Banner of Command - Analysis and Ideas for Change

The problem with Banner of Command is that it serves no purpose to players. In its current state of being Banner of Command is really just a toy for players to mess around with and ultimate adds little actual benefit to players.

Let's take a quick look at the stats. 

Banner of Command provides:

40 AP

30 Armor

10% CDR

10 HP/5

2360 Gold

Let's compare it to

Seekers Armguard:

20(35) AP

30(45) Armor

1160 Gold

Picking up Seekers Armguard gives up more armor after a few creep waves and almost the same AP, but that also leaves us with 1200 extra gold to spend. With that extra 1200 gold we could buy several items that would push us far above the base stats of Banner of Command.

Codex - 820G

30 AP

10% CDR

Emblem of Valor - 650G

20 Armor

7 HP/5

Hextech Revolver - 1200G

40 AP

12% Spell Vamp (Generally providing more regen than Banners HP/5)

Or one could just save up for a Needlessly Large Rod to build into Zhonya's for 400G more than Banner.

Banner of Command has comparatively weak base stats and bad defensive timing compared to the Seeker's Armguard at less than half the cost. On top of this, Banner of Command is a fully upgraded item, taking up a slot with very sub-par base stats. So, seeing that Banner of Commands gold cost is not within its base stats, there is a massive amount of weight being applied to both it's passive and active. Lets take a look at them and why they are ineffective in their current state.

Banner of Command Passive -

10 HP/5

15% Damage to Minions

Let's assume you have a full creep wave including a siege minion. And we'll place it at the 21 minute mark for creep damage calculations.

Combined Creep Damage - 3 Melee, 3 Ranged, 1 Siege

229 AD Damage

195 AD Damage to Champions

344 AD Damage to Turrets

With the Passive of Banner of Command

+34 263 AD Damage

+29 224 AD Damage to Champions

+51 395 AD Damage to Turrets

If we assume turrets are running around 70 armor and Champions around 100, then we get.

+15 AD Damage to Champions

+30 AD Damage to Turrets

These numbers aren't too bad, providing close to the worth of a Pickaxe to player in an optimal situation. However, very rarely does this occur. Creeps are easy to kill, often at this point getting instantly killed by AP mid or at least close to it. With each creep that dies, the value of this passive goes down and down. It's greatest use would be against a tower, during a split push, when left alone. In this case, that passive of Banner of Command would in handy. We can estimate that over the course of a full wave only being attacked by the tower, that the extra damage would be somewhere around 150-250 to a tower, a solid amount. Against champions this is much harder to determine, but we can assume it will be much less significant as the uptime of minions attacking creeps is normally pretty low and hard to predict outside of the early laning phase. Even if we consider it to contribute a healthy 100 damage (that's 6-7 attacks from each creep in the wave), the value of that passive compared to a pickaxe pickup (which would contribute guaranteed damage) is far far less.

As we can see, the value of Banner of Command's passive is fairly low, situation dependent, and unreliable. Personally, I'd value it around 200 gold, but that's just my opinion. So what accounts for the high Gold Cost of Banner compared to other similar items. It's Active. Let's take a look at it.

Banner of Command Active -

+500 HP

+.5 AS

+40 Armor

This is actually a very significant difference. The 500 hp and the 40 armor almost if not more than double the Effective HP of Siege Minions. Adding on the 30% less damage they receive from turrets and these beefed up Siege Minions can take a lot of tower hits. If left alone, a single minion wave with one of these in it can deal 1/4 to 1/3 of a towers HP. With the right timing this can be pretty significant. However, situations where the creeps are left alone like this do not happen too often. Let's look at two other situations and then at the most optimal.

Situation 1: 5 Man Sieges

There is not much to say about the active in this situation other than it is extremely sub par. Since it does not provide any MR, only the 500 HP affects casters, at the point of 5 man sieges this is roughly 2 extra spell casts. If one or two people would normally nuke down the creep wave, having 5 defending makes the impact of this HP increase less effective. Adding on top of that the ADC damage will further decrease the extra time the siege minion will be alive. At most, I'd wager that in a 5 man push situation, this active would allow your ADC 1-2 extra shots on the turret for that wave. At a 3 minute cooldown, this is pretty insignificant. During a 5 man dive, the benefit would be even less, as the minion will not take turret aggro, and the .5 AS increase is fairly negligible after armor/hero reductions.

Situation 2: Split Push

In a split push situation, the active becomes much more useful. The AS bonus and especially the Effective Health increase will allow a split pusher in a 1v1 situation to apply significantly more damage to a turret. This is especially true in tank vs tank split push situations due to the enemy being slower at killing the boosted minion, while be less true against more damage oriented split pushers. However, there is a large downside to this. By picking up Banner of Command you have dedicated a large amount of gold into this active, making you weaker personally than you could have been if you spent the gold differently. This most likely means, that if they opponent choose to fight you, you will lose, as the active is unlikely to help you in any significant or reliable manner against champions. Being able to be 1v1'ed easily, effectively cancels out your split pushing ability, so while Banner of Command's active is more significant in a split push, opting into Banner of Command is detrimental to your split pushing ability.

