I still think towers are pretty useless

Rozair·Jan 5, 2016·169 votes·9,187 views

They just don't do enough damage to be scarey enough to prevent tower dives. It's just too easy to do and they go down too quickly

153 Comments

WoodakoodashoodaJan 5, 201652 votes

If the lane turrets were granted increased attack speed, I think they'd be perfect. As it stands, the number of times enemies have dove and escaped with a minimal amount of health because the turret could not last hit them is ridiculous.

hopeful4Jan 5, 201614 votes

If the lanes turrets were granted increased attack speed the game would be led to complete stagnation and an all time low of player interaction, because baddies would just hug turrets and the better team/player would had no way of pushing his advantage. Every game would just drag out to 50 min then decided by a single teamfight

Ofc i know that ppl in this forum love mechanics that allow you to get away with being trash (which is why they loved the tank meta and hate every high skill champion like Zed or Lee) or mechanics that reward good reaction times (e.g Yasuos wall) so this thread doesnt come as a surprise

WoodakoodashoodaJan 5, 201647 votes

{quoted}

If the lanes turrets were granted increased attack speed the game would be led to complete stagnation and an all time low of player interaction, because baddies would just hug turrets and the better team/player would had no way of pushing his advantage. Every game would just drag out to 50 min then decided by a single teamfight

Ofc i know that ppl in this forum love mechanics that allow you to get away with being trash (which is why they loved the tank meta and hate every high skill champion like Zed or Lee) or mechanics that reward good reaction times (e.g Yasuos wall) so this thread doesnt come as a surprise

Not everything is about your beloved assassins. God forbid that immobile ADC's and Mages be allotted some form of protection against being instantly burst down.

S3ntinelJan 5, 201618 votes

OK. So. First off, he was not at all saying that everything is about assassins. Second of all, he didn't say anything about liking them. Third off all, if you're an adc main, god dammit you have another player in the game where their soul purpose is to keep you alive. So stop complaining. If you like immoblie mages, well that's just something you play around. Most immoblie mages have heavy cc (annie, veigar, anivia, brand, cass, elise, fiddle, gragas, heimer, etc.) so you should play around those. If an assassin outplays that cc and you hit it too early/late, that's your fault not riot's.

The Mighty FleaJan 6, 20162 votes

So what about Vel'Koz and karthus players like myself. Kathy's has no hard cc and vel has one knockback that is easily dodged by the meta jungles like Lee, Vi, etc. Also very fragile champions.

S3ntinelJan 6, 20162 votes

First off velkoz's burst makes up for his squishyness. And if you're good with his knockback then you would hold it until you couldn't miss. Also, yes junglers have mobility. But now it sounds like you are saying that mobility is frowned upon. Which should not be the case. Maybe it was just me that interpreted that comment that way. Yes they are fragile, but so are adc's, assassins and roughly half the supports. But you play around it. Mages are blessed with zhonyas, which AD champions dont get. Also you can get a lot more ap with items than you can with ad items. Finally, Karthus might not have a slow, but he has a 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80% slow on his wall, a constant lane poke and you have an every person, targeted, global ult that also procs thunderlords and luden's. Karthus is a low mobility mage with high poke damage. That seems like a fair trade off to me.

ErockandrollJan 5, 20164 votes

[{quoted}](name=Chocolate Frost,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1TugdxYq,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2016-01-05T16:39:13.901+0000)

If the lane turrets were granted increased attack speed, I think they'd be perfect. As it stands, the number of times enemies have dove and escaped with a minimal amount of health because the turret could not last hit them is ridiculous.

I probably mentioned this in another thread. But this approach is problematic. If you increase the attack speed, you increase how fast the turret will wipe out a minion wave. (unless you reduce minion damage to compensate.) And doing any of these things will screw with peoples ability to farm under turret, But ultimately stagnate the game since the increased damage would reduce the minions ability to push on their own, which diminishes the value of wave management. Simply, their are too many variables.

The one thing you could try is increasing the Warmup and Heatup damage that the turrets get specifically against champions.

nami tfJan 5, 20165 votes

What if turrents did percentage health damage instead?

ErockandrollJan 5, 201612 votes

[{quoted}](name=Roenne ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1TugdxYq,comment-id=000200020000,timestamp=2016-01-05T19:24:27.511+0000)

What if turrents did percentage health damage instead?

Let me ask you this then, Who are the biggest offenders when it comes to tower diving? The tanks designed to soak up damage? (even from towers) Or the assassins you will burst you instantly?

