You know what's the MAIN reason why this game is unbalanced?

Wukong Airlines··33 votes·3,631 views

It's because of items. yuuuuuuup. With item changes, meta changes. But what bothers me the most is that items were never categorized to begin with, and this is the biggest issue that keeps breaking champs' states and roles.

What I dislike the most is some classes abuse other classes items and the result is a nerf to the items --> ends up in an indirect nerf to champs.

ADCs for example got their Crit builditem 3046 item 3031 item 3035 , but with lethality buffs which were meant to be directed towards AD assassins they outperformed them by abusing the items resulting in long range poke Varus Jhin and 1 shotting an entire team MissFortune while being peeled for by supports.

When Riot nerfs the items ADCs will always go for their safe crit build but a whole class will be less viable not necessarily unplayable because Riot didn't decide to categorize the items.

It's funny some ADCs can be creative and be played as supports, with AP buildsMissFortune , and some abuse fighters' and tanks items Ezreal item 3025 when it obviously shaped like a fist but still used on ranged marksman.

Then you got the mages Brand Morgana Malzahar Zyra man I miss playing the old malza, the old PERFECTLY BALANCED malzahar that counters assasins and gets easily countered as well, are forced to go botlane taking a secondary role as their main and outperforming the original supports just because the rework failed to keep them midlane and the items provided for them arent categorized so they do better with support items since they're base dmg dependent.

And lastly, I feel sorry for Juggernauts/tanks who no matter what they buy from HP to armor, are easily countered by 1 item item 3036 .

All of your Balance problems could be solved by categorizing items. Give it a test on PBE, you can always revert the changes if they prove to fail.

70 Comments

DaBaiXiong20 votes

I disagree.

The biggest problem with this game is two things. The community. Riot's force-feeding a pro league.

Since the tribunal has been gone there is a useless automated system in place that, literally, has no impact. Because it doesn't FEEL like you've done anything when reporting. I've gotten four messages in 8 years saying that I helped ban a person or punish them, but that could be lies, too. I have no idea what their punishment is, or who they even were because its all after the fact. People need to be banned more often. Blocking needs to be a thing. I do not want to play with certain people. And then I have to play with certain people.

Riot's insistence on creating "dynamic" pro-play.

Fuck. Pro play. Fuck it right in the fucking face. Nobody gives a shit. Its 100 guys out of 60 million. They are not important. Its all the same 14 teams or whatever anyway. League will never be Star Craft. It isn't a game wear you can watch a single player, their builds, their timings, and adapt your game to play like theirs. its a TEAM game. And most of us don't have access to that. We don't all have hyper fast connections, headsets, a complete understanding of every champ and update.

It will not work. Pro League is fucking stupid.

Items are whatever. Removing spellvamp was stupid. That there are no mana items that aren't support is stupid. That SUPPORT EXISTS AS A WEAK ASS CLASS is stupid. That all mages are pushed out of mid for ad assassins is stupid.

This fucking game is led by idiots and played by fucking children>

Fuck I need to quit this game.

TheHappyReaperz10 votes

"the old PERFECTLY BALANCED malzahar that counters assasins and gets easily countered as well" http://cdn.smosh.com/sites/default/files/ftpuploads/bloguploads/laughing-gifs-foolish-human.gif

You mean the infamous one-shot Malz? The one that kills you while you can't do anything? Or the one that got a free push machine for casting spells. Seems balanced.

Derfel2 votes

old malz lost to high range mages

wtf is one shot malz i've never heard of this in my 7 seasons of playing the game

TheHappyReaperz10 votes

You sit in a bush. You spam all of your buttons, then press R. The enemy can do nothing but die.

GULAG 4 U6 votes

Kappa you can cancel malz ult witj kassadin Q if your reaction time is faster than 0.15 xdsddddxxsxxxdddd

Votable Jester1 votes

Can also do it with delayed cc like Ori Ult, Taliyah W, Cass Ult, etc.

Though that does require pretty insane reaction speed or good prediction.

GULAG 4 U3 votes

The cast time is borderline instant so you would need prediction mostly.

