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What I really dislike about current meta and itemization

GlockHammer·Jan 23, 2016·2 votes·258 views

I don't really have many qualms over the current itemization, except for the fact that the game is utterly turned upside down in some senses.

Take Fiora and Yi for instance, even just one or two season ago, these champs were the epitome of squishy mega damage dealers.

No problem right?

It does becoem a problem when these champs through current itemization can easely remove their innate weaknessess, alas, they don't bother building glasscannon anymore. In the current meta, Yi goes maybe Titanic, Dev, Rageblande. Aside from boots that gives him room to build two defensive items. Since when is it ok for Yi/Fiora other madc's etc to build bruiser and still be just as if not more effective?

Most often Deadmans will be build because it's broken. I abuse it myself and I'll be the first to make this claim.

The current itemization in the game allows a select champs in the game to overcome their natural weaknessess, imobile mages are all of a sudden highly mobile thanks to items like Ludens, highly mobile champs become even more mobile.

Tanky champs get tankier.

All this does is make the game all that much harder to turn around once you fall even the slightest behind, as champs do more damage than ever, the meta has become snowballier than since season 1 mundo running around with 6x sunfire.

Am I the only one that feels this way or does anyone else agree? If so, what can be done?

7 Comments

Sightless66Jan 24, 20162 votes

Take Fiora and Yi for instance, even just one or two season ago, these champs were the epitome of squishy mega damage dealers.

No problem right?

I actually think it kind of was a problem. It was actually a pretty big problem Fiora and Yi were pretty much played as assassins in the past, even though their design and their ideal playstyle leans towards melee dps. If Fiora or Yi didn't instantly delete someone, they vanished themselves, and there was no way for them to make use of the melee dps traits that should ideally separate them from the pure assassins. Not only is that low-counterplay because of their reasonably guaranteed and/or targeted damage, but it's also much less interesting for the people playing them. That's not a good thing. That's a problem.

By giving them more itemization options, they're allowed to play the way their kits are actually designed for. I can actually play Yi as melee DPS by getting defensive items instead of having to play him as an instagib assassin. He still has weaknesses in his lack of CC compared to a bruiser and his vulnerability to peel (in fact, there is a much larger window to peel tanky Yi off of a target because he kills people slower), but the weaknesses are different than assassin Yi. That's not a problem. That's ideal.

The current itemization in the game allows a select champs in the game to overcome their natural weaknessess,

I don't buy this. I don't think this is true to any greater degree than it has been in in the past.

All this does is make the game all that much harder to turn around once you fall even the slightest behind

This isn't due to itemization. Gold flow changes and towers that are much easier to push down caused this. We can see that because those changes were implemented at different times than itemization changes, but only the gold flow and tower changes caused the average game time to shorten and caused complaints of snowballing. So, no, I don't agree that item changes are even slightly related to increased snowballing.

GlockHammerJan 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I actually think it kind of was a problem. It was actually a pretty big problem Fiora and Yi were pretty much played as assassins in the past, even though their design and their ideal playstyle leans towards melee dps. If Fiora or Yi didn't instantly delete someone, they vanished themselves, and there was no way for them to make use of the melee dps traits that should ideally separate them from the pure assassins. Not only is that low-counterplay because of their reasonably guaranteed and/or targeted damage, but it's also much less interesting for the people playing them. That's not a good thing. That's a problem.

By giving them more itemization options, they're allowed to play the way their kits are actually designed for. I can actually play Yi as melee DPS by getting defensive items instead of having to play him as an instagib assassin. He still has weaknesses in his lack of CC compared to a bruiser and his vulnerability to peel (in fact, there is a much larger window to peel tanky Yi off of a target because he kills people slower), but the weaknesses are different than assassin Yi. That's not a problem. That's ideal.

I don't buy this. I don't think this is true to any greater degree than it has been in in the past.

This isn't due to itemization. Gold flow changes and towers that are much easier to push down caused this. We can see that because those changes were implemented at different times than itemization changes, but only the gold flow and tower changes caused the average game time to shorten and caused complaints of snowballing. So, no, I don't agree that item changes are even slightly related to increased snowballing.

Sadly I barely notice any difference between Bruisa Yi and Assassin Yi deleting people, imo, the only difference is that now he can also tank like a boss.

Sightless66Jan 24, 20161 votes

I don't think that's a fair assessment. There's a very significant difference. The time window to respond to bruiser Yi is much larger.

GlockHammerJan 24, 20161 votes

How so? Assassin Yi isn't by any means faster than bruiser Yi, on the contrary Deadmans makes him far more mobile than Trinity or PD ever did. Sure, he can't alpha into 1 crit kill you. But he will kill you nonetheless while being tanky, he's more resilient to cc also, since he has more health to spend. Thus he can continously keep juking with his alphastrike, where as misstiming one before could be fatal.

Sightless66Jan 24, 20161 votes

Sure, he can't alpha into 1 crit kill you.

That's the big point. It takes a lot longer for him to kill you. That's a lot of time for you and your teammates to respond and peel him off.

he's more resilient to cc also,

Yes and no. He's less vulnerable to being instagibbed in the duration of a single crowd control, but because he takes much longer to kill someone, there's a lot more time to get a CC on him, start a CC chain, and either kill him or keep him from killing the squishy target. That can easily be enough to kill him or force him to run before he takes someone out. In the time where a full damage Yi could alpha into instagib, bruiser yi can alpha, attack, attack, get stunned, and the target gets away. That's a major new window of counterplay, and it actually means that bruiser Yi can be more vulnerable to high-CC teams than assassin Yi is.

Just saying that he's more resilient to CC is not correct. It doesn't acknowledge the whole story. You have to take the time spent killing someone into account, because it's an extremely important variable.

DaxanaterJan 23, 20161 votes

Well if there wasn't any mobile items for immobile mages assassins like rengar and tanks like mundo will destroy them...

GlockHammerJan 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Well if there wasn't any mobile items for immobile mages assassins like rengar and tanks like mundo will destroy them...

Ok? But why make a mage naturally immobile if you intend to have these weaknessess covered by items? I hate the fact that Ahri for instance, who is already mobile, can get Ludens, now she insn't just mobile while abusing her ult or Q passive, but all of a sudden she can has pretty high movement speed also.

Or Fizz with ludens and litchbane, yeah I know he's an assassin, but for someone who already has so much mobility in his kit, does he also need easy access to massive quantities of MS? To me it just doesn't make any sense.

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