A champion is strong, people want a nerf, the champion gets nerfed, people hate it and want buffs?

LegitBacon66·May 16, 2015·27 votes·1,781 views

Why? What's the point of saying anything in the first place?

48 Comments

IcyPepperMay 16, 201518 votes

Because we're human and we don't 100% agree with each other.

No offense (and I mean this honestly, I really don't intend to offend), but your OP title is generalizing. People have divided opinions, and the least content tend to be the loudest.

LegitBacon66May 16, 20152 votes

I didn't say anything is "over powered" but i get your point

IcyPepperMay 16, 20153 votes

Oh, I was using "Original Post" but I should have added an 's to make it clear.

LegitBacon66May 16, 20153 votes

Oh my bad! Sorry !

A Miss FortuneMay 16, 20155 votes

Also because asking Riot to balance something goes a little like this

Annie :Hey Riot can you nerf s poke a little bit, it's really toxic to fight her even as a support.

Bard : ok

Sona's Q now heals the enemy, and her W now gives her 0 mana. To compensate for these nerfs we're giving her some less mana costs on her ult.

ps: we're nerfing Riven's movement speed so people can stop building Full AP Movement Speed Riven but in compensation we're buffing all of her AD ratios.

Malix FarwinMay 17, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Also because asking Riot to balance something goes a little like this

:Hey Riot can you nerf s poke a little bit, it's really toxic to fight her even as a support.

: ok

Sona's Q now heals the enemy, and her W now gives her 0 mana. To compensate for these nerfs we're giving her some less mana costs on her ult.

ps: we're nerfing Riven's movement speed so people can stop building Full AP Movement Speed Riven but in compensation we're buffing all of her AD ratios.

i get what you are saying but annie had no problem against her even before her nerfs.

ModKnightsKemplarMay 16, 20158 votes

The unhappy people post. The happy people don't. EVERY champion is always going to be this way, because nobody upvotes posts that say "Swain is super balanced. I hope nothing in his kit changes." There's no discussion there, so you won't see those threads high up in the ranks.

LegitBacon66May 16, 20151 votes

Exactly!?

ModKnightsKemplarMay 16, 20151 votes

I mean, your post makes it sound like the same people complain both ways. I sincerely doubt that. Haha

JustMyBassCannonMay 16, 20153 votes

{quoted}

The unhappy people post. The happy people don't.

While true, there's a third group that posts about as frequently as the happy people; the analysts.

Some are happy, some are not, but the game analysts generally post less frequently. Sure, they're more likely to post than the content players, because they'd like to occasionally show off something cool about the game mechanics, but they don't often have the right kind of audience for the information.

TotalJerkMay 17, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The unhappy people post. The happy people don't.

They really should, though. Can you imagine how many things Riot wouldn't have fucked with if they weren't bending over to a vocal minority?

Ironclad DragonMay 16, 20155 votes

Balance is an illusion. The tide rises, the tide falls, but the sea is changeless.

DrakylonMay 16, 20153 votes

Riot also has an issue with gutting champions and calling them "nerfs". See: Olaf 4.2, S2-4 Urgot, Kassadin (before their slight buffs). Heck, the first two champions were gutted so hard their names became synonymous with "unviability". When people say "nerfs", they expect something slightly stronger than unviable to come out: hence the calls for buffs.

AlorasenceMay 16, 20151 votes

Fair point. Riot has the playerbase in a state of general panic that their champions will get their winrates nuked.

There are plenty of examples of champions that just don't win games anymore because of repeatedly crushing nerfs.

And while Riot often recognizes "overnerfs", patches take a lot of time, and champions are regulalry left burried for months at a time.

Hercules MorseMay 16, 20152 votes

To be fair, they do that to champs that need it; that is, because of mechanics or combinations in their kits, when they are strong they are unbearable to play against, usually in the sense that they cannot be outplayed - only beaten by flat-out superior numbers (i.e base stats + items). All three of those champs have been like that at various times.

Its not a good solution, and they've admitted that and said they will try not to do it again. Unfortunately re-works are difficult for most champions - the issue being that their fans expect them to remain reasonably familiar (Sion is a notable exception, since his old kit made little sense, effective as it could be). This not only slows the process down, but can leave champs in really awkward places where they've tried to make it somewhat familiar but it just doesn't work that well - I think Zilean is an example.

