Ok, cool. Let's get into it!
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Alright, how about Lee Sin being a dominant pick and THE jungler to be for multiple YEARS straight? You don't see anything wrong with him always being present no matter the circumstance? Wait, no, there was a time when he could be considered "absent" during the Cinderhulk meta, arguably the healthiest and most accepted meta we've had in years...then cinder was nerfed repeatedly, it's users were nerfed constantly, and then Lee got buffed...conveniently before Worlds.
I did address the Lee Sin example a bit earlier, but he has seen pretty major periods where he was not dominant (now, for instance) that we've been okay with. One problem with Lee Sin is that even when he shows up very heavily in the competitive/pro scene, he doesn't even get close to that power level for the vast majority of our players, since he has such a high degree of execution required to optimize him. When we did those buffs, he had been out of the pro meta for a good period of time, which meant that he was really suffering for most of our players (he was one of the lowest win rate junglers in the game, even when he had one of the highest average games played).
Again, I'll make the statement here. Lee Sin is for the most part a healthy jungler, even though there's been many times in history that he's been too strong. And he's an entertaining character that in my opinion makes our game more interesting and enjoyable. That does not mean we keep him viable because he's interesting.
Along with him, Zed and LB. Flashy playmakers that make flashy plays. You've probably heard every single tinfoil hat theory that we've thrown at you guys for being corrupt and esports focused, but you can't seriously argue with the history you've stretched out in front of us can you? You understand why a lot of us see you as a team that values flashy plays over healthy gameplay right?
This one I don't get at all. I think if you searched through most of the pro games this year, you would find Leblanc and Zed to not be nearly as dominant as say Viktor or Azir in terms of pick rate. That aside, it seems like you're creating a false dichotomy here between choosing between "flashy plays" and "healthy gameplay". I don't think we'd say someone like Zed has an inherently unhealthy pattern (I'd say he's fairly healthy for an assassin), but there's no reason why something can't be fair and flashy.
Let's talk about Cinderhulk for a bit just in general. At launch, this item was overpowered in itself, and Gromp buff didn't help much either. Excluding the outliers of Gragas and Sej, the later patches allowed champions who otherwise had no business being meta were actually relevant. Yorick of all champions was picked in the LCS. We had the most viable champions and the healthiest gameplay in years at the time, but then something happened.
The spectator event was apparently "boring" with tanks running around ruining the flashy plays. Call tinfoil hat if you want, but think about it: when Riot is trying to push the esports scene down everyone's throats, they want to attract new audiences, and they do that with creations like Yasuo, Kalista, Thresh, Lee, Ekko, Leblanc - people that jump around all over the place and look cool doing it. Tanks don't do that which prompted even more nerfs.
Again, it's really an issue of balance here. You can't argue with the level of power that Cinderhulk was giving to characters at the time. There are many reasons to like the teamfight-pacing presence that tanks give, but these champions had no tradeoffs at the time - they were becoming damage dealers with extreme durability and CC.
On that topic though, no one was happier about the success of Cinderhulk than me - that project was the combined efforts of Fearless and I (mostly him!), and I was overjoyed at the spike in competitive diversity that the Cinderhulk patch brought to the game. But the theory that we chased away diversity by nerfing Cinderhulk is false. The diversity spike partially arose due to the uncertainty of solving the game at a pro level since we upended the meta (tanks in Jungle instead of top lane, so now carries in top lane, so now different types of supports/ADCs that have to deal with top lane carries, etc.). The pro diversity levels were already falling quickly in the weeks after Cinderhulk came out due to them solving the meta rapidly, before we even managed to get the nerfs out to the servers that pros played on. So while Cinderhulk as a disrupting force was positive in driving diversity, it couldn't ever hold that permanently - we have to keep making changes to the game to do that.
Then juggernauts happened. Jesus why? Why was nothing done about them for so long? You believe you're doing us a favor by holding off on nerfs because it's not fair the the pros who have been practicing with them? We're the community, not the pros who have been presented as players who can quickly adapt, not Reddit which is filled with a mindless hive mind of esports drones, and not spectators in general whom you seem to want to focus on pleasing. WE are the community, and WE were suffering through all of this while you watched Worlds go on. Only AFTER it was over was the thought of "oh this might be a problem" expressed to us.
So let me say that I'm with you here. Our overall strategy with Juggernaut balance was not the correct one for LoL. There was a lot of stuff going on here between Champion Update and Live Gameplay trying to figure out how to keep these guys maintainable, and we've learned a lot since hten.
Let's fast forward to now, where we screamed bloody murder that the preseason patch would be a disaster up, down, sideways, and backwards, but nothing was done. Trynd, Yas, Graves, Jax, Soraka, the overpowered masteries, the broken items, the snowballing, the ever present Lee Sin (thank god he was fine with the preseason; how would we ever survive without him being in every other game?), Kench still needing a real nerf, Kalista still exists as is a kangaroo and had her damage nerfed to 90% to accommodate that disgusting hop, Morde doesn't belong in the bot lane...stop...just stop. Revert the rework and start over. I could go on for a while considering how much needs to be said but I think I should wrap this up.
You're not addressing toxic mechanics and blatantly play favorites when you balance all while nerfing champions that don't need it while items and masteries are the problem, or in Rageblade's case, not fully grasping that this item is a problem and needs looked at immediately. You guys finally fixed the Shiv Cannon, thank God, but did it really have to take that long?
I guess you needed to nerf Malz and Karthus first.
I get that you're not happy with what's going on here, I really do, but let's examine what you're saying here. You really disapprove of our balancing strategy here in that we didn't nerf X very quickly. You also heavily disapprove of our balancing strategy here that we are nerfing Y very quickly. Isn't it possible that the reasons why we'd do both are similar? I really do believe your viewpoint is valid here, but I have heard the same exact feedback from different players, but they've switched "Karthus" for "Soraka". It's very hard to establish to everyone why something merits being nerfed to their full satisfaction - it will always feel really bad.
's evolution path diversity?
etc.)
They are certainly strong early, but the new flow of gold in the game makes their power window smaller, so I was wondering if any balance adjustments were planned.
excluded). Hell, it's not unusual for her to go 1v3 towards the end of a game and come out of it ahead. She scales very hard with items. In contrast, her early-game has always been sub-par due to a combination of no sustain in lane and weak ganks in the jungle.
