Riot you've got to nerf AD if you ever want to change the game

deadlychuck·Jan 22, 2018·15 votes·972 views

As it stands the stat itself is far too powerful with too much diversity in the champions that use it, and until you nerf how much it scales, it will always be required that you have at least one auto attack carry on your team, if not more, because trying to make any AP champion scale better will be impossible and trying to make any melee AD champion be able to withstand such an obscene amount of damage from a possible ranged opponent will make them blatantly more powerful than any melee opponent who wasn't given the same defensive capabilities.

The only way you could get around that would be to give them burst damage to not need the defense, in which case you're just talking about AD assassins like zed or talon.

35 Comments

MrHaZeYoJan 22, 20187 votes

The game has a ADC in it because they are generally the best siege champions.

LauchmelderJan 22, 20181 votes

And nobody says that that's a bad thing.

It turns into a bad thing if it's also the class with the most damage to champions. If you're unlucky that ADC can crit you twice and delete you faster than a Syndra R.

ExecutionerJan 22, 20181 votes

Why would you go near a fed champion?

LauchmelderJan 22, 20182 votes

The closer you get to the enemy or your own nexus the smaller the map becomes.

deadlychuckJan 22, 20183 votes

Which is why they don't also need to be the tank busters.

MrHaZeYoJan 22, 20181 votes

If they didn't tanks would be unkillable.

Mages and Assassins provide Burst, Fighters provide small amounts of burst, DPS, and tankyness and ADCs provide DPS with some burst. If anything the Burst needs to be toned down from ADC's crit and we'd be fine.

deadlychuckJan 23, 20182 votes

You're assuming that another class couldn't be given the ability to burn down tanks.

If you ever were to nerf marksmen damage low enough that they didn't have their excessive burst, then they wouldn't be capable of killing tanks anyway. Marksmen as tank busters is fundamentally impossible, given that tank busters are such via burst damage. So the idea that you can have the sustained damage class also be the tank buster class means that they've either got to have both, or their sustained damage must be on par with normally unsustainable burst DPS.

MizayaJan 23, 20181 votes

Burst deals more damage in a shorter period of time. However, after the burst combo, their damage is significantly lower, making for overall lower and lower DPS as the time elapsed increases. DPS, in a short period of time, will not outdamage burst, but will do so given more time.

Additionally, burst itemization is geared around killing squishies fast. Lethality isn't as good vs tanks. Meanwhile items like LDR have bonus armor pen, which doesn't have much of an effect on squishies.

deadlychuckJan 24, 20181 votes

I know very well how burst damage and sustained DPS works, no need to explain. In fact, probably 5-6 years ago at this point (based on Fizz, Rengar, Diana, and Kha'Zix forming the now "assassin" archetype), i posted on the forums warning riot that if they don't treat burst damage as inherently more valuable than DPS, because it is due to damage patterns, that they'd pretty much end up exactly where the game is now, with all damage feeling like burst damage.

And the items have been designed specifically to reinforce the roles of the classes as riot wants them, so those are a very moot point. On top of the fact that you assume a tank buster must be AD, even though there's really no reason that they must be. When really the inherent flat DPS of AD makes it far less suited to be a tank buster, given that busting a tank with flat damage, actually makes you more capable of blowing up a squishy when looking at the numbers.

Trackpad ShacoJan 24, 20181 votes

So what class would you want to be able to burn tanks? Assassins? Would break the meta hugely in favor of assassins, as they would be able to annihilate any class in the game safely and securely, with the amount of mobility and escape in their kits. Bruisers/fighters? Would also completely break the meta in favor of bruisers, who would ouput insane dps while still being tanky enough to survive in fights. Mages? Already offer high wave clear, high AoE dmg(burst or sustained) and quite a bit of utility. The only role that makes any shred of sense to offer that dps to is to marksmen, because of the low mobility and defenses in their respective kits, making the game more based on skill and positioning rather than what counters what.

To your point that we assume tank busters to be AD, that is far from the fact. You have mages that can "tank bust" quite effectively, such as malzahar, brand, cass, due to their %health dmg in their kits, as well as items like liandrys.

In higher up elo, the two main problems with gameplay is the fact that tanks are shelling out way too much damage while still being relatively unkillable (tank supps, junglers), or adc's using relic-overheal are able to safely lane and then scale drastically (vayne) and destroy pretty much everyone. The only thing that needs to be fixed is finding a happy medium between the two extremes, which I believe is what 8.2 is trying to accomplish

deadlychuckJan 24, 20181 votes

To your point that we assume tank busters to be AD, that is far from the fact.

I said that based on you explicitly referencing lethality and % armor pen.

Also, mages would probably be the best option, as all of that damage is something which can be directly controlled. Unlike AD champions (which most juggernauts are which is why I don't include them), AP champions don't carry with them an implicit 100% flat scaling with their damage stat, which means no matter how you design a champion they will always have significant DPS relative to how much damage they purchase. Where as with a mage you can precisely control how much of their AP gets converted into effective damage output.

