If season 8 doesn't make marksmen thoroughly weaker in practice than they are now

Critkeeper·Oct 7, 2017·99 votes·12,795 views

this game is going to lose a lot of people very quickly

179 Comments

MizayaOct 8, 201743 votes

Weaker? Making them weaker isn't the solution; making their kits less consistent and more diverse is the right direction. I don't even enjoy playing ADC anymore as an ADC main of 4 years.

GayFluffyUnicornOct 8, 201712 votes

Yes weaker. ADCs want to have impact in these snowbally games? fine but then their lategame needs to get butchered into a reasonable state. Or make them only actually be strong against tanky targets. Scap these 1k dmg crits and go for low ad high %health items, mechanics. There are different solutions as it is right now adcs can't stay like that. No way in hell anyone should die in two rightclicks from an adc just because they have 4 items and a rioter telling us: welp if an adc is in lategame there is no coutnerplay and you just have to hope he screws up. NICE. Everyone gets reworked, nerfed and butchered to have counterplay and interactivity and whatever buzzwords but adcs don't? LUL. OMEGALUL.

Karn BishopOct 8, 201710 votes

Maybe you should tell your fellow brethren to not attack any thread suggesting shifting power into ammo systems/ abilities and out of auto's then.

Heck most marksmen don't even need reworking just the hard offenders Twitch KogMaw Caitlyn Draven

BarcidOct 8, 201710 votes

Draven really doesn't need a rework. He's a niche in the ADC lane as "go hard or go home". Draven doesn't do well unless fed and when he's fed he's a bastard, which is the point of him. He's built to do it, he does that well, and he's honestly got counterplay to him if a bit straightforward.

LimrickOct 8, 20171 votes

Draven has three little quirks that combine and make him a terrible design.

He scales extremely well
He has the highest snowballing potential in the game
He has best-in-class early game damage

This means that any time Draven is strong, he is almost guaranteed to win lane, then he snowballs due to his passive, which gives him items which supplement his insane scaling.

BarcidOct 8, 20173 votes

He used to not scale extremely well not because of his stats but because when it came to teamfights he had the issue that catching his axes was a chore above all else, often resulting in him being CC'd out of a ton of his damage or dropping an axe due to it falling in a shitty spot.

Then cue Death's Dance where he's not so easily bursted. 33% of initial damage becomes bleed on a massive damage output. This gave him a pretty good round of defensive measures in addition to his offensive ones that he used to not see. That was when the item was added in S6. He wasn't grossly OP but he became a little less bearable.

Then cue the support item changes. Now he also has even more damage mitigation and attention on him so that he can survive to do his asinine damage and can stand to go balls deep or just drop the occasional axe.

The issue isn't Draven or his kit. It's that itemization and balance right now is fucked out the ass on an unreal level.

RiotNot SurrenderingOct 9, 201728 votes

Skirting the line between "ADC in 2017" and "ADC in 2017" is a tough one. Ultimately, understanding and building towards the union of what would make designers at Riot happy with the game and also what players find fun, engaging and variant game to game is quite a challenge.

Marksmen have a unique power curve, such that just nerfing them doesn't make much of an impact by itself. By supporting a late game fantasy, it almost by definition makes them quite hard to deal with late game. The balancing factor is that both teams have one, so they kind of neutralise each other. Ideally, most designers would prefer that teams can play variant classes of characters in the "support lane", but the way the game is constructed right now, Marksmen are pretty much the way to go due to their tower killing proficiency and late game scaling.

Ideally, the best solution in this space is to find something that both players and designers are aligned on (eg. players feel like all roles have agency, designers feel like you can do any number of meaningfully different strategies to win).

TLDR is that nerfing marksman doesn't automatically solve the problem. If players are inherently not happy about skirting the boundary between either ADC's being unable to touch tanks or ADC's being too powerful, it's possible that exploring some more fundamental changes to the way ADC's function is a potential option - which of course carry different costs and benefits.

