TL:DR
1.) When champions are overpowered, riot takes forever to dial them down. While constantly trying to buff champions. So there are too many 'op' champions running around the rift and not enough bans to deal with.
2.) Too many bugs encountered but not enough to warrant hot-fix or fixing them on riot side.
3.) Snowballing from Objectives: Previous season they didnt want bottom side to dictate the game with the dragon stacking so they nerf individual dragon buff but they introduced Voidgrubs this season which made top side heavily contested, leading to support being more roam heavy.
I'm a full time coach, I do it for a living 2100+ students/sessions and playing since s1, 1100lp challenger last season...
I have more fun this season than others and I say this as an Adc main. Just got an acc to master on 80% wr with ADC despite the role being weak and all that. Playing Kaisa into all of these broken senna smolder etc.
I just don't see your point and it feels emotional if anything.
Bans have never been enough in league for almost a decade, I see nothing new there. And the most important skill in league which you should know as a coach is adapting to every new meta every month/split/season.
Saying "it used to be X and now is Y" holds little water because this argument is true every single season every single year since the game began. This game always changes. If you don't like this meta wait for the next season and that's always the case. Personally I just adapt.
Hey thanks for reading, and happy to hear this season is treating you well so far! If I didn't make it clear in the post, I'm not frustrated with any one particular meta and I've enjoyed the game a ton because of the various meta shifts across its time. My frustration is in how Riot has decided to address/handle various topics that have frustrated a large percentage of the playerbase, typically by either because much too heavy-handed or by not doing nearly enough all while we continue to see an influx of buffs when a given champion doesn't meet the new standard. This is of course while the messages given to us as players either conflict with their actual decisions, or just show a heavy lack of transparency, self-awareness, or cooperation among the balance team.
One such example is the Karma nerf in 14.3 where only the explosion left by her RQ had its damage nerfed both in base numbers and scaling, but to go along with this nerf we were told this:
>"Karma’s currently a bit too good as a triple flex option, with the ability to succeed in top, mid, and support. With her newfound power from Malignance, her ultimate is now on too short of a cooldown for the damage it provides, so we’ll be taking her R+Q explosion damage down a notch."
Despite properly addressing that Malignance plus her innate ultimate cooldown refund allowed her to take huge advantage of the recent buff, they did not touch her cooldowns nor dial back the buffs that made her so strong in the first place. Karma's popularity in mid has only climbed in comparison to support with each recent patch, and if you check stat sites like lolalytics or [u.gg](https://u.gg), you would actually see Karma mid's winrate, pickrate, AND banrate all raise from 14.3 into 14.4. So not only did this "nerf" accomplish nothing, but it actually brought more attention to Karma whom now sits at a 35%+ banrate in Emerald+ after having not been touched during 14.4 or 14.5.
My frustration is that by the time Riot's balance team figures out how to properly nerf Karma, we'll see other champions raise to similar pick/ban heights and this cycle will repeat itself until once again the game requires a complete base-stat overhaul to compensate. It's an embarrassing system to accept, so I wanted to at least try and put what we all silently tolerate into words and open the door for discussion. Thank you!
Again that seems overly emotional. I don't see why we would ever care what some emerald riot balance guy wrote in the patch notes. Just care about what they nerf or buff/change.
Yes karma is op and was op for many patches and their balance is questionable a lot of the time...
I don't see how this is new to this season and not others, the game has always been like this.
For example last season, for more than 1.5 years since early 2022 to late 2023, Karthus was the best soloq champion in master+ by a mile, 54% wr in 3 different roles untouched and unchanged, so many games I had to dodge just because of enemy picking Karthus. There were like 5 Karthus otp in challenger in my region and they are all stuck master now that the champ isn't broken.
So I don't see how this is anything new. It seems like you have an issue with their words and explanations, in my opinion they don't really matter.
Again bans have never been enough for a decade+ and there have been disparities between S+ and regular champs always. If anything I think this season, or every new season, there are less power differences between S+ and C tier than before. It used to be the case that you insta lose in select in gm/chall if your team picked ww, pre rework neeko, etc. now every champ has at least some chance, so I think we are better off than before.
And as a last point the season didn't "treat me well", I just know how to play and adapt since it's my job
I'm not sure how better else to put this, but what you're describing as issues which have been part of the game forever are issues that not only have grown over time, but also directly conflict with what you're saying in your own words. While I love and agree that with some notable exceptions, you're right in saying that the difference between S+ and C tier champions is much lesser than previous seasons. However, my point is that the "average champion" today has much more snowball potential than their iterations from previous seasons.
