Rift Herald is a problem.

Darth West·May 4, 2017·104 votes·5,552 views

It's kind of ridiculous that me and my team finished the game within only 20 minutes, the enemy team unable to do ANYTHING to come back and fight us after we got the herald.

The enemy team lost 2 towers + a inhibitor within 10-20 seconds max.. The Rift Herald destroyed half of the towers HP in one hit, giving us enough power to forcefully push down almost ALL of the towers.

Why in the hell would you add this broken thing to the game? And yes.. I was on the team that HAD the Rift Herald, I did NOT feel satisfied with my victory. Was a stomp, a big stomp.

(Noticing people down voting. Give a reason as to why Rift Herald is any close to fair, thanks.)

119 Comments

OleandervineMay 4, 201725 votes

This is a major example of copying an element from another game and managing it completely wrong.

When you take jungle camps in Heroes of the Storm, the camps run down the nearest lane and push. Theyre the equivalent of Baron empowered minions. The boss camps roll down the lanes too, but they are nowhere near as destructive as the Rift Herald.

The Rift Herald at best should be a slightly modified version of Yorick's Maiden of the Mist, not some instant win for whatever lane you send it down. They wanted this thing to comparable to the dragons, yet the dragons just give you an overall edge in the game, they do not utterly destroy a lane, not even if Mordekaiser enslaved one. The Herald is ridiculous, and needs to be toned down a LOT. Furthermore, while they're at it, they should amp up the Maiden of the Mist, or at least stop turrets from prioritizing her.

AnidanMay 4, 201712 votes

You're pretty well correct. This was a poor implementation of a system that was handled just fine in another game, partly because unlike the Rift Herald's current design, HotS was actually designed with that jungle camp feature in mind instead of just haphazardly throwing it in. Rift Herald as it stands is a boss camp on steroids, which is really not something League needed with its current snowball and turret issues.

XonraMay 5, 20172 votes

It's the problem of a game having this mechanic as a mostly core element, and Riot doing Riot things and just shoe horning it in and hammering it until they go "see? Fits just fine. Mangled foot and all".

TheHappyReaperzMay 5, 20175 votes

"The boss camps roll down the lanes too, but they are nowhere near as destructive as the Rift Herald."

Right. Sure. I mean, its not like a single boss camp can't break through a barrier, kill two turrets, and take out a fort, all by its lonesome. Unlike Rift Herald, you actually have to focus those boss camps, because they take a while do die, unlike Rift Herald, which loses 20% of its max health, from you attacking it, on a 3 second CD. It disturbs me when people senselessly draw connections, from one game to another, on things, that are barely related, at best.

No More CagesMay 5, 20177 votes

That bonus damage is only if you hit her in the eye. From behind. In the enemy team's direct line of fire. Which likely includes at least one assassin or burst mage. I don't know about you, but if my team has Rift Herald, I'm going to group up behind her and use her to shove. If anyone tries to hit her in the eye, I'm going to either lock them down or burst them down, and the cycle will keep going until she dies or their lane is devoid of structures.

DecritMay 5, 20171 votes

ehm, copying what? this is a concept old as time, something similar comes from DotA too. I hardly doubt that they wanted to copy a thing just because, they know better that it does not work like that. I remember there was something like that on Strife, time before HotS even.

or at least, they learned it years ago with the old mastery system.

Inari Fox OrrionMay 6, 20171 votes

Remember how long matches were?

Remember how that mysteriously changed with HotS' release?

DecritMay 6, 20171 votes

Remember how actually the effort to reduce them started well before hots?

really, no one liked long stale games well since before hots. again.

and don' t worry, we won' t get near hots game duration because they have two totally different approaches to the genre. why all this fear for having the game like hots? i prefer lol too and i got burned quickly by hots while playing it with friends, but this witch hunt is really needless :P

ThilmerMay 4, 201719 votes

The game needs less snowball, not more snowball.

This season is ridiculous; you win or lose the game in the first 10 minutes. Late doesn't exists.

NakedGrannyMay 4, 20172 votes

That wouldn't be so bad if you could still at least play during that time.

But sitting in your fountain waiting to spawn while everyone else gets to play -- or just mindlessly CSing because there are no meaningful threats on the map.... neither of those things is satisfying or meaningful.

League is dead. We're all just waiting for a half-decent multiplayer experience of some kind to emerge.

XonraMay 5, 20173 votes

It isn't dead, but it is clear that the turnover rate at Riot in the last 2 years must have been ridiculously high, because the people in charge of major balance releases act like this is their first go around. The amount of times I read or hear "we are learning" tells me that exactly, because after years of this game being around, they shouldn't be "learning" basic things that are obviously stupid broken to your local bronze 5 player.