Malicious MetalOct 9, 201712 votes

I think you guys should look into Crit as a whole. It's where most of the frustration comes from and it seems like changing crit and AD items to support their intended role as late game DPS powerhouses would be the best approach here.

Linna ExcelOct 9, 20178 votes

item 3031 item 3087 turns most adcs into a midgame powerhouse that can still get stronger.

EROTIC RAID BOSSOct 9, 20177 votes

honestly, ignoring the ardent meta, people are usually happy with how adcs play. these boards are an anomaly, talking about adcs here is like trying to have a rational discussion on global warming on the breitbart forums

patmax17Oct 9, 20175 votes

I agree. In my experience, ADC have always been the least liked role after support, because of how intrinsecally difficult to play they are: while a mage can drop her combo and call it a day (and die knowing they did their job), an ADC has to stay alive AND output damage, if he dies at the start of the teamfight his contribution is zero. Another problem is that while mages are definde by their spells, ADCs' main damage output comes from autoattacks, and those work basically the same for most of them, making it difficult to make them really different. I think there are a few ADCs who feel different to play (Graves, Ezreal, Quinn, Twitch, Lucian), but most hypercarries just rely on autoattacking a lot (tristana, kog, jinx, sivir,...)

This season ardent censer was quite clearly the meta-warper, and it helped ADCs a lot. But that's far from being a problem of the AD Carry role/class, imo :)

EROTIC RAID BOSSOct 9, 20174 votes

I actually think they've mostly done a good job now of making different adcs feel different to play

And imo their lack of popularity just comes from being part of a duo lane. I thoroughly enjoy playing adc and support both but i don't think I'd ever main either role because you're so reliant on teammates and each other

TwitchInMyPantsOct 9, 20177 votes

People agree on changing the fundamentals of adc but usually what's discussed is deleting crit or giving "OP" carries ammo systems and things like that

I honestly think you need to go back to the items, no one cared about hypercarries until EVERY CRIT ITEM GOT BUFFED! Like individually these things are minor but the decision was made to buff the IE + Zeal item spike by making it cheaper when it already was the best dps combo late game, and BoRKs changes made it better for AS based carries who need to survive early game. Items will affect both the strongest and weakest carries, and there hasn't been a change to anything affecting adc this season other than censer which while getting nerfed is still the strongest support item for the fact its such an efficient on-hit.

I think if Ardent didn't exist hypercarries wouldn't be such a problem since their powerspike would be more delayed, but I think we'd still see lategame focus with how good crit in general is. However as is the fact supports rush ardent means that when an ADC is at one big item they're actually at 2 big items in-game, which has never been an issue with the class before and totally disrupts the powerspike. IMO you should just cut AS from Ardent or something that stops it from being a powerspike, I honestly feel the on-hit healing or something defensive would be preferrable as an effect since most support items are cc or defense, its never been an issue until you gave contribution to the powerspike of your carry.

I know build diversity is important but Ardent has only DECREASED diversity or been a non-option since its inception, which has been a pattern for items that get deleted from the game. If you want this item to contribute to an ADC's powerspike I think removing its AS component and making it more on-hit based would at least force you to buy a complete AS item to get value out of it without it instantly turning Twitch and Kog into team shredders. That or you can nerf every AS item that exists or nerf crit as a stat to make the values of Ardent feel fair. I personally think the existance of crit hurts a lot of playmaking potential ADCs might otherwise be allowed to have early game, so nerfing how much it hurts or how much crit chance is on items may be a suitable option but until Censer is properly dealt with I don't think we're in a good spot to assess ADC balance.

chipndip1Oct 9, 20173 votes

But hyper carries weren't used until every crit item got buffed...save Caitlyn ruining everyone's fun.