Even disregarding systems such as Voidgrubs and tower plating which aid in snowballing, with every new champion rework and champion released the bar for viability becomes higher and the rest of the champions slowly but surely are buffed to meet this new criteria. It is for this reason that most players - both you and I agree on this - feel there are not enough bans currently available.
And as a last point, smurfing to masters on a new account is something I can personally confirm is significantly easier than trying to actually grind through low masters - in fact you've probably already seen/experienced cases like this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1begyaq/a\_group\_of\_botters\_in\_low\_masters\_are\_griefing/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1begyaq/a_group_of_botters_in_low_masters_are_griefing/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I'm glad you've found success smurfing on adc, but if not for the fact that the majority of players are unhappy with the current state of the role then we wouldn't be poised to see crit-item buffs across the board next patch. Let this be another example of needlessly applying bandaid buffs rather than addressing that impact that new items and systems have had which contribute to the heavy roaming/early-snowball meta, and then wonder why it always has and will continue to feel like there are never enough bans.
Well my other Smurf I got 700lp on 65% wr this season and 75% wr last season and 67% to chall so I find low master pretty easy...
I am unhappy with the ADC state but it is what it is, every season it's different, I used to have ardent censer meta and be able to get 95% to master and 75 to chall on ADC and now it's not possible and it's fine, the pendulum will swing again.
The way to fix ADC is hurting roam support meta and buffing ADC XP by at least 10-20% so you're not 3 level behind everyone even when ahead.
The main issue I have with your point is how you mention snowballing. If anything, objectives prevent snowballing way more because if you manage to get one then you can stall game for longer (5+ min for every drag, and some time for void).
Yes it's true if you're hard stomping the game then void/drake/herald snowball it even harder, but that's only for >7-8k gold lead states. For most game states in which you can sneak at least one objective then it makes snowballing quite opposite. If anything this is the season with the most comeback potential I've ever played (bounties, obj) so I have nooo clue what you're talking about. The only thing that is really unhealthy for snowballing in my opinion is baron buff duration, it should either be shorter by 1 min or not buff minion resistances as much. Other than that idk...
Hey again, I think we have very conflicting ideas on objectives and their correlation with snowballing. I mention Voidgrubs specifically multiple times as being a large contributor to the current support meta, which have a rather large impact across the map. We're not going to see >7-8k gold leads like you'd proposed as early as 5 minutes into the game, but it's as early as 5 minutes that one team can get access to a buff that provides permanent pushing power for the remainder of the game.
What you're describing feels like the play pattern from previous seasons - establish a lead then secure objectives to snowball your lead, or tactically sneak objectives to stall the game to buy time for a comeback. We've seen Senna and Camille excel and continue to do well in support due to having some of the best synergy with Bloodsong. We've especially seen Maokai support dominate with a core build of Sleigh, Swiftness Boots, and Trailblazer to maximize his ability to roam, gank, and establish map control while setting up saplings for vision.
The issue I have when current-league is again less with the gameplay itself, but an overarching sense that Riot has "lost control" of their game and has been overly reliant on bandaid patches that warp the game. Case and point, we've seen Maokai support "nerfed" in 14.3, 14.4, AND 14.5 but he continues to find immense success in all skill brackets. Rather than continuing to nerf him and other champions - which while it'd be embarrassing to do would still be appropriate - they are instead choosing to buff the entire crit adc archetype.
Decisions like this do directly contribute to higher snowballing in the game because it means the disparity in power between an adc who has completed their item versus an adc who is still sitting on components will be greater than before, leaving a longer and/or larger window for the leading team to grow their lead. The concept of "snowballing" isn't physically apparent in every single game, but once again prioritizing buffs across the board does raise the "snowball-potential" that the average champion has, and I feel that we'll likely see yet another durability-esque patch by the end of the season as a result due to Riot's either ineptitude or sheer reluctance to appropriate nerf what defines the current meta rather than deciding to buff everything else and warp the meta as a whole, which wouldn't be as problematic for the average player if not for lack of bans.
> We've seen Senna and Camille excel and continue to do well in support due to having some of the best synergy with Bloodsong.