Automated RivenMay 5, 20173 votes

except that local bronze players still complain about yasuo and lee sin...

NakedGrannyMay 10, 20171 votes

Yasuo and Lee are both insanely broken.

Pale PirateMay 5, 20172 votes

Eh, 10 mins? That's an exaggeration.

ConalllMay 5, 20172 votes

I think he means it's decided in 10 minutes. The rest is just prolonging the inevitable.

Sun Wu RyuumokuMay 5, 20171 votes

real.

CyberBaltMay 4, 20179 votes

the enemy team unable to do ANYTHING to come back and fight us after we got the herald.

I'm quite sure they could have. Herald has a LOT of counterplay options.

The Rift Herald destroyed half of the towers HP in one hit, giving us enough power to forcefully push down almost ALL of the towers.

Key word: us. Rift Herald did not destroy 2 towers and an inhibitor. Your team did. At MOST, it's going to deal damage equal to about 1-1.5 towers health. From the way it sounds, I think your team was probably grouped around Herald. Ask yourself, how many towers would you have gotten without Herald (if any)? Then decide from there whether Herald's damage is really unreasonable.

Darth WestMay 4, 20176 votes

{quoted}

I'm quite sure they could have. Herald has a LOT of counterplay options.

Key word: us. Rift Herald did not destroy 2 towers and an inhibitor. Your team did. At MOST, it's going to deal damage equal to about 1-1.5 towers health. From the way it sounds, I think your team was probably grouped around Herald. Ask yourself, how many towers would you have gotten without Herald (if any)? Then decide from there whether Herald's damage is really unreasonable.

I don't care what you say, Rift Herald is a issue.

I refuse to accept the idea of a monster deleting a towers HP, which can easily be abused by killing someone one time top lane.. And guess what happens when the top laner respawns? His towers are gone. Not 1, but 2. It baffles me that you're actually calling Rift Herald fair from what it seems.

CyberBaltMay 4, 20178 votes

I'm not saying it's fair or unfair -- it's far too early for me or you to judge that. What I AM saying is that there are many ways to deal with it. You can call it OP, but it certainly has counterplay.

Hitting its eye. Seriously, just one hit on its back side removes a good quarter to one third of its health from what I've seen, and it's not exactly difficult to do. And you can do this every 3 seconds!
CCing the person who summons it completely removes the buff, and they'll have wasted a lot of time for nothing.
Killing the person at such a time that, when they respawn, their time limit is over and they'll have wasted the buff.
Kill the Herald as fast as you can. The less health it has, the less damage it deals. Simple.

Numbers 3 and 4 are only kind of counterplay, but that's still a lot.

l Dárius lMay 5, 20174 votes

{quoted}

I'm not saying it's fair or unfair -- it's far too early for me or you to judge that. What I AM saying is that there are many ways to deal with it. You can call it OP, but it certainly has counterplay.

Hitting its eye. Seriously, just one hit on its back side removes a good quarter to one third of its health from what I've seen, and it's not exactly difficult to do. And you can do this every 3 seconds!

CCing the person who summons it completely removes the buff, and they'll have wasted a lot of time for nothing.

Killing the person at such a time that, when they respawn, their time limit is over and they'll have wasted the buff.

Kill the Herald as fast as you can. The less health it has, the less damage it deals. Simple.

Numbers 3 and 4 are only kind of counterplay, but that's still a lot.

walking behind the rift herald in lane to hit the eye is a shitty idea because the enemy laner is gonna be right there to get a free trade off. and no one with a brain will release the herald and leave lane. be real.
any one with a brain will walk away from their enemy to prevent this when they release it.
if you are getting rift herald, chances are your enemy laner cant duel you. and anyone with a brain can prevent their own death until they put the herald down
wow good observation. lets go back to point 1:

walking TO OR behind the rift herald in lane to hit the eye is a shitty idea because the enemy laner is gonna be right there to get a free trade off. and no one with a brain will release the herald and leave lane. be real.

CyberBaltMay 5, 20174 votes

You're under tower. They're not going to 100-0 for taking half a second to walk up behind, unless they're EXTREMELY ahead. And in that situation, I really doubt Herald is the reason you lose.
If they walk away from their enemy (which is presumably at their friendly turret), it gives your team some time to prepare for Herald.
Yes, smart enemies will play safe if they know Rift Herald timer is going to run out. But regardless, anyone can be killed even if they're playing safe. If it was so simple to just prevent your own death until X happens, nobody would ever get caught out in this game. Mistakes happen.
Again, I'm not sure how the situation is so awful that you literally cannot go anywhere near the Herald without being destroyed? It's at your tower. I'm not saying you should duel the enemy champion. If you're a tank, or a champion with lots of mobility, it shouldn't be difficult.