The problem riot has now, is there isn't a medium between the extremes. Ever since they started restructuring the roles, and then reinforced in the class updates, the tank > assassin > marksmen > tank, design has created an arms race.

If they want to have even a chance of balancing things in the current state, then they've got to give tanks back significant health regen or remove lifesteal, because atm that's why tanks need to have "too much damage". At which point they could then reduce tank damage, because tanks could then excel via multiple exchanges rather than never being able to keep up with the healing of a non-tank opponent.

LordGeovanniJan 22, 20181 votes

{quoted}

The game has a ADC in it because they are generally the best siege champions.

that was true until they started allowing towers to take magic damage. if adcs get nerfed you will start seeing ziggs bot again and if people were smart they would use item 3115 into full ap to hit towers for slightly less than 5 times of 1 adc shot at just above half the attack speed

MrHaZeYoJan 22, 20181 votes

No it's still true lol, Mages aren't AA based champions (Most) and building a Nashors won't fix that, if anything it would move a more important item out of their build.

Whereas ADCs generally build two AS items and Zerkers to go with AD items. ADC's will always be the premier Siege champions

LordGeovanniJan 23, 20181 votes

{quoted}

No it's still true lol, Mages aren't AA based champions (Most) and building a Nashors won't fix that, if anything it would move a more important item out of their build.

Whereas ADCs generally build two AS items and Zerkers to go with AD items. ADC's will always be the premier Siege champions

then why not take away mages ability to auto attack. the moment riot allowed mages to do magic damage to tower mages have been able to do more damage in 1 attack that adcs do in 3 mages just have it ingrained in them not to auto attack because they do little damage which is not true.

MrHaZeYoJan 23, 20181 votes

As someone who plays Mages, I do AA all the time, but I don't do much damage to turrets until much later in the game, ADCs do far more damage to turrets then I do for a good chunk of the game because their stats embumed their AAs while Mages have to hit item points to start seeing damage to turrets.

ADCs will always be the premier seigers and turret takers, nothing is going to change that.

then why not take away mages ability to auto attack

That might of been the dumbest thing I've ever seen you say, how do you expect Mages to last hit?

LordGeovanniJan 24, 20181 votes

{quoted}

As someone who plays Mages, I do AA all the time, but I don't do much damage to turrets until much later in the game, ADCs do far more damage to turrets then I do for a good chunk of the game because their stats embumed their AAs while Mages have to hit item points to start seeing damage to turrets.

ADCs will always be the premier seigers and turret takers, nothing is going to change that.

That might of been the dumbest thing I've ever seen you say, how do you expect Mages to last hit?

the point of it was to be dumb because you act like mages dont auto attack until now.
that later in the game is 5-7 mins to make half your aa damage to towers become magic damage and 10 -13 mins for all of it to be magic damage and your magic damage does more damage than adcs physical damage because ap values are much larger than ad values and the damage is 1--1 on both values without accounting for defenses 300 ad versus easily over 1000 ap builds many mages around 1200. gathering storm giving more ap than ad all you need is any but of attack speed and mages shred towers

MrHaZeYoJan 24, 20181 votes

Wait, Mages can get to over 1k AP? I haven't seen that on someone not named Veigar in a long, long time.

ADs also attack twice if not triple as fast as a Mage, that 1 Nashor's isn't going to yield much extra AS, and we still didn't cover how a Nashors isn't as optimal as most other items they would want to build to fit into their 6 item build.

You can argue you all you want, but ADCs are and will always be the premier tower takers.

LordGeovanniJan 24, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Wait, Mages can get to over 1k AP? I haven't seen that on someone not named Veigar in a long, long time.

ADs also attack twice if not triple as fast as a Mage, that 1 Nashor's isn't going to yield much extra AS, and we still didn't cover how a Nashors isn't as optimal as most other items they would want to build to fit into their 6 item build.

You can argue you all you want, but ADCs are and will always be the premier tower takers.

of course nashors tooth isnt gonna fit into your build if you dont want to auto attack when ive already said that their auto attack do over 3 times what adcs do in 1 auto attack nashors tooth can switch out something for no ap lost or maybe some gained for tower taking power you are not trying to get as much attack speed as an adc you are trying to out damage them on the tower (which you brought up that if their damage was nerfed they would still be the best tower takers and im pointing out that its not nessicarily true now.) and we are talking completely ignoring the nerfed state that you were basing your comment off of

MrHaZeYoJan 24, 20181 votes

The point is that it isn't the Mages jobs to take turrets. Subbing in Nashors is going to hurt your damage a good amount.

item 3165 item 3020 item 3135 item 3089 are your pretty standard AP core items, now we also need to consider what the other 2 are item 3157 item 3151 item 3102 are your next logical items to fill your last two spots, some also like items such as item 3152 item 3285 item 3100 item 3146 , while a unquie other group rely on item 3003 and item 3027 , the point is their are far greater options then Nashors on most champions not named Azir and Diana.