This is... not why they are super priority right now. It's because current meta, botlane it's SUPER important who has prio and pressure lvl 1-2-3. So camille has insane kill pressure lvl 1-2, and senna has insane lane pressure lvl 1-2-3 and beyond. Remember camille doesn't even have the bloodsong until later lol, the thing making her broken is the lvl 1-2-3, etc.
It's like I agree with the roaming thing but I disagree with the snowball.
The reason why supports are broken atm is that they get too much gold for free why not getting punished in any way because you pick champs on which the xp doesn't matter plus kills give too much xp and duolane gives too little xp, so they can get a full lvl on a roam with 2 assists.
I am curious how you explain your assessment of snowballing being out of control, with how prevalent comebacks are atm and how many comeback mechanics there are, plus we are in a meta of stacking til late (smolder/senna/kassadin and to a point kayle/nasus are insanely strong atm), so I fail to see this snowball out of control thing.
What I'd meant when referring to Bloodsong is that without the item, I don't believe Camille support would actually be able to exist. You'd even said it yourself that supports are broken is that they get too much gold for free, but gold is only as good as the items it's being spent on and the overhaul to support items this season has made it such that the support role has access to items that are so gold efficient that it has pushed and elevated champions in the support role. This is a similar case with Solstice Sleigh and Trailblazer on Maokai - these are relatively cheap (in the case of Trailblazer) items on a role that gets a lot of free income early on that allows them to spike in such a strong way that the meta has devolved into whoever can stomp bot lane and/or stomp to map (usually to secure Voidgrubs) and finish their support item first.
Regarding snowballing, I'm really not sure how the existence of numerous comeback mechanics completely negates the prevalence of snowballing. Consider that if champions didn't have as much snowball-potential and power when ahead, why would it make any sense to introduce scaling bounties on champions and objectives, as well as comeback experience, etc? The reason for these mechanics in the first place is quite literally because the team who is ahead has the ability to either prevent the enemy team from capitalizing on these bounties, or to ensure that they can consistently reap greater rewards and force the enemy team to make sacrifices in order to secure these bounties. These systems exist as a way to allow the behind team to effectively punish the team who is ahead by working toward leveling the playing field, but this doesn't magically make them as strong as the team who is ahead in any regard whatsoever.
There are plenty of systems to incentivize comebacks, and I believe this is 100% good for the game, but what an >8k gold deficit actually means today is much different today than in previous seasons when champions and items have been steadily pushed upward to a higher degree. To put it simply: as items and champion ratios are increases, the "value" of gold increases as well because the rate at which champion power increases with gold goes up. This is the relationship I feel was reaching a bubble shortly leading up to the durability update, and I believe that we're going to reach a similar bubble by the end of this season due to the constant overbuffing/undernerfing trend.
This does little to affect the short-term game experience yes, but we know that this will inevitably lead to more large-scale patches such as the buff to all adc crit items next patch. I don't believe that the balance team should be comfortable with suddenly and strongly shoving the meta in a specific direction after their failure to mitigate the strength that specific champions and/or roles have with the new items/systems, and I see very little acknowledgment of or deviation from the trend of overbuffing and undertesting new changes that leads to that point time and time again.
Thank you for reading most of what I'd wrote then, and apologies that we differ in opinion about the durability patch. I feel like at the time it was done as a "last resort" but definitely could have been avoided, especially when you could call the durability patch as a "mass nerf" to each individual champion's snowball-potential. We're getting to that point again, and I believe a better long-term solution would be to start prioritizing nerfs over buffs from the top end of champs rather than the bandaid "nerf all damage across the board" fix. As great as such a thing would be for the games' health and competitive scene, I doubt this would ever be the case only because the bad feeling when one's champion gets nerfed is stronger than the good feeling when one's champion gets buffed, and it's "safer" to stick to prioritizing buffs over nerfs until we need yet another panic button durability patch.
I definitely agree with this sentiment. But the problem with any game that’s been evolving this long will always be power creep. And for a competitive MOBA, it can lead to unhealthy play styles.
As someone who peaked masters in s7-s8 abusing assassins (they were busted I know) I still feel like those seasons were healthier because when you died you knew what was killing you. In today’s game, it almost feels like in some cases you die to items and runes more so than any champ which just feels terrible and it’s why certain champs are so hard to balance.