I feel like you're missing my point. Herald, unlike dragon, is a TEMPORARY buff. It's only going to be in the game for like a minute or two. So naturally, yes, it needs to feel powerful in the short time it's here. The stuff I listed to help counter the Herald doesn't guarantee you'll nope it and suffer no consequences --Nor should it. You already failed to contest Rift Herald, you deserve some setbacks.

Look at this way -- when the enemy team takes dragon, is there any counterplay involved for your team? Nope. They just take it, and they get free stats for the rest of the game and there's NOTHING you can do about it. The closest thing to countering that is just getting the next dragon to negate the effects. Same concept with Baron -- enemy team takes it? Tough luck.

All things considered, I think they're being plenty generous with all ways to counter a Rift Herald, even AFTER the enemy team successfully takes it.

Bard to BelieveMay 4, 20178 votes

the people downvoting are downvoting because they don't want you to take their lottery freelo.

also riot does not give a SHIT what you want. only what will make their e$ports look cooler.

that's a fact

see Ahri LeeSin Fizz item 3107 item 3153 Yasuo for context

Darth WestMay 4, 20178 votes

Sadly you are correct. The fact Rift Herald deletes half of a towers HP is disgusting, considering how weak towers already are now a days.

I wouldn't mention Ahri by the way.. Quite a bit of people get tilted if you even mention her on the boards now a days and will say anything in their power to make you believe she's a fair/fun champion to play against.

Bard to BelieveMay 4, 20174 votes

{quoted}

Sadly you are correct. The fact Rift Herald deletes half of a towers HP is disgusting, considering how weak towers already are now a days.

I wouldn't mention Ahri by the way.. Quite a bit of people get tilted if you even mention her on the boards now a days and will say anything in their power to make you believe she's a fair/fun champion to play against.

ill mention ahri all i want because no amount of excuses justifies a 215-80 ms boost on top of 35% ap scaling magic/true damage, WITH A CHARM AND 3 DASHES.

KeevalroyMay 4, 20173 votes

Which is why some of us want that unnecessary ms boost removed so bad Ahris can be punished for not watching their positioning and getting away with spamming Q to avoid danger pre-6 where she should be vulnerable. But making her flashier for LCS was their priority and they've been adamant in their refusal to do the right thing and revert the patch 5.2 changes.

Ariel the CruelMay 4, 20178 votes

Why in the hell would you add this broken thing to the game?

So Harold is actually worth something now. (>_>)

Darth WestMay 4, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ariel the Cruel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1YdEXezQ,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-05-04T18:28:39.198+0000)

So Harold is actually worth something now. (>_>)

It's worth something alright..

Freelo as it currently stands.

Ariel the CruelMay 4, 20173 votes

You asked "why." Nobody ever said the result was particularly good. ;p

OHminusMay 5, 20176 votes

The thing with Herald is that she's hard to kill as well. There's no killing the Herald without gutting the eye or (worse) letting her bash into 3 of your structures and then dying that way. Gutting the eye on the back is super difficult because (cough) the enemy team isn't going to just sit back and let you go to their backline and start attacking the Herald.

I think I'm going to give up playing League for a while (finals season and Riot needs to balance all this shit out)

alfavhunterMay 4, 20175 votes

how to fix rift herald

when rift herald charges a tower it takes 500% damage for 3 seconds

this makes the charge devastating but retaliating after it charges can make it die very fast, preventing it from being strong enough to take more

at the same time tho if it is ignored when pushing it wont die easy

VolphiMay 4, 20179 votes

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Erractic EickMay 4, 20173 votes

I do appreciate his creative idea, though. That's much more productive and interactive than simply removing the thing. It introduces counterplay by giving a clear way to interact with the Herald- kill it after it charges. But like you said, the issue is the charge connecting in the first place, so we need an idea that still rewards the people who made the effort to take the Herald, but gives a way to reduce the damage on the turret.

What if you could put something between the turret and the Herald? Like a Caitlyn ult sort of interaction. Maybe tone down its damage versus champions. The top lane is usually populated populated by beefier champions who could survive a charge like that anyway.

That way, the Herald team still has a siege tool if the opposing team doesn't bother to prevent the push, and if the opposing team chooses to save a tower, one of their team members has still taken a massive amount of damage, thus still rewarding the enemy, but not as much.

Sp33d Zer0May 4, 20173 votes

Wave clear the minions at rift herald. It blocks the true damage that rift herald does with the charge and increases the towers armor. It makes herald worthless.

VolphiMay 4, 20171 votes

[deleted]

Sp33d Zer0May 4, 20172 votes

Even if you have a pushing wave, if the enemy has a half decent wave of wave clearing, rift herald is useless.

