RIOT: Its time we had a talk
Dear Riot R&D and Balance Team,
First off i would like to express my appreciation for the pre-season patch. I am thrilled with the attempt to freshen things up! Bravo! However, You have once again fallen into the same old mistake pattern as you have for the exactly 1 season ive been playing. I am here to help you understand a concept that hopefully will change the process by which you address balance and changes in a positive way.
Current issue, is the way over buffed Physical damage theme you just patched in. First of all, i dont feel the new items are all that bad or overpowered, but the trouble is you have once again gone overboard. You can not all at once buff one thing, nerf everything else and expect balance. It doesnt work that way. You do this pretty much every single attempt to balance things. Ad Items are really strong, and there is crit everywhere. Fine. But then you penalize armor...ok. Then you go ahead and nerf all the ability power items as well. Do you see what happened? On a balance, which has equal weight on both sides, you have added several counter weights to one side, then on the other side you have removed weight. That is not how things are balanced.
Past examples:
Warwick +Devourer
Was this a bit nutz? Sure. But, where is the problem? I say it is in your decision making process. Lets review the history. Warwick was untouched for quite some time. He was in no way considered oppressive or overpowered in any division. Devourer shows up and he becomes really strong. I will not argue whether he was overpowered, because that isnt the issue here.
Rational thought will lead you to a single conclusion. Devourer. why? Well, Riot, what changed? Was it warwick? No, the introduction to devourer is what changed. So what do we do? We look at devourer. Balance the item that cause the issue. What did you do? well, you nerfed warwick..then you nerfed devourer..then you nerfed devourer some more...then you rebalanced devourer..then you buffed it back up a bit. Forget something? Yes, indeed you forgot warwick. He received a nerf due to an item out of balance. The item is presumably balanced and warwick is still in obscurity somewhere in normal Q.
Cinderhulk, and Tanks:
Tank meta is oppressive, so we need to fix it. What changed? CINDERHULK. Not thornmail, not tanks...Cinderhulk. Sejuani is not the problem, CINDERHULK is...so what happened to sejuani? Cinderhulk is relatively weak now, but so is sejuani....now she isnt really played because you left her in a super weak state because an item was really strong...the ITEM was really strong, sejuani was the same freljord gal she always was its not her thats the problem...but again you go crazy with your nerf bat like balance is a pinata and you are swinging wildly at everything blindfolded trying to fix it.
Why bring all this up? Because you are doing it again, and i would like you to take a different approach when you attempt to balance out all your freshness you just added in. Instead of looking at all the things that have been here all season as the cause for concern....just look at the things that changed, and see what really is causing the issue.
My opnion, reverse the armor nerfs, reverse the ap nerfs, and everything will easily be much closer to balanced. Then just let that simmer for a bit and see whats left to work on.
TL;DR Learn from your mistakes, look at what changed to cause the imbalance before you break out the nerf bat. People will complain about yasuo, but it isnt his fault you made new items now is it?
Sincerely,
The guy keeping you in business spending all his hard earned money on crap that can be taken away at anymoment due to a stupid user agreemtn what he never bothered to read because its bologna
:)