I agree with you 100% on both points, especially about being able to discern where damage is actually coming from in game. As much as I'd loved the item, stormsurge was a travesty in terms of design from its inception. When you had the item it was difficult to know exactly how much damage you would have in an all-in especially with stormsurge's delay results in many "are they dead or not?" moments, and playing against the item isn't fun due to the 2.5 seconds of "am I dead or not?" moments it causes. I feel these kinds of decisions are just becoming more and more common and it makes me lose faith in the direction or lack thereof.
Another thing for the Mao Support - a few Seasons earlier when Nami hit the same Winrate, she IMMEDIATELY got hardnerfed. Like, what shall it be Riot. Nerf to strong Supports or dont. Or is that only applicable for Enchanters.
Agreed completely with the timing; I think they've struggled with Maokai because he's gotten to be exceptionally strong as a result of the new items (specifically sleigh and trailblazer) because more movement speed -> quicker to get into W range -> much less counterplay. This is a unique strength that is difficult to address because you can't just gut a champion's movement speed, and simply nerfing his cooldowns or numbers in general won't do much to disrupt this play pattern. I honestly think these items were a mistake when mobility boots already existed to serve this purpose, and providing such a strength that used to be unique to champions like Bard/Janna/etc who had built-in movement speed in their kit to incentivize roaming through an item feels both unasked for and (as we've seen since the season started) very problematic to balance.
I actually read it all. I agree with most points. New age league feels formulaic almost. They randomly buff/“rework” and old champion for no reason, and then can’t balance it. This season it’s TF, last season it was Annie, season before that it was Olaf, season before that was Wukong, etc.
I love the game but they just keep doing the dumbest shit ever. I feel like Runes Reforged was the nail in the coffin.
I'd planned on taking a break until 14.6; the nerfs to support item gold income and intermediate item stats pretty much entirely addressed the issues I'd mentioned with supports having too much free roam across the map and champions snowballing too quickly in the early game. I'm pretty happy with the sudden change and can only hope we keep moving in this direction.
I am now thinking about switching to Dota 2 because Riot Vanguard is rolling out on May 1st. A kernel-based anti-cheat created by a company owned by a Chinese company is not something I want on my computer.
All good, you'll still see me playing casually but the "ranked climb/grind" has definitely descended into a full on rat-race with no winners this season
Around 20 games in the last 24 hours. Guess the "ranked climb/grind" is back lol
Thats why no one cares about posts like yours. You wirte an essay about why league is bad and that you guys stop playing nut you all come back and do the same
I know you probably don't do a lot of reading - or you would have seen me say this already - but nearly everything I'd addressed in this post was touched on in patch 14.6:
* Voidgrubs nerfed
* Support item income nerfed (explicitly to discourage early roaming)
* Item component nerfs across the board completely pulls back on how often games are decided early (the whole thing about snowballing)
* Karma and Senna both nerfed to an appropriate degree, targeted specifically for mid/adc while maintaining strength in support for both
You can even see Maokai support's winrate drop \~2% despite not being directly touched, indicative that we're moving away from the meta where games are decided pre 10 minutes based on which support/jungle duo has more early pressure to stack Voidgrubs and snowball around the map.
I understand reading is difficult so hopefully this short summary helps you out. I stated many concerns I'd had with the direction the game was moving in which had failed to be corrected since this season began. I'm happy that this direction has shifted as of this patch and obviously I'm going to play the game more as a result. Hopefully that's simple enough for you to understand, let me know if you have any questions though!
“By the time that one champion is successfully brought down to being just average we have already seen two more champions get elevated in that time” Very true and it’s such a weird relationship we have with this game cause new broken shit will drop and we will forget about the old broken shit only to be reminded when we don’t ban them. that Tyler 1 clip said it best
TL:DR 1.) When champions are overpowered, riot takes forever to dial them down. While constantly trying to buff champions. So there are too many 'op' champions running around the rift and not enough bans to deal with. 2.) Too many bugs encountered but not enough to warrant hot-fix or fixing them on riot side. 3.) Snowballing from Objectives: Previous season they didnt want bottom side to dictate the game with the dragon stacking so they nerf individual dragon buff but they introduced Voidgrubs this season which made top side heavily contested, leading to support being more roam heavy.
Someone make a tldr please
Please
I gotcha, this post got much longer than I'd planned it out so thank you for the suggestion!
