Is anybody else being forced to play new champs because of the balance issues this season?

PapaGreg21·Feb 16, 2016·45 votes·2,474 views

I have found that I can no longer play some of my favorites because they are just so far inferior to the upper tier of champs that it's become an uphill effort to keep them in my rotation. Xin, Talon, Zed, Graves, Quinn, Ezreal, Kalista, Jax, Udyr and about 8 others are just destroying me. I can't even bring Akali and Syndra (my 2 favorite mids) into the game at this point or things are going to go badly even if I play perfectly. I guess I am just going to learn Xin from now on and hope I get pretty good with him quickly.

85 Comments

NahuiFeb 16, 201613 votes

Every champion works low ELO. Pick anything, master it, do better than the metasheep. I'd take a Yorick main playing Yorick than the dude who locked in Mundo or Graves because LOL OP IM GOOD.

PapaGreg21Feb 16, 201618 votes

That doesnt make any sense. You would think that champions in an unbalanced favorable position would be better than scrub champions in any ELO. It's like saying you could win a fight against a small child with a spoon instead of taking a sword just because you are bigger. Though this is true your chances are always higher with the sword

A Basic IslandFeb 16, 20163 votes

it doesn't matter how op lee sin is (not that he is) if the retards in bronze can't ward hop, hit a Q, or constantly kick enemies back

You can wreck shit with literally everything in bronze

TehNACHOFeb 17, 20161 votes

Well I mean Rammus has the highest win rate in top lane right now, probably exclusively because his mains knows how to use his spoon against the enemy team's swords.

Sir YamazukiFeb 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Well I mean Rammus has the highest win rate in top lane right now, probably exclusively because his mains knows how to use his spoon against the enemy team's swords.

Although he's played by people with 1~5 games 51.09% of the time which starts at a high 54% win rate. So even people generally inexperienced with him are winning fairly often. Yorick is probably simply the better example, has a low average win rate that sky rockets to an insane number when played by someone who plays him frequently and the fact people think he's weak for what ever reason. I've won a large majority of the games I played him since he's very oppressive and becomes an unstoppable split pusher unless you send 3 people constantly. Only recent loss with him was due to inexperienced Jhin being abused by Chaox's Kalista.

HandheldBrandonFeb 16, 20161 votes

As much as i love Yorick even Yorick mains probably wouldn't spam him in ranked because he has so many terrible matchups and very few favorable ones.

NahuiFeb 16, 20169 votes

Actually no. Yorick wins all match ups pretty much. Ever hear the meme "Yorick walks into a bar. There was no counter." He is one of the best laners because of his sheer sustain and dueling damage, as well as his revenant at level 6. He's not played because outside of the laning phase he doesn't contribute much at all.

Captain AishiFeb 17, 20161 votes

yorick out of lane only contributes as much as his carries are fed... be yorick, get smashed in lane, win your team the game by making a duplicate of the 10-0 caitlyn! :P

NarasimhaFeb 16, 20164 votes

..What? Yorick is literally known for not having any bad matchups. He is the undisputed king of the top lane.

The issue has always been that after laning phase, he basically becomes Siege Minion 2.0 with an ult.

EmExFeb 16, 20161 votes

erh I think Heimer can beat him, also I beat him with Leona but my enemy probably wasnt very good.

CubedJusticeFeb 17, 20161 votes

Not unless heimer stays out of auto range of the ranged creeps, which is plausible, but he'll lose cs that way. Yorick can just poke him with e.

EmExFeb 16, 20161 votes

Yes any champ can work in low elo so what? It's still better to play a op champ than a weak one.

NahuiFeb 17, 20161 votes

Unless you have extensive experience in the weaker one. Your skill will simply trump the natural advantages the OP one gives.

Worst Kench NAFeb 16, 20167 votes

I'd never sacrifice my champion pool to play the meta champions. If they intersect that's lovely for me, but nothing will ever stop me from playing Taric for instance.

Except maybe the rework. I have faith in Riot not to mess that up though.

FortisDominusFeb 16, 20166 votes

yea man, its called power creep and its becoming really annoying

LylessFeb 16, 20165 votes

no, I am still playing the same champs and losing as usual because of my team

10TicklerFeb 16, 20165 votes

Syndra's E interactions are bugged right now, and have been for like 4, 5 patches?

