"We want to reduce snowballing potential" - Riot season 4

DJ Hatsune Miku·Nov 21, 2014·2 votes·518 views

We're going to give Dragon a stacking, permenant buff to anyone who kills it as well as make first blood more rewarding. We're also going to give a free dragon ward to the lane that can push their lane faster and help the jungler kill the scuttle crab. This will mean that lanes have to make "strategic decisions" about how they want to approach these new objective! (Oh and Sword of the Occult and Mejai's both come with stacks on purchase. Happy hunting!)

Seriously, I think it's kind of funny they threw out all of their work towards making early snowballing less of a thing with this new season. The dragon buffs are absurd and securing even one early means you're good to go for the rest of the game. A fizz with t1 boots and lich bane should NEVER have almost 400 movement speed. The global gold was chump change compared to the value this new dragon gives.

4 Comments

iainB85Nov 21, 20142 votes

I think they probably realized that the more they tried to reduce snowballing potential, the more the first 20-30 minutes of the game became a boring farm fest.

I think most people can agree that even in LC$ games there were far too many games where absolutely nothing interesting happened for the first 20 minutes and announcers were stretched thin to try to make the game sound interesting still.

DJ Hatsune MikuNov 21, 20141 votes

I know and frankly I enjoy more snowbally games because it rewards good play. I may be salty I can't outrun a fizz with t1s and 3 dragons as lux with t2s but at the same time their jungler and bot were making good choices and that lead to them winning. I just found it funny is all. Plus, this just means carrying solo queue is easier, because you get a good gank, snag a dragon, and you're in a way better position now than you were two weeks ago in the same situation.

redniwediSNov 21, 20141 votes

They tried to reduce snowballing in the wrong way, and they are correcting their mistake now. In season 2 and 3 snowballing was about getting yourself ahead, however their changes made season 4 snowballing about setting your enemies behind. The changes made it difficult to catch up if your team comp did not have long range wave clear for 10-15 minutes of turtling.

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw measures to curb experience snowballing next.

DJ Hatsune MikuNov 23, 20141 votes

Not to mention is pretty hard to actually stall out a game on a team with a few dragons because they get the pushing power and bonus turret damage so even brief moments of being able to deal turret damage really hurts. I have a feeling Panth is going to see another surge of popularity as a jungler pick because of his ability to solo drag at level 3, setting up his team extremely early for an easy win.