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Can someone please explain why there is only a very limited amount of nerfs or buffs every patch?

Gank in Progress·1/18/2015, 2:10:56 AM·3 votes·529 views

Hear me out. We all know that game balancing is not easy and that it is very simple to create bugs after changing a champion. But the thing is: Riot has been focusing on releasing champions lately, and also on reworking them. How come so that the nerfs or buffs champions get are so limited?

Let me go ahead and list some champions the community or parts of it have a problem with.

Azir Cassiopeia Fizz Gnar JarvanIV Katarina Leblanc LeeSin Orianna RekSai Thresh Zed AkaliIrelia

Important: I do know that I have not listed every OP champion in the game nor every champion who needs tweaks or gameplay changes to make him healthier. But am I the only one who is sick of this "We try to balance out le blanc guys, but it took us 6 months to realise that le blanc was completely broken" talk, or those very little number changes every 4 weeks which actually accomplish nothing!

Why can you not simply throw out not only bigger but also MORE of those nerfs and buffs? We all like to see Gangplank top in competitive play once in a while. We all love to see a Nocturne top if he then should work out (Hello Wembley I saw that live item 3070 )

Seeing a Spectrum of Orianna, Syndra and LeBlanc for 6 months straight is just not fun at all. And that has not changed: Jarvan may not be as broken as Reksai. But his presence is so huge that we can not deny he is one of the best junglers in the game right now. Do we see nerfs on him? No, let us focus on only one jungler at a time.

Lets just go through some different champions and why I have a problem with them.

RekSai = clearly no big nerfs. he is still OP. simple as that. everyone who played this champ for one more game after he installed the new patch has realised that. Why does it take 5 patches again to gut this champ? I actually enjoy playing him, but the fact that he is without any big items just so far ahead of every other jungler in the game aside from LeeSin makes him boring and too easy to play!

Orianna Azir = unchecked lane dominating champions for a loong time. My problem with champions like these is not that they are freelo like for example a Reksai, but that they are always so good that they dont really fall out of favor. They simply outdamage other low range mages (Viktor Brand), have more mobility, and simply more LCS potential due to their insane safety in lane. They will not get nerfs or mini-reworks though, because that would actually lead to a bigger variety of champions in the LCS! Velkoz Who doesnt want to see this guy played?

You see where I am going with this. Currently game balancing means shoving off the tiny icy top of a mountain. The whole Season is awaiting us and I can promise you if nothing changes or only small very few nerfs will get released every 4 weeks the whole midlane, toplane and jungle pool will not change. We will not see champions who are not alround gods be played in the LCS.

But I guess I have to realise that people are not used to heavier nerfs on champions. When I take a look at reddit and see complaining about how weak of an Assassin Khazix is I ask myself what the fuck is going on. A 2.6 scaling on a 2 second Q when Isolated is not enough it seems. The weaker the nerfs get the lesser people are used to nerfs. I mean why is everyone complaining about Ahri being too weak when she has a way safer laning phase and better safer teamfight than Viktor or TwistedFate ?

My guess is that people are used to play easy champions and because they do nothing else than playing FOTM champions they cry out loud if some of those get nerfed. And Riot is too scared to hurt their feelings and tell them straight that the champions they play are champions who are too strong for many months if not years.

The best example for this scary behaviour is our good old unmatched friend LeeSin the potato man.

**TLDR; GO HAM WITH THE NERF BAT! ** And by that I mean that you are allowed to adjust many many many more champions every 4 weeks and not only the best/ worst ones! Make S5 be a season full of different champions. Where a player who likes a Champion can learn and master him and is not forced to play OP-Bullshit because he wont win otherwise! Look at the LCS and guess what the Champion variety in every lane is! 5 Champions as MAX! BORING!

13 Comments

SEKAI1/18/2015, 2:16:23 AM2 votes

Nerfs and buffs mostly are handed after accessing the necessity of having them, except a few who gets a free pass and those who just got ignored or hated by Riot.

Mostly they try to balance according to many data spreadsheets, so nerfs and buffs don't come too often.

It can be good and it can be bad, I wish Riot is more forgiving on nerfs tbh, more freedom and sandbox feel can add more value to the game if anything.

Durzaka1/18/2015, 2:17:55 AM1 votes

Because when you buff/nerf a shit load of champions at the same time, it is impossible to predict what is going to happen. Hence why only a few changes happen at once.

UberAffe1/18/2015, 4:28:45 AM1 votes

If you do not agree with this statement then don't bother to keep reading: A buff/nerf can be either healthy or unhealthy for a champion.

Similar to what Durzaka said ( even though that turned into a shit storm) when riot makes a change to a champion it is to address something unhealthy in their current play style. If Riot released a large number of changes to many champions at the same time it would be extremely difficult to determine if the unhealthy play style was fixed or is just being covered up something else. For example Yorick may have some very unhealthy things going on with his playstyle but they would never know because he isn't in play. It may not be there exact reason but when you are trying to improve something it is best done in many smaller steps so that you can keep track of what was actually fixed and any new problems that may have arisen.