BasalyoMay 5, 20173 votes

Um, doesn't New RH disable tower backdoor defenses? Wave or no wave, a tower's still gonna get chunked by the oversized bug.

DeathBurstMay 5, 20171 votes

It's huge damage on ONE turret, which may very well be pretty low already anyway. Herald is a problem if it takes 2 or 3 towers and/or an inhib. If it costs you 1 tower, it's pretty fair.

VolphiMay 5, 20171 votes

[deleted]

DeathBurstMay 5, 20171 votes

Compare to the old season 4. Trading a tower for a dragon was super common. If using Herald translates to a tower taken, that's the same old trade over again. One neutral objective used in order to get one tower is fair.

alfavhunterMay 5, 20171 votes

{quoted}

No, this is not a fix. This still doesn't resolve the main issue, which is a huge dmg on turret.

I don't think this game needs more turret destroying features. It's actually quite the opposite.

the point of rift herald should be

'don't ignore it' if the enemy team gets it they got an objective that is DESIGNED for taking towers, it should not be a 1 person can stop it from taking a tower easily, it should be one person can stop it from taking multiple towers, but all out sending noone to respond to it should be devastating

however being able to drop it right next to the enemy tower is a bit stupid, giving very little time to react.

a proper change for this would be making it so you can only summon it by your own tower, make it dislay a global sound to announce it being on the map, and make it's spawn point visible through fog of war to see its march of destruction and know where its going.

its not an issue of it dealing to much damage to towers, thats its purpose and should be strong at it. the issue is lack of time to react and respond to it.

my 1st response to this thread gave a great example of how to make responding to it better and more rewarding without removing the reward rift herald is.

this left the issue of time to react, which is what this second suggestion addresses

so to put it in one post

rift herald should

be globally announced when released, and indicate where it was released.
only be releasable near a still standing allied turret
after it charges a tower it takes 500% damage from all sources for 3 seconds

having it deal that devastating damage to a tower should be the reward of getting the herald, being there and actively removing it should be easier after it has at least dealt 1 devastating blow, and if you pop the eye after it rammed the tower, it will die FAST. but if it is ignored it should be a wrecking ball, it lasts for 4 minutes in some1s inventory, basically they can use that to force you to stay in lane and force your jungler to be near whoever has it to respond to it. that is part of the reason for securing the herald, map pressure.

AlienPrimateMay 5, 20171 votes

That still doesn't fix the problem one bit. I was playing against an Ekko who had herald and I made the mistake of roaming bottom lane. My team got a double kill in the 30 seconds I was out of lane. Their team got 3 towers and an inhibitor in 30 seconds at 18 minutes using an AP champion with only 2 items. It would take Tryndamere who is a split pushing monster about 5 minutes to do that with only 2 items.

DeathBurstMay 5, 20171 votes

That does fix the problem. You said it yourself: you made a mistake. You won't do it again, and if Herald is vulnerable after charging, you'll get rid of it pretty easily.

AlienPrimateMay 5, 20171 votes

A single mistake at 18 minutes in shouldn't make or break a game though. Losing 3 towers and an inhib because of one person at 18 minutes isn't reasonable. Losing 1 tower or giving a few kills away is a mistake. Losing a whole lane is a loss.

FairyfleurMay 4, 20175 votes

It's only been two days, let it settle down before calling nerfs for it. However, I wish that it wasn't able to be solo'd.

Scary DoorMay 4, 20173 votes

How does giving more time "settle down" anything. This is simply a mechanic that should have never been instituted period.

Rift Herald is a tool to help snowballing in a game that currently has way too much snowballing as is, why would we need more time to examine this? Play a few games and you'll see.

When I'm ahead in top lane, I go and take the Rift Herald and that pretty much wraps up the game. It's not fun to be on either end of this debacle. I don't want a PvE siege engine running down a lane and determining the outcome, thanks.

FairyfleurMay 4, 20174 votes

The point of my comment was to wait, and see how people deal with herald. There may be strategies that some come up with of effectively stopping it.

Glory ln DeathMay 4, 20175 votes

For instance:

Contest Herald.
Prioritize whoever has the Eye in fights so it can't be summoned if your team gets killed.
Make sure you know where they are and don't let them go to a lane on their own.
Etc.

FairyfleurMay 4, 20172 votes

And if the herald spawns, you can try getting your team to cc it towards you and quickly focus it.

l Dárius lMay 5, 20175 votes

it really is like, some things get released and are op, and people say "really riot? how the fuck did u manage to miss this?!?!11!?!?!!?11?!1/!/1?1/!?1"

but like

really riot how the fuck did you manage to think that the retarded first hit from rift herald would be balanced?