I think this is part of why most newer champions are 'over'loaded - in the sense that they tend to have more in their kits than older champions. Besides just trying new things to keep them fresh, if they keep to their principles they end up with kits that have a lot of ways to balance without gutting the champ entirely. Of course this means older champs are often out-classed and need buffs or reworks... so the cycle continues.

Nameless VoiceMay 16, 20151 votes

I don't agree with that last bit. An overloaded kit is harder to balance, not easier.

Because they have so many different things in their kit, each contributing to their overall power, each of those things has to be very weak overall, to the point that they are not really satisfying when the champion is "balanced". But once the kit has so many things in it, they can't really remove anything from it, to allow them to allocate that power elsewhere, because the fans of the champion would complain too much.

Hercules MorseMay 17, 20151 votes

I would agree if the game had... hmm, say around 20 champs. Which is still a huge number of interactions, but likely means between 2 and 5 per role and therefore the things each champ brought to the table would be pretty specific and distinct.

At this point though, theres just far too much going on to keep things simple. The simpler a kit is, the less you can do to fine-tune - and the more likely it is that it comes down to pure numbers. With more in the kit, theres more things to nerf or buff lightly, and less need to flat-out remove or re-work anything.

Of course, that doesn't mean complexity for the sake of it. A good kit has abilities where the main intent of their use is clear, both on their own and together, and to players on both teams. I don't mean putting random extra effects into abilities for the sake of it, I mean having interesting mechanics to differentiate spells from being - targeted damage. line skillshot. shield. heal. etc etc.

When I say overloaded I don't mean like Lee Sin, who has so much extra crap going on with all of his abilities. I mean more like most of the recent releases, who have reasonably clear patterns but lots of nuance in how they work and can be particularly effective in certain situations - but its up to the player to recognize that.

Nameless VoiceMay 18, 20151 votes

Well, that's a different meaning of "overloaded" then.

I'd say that the new champions have complex kits. Azir is complicated. Gnar is complicated. But each has a coherent theme and they have a specific things they are good at and others that they are bad at.

But Lee Sin, Thresh and Yasuo, for example, are overloaded. They have too much stuff in their kits in general and so they are a nightmare to balance. Lee Sin's kit lets him do everything, and quite safely, which is why he was the top jungler for years, until now when Cinderhulk has dethroned him a bit. Thresh has been nerfed repeatedly but is still one of the best supports because he just does so much, and no amount of number-adjustment will change that. Yasuo's kit did so much that he needed to be nerfed repeatedly, until now he does lots of things but all of them badly - because his power budget is stretched too thing over the many annoying things that he can do.

Malix FarwinMay 16, 20153 votes

Because they are never targeted in the right direction, You comment doesn't really grasp the problem which is why it sounds dumb when you say it that way. More often then not people want targeted nerfs to certain things or targets buffs to certain things or buffs to compensate nerfs.

Morgana is a perfect example. People wanted Q nerfs but they instead nerfed her W and E

Veigar needed compensation buffs for the removal of DFG and they gut his E.

Small examples but basically they underline what basically happens. The nerfs miss their mark and the buffs are often lackluster or weird (and sometimes even a nerf).

JustMyBassCannonMay 16, 20154 votes

Morgana is a perfect example.

Veigar, on the other hand, has both good and bad with his changes. He needed the delay on his E, and by now, the delay has been made competitive but not unbearable. Most Veigar players with whom I've conversed said that they're okay with his E delay, just not his W delay being completely dependent on his E stun.

Pointing from DFG to his E nerf is a bit weird, considering that it would be more relevant to point from DFG to his R nerf, where he lost 20% off his ~~target's~~ AP ratio. And the only point where it's possible to say he was compensated was with his Q changes that allow him to farm AP much faster/easier, and a bit of innate mana regen.

It's not quite enough compensation either. Veigar needs another tweak or two to hit the right spot.

Meanwhile, you've got changes like Ashe's rework. Well, re-tooling might be a bit more accurate, considering they've just fixed up the functionality of her skills so that her kit doesn't feel like it was designed six years ago.

Her damage scaling became much smoother, she got that steroid players have been wanting, and her slow isn't a painful mana-gate any more. She lost the free gold passive, and now Volley can't pierce a minion wave, but the whole thing feels a lot smoother.

I've already seen two threads complaining about what she lost, and two threads complaining that the new kit is overpowered. And a few confused about how she interacts with Crit.

These are changes that Ashe players have been wanting for a long time, and they still get complaints about them.