Honestly, the amount of warmup and Heat up damage should be sufficient if a Tank stays under turret for any given amount of time. Though I don't feel that tank shred is the answer.

The other problem is that %HP damage is always going to be rather relevant at all stages of the game. Which shouldn't be the case. Turrets need to depreciate in comparative effectiveness, in order for the game to eventually end.

And if you make %HP the primary source of damage, that going to make Assassins bigger offenders of Turret dives than Tanks, Which is probably not something worth supporting.

nami tfJan 5, 201610 votes

I see what you mean. Just an honest inquiry,

SkiasJan 6, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Let me ask you this then, Who are the biggest offenders when it comes to tower diving? The tanks designed to soak up damage? (even from towers) Or the assassins you will burst you instantly?

Honestly, the amount of warmup and Heat up damage should be sufficient if a Tank stays under turret for any given amount of time. Though I don't feel that tank shred is the answer.

The other problem is that %HP damage is always going to be rather relevant at all stages of the game. Which shouldn't be the case. Turrets need to depreciate in comparative effectiveness, in order for the game to eventually end.

And if you make %HP the primary source of damage, that going to make Assassins bigger offenders of Turret dives than Tanks, Which is probably not something worth supporting.

So make every other shot deal critical damage. Assassins will have less time to get in and out, tanks hp will still soak. Bad targetting AI makes heat up a big piece of shit.

SkiasJan 6, 20165 votes

{quoted}

I probably mentioned this in another thread. But this approach is problematic. If you increase the attack speed, you increase how fast the turret will wipe out a minion wave. (unless you reduce minion damage to compensate.) And doing any of these things will screw with peoples ability to farm under turret, But ultimately stagnate the game since the increased damage would reduce the minions ability to push on their own, which diminishes the value of wave management. Simply, their are too many variables.

The one thing you could try is increasing the Warmup and Heatup damage that the turrets get specifically against champions.

Or just make champion shots faster. If its a champion targetted, it goes berserk.

KikirinoJan 5, 20163 votes

Turrets attacking faster would make last hitting under tower much much more difficult. Hell, any change would make it more difficult but a damage increase wouldn't hurt as bad since bot lane needs the support to auto once to get a minion low enough after a turret shot for the adc to cs it.

6thSagePathJan 5, 20162 votes

honestly their target factor is off. there are times ive been under tower next to it getting basiced and the enemy champ didnt take one hit. and im pretty sure they nerfed the range on tower on the first tear atleast.

Simple MoonJan 6, 20162 votes

Agreed. Something with the last few patches and tweaks to the turrets have messed with there targeting skills. Several times I've had a champion blatantly attacking me under turret and the turret just keeps hitting minions. I use the turret to my advantage in midlane (use to anyways) now it's unreliable.

ahferroin7Jan 5, 201626 votes

Yet another person who doesn't get the point of the game...

Turrets are there to prevent an immediate rush on the enemy base. They are not there to let 1 person safely sit in place and hold off 3 or 4 people trying to kill them. You're supposed to defend the towers, not the other way around. Their damage is specifically scaled to:

Prevent level 1 champs from diving for kills (it admittedly doesn't always prevent this, but it's a lot better than overtuning the damage).
Prevent Individuals who are not fully built or inherently super tanky from destroying the tower without minions around.
Not kill minions in one shot so that people can still get farm, but also have to make sure the tower doesn't get mobbed by minions.

That said, there are issues:

There appears to be a bug currently affecting targeting for non-champion damage sources (Towers, Heimerdingers Turrets, Shaco's Boxes, etc). This may in fact be an intentional but undocumented change by Riot in an attempt to make stall comps less effective.
If you are good at timing, and pay attention, you can exploit the fact that the towers don't retarget until they finish an attack if something happens during that attack that would cause them to re-target. (Changing this to immediately retarget would go a long way towards discouraging tower dives).
Some summons get target unconditionally, even if there is a champ who should be getting targeted.

hopeful4Jan 5, 20166 votes

2 and 3 are not issues, they are features. Exchanging/manipulating turret aggro properly is a skill requirement if you want to dive. Players that have mastered diving are supposed to be rewarded more than players who just brainlessly dive

junglerboy16Jan 6, 20165 votes

Juggling turret aggro is one thing. Having to wait almost a second for a turret projectile to finish flying to an invulnerable target or a target that recently died before acquiring a new target is wholly another. That's clunky design, not something that you are supposed to be able to skillfully manipulate.