Yes mages do decent damage now to turrets, they shouldn't be building to be turret takers, that's the ADCs job who don't need to build awkwardly to do it.

MrHaZeYoJan 24, 20181 votes

Damage to a turret is based on base attack damage plus the higher of bonus attack damage or 50% of ability power. When your attacks trigger Ability Power damage conversion (occurs when attacking a turret while your AP is more than double your bonus AD), the converted bonus damage is now magic instead of physical. Since Patch V6.9, turrets are now vulnerable to armor penetration and magic penetration.

So I mean, Ya ADs are still better then Mages lol.

With your theory a Mage would have to rush Nashors instead of Morello or whatever starting item they need (Tear/RoA) which hinders mages in lane and makes them weaker which isn't something you should want while ADs build IE and Zeal item right away, usually going BF and Zeal into whichever is more optimal at the time.

LordGeovanniJan 24, 20181 votes

{quoted}

No it's still true lol, Mages aren't AA based champions (Most) and building a Nashors won't fix that, if anything it would move a more important item out of their build.

Whereas ADCs generally build two AS items and Zerkers to go with AD items. ADC's will always be the premier Siege champions

by that logic tanks are also not auto attack based champions but they use theirs despite their lack of range make more excuses

MrHaZeYoJan 24, 20181 votes

What excuse does this statement use? Tanks and Mages both AA targets and don't do much damage lol, it's a proven fact.

LordGeovanniJan 24, 20181 votes

{quoted}

What excuse does this statement use? Tanks and Mages both AA targets and don't do much damage lol, it's a proven fact.

while true for champions and minions we arent talking about champions and minions we are talking about towers which now take magic damage from ap and while adcs usually get 300+ ad and 2.0 attack speed mages can easily get over 1100 ap with over 1.4 attack speed. doing more than 3 times the damage at half the attack speed.

MrHaZeYoJan 24, 20181 votes

Mages can not get over 1100 AP lol. What Mages do you play that can do so? Veigar and Cassi maybe? Assuming we're not in a 50min game for Gathering storm to push them close to 1k. Most games are decided at around 10-20mins, let alone making it to 40+.

Just because a champion can AA doesn't mean they are AA based champions.

ŚhunpoJan 22, 20185 votes

Why AD is so good: ADCs players are overbuffed, whiny pieces of shit who will only not complain about the game when their role is overbuffed to the point of insanity.

As for AD assassins....Lethality. Riot decided to be special and change what was once a unique set of variations within builds for AD assassins, all in exchange for a stat. that is so mind-bogglingly broken that every AD assassin has the same build every single game.

ExecutionerJan 22, 20182 votes

I mean who doesn't whine about the game? Everyone whines about the game.

ExecutionerJan 22, 20182 votes

I dont know where your going with this.

EssenceOfPooJan 22, 20182 votes

because trying to make any AP champion scale better will be impossible

item 3089

[sg-lux-2]

MrHaZeYoJan 22, 20181 votes

They used to scale just fine lol.

A Mage and Assassins job should be to burst out all other Squishys, now ADCs just have to many ways to negate that, thus fucking the mages scaling.

deadlychuckJan 24, 20181 votes

Not even just that, for probably 4 years straight AP have seen nerf after nerf to itemization and the overall AP. Not to mention spell vamp disappearing but lifesteal sticking around and CDR becoming just as easily available (if not more convenient) to AD itemization.

A lot of the previously exclusive or shared mechanics between the stats have changed, which their asymmetry was important given the distinctly different itemization of armor and MR, as well as different mechanics associated with each stat (e.g. Autos inherent scaling with AD but not AP)

MrHaZeYoJan 24, 20181 votes

I realize our items have been dumped on for years, but that doesn't stop us from scaling. Most mages can delete a squishy just fine, the only problem to that theory is that Locket, FoTM, Knights, Relic Shield, Maw, BT shield and supports being pushing into a good role so their shields, heals, blocks, whatever are more effective.

AP itemization used to be amazing cause it gave us a lot for little gold, now it's more fair, although skewed more towards AD and more importantly ADC/Crit items.

Mages still scale fine, that's not the problem.

deadlychuckJan 24, 20181 votes

Well it's important that AP be more gold efficient, because AD is inherently stronger in most cases. Most AP champions don't have the bonus DPS afforded to them as 1:1 scaling on auto attacks.

So they've got to play more around CDs, which AD champions can utilize the down time to push an advantage. It might be more "fair" from an itemization prospective, but from a gameplay prospective AP being "fair" means all AD users, Marksmen, AD assassins, Fighters, Juggernauts, are unfair because they've now gotten higher scaling equally affordable damage. The design was that AP provides the gold advantage, but AD provides the scaling advantage. Now, if you're not ahead by 5 minutes as AP, you're never going to catch up to an AD opponent who's already outscaled you and buying power for almost as cheap.