Xela Syab1 votes

Doesn't Vel Koz kinda do that...

Votable Jester2 votes

None of Vel'koz's abilities are targeted or cc that requires a QSS. The target is also able to cancel the channeled ult themselves or simply dash away if they have the mobility.

Wukong Airlines2 votes

Thing is, you took all malza weaknesses and just embraced the one shot excuse forgetting Malza didnt have his current passive which makes him the strongest supp atm .

Back then, any good alistar could easily knock you back the moment you ult a carry or an assassin, and what happened to item 3139 ?? why do people take this item for granted? Any adc can QSS the ult and lifesteal the hell outta his bar and melt malza.

LadyRenly2 votes

{quoted}

"the old PERFECTLY BALANCED malzahar that counters assasins and gets easily countered as well" http://cdn.smosh.com/sites/default/files/ftpuploads/bloguploads/laughing-gifs-foolish-human.gif

You mean the infamous one-shot Malz? The one that kills you while you can't do anything? Or the one that got a free push machine for casting spells. Seems balanced.

one shot? you mean use all your abilities, including your ult? but new support malz who chunks adc at level 1-2 for half their health is okay?

Best princess EU1 votes

if i use my memory old malzahar was never a balance problem, he got reworked because riot hated his playstyle and wanted to force his gameplay into minions

to answer to your bullshit old malzahar never oneshot, he was all about DOT his entire kit was DOT except Q

WiegrafOfValor10 votes

#The main problem are ADCs

Everything about them is wrong, their design is wrong, their playstyle is wrong, the way the game is shaped around them is wrong.

Think about it, a class design to build only damage, suck up everyone's EXP and GOLD, be feed like a baby with kills and objectives so it can become the easiest target to kill with the most potential of winning a teamfight.


That only leads to 2 outcomes:

  1. They are overpowered (status quo) and they just obliterate everyone with 2~3 hits + plus crits dealing around 1k damage on a game where 4k HP is consider "very tanky", leading to a huge damage creep that keeps getting worse.
  2. They are not overpowered which leads ADC mains to complain in the boards until Riot "fix it"

#Other BS no one talks about it is the fact that we have more than 50 AD champions with different classes (Fighters, Divers, Bruisers, Juggernaughts, Tanks, Marksmen) and still we only have 1 viable class that can go botlane, Marksmen. If this were in another lane, let's say Enchanters were pick 100% of the time in Mid lane, Riot would nerf every single enchanter so they can "preserve the variety". That show 2 things, first, Riots favoritism, second, the absurd advantage Ranged champions have against Melee.

N3mO061 votes

{quoted}

#The main problem are ADCs

Everything about them is wrong, their design is wrong, their playstyle is wrong, the way the game is shaped around them is wrong.

Think about it, a class design to build only damage, suck up everyone's EXP and GOLD, be feed like a baby with kills and objectives so it can become the easiest target to kill with the most potential of winning a teamfight.


That only leads to 2 outcomes:

  1. They are overpowered (status quo) and they just obliterate everyone with 2~3 hits + plus crits dealing around 1k damage on a game where 4k HP is consider "very tanky", leading to a huge damage creep that keeps getting worse.
  2. They are not overpowered which leads ADC mains to complain in the boards until Riot "fix it"

#Other BS no one talks about it is the fact that we have more than 50 AD champions with different classes (Fighters, Divers, Bruisers, Juggernaughts, Tanks, Marksmen) and still we only have 1 viable class that can go botlane, Marksmen. If this were in another lane, let's say Enchanters were pick 100% of the time in Mid lane, Riot would nerf every single enchanter so they can "preserve the variety". That show 2 things, first, Riots favoritism, second, the absurd advantage Ranged champions have against Melee.

Let's just think about tower range: it was created against melee champ and not to protect them from ranged harrass. An example? Try to lane against a vayne, quinn, teemo, every ranged, with a melee, it's maybe the poorest experience of the game. Let's think about minions' agro: and that's why Ryze is a pain in the ass to lane against.

The Whamboozler3 votes

I'll solve this problem right now.