ZGM DazzlingJan 5, 20161 votes

Whats the bug? That turrets agro them first? I think thats intentional.

ahferroin7Jan 6, 20162 votes

Not consistently re-targeting when they should (attacking stuff that's already dead, and sometimes even stuff that's obviously gone out of range, and ignoring champs who are obviously attacking each other under turret), and randomly re-targeting when they shouldn't. It's a lot easier to see with Heimerdingers turrets than with towers, because you can technically direct what they are supposed to attack (they're supposed to prioritize targets who are attacking Heimerdinger, and targets he attacks).

YumaS2AstralJan 5, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Yet another person who doesn't get the point of the game...

Turrets are there to prevent an immediate rush on the enemy base. They are not there to let 1 person safely sit in place and hold off 3 or 4 people trying to kill them. You're supposed to defend the towers, not the other way around. Their damage is specifically scaled to:

Prevent level 1 champs from diving for kills (it admittedly doesn't always prevent this, but it's a lot better than overtuning the damage).

Prevent Individuals who are not fully built or inherently super tanky from destroying the tower without minions around.

Not kill minions in one shot so that people can still get farm, but also have to make sure the tower doesn't get mobbed by minions.

That said, there are issues:

There appears to be a bug currently affecting targeting for non-champion damage sources (Towers, Heimerdingers Turrets, Shaco's Boxes, etc). This may in fact be an intentional but undocumented change by Riot in an attempt to make stall comps less effective.

If you are good at timing, and pay attention, you can exploit the fact that the towers don't retarget until they finish an attack if something happens during that attack that would cause them to re-target. (Changing this to immediately retarget would go a long way towards discouraging tower dives).

Some summons get target unconditionally, even if there is a champ who should be getting targeted.

I think it is okay to ble able to dive someone late game, the problem is that nowadays, champions are capable of diving early, and many times either alone of with just the help of one teammate.

I am pretty sure that this is why so many people complained about the old tank meta, because it is way too easy for a tank or bruiser to sit there and eat turret shots while the assassin is diving and killing me.

ahferroin7Jan 6, 20163 votes

I agree, it's perfectly fine to be able to tower dive late game. The OP made no comment about what point in the game though, hence my lack of mention of the lack of damage scaling. The proper way to handle this would be to make turrets work differently, in particular:

If a champ attacks an enemy under tower and the tower is currently attacking something other than a champion, immediately retarget to the new aggressor, possibly resetting an attack in progress.
If a champ who isn't being targeted attacks an enemy under tower, and another champ is already being targeted, finish any partial attack on the currently targeted champ, then switch to the new aggressor.
When 2 happens and multiple valid targets are present, decide in a pseudo random fashion.
Make the stacking damage a debuff, and have it last while in range of the tower that applied it (in other words, when the turret retargets to someone else, it doesn't reset the stacking damage on the first target). Doing so would make it a lot harder for assassins to tower dive, and make it much more difficult for a tank to tank tower shots while their allies kill someone.

The One Eye KingJan 6, 20164 votes

{quoted}

Yet another person who doesn't get the point of the game...

Turrets are there to prevent an immediate rush on the enemy base. They are not there to let 1 person safely sit in place and hold off 3 or 4 people trying to kill them. You're supposed to defend the towers, not the other way around. Their damage is specifically scaled to:

Prevent level 1 champs from diving for kills (it admittedly doesn't always prevent this, but it's a lot better than overtuning the damage).

Prevent Individuals who are not fully built or inherently super tanky from destroying the tower without minions around.

Not kill minions in one shot so that people can still get farm, but also have to make sure the tower doesn't get mobbed by minions.

That said, there are issues:

There appears to be a bug currently affecting targeting for non-champion damage sources (Towers, Heimerdingers Turrets, Shaco's Boxes, etc). This may in fact be an intentional but undocumented change by Riot in an attempt to make stall comps less effective.

If you are good at timing, and pay attention, you can exploit the fact that the towers don't retarget until they finish an attack if something happens during that attack that would cause them to re-target. (Changing this to immediately retarget would go a long way towards discouraging tower dives).

Some summons get target unconditionally, even if there is a champ who should be getting targeted.

DrMundo Hi.

Pierce The VealJan 5, 20168 votes

When a Fiora or an ADC building no tank items can tank a turret for 5+ seconds there's definitely a problem.

LlaniteJan 5, 20162 votes

And when tank with no dps item being able to make a dent on turret, there's definitely a problem.

