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Daisy Slaps Kids··2 votes·1,092 views

Hi

At this point I'm sure we're all aware of the recent pantheon rework, and riots inability to just leave things alone.

Disclaimer I like some of the reworks, but this post is purely to discuss why they're generally a failure (or not if you disagree), and why.

I've been playing league since Draven release.

During that time I've picked up and played a lot of champions that I enjoyed. I played a lot of anivia, before playing adc as my main role.

Here's my problem:

Every time riot reworks a champion it does two things:

  • creates a toxic new kit
  • destroys what was once a balanced champion

Toxic kit stuff: We saw this with the Akali rework, the Graves rework, the Aatrox rework, the Fiora rework, the Irelia rework, the Darius Rework, the first Mordekaiser rework, and now the pantheon rework.

Akali just had so many things in her kit, it was (and honestly still is) absurd. I preferred the old Akali. Granted she was weaker, but felt fairer to play against, and didn't have the overloaded randomness she calls a kit now. Graves was an adc. Now he's a jungler. This was part of a rework that was supposed to be centered around adcs to improve the role as a whole. Those changes resulted in adcs being basically removed from the meta game altogether. Nice work. Quinn got moved to top, Graves got moved to jungle, corki got moved to middle, and realistically Vayne and Kai'sa are the only real picks now. Aatrox was so weak on release, that he was unplayable. Riot realised this and just jacked his numbers into god-tier status. That's the worst bandaid fix for any rework I've seen. Then they can't decide if he needs a revive or not, how much he should heal, what to do with his E, or how his healing should interact with other champions. Irelia. Woo boy. I'm sure we all remember that release patch. Man being an ADC main was fun back then. Triforce Irelia with conqueror oneshotting you with Titanic Hydra, and being tanky enough to just ignore damage with w.. man that was fun. Oh wait, no, no it wasn't. Ah the juggernaut reworks. This was actually years ago, but it's fresh in my memory as the pivotal moment for riot games. The game was relatively fun. Then suddenly, they decided to just create this dumbass bruiser meta where they were tankier than tanks, and threw bigger numbers than carries did. Mordekaiser botlane being 2 levels up on you by 15 minutes wasn't fun. Daruis gaining up to 200ad for executing someone wasn't fun. That in tandem with the huge amount of bruiser item buffs created this 4-5 week period where If they weren't banned, you lost to them. Pantheon. I've only played 1 day against this dude, and his E is toxic. Just like yasuo's entire kit. Why does it block tower shots? Wait, why does it just block ANYTHING? At least make it projectiles only, or a certain number of attacks or abilities? You can't interact with that in lane.

The rengar rework:

For a period in 2015, I was a rengar one-trick. Back when you could throw E Midair with 0 cast time and land all your abilities in one fell swoop on an isolated adc with no defensive items (remember lethality wasn't a thing at this point). Riot didn't like that, because it felt unfair, and so completely changed rengar into an unplayable state. Rengar didn't do his job, and didn't do much good at anything else.

What I'd like to see:

A complete revert of the following reworks:

Graves Rengar Sejuani Nunu Pantheon Katarina Akali Corki Quinn

I genuinely feel like giving champions more definitive roles is a healthy way to keep the game balanced. When you start saying "ehh it's an adc, but it can jungle too", you have a champion that's either so universally useful it's broken, or so universally useless it's never picked.

Thanks for taking to the time to read my thoughts.

I welcome any comments or conversation!

Thanks :)

5 Comments

MrHaZeYo1 votes

I like, Graves, Corki, Quinn, Nunu, and Sej reworks tbh.

Daisy Slaps Kids2 votes

Do you feel these champs are represented enough to be considered viable picks as they were pre-rework? You almost never see Quinn/Graves/corki, and nunu/sej come out very infrequently.

MrHaZeYo1 votes

Well, depends on were your looking.

Corki and Sej have been mainstays in the pro scene all split, while Graves as always been top tier - mid range tier pick since he was reworked. Nunu is also starting to pick up steam,

Even before Quinn was reworked, she was more of a top laner given her kit, and she still fits the niche pick she always has.

Alot of these reworks have just modernized kits, outside of like Galio, and that honestly needs to be done. I'll admit some of their kits are overloaded, and that's why over time we see things removed (Irelia W no longer reduces magic damage and her ult doesn't disarm anymore while Akali lost a crap load of healing and her true invis.).

We look at it as them overloading old kits that were honestly for the most part braindead. Fiora is far more healthier and skill oriented now that she was prior. Same can honestly be said about most of the champs.

I'd argue them as failures if every new modern champ wasn't also overloaded, their just bringing the old champs up to speed.

Daisy Slaps Kids1 votes

I disagree. A better example of bringing an old kit up to speed is what they did to ezreal, malzahar, maokai, kayle, and morg. New graves doesn't resemble old graves at all, Aatrox is NOTHING like he was pre-rework, and Akali is unrecognizable except from the shroud.

MrHaZeYo1 votes

I mean, Yes Graves does resemble old Graves, literally his entire kit is a upgraded version of his last. The difference is his shotgun that makes him feel different, but new Graves really does fit more into his theme and actually makes him a viable champion. (Not that he wasn't necessarily before, but even back then he wasn't played often and with how the games as changed, I doubt he would see much play now.)

Aatrox is a complete overhaul, but he did keep some things about his kit (Although the revive is gone now). Aatrox also sees way more play now, and his kit actually does something meaningful. Akali also kept some of her past functions and themes, while I do agree she is pretty different.

But, like I said, both of these reworks do to some degree do what they intended too, but some skill experison in a otherwise pretty brain dead champion, Akali you used to just smash buttons, but now you have to think about what your doing. AA was just a draintank auto attacker, now he has more to do in a actual fight then QE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA,

Maybe they are/were over-tuned, but they'll get to a healthy spot, just like Sion and Poppy once did.

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