Make lethality only apply if your champion is melee... also lower it's value and revert it to flat freakin' armor pen like it used to be. Make black cleaver's passive only apply if your champions is melee and give it a slower rate of stacking... 1 for 1, not thie 2 for melee nonsense.

TADA! ADC's can still get LW for armor pen, but they're no longer abusing all the assassin items. They'll likely go back to crit builds like they were always supposed to, and the melee assassins and bruisers will have the new "lethality" items to do exactly what they want to do.... get an early power spike and snowball. Assassins will build armor pen to try for early kills, but they'll fall off once people have built a ton of armor, unless they also build BC... which is sub-optimal for someone who doesn't stay in the fight for very long. So assassins will be powerful and terrifying early game and against squishies, but falter against tanks... LIKE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO. Tanks have more have trouble with tanky-bruisers who build cleaver and some damage, then tanky enough to stay in the fight for a while.. but a solid tank can still hold one of those at bay. ADC's will be playing for their late-game crit builds and once they finally get them, they will rule the roost once again.

But that's fine! It lends to a natural order to things. Not everyone gets to be awesome all the time. Assassins = strong early. Tanky/bruisers = strong mid game. ADC's = strong late game. Nothing wrong with this.

As for mages, they're harder to balance because of how wildly diverse they are... so I think the best bet there IS individual champion changes. I'd say mages might do best with something akin to a "sliding scaling" thing if they want to diversify them though. I don't think it would take much, really. Lower the early AP scaling of mages not meant to be powerhouses initially and raise the late-game scaling of mages meant to maintain their power all the way through a match. Most mages as is fall pretty comfortably into being strong in the mid-game as it is. Mages meant to be lane bullies or ones who fall off over a long game should have decent base damage. Mages meant to build into their power and become late-game teamfight-winning GODS should lose some base damage (lookin' at you, Brand).

And this is just shit I came up with in like.... ten minutes. I'm sure it's full of holes and could be tweaked to make better... but it's more than Riot has done in months! C'mon man, it's NOT that hard!

NineTailedMystic1 votes

Revert to Flat Armor pen? You mean make Assassins unstoppable gods should they get a single kill early again?

The Whamboozler1 votes

I also said to lower the amount from before, but I'm guessing you didn't read my post, just skimmed it until you found something to disagree with and then replied.

And yes... I DO think assassins should be early-game beasts that snowball if they get a lead. I also think they should fall off a freakin' cliff if they DON'T get ahead. Seems fair to me. They give up any hope of a strong late game in return for a potent early one. Exactly what is wrong with that?

NineTailedMystic1 votes

Skim? Yea, pretty much. Looking for something to disagree with? No, but why would anyone post a comment if they didn't find something to comment about, which is usually a disagreement?

Lowering its value would put it back to exactly old Armor pen. Lethality values are higher than Flat pen to compensate for the scaling and making them stronger later on. It would be the exact same as before if you didn't further it lower. Which might be what you wanted but the wording seems to say otherwise.

One kill should not mean "lane's over". And extreme snowball or being worthless is the definition of Feat or Famine which is what Riot has been trying to heavily lessen. Not to mention "extreme early game" means that their laner is either also an Assassin or has to sit at their tower giving up huge amounts of pressure and and almost requires jungler assistance, basically meaning picking an Assassin frees up so much jungle pressure for your jg to gank other lanes. If the Assassin doesn't get camped then he gets free roams since the enemy laner basically isn't allowed to leave tower.

The Whamboozler1 votes

See... you say this but the game is snowbally now more than ever.

Prior seasons... if a laner got ahead they could personally snowball. Your fed top might carry the game... or he might lose to their fed mid. Individual skill mattered a lot more. Fed assassins stomped but name me a single freaking meta where the guy getting ahead early can't stomp. TANKS can stomp when they're ahead. Remember the era of tank Ekko and tank Fizz? Yeah... that was much better than all these assassins, wasn't it?

This season. The entire freaking TEAM snowballs. Towers fall like mad and the enemy is battering down the base at 18 minutes. There is a reason that korean surrenders games REALLY early. Because they're decided really early. Nothing has changed, except that the game feels a ton less fun and a ton more frustrating and toxic because your personal efforts seem to matter a lot less now.