Malix FarwinMay 16, 20151 votes

was mostly referring to the initial Veigar change and not so much the later buffs and thats mostly the pattern with Riot. Obvious changes that will make champs insanely OP or UP somehow make it through the brainstorming phase and hit PBE then Live.

BakedLotionMay 16, 20153 votes

Because for example, this is the way Riot solves their problems.

Okay.

Champion X gets buffed. +50 base damage, 10% scaling. Champion X is deemed OP. Nerfed. Now it's -60 base damage, -15% scaling. Champion X is now worse than he was previously when he was underpowered/decent. Therefore, we ask for buffs back to original form.

That's how Riot works. It would be MUCH more effective if they would just revert changes instead of trying to keep their ego up, and not admitting their mistakes.

ThreeWalledBoxMay 16, 20152 votes

Is this an urgot thread?

lDontLiftIcarryMay 16, 20152 votes

AS an eve main since her release I've been the butt of these retards who bitch about buffs/nerfs for X champion that they don't even play.

Its sickening.

Recent skirmisher nerf hurt eve jungle badly. Same with cinderhulk nerf.

I want magus to get buffed badly so I have a reason to buy it occasionally.

Nameless VoiceMay 16, 20151 votes

Magus gives you 80 AP and 20% CDR for 1400 gold (above the Skirmisher's which you will be buying anyway.) That's the same AP as a Needlessly Large Rod, for 400 less gold, and with 633g worth of CDR thrown in on top.

I think it's the most gold-efficient item in the game.

It just doesn't do anything really amazing or unique, unlike Cinderhulk.

lDontLiftIcarryMay 16, 20151 votes

and yet No one buys it because going AP is trash in the jungle. It should have percentage damage and spell burn to make clearing camps not take 1/10+ of your hp

Nameless VoiceMay 16, 20151 votes

Fiddlesticks ?

I always buy it on AP jungle Eve, too. Works fine for me, though in the games where I don't do well I always get flamed for it.

AlorasenceMay 16, 20152 votes

A lot of the problem you are referring to has to do with the discrepency between perceived champion strength and actual champion strength.

Win rates by elo are an incredibly accurate way to determine a champion's general strength. Yet Leblanc is considered a lot more overpowered than Swain or Brand (both over a 53% win rate) in the minds of the playerbase.

People have trouble differentiating between frustrating to play against, and powerful. Ban rates and what the community thinks of as "overpowered" tend to be champions that we, as a whole, dislike playing against. But this rarely correlates well with actual champion power.

We also tend to react more to negative things than positive things. If our own "main" champions become unviable in our eyes, we are more likely to post a complaint than we would be to post a thank you if the same champion were buffed.

The caveman that noticed the hungry lion first, and reacted fastest and yelled loudest, survived.

We are descendants of overreactive pessiimists.

I suppose I'm getting off tracks but....there you go......

Nameless VoiceMay 16, 20151 votes

The thing here is - the champions who are extremely frustrating to play with are the ones who need their power redistributed the most. Not flat out nerfs, as they are usually "balanced", but their power shifted around to give them more counterplay and make more fun to play against.

Simply numerically overpowered champions are a lot less overbearing to deal with than badly designed ones.

r11naMay 16, 20152 votes

Come on man surely you realise It is different groups of people complaining.

People who hate the champ want them nerfed, and the people who main the champ want her buffed.

Its that simple.

Keira HelshMay 16, 20152 votes

To put it simply. As a Kassadin main before the changes.

"Kassadin is fun, his abilities feel good to use, and he has great mechanics, but his AP ratios are way too high, giving him the ability to safely nuke people down with tons of mobility. Riot should reduce his damage so he no longer instagibs people, and this keeps Kassadin's kit fun."

What Riot does.

"Okay, he no longer has his silence, which was core to his identity as both an anti-mage, the fact that it's called NULL sphere, and his character. His W is now another nuking ability, and we made his ult frustrating to use."

"Riot, Kassadin is still instantly killing people before they can react because his AP ratio's are too high, you changed everything EXCEPT the problem."

"Got it, we'll reduce the base damage on his Q by 10 and reduce the range on riftwalk."

Guess what? I can still instagib people as Kassadin.

lB2kGRlc8yMay 16, 20151 votes

From what I've seen, the game breaking nerfs are always performed on the champions with the lowest pick rates, as a form of damage control. I barely saw any threads on "Veigar OP" but he got the nerf bat either way. The champs who get changed by mob vote are always nerfed in inconsequential ways like lowered attack speed or base stats, rather than ever hitting a major issue with the champion.