ShonjlJan 6, 20164 votes

Let's be serious for a moment, when bot lane can half or destroy your tower even pre6 due to a single misplay. Or Mid lane being able to 1/3 your tower due to someone backing if they don't have TP, can you seriously complain about tanks?

I am not really saying there is an issue, but the tank that is building pure tank is kinda meant to take damage. I would be a little more concerned about the ADC without anything other than a Doran's Blade being able to half a tower or mid lane which has even lower AS and AD being able to do the same.

As far as I know, towers are meant to be powerful in the early game, become weak in the mid and basically glorified wards late. Early game is laning, so that is when they should be strong. And it isn't exactly a load of crap when even the ADC at 600hp can take 4 tower shots at level1.

That is a legit thing and it depends on the person how they view it.

KrinuJan 6, 20162 votes

I definitely think turrets need to be tougher.

Right now, you can kill them before they lose their 30 damage reduction buff without a whole lot of work. It's dumb.

esmelarJan 5, 20166 votes

Not true,

They are also nice Christmas trees Tristana

Gregor GysiJan 5, 20166 votes

Tower dives are a good thing for the game as they prevent stalling and turtling.

Pierce The VealJan 6, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Tower dives are a good thing for the game as they prevent stalling and turtling.

Strong turrets are a good thing for the game as they allow stalling and turtling.

I don't see the difference in how factual either of these statements is.

Gregor GysiJan 6, 20161 votes

Oh sorry, I somehow forgot to explain why stalling and turtling is a bad thing. Must've been because I thought it should be obvious.

So what is turtling - it's simply staying below your turret and killing minions so that the opponent can't push towers. If that's a technique that is easily available to the losing team (easily available = strong towers) then the early game is practically irrelevant as people can just clear the waves. Do you remember Season 4 (I believe) Ziggs/Xerath meta? Boy, that was fun. This promotes: passive, riskless, actionless, stretched and overall slow gameplay. That is IMO a bad thing.

Pierce The VealJan 6, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Oh sorry, I somehow forgot to explain why stalling and turtling is a bad thing. Must've been because I thought it should be obvious.

So what is turtling - it's simply staying below your turret and killing minions so that the opponent can't push towers. If that's a technique that is easily available to the losing team (easily available = strong towers) then the early game is practically irrelevant as people can just clear the waves. Do you remember Season 4 (I believe) Ziggs/Xerath meta? Boy, that was fun. This promotes: passive, riskless, actionless, stretched and overall slow gameplay. That is IMO a bad thing.

Yes, that is a bad thing. But take this, for example. If turrets are weak, early game champions are stronger, and this late game is nonexistant. The game has no endgame fantasy. Nothing. That is, also, IMO, a bad thing, even though I prefer shorter games.

exe3Jan 5, 20166 votes

Believe it or not it's by design. Meddler said a while ago that they believe that if towers were made useful it would stall out games (because items like Ohmwrecker and Zz'rot Portal don't exist apparently).

Of course the real core issue is that towers have no gameplay. They just sit there and shoot (usually at minions even when you're getting dived because of the shocking turret AI*), there's nothing more to them. We need towers to be powerful and do interesting things like the old slow on inhib turrets and then have counters to the turrets to create windows of opportunity to act around turrets in various ways. The crazy thing is that we already have some counters to turrets like the aforementioned Ohmwrecker, Zz'rot Portal and Banner of Command but they're almost never bought because you just simply don't need them, all you need is a tank with a little bit of armor, or in early game enough burst to get in and out before the tower does any meaningful damage (in theory not a problem, a well executed dive should be rewarded but atm it's just too easy to do). This of course would be a huge preseason scale project requiring new turret effects, AI, items, exploration into what turret gameplay/actions are intended, maybe even summoner spells (I miss Fortify, it's main problem was that it shielded all turrets instead of just the one you were near) etc...

Some people have made the argument of them just being roadblocks. To that I say that's incredibly boring and a waste of some great opportunities for interesting turret play given how integral they are to the flow of the game!

*Usually happens when a ranged enemy is sitting within your turrets range but you're a bit further away. I'm guessing that because you're technically out of range the turret ignores the enemy that is in range doign damage to you (makes sense in theory eg: global ults, but the turret awareness range should be increased imo) So aggravating.

ZT XperimentorJan 5, 20165 votes

Nice to see I'm not the only one noticing their oversight.

PaladinNOJan 5, 20165 votes

Are Riot even listening to these pleas?