There is NOTHING wrong with high risk, high reward champions. Just like there is nothing wrong with late game hyper carries. One is powerful early and SHOULD fall off if he doesn't snowball, and one is weak early but becomes a god lategame. This is good and it's called variety. By trying to make the meta as it is, they've just sorta made a meta where basically everyone is the same. When EVERY champ worth picking has a dash, an AA reset, a shield and % damage... what makes them different? When everyone is expected to be strong at every stage of the game but NOT able to snowball hard.... they all become generic and middle or the road. When every item has attack and defense stats, everyone kinda becomes a basic bitch half-tanky bruiser. It's all the same.

New Tool Album9 votes

this game started to spiral out of control when adcs started abusing melee items likeitem 3071 item 3053 item 3022 item 3025 these items, at least i am pretty sure iceborne was changed because of Ezreal all of these items that were geared towards melee champions to add damage, got nerfed because of adcs abusing them, it was simply easy enough to build these items for a bit more survivability, they should have been melee exclusive, and don't say "we encourage build diversity here at riot" abusing items and making the game fucking unbearable to play against tanky adcs who can still dish out damage pretty close to what they were meant to build, crit. so what happened, riot came in with the nerf bat and started destroying tank and fighter items cuz LOLOLOL

RainXBlade1 votes

Don't remind me of how much damage Blue Ezreal can deal with a item 3043 and when item 3025's spellblade proc was 125% of base AD.

Also, Riot sure knows how to promote item "diversity" with the way they fix their items.

Yeast Empress6 votes

the problem is that riot is unwilling to do anything that would "force" a meta onto players (like forcing mages to buy mage items) which i can understand arguments both for and against

but whether you agree with their decision or not, unfortunately this keeps them unable to balance the game at all really

Wukong Airlines7 votes

They could at least keep few items for certain classes Why can they do it for item 3085 item 3074 item 3748 3 items only but not for critical items like Lethality for example?

Skins Project5 votes

Actually those items were once available for all classes. They were gated due to the passives being a bit out of place. Tell me you want a Tristana sniping you a map away who also has an additional 3 teemos in aoe splash. TELL ME.

Or a garen shooting little arrows from a magic lil ball.

Yeast Empress3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Skins Project,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5cJ4rBV2,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2017-03-17T00:55:35.237+0000)

Actually those items were once available for all classes. They were gated due to the passives being a bit out of place. Tell me you want a Tristana sniping you a map away who also has an additional 3 teemos in aoe splash. TELL ME.

Or a garen shooting little arrows from a magic lil ball.

this isn't really correct, runaan's hurricane was added to the game as a ranged-only item. tiamat used to be available for everyone but the old tiamat was basically a completely different item than the one we have now, with the same name.

Skins Project1 votes

Hurricane was added available to melee and ranged actually. The passive was always ranged only however. IE before the limited it to strictly ranged only. You COULD buy hurricane, you just wouldn't get the passive. Rather you'd get the 70% attack speed along with other small buffs (If I do recall correctly)

& Yea. I'm just giving a idea of why those 3 items in particular were gated.

ProfDrDeath1 votes

Hurricane was never working for melee champions. Its passive was always ranged-only.

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2798405

Here's the introductory post to Hurricane, from all the way back in S2.

Skins Project2 votes

THAT IS WHAT I JUST SAID.

The passive was always ranged only however.

Please read.

The Whamboozler1 votes

Bullshit they won't force a meta. They've banned multiple people for not following the 1 top, 1 mid, 2 bot, 1 jungle meta. Remember "support" singed? Or there was a "support" nunu for a while too. Riot may not ban you for picking AP Xin Top (debatable, they might for all I know) but they sure as fuck WILL ban you for not following the cookie-cutter meta that they've made.

Leetri1 votes

They were never banned for not following the meta, they were banned for picking one role and then playing something completely different. You can't queue Support for the shorter queue times and then play Mid or Jungle without your team agreeing to it. Sadly that's what comes with role selection, if you want to play something unusual you have to go through extra effort and coordinate with your team. Although at this point I doubt people are willing to go back to the old pick system, considering the Autofill outrage.