Maximum MordeFeb 16, 20164 votes

I'm not. I still just play Annie, Karma, Morgana, Mordekaiser, and Rammus.

LauchmelderFeb 16, 20164 votes

Syndra still works well though o.O

OhWandererFeb 16, 20163 votes

ya its the tank meta, for some reason they decided to throw the god damn logic outta the game and fuck everyone over. Started with the release of item 3285 this goddamn item right here. They decided to say mages had to be bursty, and fuck over my Ahri ;~;, and then went with the next notion that in order for god damn tanks to be "viable" they had to do competitively shit tons of damage with the rest of the god damn champion roster.

Coletrain1Feb 16, 20167 votes

lol, I'm pretty sure Ahri is doing just fine.

OhWandererFeb 16, 20162 votes

its not how she is doing its her play style im talking about, they fucked it up.

JorenciceFeb 16, 20161 votes

U mean making you hit your taunt?

I mean cmon pre dfg removal you could literally hit dfp ult ult ult w

And kill people with auto targeted spells.

My Waifu VanillaFeb 16, 20161 votes

I would be inclined to say she is less required to hit E now than when it made you just do X% more damage to them ALONG with "taunting" them.

OhWandererFeb 17, 20161 votes

her charm is easy to dodge and its one of the more difficult stuns in the game to hit and is more forgiving than others, like lets say >>>>>> Blitzcrank <<<<<< or Morgana . The only good thing about it is its quick missile speed and i can hit people past minions with its relatively small, compared to Morgana Lux Zyra , hit box if they poke out slightly, but that is cuz i main her. It scales damage the best so if you dont use it your stupid, it acts more as a secondary Q than a charm, and yes you could practically not use it in a game and still be decent.

My Waifu VanillaFeb 17, 20161 votes

The problem with most if those abilities is you can miss 9/10 of them, but hit one you guarantee SOMETHING such as a flash or a kill. Lux lands Q on a squishy at any point after 15 minutes she probably gets a kill and the same applies for Ahri for the most part. The problem with these 2 is that it is very difficult to punish them if they miss or do nothing if you ARE her primary target. Yeah, a tank can engage on either of them if they miss, but if I am a marksman, assassin, or another mage mid laner and they miss I can only watch and wait for her to try again. Lux is either out of range already or not worth fighting through her large shield anyway and Ahri still has 4 flashes and can still probably out trade me since I am almost guaranteed to miss at least one skill shot.

People hate on Blitz hook, but his Q is probably the easiest spell to punish on a miss because he most likely slowed himself with W to throw it, and his targets in lane are ranged so he, as a melee, has to walk away from a flurry of auto attacks.

OhWandererFeb 17, 20161 votes

the thing your missing here is the abilities' distances. Blitzcrank feels op because its the safest, right? you can pull from tower or well away enough you dont have to worry. Lux Morgana Are a little more riskay but they are equally, if not more so, as rewarding and they are shorter range. Shorter but still relatively safe, as you basically said. Ahri 's charm on the other hand is much shorter than even Morgana 's snare and it is much less rewarding. Its duration is shorter, its animation is the most deceiving and it doesn't have a big range. the only thing going for it is its relatively low cool down and its higher damage, but neither of those matter because you naturally are forced to be way out of position for that type of snare -burst mage by the short range.

stealthfox94Feb 17, 20161 votes

[zombie-brand-facepalm] Ahri mains are never stasified. Yall complained during the DFG era that she was "too much of an assassin" Now that she's more of a mage you complain.

OhWandererFeb 17, 20161 votes

she is still an assassin, a "burst assassin" to be exact.

stealthfox94Feb 17, 20161 votes

No she's like 2/3rds mage 1/3rds assassin at this point.

OhWandererFeb 17, 20161 votes

she uses magic yes, but her kit is still practically an assassin. focused around hiding in brush and in fog of ward across walls hitting charms and punishing people for being open then escaping with the speed boost off her Q or using her Ult, id call that an assassin

stealthfox94Feb 16, 20161 votes

Once again another Ahri main complaining about how "weak" she is, sigh.