I mean, there was something similar posted some 5 months ago, but has anything been done since then? http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/VTnL8HWP-turrets-are-never-useful-when-you-need-them-to-be?comment=000e000b

Slamurai JackJan 5, 201617 votes

Sure, they're listening. And they're rightfully ignoring the vast majority of it because unlike most of the boards, they realize that towers aren't supposed to be unassailable bastions of safety. They are merely a roadblock to ensure that a tiny deficit doesn't lead to complete denial. They are not a get out of jail free card for all of your mistakes.

PaladinNOJan 5, 20167 votes

Well, if you're referring to my story/example above, then being attacked by 2 champions with abilities that makes them untargetable by towershots is saying I made a mistake, then I accept your judgement, sir.

Simple point being, I don't think any ability (except Zhonya) should make any champion untargetable by towershots.

SkiasJan 6, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1TugdxYq,comment-id=000a0000,timestamp=2016-01-05T19:09:15.550+0000)

Sure, they're listening. And they're rightfully ignoring the vast majority of it because unlike most of the boards, they realize that towers aren't supposed to be unassailable bastions of safety. They are merely a roadblock to ensure that a tiny deficit doesn't lead to complete denial. They are not a get out of jail free card for all of your mistakes.

You say the need to not be unassailable fortresses, but they are the complete opposite. They need to not be worthless piles of shit after level 3.

ahferroin7Jan 6, 20161 votes

Do they stop minions from rushing the Nexus?

If the answer is yes, then they are not worthless.

SkiasJan 6, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Do they stop minions from rushing the Nexus?

If the answer is yes, then they are not worthless.

Not very well.

LeBlanc JameśJan 5, 20162 votes

Who says anything needs to be done. Turrets are the absolute last of my concerns.

People complain that it's too easy to dive...

It works both ways... Start diving yourself and reap the rewards.

PartholonianJan 6, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Who says anything needs to be done. Turrets are the absolute last of my concerns.

People complain that it's too easy to dive...

It works both ways... Start diving yourself and reap the rewards.

Because anyone other than early game focused assassins doesn't need to be at all playable or viable, right?

OneSmoothDudeJan 6, 20161 votes

According to Google, every day 27 million people play League. 67 million play at least monthly. And what's even more impressive is that this data is from two years ago, and League has only grown since then.

I don't think two threads totaling in around 200 upvotes really matters very much in the grand scheme of things.

PaladinNOJan 6, 20162 votes

Fair point.

So, what would it take it get a Rioters attention...? Any particular size on the issue, whatever that would be, to actually get into a technical debate with a Rioter?

All sarcasm aside, I am a support player at heart, and a squishy utility magey main who preferres defensive plays from the backline, preferably from behind my own tower (slightly exaggerated), so doing dives is not something I feel comfortable with. Also, the towers seems to prefer targeting me when I attack it, instead of other allies attacking enemies under the same tower while a couple of minion waves is backing us up.

So even understanding how the tower aggro works is a lost case for me.

TraptintimeJan 5, 20164 votes

I would also like to see the towers do a bit more damage but I understand that it creates a different way to play the game by allowing dives to be easier. What I have a problem with, and this may just me being crazy, but it feels as if the tower aggro system is flawed. Often appears that when multiple people dive a tower while theres minions the tower doesn't always immediately switch from minions to enemy champions. This has both screwed me over while being dove and helped me survive while diving. At first I thought it was just in my head but its happened a couple of times. I have also seen it on streams and youtube videos.

ØathbetrayerJan 5, 20164 votes

Agreed, if you get people who know how to play...tower diving is easy without casualties. Towers should start at a higher damage then become greater.

JoaffleJan 6, 20163 votes

i hate towers this season they do nothing. I was playing against this guy Kassadin he tower dived me he got 3 autos on and got away tower didn't fire once at .

HorusEyeJan 6, 20163 votes

Current turrets in a nutshell:

http://pictures.dealer.com/c/checkeredflag/0489/eb985f972908424af2b0f6b3faea6bd9x.jpg

StrawberrycocoaJan 6, 20163 votes

I just miss the days when if people tower dived you, they didn't have a kit with four dashes and a blink to evade tower fire. Watching someone dive you for a kill then escape with slivers is just the worst god damned thing.

hermescostelloJan 7, 20162 votes

tbh no. it depends on the character you're playing and who you're playing against. most people won't turret dive early on because of the threat of death and i've gotten plenty of kills from people being too greedy for kills and diving me. keep in mind that league games already go up to an hour so a tower that is harder to take down than the ones we have now will only elongate games which would be hell.