The Whamboozler1 votes

If there was a button for "I'm gonna counter-jungle" I'm sure they'd have picked that one. The very fact that there IS a role selector enforces the meta. And personally I feel it's kinda ruining the game. The amount of afk, ragequit and just plain toxic anger in the game now is staggering. People feel entitled to their roles now, and people have stopped learning how to play all of the roles in the game... leading to overall worse players and a shit-ton of self-entitled baby rage when they inevitably get autofilled into support and feel like it's bullshit.

When I began playing the game, the rule was "learn to play every role". Did I like every role? Eh, not really. I hate playing adc. But having to play one every so often made me better at the game overall. By letting people close down their experiences to only one or two parts of the game they lose sight of what the rest of the game is like. This leads to them making stupid mistakes, failing to realize important things that they would have known if they... say... played bot lane once in a while and knew when that lane was likely to go for dragon. And lastly, it makes it so much easier to rage and shit on lanes or roles that they never play. They feel less like a part of the team and more as an anchor you have no affect on that is dragging you down. When I got stuck playing adc, I rarely excelled. This also made me a LOT less likely to give other bot lanes shit for doing poorly. Why? Because I'd freaking been there! I would try to help them out. I would realize more what the real problems were down there rather than just saying "freakin' teammates are feeding again. worthless assholes". EVERYONE is a worthless asshole in the eyes of their team now, and it's REALLY heavily on Riot for pushing the game hard into one where coordination and teamplay beats all, while also making the players more segregated than ever.

The game is a shit fiesta these days... not worth playing unless you have a premade with you so you can avoid having to deal with the cancer that is the rest of the community. Riot shit on the solo players a while ago and honestly, it hasn't gotten much better since then.

Leetri1 votes

Be careful what you wish for is all I can say. People wanted a role select forever and now that they got one they're complaining about enforced roles. The grass is always greener on the other side.

crzymdscntst4 votes

Base item compositions are a weird thing too. item 1028 turns into item 1011 item 1033 turns into item 1057 item 1029 turns into item 1031

As an example: item 1052 item 1026 item 1058 have no such boon. You buy one and hope you can follow through for the rest of an item. Until you have the gold for the highest tier of this flat-stat item, you have no items for 1250 gold span of time. This is important as an in-game scaling factor, though a bit less than something you'd expect to nitpick over. I don't personally think it's healthy and hope they take it into account when moving forward in the tank redo.

That aside, the entire customizable end of this game is getting pretty flat and boring. From items to runes to masteries, if you pick a role, you almost inevitably pick an exact set of items. Supports and Junglers have probably the most variety between them depending on how you look at it. Mages are predictable to a fault... I mean Morello's and Luden's are dps staples. Zhonya's and Abyssal are staples to defense. (Defense on a mage is a lie. There is only burst and more burst or you die.)

NineTailedMystic2 votes

Remember when BF Sword and NLR were like 1600? And the best rush was to first back with 1600? It sucked if you had to back early.

RainXBlade1 votes

Just out of curiousity, what is an NLR? Sorry if I'm asking this, I'm not that much of a veteran player at league.

NineTailedMystic1 votes

Needlessly Large Rod. It's the biggest AP component.

RainXBlade1 votes

Oh, thanks then.

Xela Syab3 votes

The game is really imbalanced because the balance team flat out doesn't know what it's doing. Most "balance" decisions are made around competitive play the problem with this is that a pro player will pick up another strong champ pick that wasn't nerfed. Sometimes champs just have a bad design and overloaded power budget (anything Certainlyt made/rito reworks), sometimes items/masteries(keystones/%damage) are too strong. The BIGGEST issue is that it takes Riot months after preseason to pull it's head out of it's butt and do something most of it overloaded nerfs and changes that should've been addressed. That's what's happening to Jihn and Varus is that they are getting stacked nerfs (items, masteries, champ balance) to the point where they will be weak like Kalista. It finally feels like Riot is doing balance changes when they should've done them way earlier.