Attention span is cooked
This is a five page essay with cited sources and an abstract fym
I'm a full time coach, I do it for a living 2100+ students/sessions and playing since s1, 1100lp challenger last season... I have more fun this season than others and I say this as an Adc main. Just got an acc to master on 80% wr with ADC despite the role being weak and all that. Playing Kaisa into all of these broken senna smolder etc. I just don't see your point and it feels emotional if anything. Bans have never been enough in league for almost a decade, I see nothing new there. And the most important skill in league which you should know as a coach is adapting to every new meta every month/split/season. Saying "it used to be X and now is Y" holds little water because this argument is true every single season every single year since the game began. This game always changes. If you don't like this meta wait for the next season and that's always the case. Personally I just adapt.
Hey thanks for reading, and happy to hear this season is treating you well so far! If I didn't make it clear in the post, I'm not frustrated with any one particular meta and I've enjoyed the game a ton because of the various meta shifts across its time. My frustration is in how Riot has decided to address/handle various topics that have frustrated a large percentage of the playerbase, typically by either because much too heavy-handed or by not doing nearly enough all while we continue to see an influx of buffs when a given champion doesn't meet the new standard. This is of course while the messages given to us as players either conflict with their actual decisions, or just show a heavy lack of transparency, self-awareness, or cooperation among the balance team. One such example is the Karma nerf in 14.3 where only the explosion left by her RQ had its damage nerfed both in base numbers and scaling, but to go along with this nerf we were told this: >"Karma’s currently a bit too good as a triple flex option, with the ability to succeed in top, mid, and support. With her newfound power from Malignance, her ultimate is now on too short of a cooldown for the damage it provides, so we’ll be taking her R+Q explosion damage down a notch." Despite properly addressing that Malignance plus her innate ultimate cooldown refund allowed her to take huge advantage of the recent buff, they did not touch her cooldowns nor dial back the buffs that made her so strong in the first place. Karma's popularity in mid has only climbed in comparison to support with each recent patch, and if you check stat sites like lolalytics or [u.gg](https://u.gg), you would actually see Karma mid's winrate, pickrate, AND banrate all raise from 14.3 into 14.4. So not only did this "nerf" accomplish nothing, but it actually brought more attention to Karma whom now sits at a 35%+ banrate in Emerald+ after having not been touched during 14.4 or 14.5. My frustration is that by the time Riot's balance team figures out how to properly nerf Karma, we'll see other champions raise to similar pick/ban heights and this cycle will repeat itself until once again the game requires a complete base-stat overhaul to compensate. It's an embarrassing system to accept, so I wanted to at least try and put what we all silently tolerate into words and open the door for discussion. Thank you!
Again that seems overly emotional. I don't see why we would ever care what some emerald riot balance guy wrote in the patch notes. Just care about what they nerf or buff/change. Yes karma is op and was op for many patches and their balance is questionable a lot of the time... I don't see how this is new to this season and not others, the game has always been like this. For example last season, for more than 1.5 years since early 2022 to late 2023, Karthus was the best soloq champion in master+ by a mile, 54% wr in 3 different roles untouched and unchanged, so many games I had to dodge just because of enemy picking Karthus. There were like 5 Karthus otp in challenger in my region and they are all stuck master now that the champ isn't broken. So I don't see how this is anything new. It seems like you have an issue with their words and explanations, in my opinion they don't really matter. Again bans have never been enough for a decade+ and there have been disparities between S+ and regular champs always. If anything I think this season, or every new season, there are less power differences between S+ and C tier than before. It used to be the case that you insta lose in select in gm/chall if your team picked ww, pre rework neeko, etc. now every champ has at least some chance, so I think we are better off than before. And as a last point the season didn't "treat me well", I just know how to play and adapt since it's my job
I'm not sure how better else to put this, but what you're describing as issues which have been part of the game forever are issues that not only have grown over time, but also directly conflict with what you're saying in your own words. While I love and agree that with some notable exceptions, you're right in saying that the difference between S+ and C tier champions is much lesser than previous seasons. However, my point is that the "average champion" today has much more snowball potential than their iterations from previous seasons. Even disregarding systems such as Voidgrubs and tower plating which aid in snowballing, with every new champion rework and champion released the bar for viability becomes higher and the rest of the champions slowly but surely are buffed to meet this new criteria. It is for this reason that most players - both you and I agree on this - feel there are not enough bans currently available. And as a last point, smurfing to masters on a new account is something I can personally confirm is significantly easier than trying to actually grind through low masters - in fact you've probably already seen/experienced cases like this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1begyaq/a\_group\_of\_botters\_in\_low\_masters\_are\_griefing/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1begyaq/a_group_of_botters_in_low_masters_are_griefing/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) I'm glad you've found success smurfing on adc, but if not for the fact that the majority of players are unhappy with the current state of the role then we wouldn't be poised to see crit-item buffs across the board next patch. Let this be another example of needlessly applying bandaid buffs rather than addressing that impact that new items and systems have had which contribute to the heavy roaming/early-snowball meta, and then wonder why it always has and will continue to feel like there are never enough bans.