Critmaster GarenOct 9, 201712 votes

[{quoted}](name=Trading Stance,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7KlAZisy,comment-id=0014,timestamp=2017-10-09T08:06:51.491+0000)

Skirting the line between "ADC in 2017" and "ADC in 2017" is a tough one.

its actually really easy.

adc were never at any point this season weak. you guys know exactly like us that their low game impact at the start of the season was a result of scaling issues due to high jungle pressure and 5 man ganks on bot lane to snowball off that 500 gold turret first blood, and games ending before they could recover and hit their power spike.

it was entirely a result of lane pressure and global mechanics changes, and not that they didnt scale enough off their own items.

even then, they were never irrelevant. more than not, the winning bot lane still managed to get one or two big items and had the opportunity to carry.

if you wanted to fix the situation, it would have been easy.

##REMOVE TURRET FIRST BLOOD. INCREASE GAME TIMES PAST 12 MNIUTES.

thats all you had to do back then.

all these retarded snowbally mechanics you added to the game in your agenda to shorten game times and turn it into a nonstop gank fiesta (catch up xp anyone?) to make the game more fun to watch for the esports crowd is the problem.

everything you did since the increased death timers made games more onesided, more snowbally, and overall worse of an experience for everyone.

we barely even have a lane phase anymore to be able to get you going or to give you a chance to recover from an early disadvantage.

just stop fucking with global mechanics like that to force more fights, and shorten game times. take a step back and make them last 35 minutes on average again. and for fucks sake, do something about catchup xp.

DeathBurstOct 9, 20173 votes

REMOVE TURRET FIRST BLOOD. INCREASE GAME TIMES PAST 12 MNIUTES.

Yeah, you say that, but on the other hand you whine about Catch-up XP, which is exactly the opposite of a snowball-y mechanic. So what gives?

Like, for real, Catch-up XP means "the team behind gets more XP". It's designed to make the losing team lose less. It's not a snowball-y mechanic, at ALL.

AbibyamaOct 9, 20174 votes

The concept itself is great, But the real use of it is clearing 2 camps then spam gank, do raptors then krugs then you're basically the same level as the enemy jungler who cleared his entire jungle+ your opposite jungle side. it definitely needs some tuning

Critmaster GarenOct 9, 20175 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, you say that, but on the other hand you whine about Catch-up XP, which is exactly the opposite of a snowball-y mechanic. So what gives?

Like, for real, Catch-up XP means "the team behind gets more XP". It's designed to make the losing team lose less. It's not a snowball-y mechanic, at ALL.

catch up xp is not the opposite of a snowbally mechanic. its the most deus ex bullshit "we dont want junglers to farm in this game and just gank lanes" mechanic theyve ever come up with.

they need to remove or tune down catch up xp from jungle camps to force junglers to farm a bit more for their xp.

what it does is basically allow junglers to gank lanes almost nonstop and only take a camp every couple minutes and still keep up in xp with the rest of the game.

infact this is becoming the most optimal playstile at high ratings for junglers to basically not farm their jungle anymore, and only run from lane to lane to gank.

it also eradicates counterjungling entirely as a strategy, because taking enemy jungle camps while the enemy jungler keeps ganking lanes doesnt do shit to him, when he can catch back up in levels to you just by taking the golem camp.

it might be intended as an anti-snowball mechanic, but it just ends making games more of a snowbally gank fiesta.

farming the jungle in this meta instead of ganking is such an inefficient use of your time that it might aswell be considered griefing right now.

DeathBurstOct 9, 20171 votes

catch up xp is not the opposite of a snowbally mechanic. its the most deus ex bullshit "we dont want junglers to farm in this game and just gank lanes" mechanic theyve ever come up with.

a/ Even assuming this is true, "we don't want junglers to farm" still doesn't make games shorter or more snowball-y. It only means that the Jungler should allocate their time differently, but it has no direct influence on how much a game will snowball. b/ Anyway, it's not true. Riot has always been clear that they want to support a variety of strategies and that they don't like when there is a single one that is always best.

So you can argue about the tuning, you can argue about the specifics. But when the basic premise of your comment is that flawed, it's hard to get anything constructive out of it.

