The most unfun thing to me about League

I’ve recently semi-returned to playing League in the last month or so, primarily ARAMs but I get some SR action in when I can. So understand, I absolutely am coming back with a more fresh perspective on the game that isn’t so gloomily cinical. Something happened though earlier in an ARAM that made me laugh but equally frustrated me. I was playing Nasus and I decided I’d attempt to get some stacks and go the traditional tank/bruiser build. We kept getting into skirmishes and I could’ve sworn I was lagging, so I didn’t have so much fun. I checked the replay and to my surprise, I really wasn’t lagging. I was legitimately being perma-cc’d the entire game. That’s both hilarious and tragic that I had mistaken CC for lag.

Let’s provide some context: my team was myself as Nasus, Trundle, Annie, Sona and Braum. The enemy team was Ahri, Ziggs, Caitlyn, Lulu and Swain. Before I explain my frustration, understand that I realize one of the main weaknesses intended for Nasus is being prone to kiting and CC. However, this was downright silly. I would totally be fine with this amount of CC if the enemy team was full of utility oriented champions but it wasn’t - they were all damage oriented save for the Lulu.

This is perhaps my greatest frustration with League. Why do damage oriented champions, regardless of class, have reliable means of applying hard crowd control? It’s absolutely unfun to play against because typically when you’d experience that kind of chain-cc, you’d expect to live long with no little damage being done because the enemy team likely would be more utility and less damage but that simply isn’t the case. High damage doesn’t frustrate me; the paradox of immobility vs mobility doesn’t bother me; supreme ability to overlook resists in items and innate kits doesn’t bother me; no, it is the fact that almost every champion in this game has a reliable method of crowd control to keep you in your place once you eat something. It is totally unfun.

Indeed, this was merely an ARAM and certainly I can’t use this as sole evidence to support my claim. However, I will absolutely use it as an example to illustrate to my point that this game has a crowd control problem and no amount of items can fix it. I truly believe the only way to fix it can happen in one of two scenarios:

A) you remove the ability to chain CC or greatly reduce its effectiveness.

Pros: you remove crowd control chaining as a real problem. Suddenly, the game feels like fights don’t end instantly because proper, drawn out fights can be reborn as opposed to both teams rushing to chain-cc an enemy/enemy team and then apply ridiculous damage galore.

Cons: in the same light, you remove chain-cc and suddenly very pub-stomping champions gain a massive advantage in lower elos. CC/AOE comps likely die. It’s entiey possible that this ends the effectiveness of many tanks.

Let’s proceed to option B:

B) you go back exhaustively and rework several kits to remove ambient CC galore.

Pros: sounds great in theory, fixes the entire problem I’ve described.

Cons: not really applicable. Would require way too much time and even the most organized and sophisticated companies would likely not be able to perform this task.

In reality, this leaves option A as the only real suitor. This solution is merely an act of robbing Peter to pay Paul because by fixing chain CC, you are creating new problems: some predictable (many tank champions like Nautilus, Braum, Zac, etc lose their effectiveness), and some unforeseen. It begs the question as well: is such action required at this point? Is it worth the stress and work it would take to implement this? Obviously I think it would be but that’s a decision a team of brilliant game designers would have to discuss and that is certainly not a sure thing.

I’ve ranted enough here. Chime in. Or don’t. But that’s how I feel, so yeah. Welcome back right?