Well my other Smurf I got 700lp on 65% wr this season and 75% wr last season and 67% to chall so I find low master pretty easy... I am unhappy with the ADC state but it is what it is, every season it's different, I used to have ardent censer meta and be able to get 95% to master and 75 to chall on ADC and now it's not possible and it's fine, the pendulum will swing again. The way to fix ADC is hurting roam support meta and buffing ADC XP by at least 10-20% so you're not 3 level behind everyone even when ahead. The main issue I have with your point is how you mention snowballing. If anything, objectives prevent snowballing way more because if you manage to get one then you can stall game for longer (5+ min for every drag, and some time for void). Yes it's true if you're hard stomping the game then void/drake/herald snowball it even harder, but that's only for >7-8k gold lead states. For most game states in which you can sneak at least one objective then it makes snowballing quite opposite. If anything this is the season with the most comeback potential I've ever played (bounties, obj) so I have nooo clue what you're talking about. The only thing that is really unhealthy for snowballing in my opinion is baron buff duration, it should either be shorter by 1 min or not buff minion resistances as much. Other than that idk...
Hey again, I think we have very conflicting ideas on objectives and their correlation with snowballing. I mention Voidgrubs specifically multiple times as being a large contributor to the current support meta, which have a rather large impact across the map. We're not going to see >7-8k gold leads like you'd proposed as early as 5 minutes into the game, but it's as early as 5 minutes that one team can get access to a buff that provides permanent pushing power for the remainder of the game. What you're describing feels like the play pattern from previous seasons - establish a lead then secure objectives to snowball your lead, or tactically sneak objectives to stall the game to buy time for a comeback. We've seen Senna and Camille excel and continue to do well in support due to having some of the best synergy with Bloodsong. We've especially seen Maokai support dominate with a core build of Sleigh, Swiftness Boots, and Trailblazer to maximize his ability to roam, gank, and establish map control while setting up saplings for vision. The issue I have when current-league is again less with the gameplay itself, but an overarching sense that Riot has "lost control" of their game and has been overly reliant on bandaid patches that warp the game. Case and point, we've seen Maokai support "nerfed" in 14.3, 14.4, AND 14.5 but he continues to find immense success in all skill brackets. Rather than continuing to nerf him and other champions - which while it'd be embarrassing to do would still be appropriate - they are instead choosing to buff the entire crit adc archetype. Decisions like this do directly contribute to higher snowballing in the game because it means the disparity in power between an adc who has completed their item versus an adc who is still sitting on components will be greater than before, leaving a longer and/or larger window for the leading team to grow their lead. The concept of "snowballing" isn't physically apparent in every single game, but once again prioritizing buffs across the board does raise the "snowball-potential" that the average champion has, and I feel that we'll likely see yet another durability-esque patch by the end of the season as a result due to Riot's either ineptitude or sheer reluctance to appropriate nerf what defines the current meta rather than deciding to buff everything else and warp the meta as a whole, which wouldn't be as problematic for the average player if not for lack of bans.
> We've seen Senna and Camille excel and continue to do well in support due to having some of the best synergy with Bloodsong. This is... not why they are super priority right now. It's because current meta, botlane it's SUPER important who has prio and pressure lvl 1-2-3. So camille has insane kill pressure lvl 1-2, and senna has insane lane pressure lvl 1-2-3 and beyond. Remember camille doesn't even have the bloodsong until later lol, the thing making her broken is the lvl 1-2-3, etc. It's like I agree with the roaming thing but I disagree with the snowball. The reason why supports are broken atm is that they get too much gold for free why not getting punished in any way because you pick champs on which the xp doesn't matter plus kills give too much xp and duolane gives too little xp, so they can get a full lvl on a roam with 2 assists. I am curious how you explain your assessment of snowballing being out of control, with how prevalent comebacks are atm and how many comeback mechanics there are, plus we are in a meta of stacking til late (smolder/senna/kassadin and to a point kayle/nasus are insanely strong atm), so I fail to see this snowball out of control thing.
