s Bloom, tap to produce a cone of vision resonating from my champion. If I break a Blast cone, tap to produce an immediate blast from myself knocking away enemies/knocking me away or drag and click to pick a spot from where the blast will immediately occur. These changes would allow the item to no longer require a complex and coordinated effort to experience it’s usefulness. You could use this item in solo queue with ease and it would be seen as an item worth building.

- If the above changes are not possible, even though I think they would be amazing, get rid of the time limits. Even though it would still be a niche pick and I doubt I’ll ever build it, I want the seed replacing my ward until I’ve found the best opportunity to use it. 60 seconds is too short for an opportune time to arise and the 30 seconds until the planted seed explodes on it’s own is too short. I‘ve often run past exploded Honey Fruit that no one else has used and think to myself, yup there’s literally evidence of how useless this item is lying on the battlefield.

- Add a gold value associated with breaking a plant. Breaking a Schyer’s Bloom for 85 Gold/XP makes losing the Gold/XP from roaming worth it. Even if your roam was unsuccessful.

- Add a Movement Speed mechanic to allow for better roaming. The +5% MS standard is not good enough for an item that is intended for roaming supports. Maybe increase MS towards plants? Or breaking a plant gives a burst of MS?

- I know the Wild Rift dev mentioned not wanting this to be a vision control item, but allowing me to equip Sweeping Lens to scan and break my enemy’s ward which I can then use myself would add some much needed utility to the item.

Anyway, I want to reiterate that this post isn’t intended to flame or trash the item, but rather to offer some constructive criticism and suggestions. I love Wild Rift. I honestly believe it’s the greatest MOBA out there and it’s my favourite game.

Cheers and remember to treat your supports like the kings and queens they are!