Critmaster GarenOct 9, 20175 votes

{quoted}

a/ Even assuming this is true, "we don't want junglers to farm" still doesn't make games shorter or more snowball-y.

it IS true. thats exactly whats happening right now.

ganking junglers are snowballing the game harder than passive farming junglers, because the constant ganks are throwing even lanes out of balance, snowball these lanes and depending on which jungler has the better kit to gank lanes and earlier power spikes to gank sooner.

if you incentivise junglers to gank sooner and more often, youre forcing larger fights sooner than they would happen when passive farming and counterjungling exist. these fights usually tend to swing in favour of one team and snowball the game.

the catch up xp from jungle monsters eliminates slower farming junglers, and counterjungling entirely from the playing field.

what are you exactly gaining by counterjungling enemy camps, while the enemy jungler is ganking lanes? youre not punishing him for not farming his jungle, when he only needs 1 or 2 camps to fully compensate for the xp loss from the jungle camp that you took?

this makes farming and counterjungling inefficient usage of your time and makes aggressive ganking the only viably strategy.

The Yetii RiderOct 9, 201716 votes

I don't think anyone really cares about how much damage marksmen do. They're a DPS class, everyone wants them to deal damage.

I think the real issue people have is that marksmen have become more difficult to kill. Even Meddler recently mentioned that anti-carries like divers, assassins and pick mages were struggling to kill marksmen. That's the real issue we're having. There's a clear rock-paper-scissors relationship in league between burst-sustained-tank. But the mage update, the assassin update, and the tank update largely messed with the power of burst champions (the tank update nerfed itemization for divers. And now divers don't get their own class update, they don't have their own itemization coming). So now burst is bad, and we have a cycle of DPS and tanks.

AbibyamaOct 9, 20173 votes

I'm actually curious about what happens if the diver got their class reworks instead of tanks. And if I recall correctly, wasn't the divers the most requested class?

The Yetii RiderOct 9, 20173 votes

Diver was supposed to be at the end of the year, it would have been around this patch that we would have gotten it. However, a bunch of people cried and Riot decided they wouldn't do any more class updates even though they haven't finished yet. Every other class has a ton of new shiny items that are modern and useful, and then divers have to use assassin, juggernaut and tank items.

The only diver item in the game is item 3078 . Arguably the old item 3143 was a diver's item, but then it lost its movement speed slow and its identity as an anti-kiting tool.

AbibyamaOct 9, 20172 votes

To be fair, the class reworks have been hit or miss, some of them were good Talon Katarina Graves Corki and others were chaotic Leblanc Zac Rengar Malzahar and a lot of items got fucked over such as item 3068 , AP items in general

I do agree that drivers should have been at least the last class reworks

Sun Wu RyuumokuOct 9, 20172 votes

u can remove Zac from this list. He's a success.

AbibyamaOct 9, 201710 votes

uhhh that's debatable

Star Of LoveOct 9, 20173 votes

I agree with this comment a lot. Marksmen need to balance between damage output and how easy/difficult it is to kill them but they sort of crossed the line into being nearly unstoppable while also putting out tons of damage. The support meta right now only makes this problem worse. And the issue with what the Rioter is saying is that having an adc on each team to "balance" out the games still doesn't address the fact that so much power is put into the hands of a single player on a team as opposed to the evening out the power among the rest of the team. Buffing how divers do their job, whether through kit or item changes will definitely help.

Sun Wu RyuumokuOct 9, 20176 votes

So now burst is bad, and we have a cycle of DPS and tanks.

Dont know... i played against Vayne & Tristana their burst was real*[cass-cry]*

Sire HippingtonOct 9, 20172 votes

I have to disagree. I think the damage is a huge issue for adc, and them beeing harder to kill would be ok IF they did less damage(though their current savety/protection is overkill by any standart) What i find way more problematic is their insane damage. Yes, they are a dps class(though i think it's time that ranged ADs become more diverse than just dps) and they should do meaningfull damage, but their current dps is just pure madness and the amount of frontloaded burst that this 'bps' carries have is absurd. It's ok when adc can take down even tanky targets over time, but it's not fine if a bruiser dies within one hard CC if the ADC is nearby or when an assasin like talon dies duering his gapcloseing animation because an adc rightclicked him.