Optimal Situation:

In my opinion the optimal situation for using Banner of Command's active, is when you are able to prevent the enemy from being able to dedicate any resources to stop the buffed minion. For example, using the active from base, to send the minion down the lane opposite from the one your team will be pushing. This is the only situation in which the active has a chance of shining. Superbly timed, using it this way has to potential to result in a turret kill, in extreme cases, maybe even two. The major problem with this situation though, is the immense amount of logistics it requires. Let's take a look.

Creep Wave Timing - Using the active is limited to Siege Minions. Therefore your opportunities to employ this strategy and make effective use out of the active are limited to 1:30 intervals.

Split Pushers and Teleport - If even one champion is in the lane that you use this active on, its effectiveness drops drastically. If you cannot force the split pushing champion out of lane in time to react to your 5 man push in the opposite lane, then your creep split push attempt falls to pieces. This forces teams to HAVE to make a move even if one is not available, or having the opt in to Banner of Command be detrimental.

Positioning - you must be in the proper place at the proper time to effectively utilize. This makes your map movements predictable and any plan to use this active optimally dictates when the player(s) must be in position. Opportunities can rarely be reacted to and seized by this active.

While at first, it may not seem impossible, remember that the opposing team is going to unintentionally and possibly intentionally hampering your ability to pull of this optimal strategy. If your turret is being pushed, or you are currently pushing a turret, you cannot simply back out of your current action or required action to use the active. While you can time your own actions, you cannot time the actions of the other team. Even if you are able to manipulate them into the timing and situation that you want, the reward you will get from the amount of resources required seems hardly worth it.

So, as Banner of Command, in its current form, is a sub par item in terms of stats and the active is too lackluster to account for the stat gold sink that Banner of Command is. What can we do to improve its viability as an item and potentially as a strategy?

First, its gold cost and base stats need to be looked at. Making this item more appealing outside of its active would be the start of improving Banner of Command. How exactly, to make changes to its base stats though, will depend on how we want to define the purpose of its active. Split Push Power (alone or with champions)? Combat Related? Siege Power? Group effectiveness vs. Solo effectiveness. Here are my ideas.

Note - In all purpose I feel that requiring the siege minion should be removed. However, having one could provide extra benefit.

Creep Split Push -

Active: with this purpose in mind, it would best be suited to being a globally targeted ability X number of creeps near the target location would be either upgraded or buffed, priority falling onto siege minions. A small HP bonus could allow each creep buffed to take 1 more tower hit, and damage boosts would help take down turrets. Against an undefended turret (no creeps defending either) and with a siege minion, this active should increase the minions damage to the turret by 25-45%. So if they would have dealt 1/4 of the towers hp, a well timed use of this would increase it to 1/3. Gaining gold from buffed creeps kills could also remain.

In this role, Banner of Commands primary purpose would be to give your creeps a way to push without a Champion needing to be in the lane. As the item's purpose would be to cause an effect on the map without champion involvement, its base stats should most likely change to something more neutral/utility oriented. Having another HP/CDR item choice would be nice, especially if it came with a little bit of armor.

Siege Power -

Active: in this role, Banner of Command's active would provide a massive defensive bonus to your minions in a large area around you for a short period of time. In essence, using the active would made your minions nearly or completely invulnerable to champions (turrets would be unaffected) for 3-4 seconds. This would allow Banner of Command to provide a small window of siege power play for your team. Guaranteeing turret damage by preventing your minion wave from being instantly nuked down.

As for the base stats, they would stay relatively the same, but with higher values. AP/CDR/AR are a unique combination and provides a choice in item pickup. By increasing both the gold cost and AP value, Banner of Command could be turned into a more late game item, and further it's Siege Power Potential.

Split Push -

Passive/Active: turning Banner of Command into a split push would come in two parts in my opinion. Adding in a small passive to increase wave clear speed would be necessary. I would give it something like, [on hit, chain lighting will hit up to 3 other minions, dealing 10% of your AD]. As for the Active, there are two possibilities in my mind. The First would link you to X number of surrounding creeps, redirecting 15-20% of the damage dealt to you to those creeps for 3s. This would give you split push safety while being counter-able by being able to burst down the wave of creeps. The 2nd idea for the active would increase your AD/AP based on the number of nearby creeps, up to 5. This would give you some dueling potential while split pushing.

The base stats could be done in an AP or AD manner. For AP, I'd go with a solid amount, say 65-80 and some HP, potentially with some MP/5 thrown in as well. In and AD version, I'd run with AS/HP/CDR from to accentuate the split push power and safety.

Combat Oriented -

Active: This one I think would be neat, though it might not be as viable as the others. In this version, using the active would give you "control" of all nearby minions. For 5-7 seconds all nearby creeps would gain a damage boost and would attack the target you attack with your AA's (like Champion creatures). This would run with the minion central theme of Banner of Commands active, and give the player reliable combat potential from its use. The minions would also grant gold for their kills while under this effect.

As for base stats, this version would be AD oriented, primarily ADC/Fighters. AD primarily followed by AS and potentially some Armor. Useful for going toe to toe with other champions in 1v1 or skirmish situations.

And, I'm finally done! I always love unique ideas and Banner of Command is one of them. I'd like to keep its minion oriented active, but switch it into a more viable place while increasing the base stats of Banner of Command to stop it from being a sub-par buy.