DisasterSolaMay 16, 20151 votes

"The vocal minority almost always gets their way over the quiet majority"

SaiannaMay 16, 20151 votes

I'd say that Riot just can't find "golden mean" for some champions. Either freezing cold or hot as hell.

I know this might not be the greatest example, but look at Teemo Some patches ago his mushroom ratios were nerfed from 0.8 to 0.5 (0.3 difference). That is ALOT. Riot could have nerf him slowly by 0,1 each patch and see how playerbase & champion would react.. Yet they gone into "we don't care if he breaks" mode

kile147May 16, 20151 votes

It's pretty simple actually, if they drop it by .1 each patch they could have 3 patches of straight up nerfs to Teemo, whereas 1 major nerf followed by a buff creates less ill will. The people who want teemo gutted aren't going to be happy with .1 hits, and the teemo playerbase aren't going to like any nerf. 1 major hit makes the haters happy and still pisses off the playerbase, who then can be made happy with a buff later when the haters have lost interest.

Biff ManlyMay 16, 20151 votes

It's not the same people posting both sides. Just fyi. There are MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES aside from your own. Not everything is a "we vs they."

Solidair3May 16, 20151 votes

It is The Cycle. Remember when Syndra was overbearing so they nerfed her E into complete unusefulness?

She obviously needed a buff after because riot is sometimes sitting at determining how hard to nerf something.

WolfChasesMay 16, 20151 votes

Hmm imo currently there's no OP champion n this game anymore. let's better say there are a few champions that are annoying to play against like Kalista, Le Blanc, Katarina, Nidalee, etc.

Sejuani is ok now since Rito nerfed item 3751 Zed ult is nerfed a little bit and I think he takes risk now after he ults someone. Riven we will see what's gonna happen after MS and Ult nerf. Hecarim Top is now dead due to increased mana cost on his Q. Jinx Is finally OK.

LegitBacon66May 16, 20151 votes

I don't get it then. If someone is annoying to play against, what do you want Riot to do?

WolfChasesMay 16, 20152 votes

Nothing. I am not complaining at all, I am just saying. :) There is only 1 thing I gate in this game, and that's INSTANT DAMAGING ABILITIES such are Katarinas and Le Blanc Spells for example because once they ''asjfbasjfbadsjnabfk'' you from 100 to 30 in 1 poke combo you will be able to AA them fucking ONCE :D :D :D They are just way too fast and unpredictable sometimes.

LegitBacon66May 16, 20151 votes

The katarina and Le blanc spells are meant for Burst (which is quick instant action). Slowing the burst is not the right direction, its slowing the escape is the right way like they did with Zed

Jungle Lux GodMay 16, 20151 votes

There are different people that want different things out of their champions.

There are some champions that are strong, but way too strong for their current power level.

Then the champion actually gets nerfed, and could trigger one of several responses from a variety of players:

Mains of that champion that complain about their main getting nerfed.
The champion gets completely destroyed by the nerf, and everyone asks for buffs to bring back the champion to a more appropriate power level
The champion gets compensation buffs with the nerf, and everyone asks for nerfs because the champion didn't actually get nerfed.
The champion gets nerfed in a way that changes their core gameplay mechanics to a degree that the champion doesn't feel the same anymore.
The champion gets nerfed in a way that barely changes their power level at all, if it changes it at all.

At least some of these responses are going to come from at least some amount of players in at least some kind of fashion.

Dunkrius2gMay 16, 20151 votes

Well, you nerf what is stupid about the champion and buff those things which is shit you buff it. It is hard to find those things and it also varies on champion. Some champion mightbbe ez or hard to buff/nerf.

SammystormMay 16, 20151 votes

Because the tiny vocal minority that wanted the nerfs leaves boards and the tiny vocal minority that wants her buffed replaces them.

RootworthMay 16, 20151 votes

'Cause they overdo the nerfs and make the champion mad shitty. Or sometimes they don't even solve the issues people had. Like the Morgana nerf sometime ago (not the recent one). All people wanted was her Q to look like the hitbox (just adjust the visuals), and they ended up leaving that alone and instead nerfed her shield (made it block less AP so it can be bursted easier) and they nerfed her ult (made it do less damage) [which made it even harder to play Morgana mid]. Like WTF Rito? No one was complaining about that! We just wanted the damn Q to look like the hitbox.