If ADC are actually (to)easy targets for anti carries, playing them especially in lower elos where you can't really rely on the help of your team that much gets incredible frustraiting, resulting in a kill or die scenario that reminds more off UT with instagib rather than a strategie game, which lol actually is supposed to be and once was. I prefer a scenario where anticarries might need multiple atempts or to stick to the adc for some time to get it down, but there for also a scenario where getting a second chance as assasin or sticking to a target for some time as bruiser is possible, and with the current adc damage, it simply is not.

jwebb0113Oct 7, 201721 votes

so how do you feel about the runes that stack ad infinitely or the rune that allows them to break the as cap

cuz those as of now are planned to exist next season

CritkeeperOct 8, 201713 votes

{quoted}

so how do you feel about the runes that stack ad infinitely or the rune that allows them to break the as cap

cuz those as of now are planned to exist next season

i don't really care about whether those runes will exist or not

its the fact that supports are as strong as normal champions now, and the fact that marksmen are the most supportable class in the game

unless they change the latter this game is going to tank quickly

this is primarily because marksmen have the least available counterplay-- all their damage is point and click, and everything else in the game has been reworked to have counterplay.

obviously the game isn't going to work if that doesn't change.

jwebb0113Oct 8, 20175 votes

but supports wont have to be strong for adcs to be strong ...

and the reason supports are where they are is due to the community out cry over how ineffective and boring support role is.

and now they are impactful and clearly able to see this people cry foul

Spank the FoxOct 8, 20176 votes

Nice Meme, Tryndamere main.

How do you outplay your point and click AAs? :^)

DrCyanideOct 8, 20174 votes

How does Tryndamere get to use his point and click AAs? Well, he uses his abilities first to either throw himself at the enemy or to make it so they can't run away as effectively. You've got time to land a root or stun before he bashes your face in.

ADCs just attack you from that range. I personally think that a lot of problems with ADCs comes from a lack of them requiring their abilities to do their job.

Spank the FoxOct 8, 20171 votes

Doesn't need to be just Tryndamere though.

A lot of melee point and clickers tend to have abilities to help prevent your scenario from panning out. So why they inevitably get in your face, where iz da counterpley??

(Hint: the answer is "complaining about AAs is fucking stupid")

DrCyanideOct 8, 20172 votes

The counterplay is still in the abilities that need to happen before the Auto Attacks happen. With Melee champions, they need to use their abilities to get to you in the first place, while Ranged champions tend to use their abilities at most to reposition around you.

(Hint: the answer is "complaining about AAs is fucking stupid")

I don't think it is, I think there's a lot of value in looking at how Auto Attacks should function in today's League of Legends. We've got far more kinds of Auto Attacks today than there were when the game started, I think it's worth examining which types are best for the game going forward.

Sun Wu RyuumokuOct 8, 20173 votes

i agree with most... but u are naive if u really think many people will stop lol just for this.

XonraOct 9, 20172 votes

How dare supports be able to play the game on the same level as everyone else.

"Supports" are as strong as "normal" champions". You are what is wrong with this game, not the balance. That logic and your refusal to see it as anything but what you want it to be is what hurts it more than anything.

CritkeeperOct 9, 20173 votes

{quoted}

How dare supports be able to play the game on the same level as everyone else.

"Supports" are as strong as "normal" champions". You are what is wrong with this game, not the balance. That logic and your refusal to see it as anything but what you want it to be is what hurts it more than anything.

you are inferring and you need to stop

i didn't say supports being as strong as normal champions was a bad thing

the conjunction of a good thing and a bad thing is a bad thing.

MarshbouyOct 8, 201718 votes

I doubt large numbers of people will quit, as long as the dependency on ardent censer is greatly toned down. People have been saying "if riot doesn't do X then they will lose their community!1!" or "this game is dying" for years. It's still going strong.