LadyRenly2 votes

if this were the case, would this prevent the likes of Thresh from building Runaans because its an "adc" item and hes a "support"?

YoungSirJ0ey3 votes

He should really be prevented from building it anyway, just because it makes no sense that he's ranged in the first place.

For the record​, the implication is that Thresh should be made melee.

NewGuy1012 votes

Please stop saying that SupportMissFortune = APMissFortune. AP Miss Fortune does not build item 2301, item 3071, and item 3033 or item 3036 in that order. The ONLY reasons Support MF gets Eye of the Watcher is 1) instant gold and bonus damage from E, 2) wards, and 3) more Mana Regen and Health

This does not make her AP because she builds 1 AP item, it makes her a smart Support for utilizing the zoning and power of her E

TwinkiePro1 votes

This would force a meta defined strictly by Riot. No more off meta Builds and champs.

ZT Xperimentor3 votes

Oh like they've already been doing subtly for years.

The Whamboozler2 votes

Yeah, pretty much. If you don't think there is a meta, log into a match and say you're going duo top instead of jungle... or that you're gonna counter-jungle instead of support bot. It won't matter how good your idea is, how well it works or if you're trying your hardest to win with an unconventional strat... You'll get flamed/reported/banned before you know it.

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

Sadly spot on.

Votable Jester1 votes

If they roughly doubled the items available to each class and kept a few items (like the various boots) unrestricted to classes, I'd be ok with that. They'd also need to give some champions multiple classes though, even if slightly off-meta. Examples of multiple class champions go all the way from Nunu (Tanky/AP/Support) to Twisted Fate (mainly Mage, sometimes adc).

This would also suck in ARAM where sometimes pure mage teams will have someone go ad to deal with towers and mr stackers.

Overall I'd be ok with it so long as it remained lenient towards variability. I suppose one big plus would be some defensive items geared specifically for carry classes. Those could be interesting to see.

Paroe1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Votable Jester,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5cJ4rBV2,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2017-03-17T05:48:03.607+0000)

If they roughly doubled the items available to each class and kept a few items (like the various boots) unrestricted to classes, I'd be ok with that. They'd also need to give some champions multiple classes though, even if slightly off-meta. Examples of multiple class champions go all the way from Nunu (Tanky/AP/Support) to Twisted Fate (mainly Mage, sometimes adc).

This would also suck in ARAM where sometimes pure mage teams will have someone go ad to deal with towers and mr stackers.

Overall I'd be ok with it so long as it remained lenient towards variability. I suppose one big plus would be some defensive items geared specifically for carry classes. Those could be interesting to see.

Champions in this game have three archetypes: AP AD TANK Thats it. Thats all you have to restrict around.

Votable Jester1 votes

That doesn't handle the main issue people discuss which is ADCs building lethality. I think it should be divided into AD assassin, AD caster, ADC (crit), Mage, Attack Speed Mage/AP (Kayle and Azir), AP Assassin, Juggernaut, Diver, Tank, Enchanter, Disrupter (support style not mage), and maybe more.

The reason I think there would need to be so many sections (with some overlap in items) is because that way items could be tailored to specific classes without being abused by others, which is the main advantage of doing this in the first place. By dividing it so thoroughly for instance, you could give supports stronger stats on items without other classes (like mages) taking advantage of them, or you could give Juggernauts some good AD/HP items without ADCs using them as well.

GreenBoÍ1 votes

I mean Smite categorize items... Mages only can buy magic items Phisical attackers only physical.... And tank items can be bought by everyone and there is nothing bad there... Oh and if they do categorize items... they WILL have to make, for example an ad champ that has skill that scales with ap, changes to ad scale since they wont be able to buy ap items...

ItsOrval1 votes

Items are a small part of it.

The real reason is Riot's Loop Effect. This is how it works.

  1. People complain about a certain champion being broken (when it usually isnt).
  2. Riot guts said champion.
  3. People complain about why the champion is a dumpster champion now.
  4. Riot buffs said champion by a lot.
  5. Repeat.

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