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Riot, I Think You Guys Should Be Really Careful With Buffing Bruisers' Base AD.

Fedoran··4 votes·1,461 views

Okay not saying these are bad changes since I am not an expert but I would like to warn Riot about buffing up the Base AD and AD growth on bruisers.

It all comes down to the issue of "stat sticking" which is why champions like Aatrox are thrown in the dumpster so they don't ruin games. By buffing their base AD stats (which translates to most abilities with AD scaling along with auto attacks) you are bringing them either closer, or above, the fine line between being broken and acceptable/weak.

Instead it is my recommendation that bruisers receive more careful buffs or even mini-reworks to abilities that make their gameplay more healthy with "Can I outplay my opponent, can I play around cooldowns, etc" and less "Do I have enough damage / have enough health to outtrade my opponent by walking up to them and using a basic combo with auto attacks"

For example giving an influential change to Kled without actually giving him more damage would be to change his E to go over walls with first cast (This would also make it consistent with Renekton, and just about every other dash in the game). This would easily give him more power and put him into the meta without just making him hit harder and cheesing better. If something like this is too overbearing it would be easy to just nerf the cooldown. -Kled already has really powerful duels because his kit stacks up so much natural damage and resilience already

One more issue I find with buffing Base AD / Base AD growth is the trinity force synergy. Since bruisers already use trinity a lot as a core item, they would be getting TON more damage from it with Base AD buffs, since trinity's spellblade scales with 200% Base AD, and Sterak's Gauge adds an extra 50% base AD. I wouldn't be surprised if people rushed Trinity + Sterak's on champs like Olaf because his AD growth buff gives him 27 extra base AD at level 18 (1.518=27). With Trinity + Sterak's that translates to 2(271.5)=81. Yea, Olaf gets an extra 81 damage from Trinity force passive from this buff alone (if my math checks out)

Luckily Black Cleaver buffs add competition to Trinity force so we might not see it too much, but still I wouldn't like to see bruisers doing what you could consider BURST damage from these buffs.

Speaking of Black Cleaver I really like that change to 30% armor pen with all six stacks. Tanks outtrading the previously dumpstered bruisers was and is a big part of the problem so this should help a lot. I would hope to see further changes to address the problem of ranged top laners completely bullying out bruisers.

Thanks for considering, I would really like to see you guys' opinions on this subject.

9 Comments

RiotRiot MapleNectar6 votes

Hey dude, don't have the time to provide much context / thoughts on what you wrote here, but wanted to say this is a well thought out and well reasoned post. If I get the time tomorrow I'll try to come back with a bit more context. For now I'll just say that these buffs are meant as short term solutions until we can resolve the systemic stuff (abilities, runes choices, items, etc). If we find that some of these go to far, or are no longer needed when the longer term stuff is complete, we'll look to revert some of these if need be.

Thanks for the thoughtful post!

JarPoop IV1 votes

That aatrox buff is making his Base ad with steraks look a little ridiculous at 250ish. Might even be the highest. I'm not sure that is the buff that aatrox needs. He is definitely not as weak as people say although I can see where its coming from with aatrox being aa based and only have 1 total ad scaling skill

Finite Duress1 votes

Just make sure a Fighter/Diver Class update is the next priority.

I know some Rioters have said that Class Updates general cause additional problems when they're not focusing heavily on specific champions, but Fighters, Divers, Bruisers, and Juggernauts all suffer from items not giving them what they prefer.

These champions would love to build a mixture of tank items (HP and Armor/MR) and damage items (Either AD and Penetration/Lethality or AS and On-Hits), but there are just no items that allow this type of build to accomplished. Currently as one of these champions, you can either build Tank or Damage, there's just no in-between. If you want On-Hits items, then well I hope you don't want to scale or stay alive in fights, because building 2 HP and Resistance items (And you need at least two to stay relevant late game) will majorly impact your damage output that champions who stick to a small variety of stats don't ever have to face.

Tanks don't build damage to do what they want, ADCs don't build tanky to do what they want, Assassins don't grab support items, so why are fighters stuck handicapping themselves just to be mediocre late game anyway? It's bad enough that range champions have kiting, slows, stuns, roots, and dashes/blinks to waste your time until you're inevitable death because you have to be the initial dive (Not to mention disengage supports completely denying a slow moving fighter to do their job).

Then you have SoloQ players who are more often than not going to expect their Bruiser to be the one and only tank. The fighter with limited CC, tankiness, and Peel who also has to cover double duty as that teams only engage champion. So you have a champion who is designed to win teamfights, but has no tools, but whatever is inherently in their kits to do so. That's not to say Bruisers probably have the most overloaded/all-around kits in the game, but they're still useless in competitive because they don't have scalings to stay in the game.

When's the last time you've seen a Bruiser in competitive? Only when they're so strong they can go full tank or full damage and steamroll the enemy before they're outscaled.

Infernape1 votes

Just make sure a Fighter/Diver Class update is the next priority.

Riot aren't doing any more class updates.

Ashen Rider2 votes

{quoted}

Riot aren't doing any more class updates.

Top Ten Anime Betrayals

Finite Duress1 votes

I know some Rioters have said that Class Updates general cause additional problems when they're not focusing heavily on specific champions, but Fighters, Divers, Bruisers, and Juggernauts all suffer from items not giving them what they prefer.

Hexs Fortune2 votes

What is a brusier? Is that meant to refer to melee juggernauts and divers but not vanguards/wardens/skirmishers?

SuperLuigiLXIV1 votes

It's meant to refer to the class of bulky, damage-dealing champions that sit between assassins and tanks. You could refer to them as off-tanks if you like.

Key parts of bruiser kits are: -Reasonable offensive power, usually by combining autoattacks and abilities -Windows of defensive power -Gap closers -CC that is usually suited more for holding down a single target -AD scaling, as opposed to the AP/health/resistance scaling of tanks -Defensive scaling usually made more valuable with more HP, rather than extreme mobility like assassins -Oftentimes have some aspect of their kit that is more valuable when there are more enemies around, but not always

Essentially, where a tank is more meant to smash into the enemy frontline and zone or peel for their own backline, a bruiser wants to dive into the enemy backline, lock down or kill squishies, and survive. They don't pop the backline and get out like assassins, and they don't grab the enemy's attention and survive like tanks, but they're capable of doing both jobs to a degree.

Jarvan, Vi, Irelia, and Wukong are considered bruisers, among others. Though Jarvan's kit leans more toward tank, and Wukong's more toward assassin. Vi's probably the quintessential example. You've seen her build full tank, full damage, and everything in between, I'll bet.

higura1 votes

honestly this is one of the big problem with these "fighters" and "bruisers" threads. ppl are talking about 3-4 different sub classes, failing to understand that, the reason they are in different classes is because they aren't ment to do the same thing...

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