OhWandererFeb 17, 20161 votes

who said she was weak? Im complaining about how her kit feels, not how viable she is from a practical sense ......

High5Feb 16, 20163 votes

I can't tell if this is trolling or not. Graves seems like trolling though.

Personally, I love the shifting meta and learning new champs or picking up old ones. The game will never be balanced around all 120 champs.

Better to adapt than complain.

ScramrailFeb 16, 20163 votes

Ive been working on maining Viktor for months now, and even though mage itemization is in a rough spot, and even though there are ridiculous Viktor nerfs on the pbe right now that will likely make it to live, I am still going to main him. Once solo queue comes out, ill likely be placed in bronze and I feel confident that even though mages are in a tough spot, ill be able to use my expertise with Vik to claw my way out of bronze into at least mid-high silver, and by that point hopefully things will have shifted so being a mage wont be such a kick in the teeth. Perseverance is the key to Viktory!

Hello I am BirdFeb 16, 20163 votes

Thankfully, I played Quinn before the rework, so I don't have to feel like I'm some fotm sheep playing her now <3

Ruin LanceFeb 16, 20163 votes

im working on learning Jax 's in-depth mechonics

Hayaishi2Feb 16, 20162 votes

Yes, just stopped playing Varus, now i ride with blue ezreal free elo train

RookPusherFeb 16, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Yes, just stopped playing Varus, now i ride with blue ezreal free elo train

I love Varus, and he's not that bad, but your Support needs to have a clue as to wtf is going on or you're screwed.

Filthy WookFeb 16, 20162 votes

Did you just say "get good at xin" lol... lemme just brush up on my yi mechanics, but just a little bit simpler :D I am pretty sure I could put my 80 yr old grandmother on xin and she would penta... if you're having problems with him i recommend switching to heros of the storm!

ZT XperimentorFeb 16, 20162 votes

Unfortunately same here, half my list isn't really viable because they can't scale up fast enough; the game has become quite boring with early game champs curbstomping everything, ontop of all the snowballing benefits riot thought was a grand idea.

Solidair3Feb 16, 20162 votes

It's a meta shift. Champs move in and out of places of power. This is hardly anything new.

Some of my old stand-bys aren't super effective right now, so I have been playing other champs and roles. And that's fine for me, I like the variety.

Would be nice to see some of the low end champs get a little bump in power. Orianna and Syndra come to mind as being particularly weak right now. But it's whatever.

PikmintsFeb 16, 20162 votes

My go-to mid laner is Malzahar, but with Mach-V Udyr running around with Runic Echoes, with Burn-Flash-Or-You-Die (and you still might anyway) Xin/Jax, assassins being meta picks for mid/jung/top, and the overall poor state of AP champions so far make him an impossible pick for me. Before this season my only Lux experience was as support Lux, but now I'm forced to make her my main mid-laner.

CarryFeb 16, 20162 votes

{quoted}

My go-to mid laner is Malzahar, but with Mach-V Udyr running around with Runic Echoes, with Burn-Flash-Or-You-Die (and you still might anyway) Xin/Jax, assassins being meta picks for mid/jung/top, and the overall poor state of AP champions so far make him an impossible pick for me. Before this season my only Lux experience was as support Lux, but now I'm forced to make her my main mid-laner.

Wut... Malzahar currently has the second highest winrate for mids and he counters Zed handily. If you think he's an impossible pick atm then just lol.

PikmintsFeb 16, 20161 votes

Made a post earlier this week where I explained how an enemy Zed went 0-7 during laning, got an item and a half into his build, then could solo people with ease. Malzahar is one of the stronger picks against Zed, but itemization shifted that match to require a bit more effort from Malzahar. Even at that, the other assassins that see play other than Zed also utilize those same items, thank goodness for those Rengar nerfs last patch.

Slamurai JackFeb 16, 20162 votes

Nope, I'm playing all the same champs I always was.

Only Play DariusFeb 16, 20162 votes

Yea, I was tired of getting shit on by Graves so I finally broke and played him. Not only did I enjoy it, but I went 6/1 and won my first game with him.

I was also losing every Zed game because of Lux. I finally banned Lux and immediately went 11/0