SwiftKitten88Oct 8, 20173 votes

{quoted}

I doubt large numbers of people will quit, as long as the dependency on ardent censer is greatly toned down. People have been saying "if riot doesn't do X then they will lose their community!1!" or "this game is dying" for years. It's still going strong.

stop pretending item 3504 is the problem... its not.. adc are just as op with support like Blitzcrank as they are with Lulu

ardent is FINE and HAS BEEN since the nerf... just because WORLDS is on a different patch BEFORE the nerf went live doesn't mean the item is STILL broken. ITS NOT.

im tried of ADC's using that as an excuse to try to avoid getting the REAL issue fixed

MarshbouyOct 8, 20179 votes

It may be fine enough now after the nerf. It might need a few more tweaks. I don't know for sure. what I meant, but failed to convey properly is that no one wants to see this https://youtu.be/PHp95KO8en4

SwiftKitten88Oct 8, 20173 votes

{quoted}

It may be fine enough now after the nerf. It might need a few more tweaks. I don't know for sure. what I meant, but failed to convey properly is that no one wants to see this https://youtu.be/PHp95KO8en4

well of course its broken as fuck on worlds.. no one is stupid enough to deny that... [zombie-brand-facepalm] THAT'S WHY IT HAS BEEN FIXED!!! im talking about LIVE. i don't CARE about a a balance issue that has ALREADY BEEN FIXED.

MarshbouyOct 8, 20177 votes

It may be fine enough now after the nerf. It might need a few more tweaks. I don't know for sure.

read people's comments before raging at them please.

FirethornOct 8, 20172 votes

Yeah kind of wish they toned down Ardent before worlds, but I can see how it might shake up the meta so close to worlds

ZenderanaOct 8, 201713 votes

if your saying that adc's are op because u got pulled by a blitz hook then the real problem is your positioning and (in this case) the blitz and the adc are punishing you for bad positioning

TheSingularityOct 8, 20174 votes

It is still going strong but has shrunk. The viewer count of worlds indicates this. As casuals are the dominant population followed by hardcore players and pros in a 10:5:1 ratio respectively. Casuals will not stick around if the game isn't fun, they have plenty of other shit to play and lol is likely there as the social game given its free nature. And tbh, the game isn't fun. Based on what I read (as I don't play much no more) on reddit/boards the current game is check score at 10min, whoever's behind gives up.

And based on the one worlds game I watched, the game's pretty freakin dull and boring to put it lightly.

Given the sheer drop in viewer count from season 5, where close to a million people watched each game (my god the viewers soared for NA teams), it's just over 200K, a drastically lower pop

MarshbouyOct 8, 20173 votes

Casuals will not stick around if the game isn't fun, they have plenty of other shit to play and lol is likely there as the social game given its free nature. And tbh, the game isn't fun. Based on what I read (as I don't play much no more) on reddit/boards the current game is check score at 10min, whoever's behind gives up.

as a casual player, the issues everyone talks about on the boards don't exist in low elo.

FirethornOct 8, 20173 votes

Just would like to point some things out. In 2015 worlds was held in europe which is a much better time slot for NA/EU viewers. I'm assuming your getting your numbers from twitch, which generally more people use in NA/EU. Right now the worlds are being held in China with games at like 3 AM(for NA), making it harder for NA/EU fans to watch. Also NA/EU makes up a very small population of the league community. I heard somewhere that china makes up like 90% of the league population? I'm sure if you took some of the viewers from Chinese streams, there would be a lot more than 200k.

P.S. - I don't really think you can judge all of worlds from just one game. The GAM games have been really interesting, and so have many of the longer games like TSM vs FW

GayFluffyUnicornOct 8, 20175 votes

And you think people want to play another season of having zero impact and agency in every game? i mean i get autofilled into toplane. I never get anything else when qing for toplane. I'd be pretty amazed if this continues that player numbers don't decrease. It already did over the last weeks especially in the higher elos.