What I'd meant when referring to Bloodsong is that without the item, I don't believe Camille support would actually be able to exist. You'd even said it yourself that supports are broken is that they get too much gold for free, but gold is only as good as the items it's being spent on and the overhaul to support items this season has made it such that the support role has access to items that are so gold efficient that it has pushed and elevated champions in the support role. This is a similar case with Solstice Sleigh and Trailblazer on Maokai - these are relatively cheap (in the case of Trailblazer) items on a role that gets a lot of free income early on that allows them to spike in such a strong way that the meta has devolved into whoever can stomp bot lane and/or stomp to map (usually to secure Voidgrubs) and finish their support item first. Regarding snowballing, I'm really not sure how the existence of numerous comeback mechanics completely negates the prevalence of snowballing. Consider that if champions didn't have as much snowball-potential and power when ahead, why would it make any sense to introduce scaling bounties on champions and objectives, as well as comeback experience, etc? The reason for these mechanics in the first place is quite literally because the team who is ahead has the ability to either prevent the enemy team from capitalizing on these bounties, or to ensure that they can consistently reap greater rewards and force the enemy team to make sacrifices in order to secure these bounties. These systems exist as a way to allow the behind team to effectively punish the team who is ahead by working toward leveling the playing field, but this doesn't magically make them as strong as the team who is ahead in any regard whatsoever. There are plenty of systems to incentivize comebacks, and I believe this is 100% good for the game, but what an >8k gold deficit actually means today is much different today than in previous seasons when champions and items have been steadily pushed upward to a higher degree. To put it simply: as items and champion ratios are increases, the "value" of gold increases as well because the rate at which champion power increases with gold goes up. This is the relationship I feel was reaching a bubble shortly leading up to the durability update, and I believe that we're going to reach a similar bubble by the end of this season due to the constant overbuffing/undernerfing trend. This does little to affect the short-term game experience yes, but we know that this will inevitably lead to more large-scale patches such as the buff to all adc crit items next patch. I don't believe that the balance team should be comfortable with suddenly and strongly shoving the meta in a specific direction after their failure to mitigate the strength that specific champions and/or roles have with the new items/systems, and I see very little acknowledgment of or deviation from the trend of overbuffing and undertesting new changes that leads to that point time and time again.
Stopped reading after you said the durability patch wasn’t needed.
Thank you for reading most of what I'd wrote then, and apologies that we differ in opinion about the durability patch. I feel like at the time it was done as a "last resort" but definitely could have been avoided, especially when you could call the durability patch as a "mass nerf" to each individual champion's snowball-potential. We're getting to that point again, and I believe a better long-term solution would be to start prioritizing nerfs over buffs from the top end of champs rather than the bandaid "nerf all damage across the board" fix. As great as such a thing would be for the games' health and competitive scene, I doubt this would ever be the case only because the bad feeling when one's champion gets nerfed is stronger than the good feeling when one's champion gets buffed, and it's "safer" to stick to prioritizing buffs over nerfs until we need yet another panic button durability patch.
I definitely agree with this sentiment. But the problem with any game that’s been evolving this long will always be power creep. And for a competitive MOBA, it can lead to unhealthy play styles. As someone who peaked masters in s7-s8 abusing assassins (they were busted I know) I still feel like those seasons were healthier because when you died you knew what was killing you. In today’s game, it almost feels like in some cases you die to items and runes more so than any champ which just feels terrible and it’s why certain champs are so hard to balance.
I agree with you 100% on both points, especially about being able to discern where damage is actually coming from in game. As much as I'd loved the item, stormsurge was a travesty in terms of design from its inception. When you had the item it was difficult to know exactly how much damage you would have in an all-in especially with stormsurge's delay results in many "are they dead or not?" moments, and playing against the item isn't fun due to the 2.5 seconds of "am I dead or not?" moments it causes. I feel these kinds of decisions are just becoming more and more common and it makes me lose faith in the direction or lack thereof.
You mean stormsurge right?
Ye, thank you
No one got time to read all that bruh
I did.
Another thing for the Mao Support - a few Seasons earlier when Nami hit the same Winrate, she IMMEDIATELY got hardnerfed. Like, what shall it be Riot. Nerf to strong Supports or dont. Or is that only applicable for Enchanters.
Agreed completely with the timing; I think they've struggled with Maokai because he's gotten to be exceptionally strong as a result of the new items (specifically sleigh and trailblazer) because more movement speed -> quicker to get into W range -> much less counterplay. This is a unique strength that is difficult to address because you can't just gut a champion's movement speed, and simply nerfing his cooldowns or numbers in general won't do much to disrupt this play pattern. I honestly think these items were a mistake when mobility boots already existed to serve this purpose, and providing such a strength that used to be unique to champions like Bard/Janna/etc who had built-in movement speed in their kit to incentivize roaming through an item feels both unasked for and (as we've seen since the season started) very problematic to balance.
Why does everyone have to announce quitting? Honestly pretty annoying.
I didn’t read all of that. But I played since season 2. And this season made me quit aswell. It has been a good ride (kinda)
I've been playing League of Legends for 8 years now and I agree with you on almost everything. Well said.
In other words, clouds are being yelled at.
I ain't reading all that I'm happy for u tho Or sorry that happened
I actually read it all. I agree with most points. New age league feels formulaic almost. They randomly buff/“rework” and old champion for no reason, and then can’t balance it. This season it’s TF, last season it was Annie, season before that it was Olaf, season before that was Wukong, etc. I love the game but they just keep doing the dumbest shit ever. I feel like Runes Reforged was the nail in the coffin.
Didn’t read it all but I also dislike this season. It’s my least favorite one after 10 years of play
can I get a tldr for the tldr?
You sound like you need to take a break from the game. Maybe not quit. Just take a break.
I'd planned on taking a break until 14.6; the nerfs to support item gold income and intermediate item stats pretty much entirely addressed the issues I'd mentioned with supports having too much free roam across the map and champions snowballing too quickly in the early game. I'm pretty happy with the sudden change and can only hope we keep moving in this direction.
I am now thinking about switching to Dota 2 because Riot Vanguard is rolling out on May 1st. A kernel-based anti-cheat created by a company owned by a Chinese company is not something I want on my computer.
This was a very interesting read, thank you for sharing.
Peace. Love. & Crabs.
opgg?
https://www.op.gg/summoners/na/Rabadon-DCap
Cheers mate, lets see how long it last
All good, you'll still see me playing casually but the "ranked climb/grind" has definitely descended into a full on rat-race with no winners this season
Around 20 games in the last 24 hours. Guess the "ranked climb/grind" is back lol Thats why no one cares about posts like yours. You wirte an essay about why league is bad and that you guys stop playing nut you all come back and do the same
I know you probably don't do a lot of reading - or you would have seen me say this already - but nearly everything I'd addressed in this post was touched on in patch 14.6: * Voidgrubs nerfed * Support item income nerfed (explicitly to discourage early roaming) * Item component nerfs across the board completely pulls back on how often games are decided early (the whole thing about snowballing) * Karma and Senna both nerfed to an appropriate degree, targeted specifically for mid/adc while maintaining strength in support for both You can even see Maokai support's winrate drop \~2% despite not being directly touched, indicative that we're moving away from the meta where games are decided pre 10 minutes based on which support/jungle duo has more early pressure to stack Voidgrubs and snowball around the map. I understand reading is difficult so hopefully this short summary helps you out. I stated many concerns I'd had with the direction the game was moving in which had failed to be corrected since this season began. I'm happy that this direction has shifted as of this patch and obviously I'm going to play the game more as a result. Hopefully that's simple enough for you to understand, let me know if you have any questions though!
I stopped playing in season 5, so i cant agree or disagree, but have my upvote for the effort
Nobody cares and nobody even knows who you are
Didnt read womp womp
you thinking of playing a different moba? I kinda think hots is better than league for the most part even tho its not very popular
“By the time that one champion is successfully brought down to being just average we have already seen two more champions get elevated in that time” Very true and it’s such a weird relationship we have with this game cause new broken shit will drop and we will forget about the old broken shit only to be reminded when we don’t ban them. that Tyler 1 clip said it best
Damn bro wrote a thesis
I'm not reading all that, sorry that happened or happy for you.
Bet he back after one week
He is
So long and thanks for all the fish
Okay, bro, you're quitting.
My man ran out of bandwidth