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Blitz/Thresh promote toxicity.

InsaneSamurai··2 votes·1,385 views

When you build a champion that encourages players to figure out who has the worst reflexes on the enemy team and grab them all day for free kills, you're just making the game a worse place. This is much worse with Blitz than Thresh in this specific area, but they can both cause the same problems. One, the normal tactics of the game start to get ignored, because it becomes all about baiting that one guy to get grabbed. Pushing objectives becomes nearly impossible, because a guy on your team can't dodge a grab to save his life, and every time you push he gets yanked under tower and erased, then it's a 4v5. People on your team are mad that blitz/thresh is trolling them so hard, and they often get mad at the poor guy who has been singled out. This causes all kinds of problems. People won't push at all anymore because 'dude will just feed', so we can't take an objective, but people also won't surrender because they'd rather sit there and do nothing for 10 more minutes just so they can yell at the guy whose game is getting ruined by mr. grab. Is all this really worth a random cool video here and there and the smiles of people who like to troll others while technically following the rules?

I mean Blitz specifically is horrible in this aspect. He doesn't even translate into much for the team lategame unless there is someone he can abuse with grabs, so it's like his entire purpose is to be a troll. He's still often effective because his trolling can get an adc more fed than a Master Yi in bronze(and his existence in a lane basically destroys your opponents farm instantly), but are these really appropriate/healthy ways to be effective?

Edit: Yay forums. Not much disagreeing, but people sure do like to downvote. I'm sorry if you like trolling people but it has no place in the game :P

31 Comments

Serenity Now3 votes

The strength of abilities like Blitz grab and Thresh hook are amplified in solo queue.

However, they're not an issue amongst coordinated professional teams, and is why you won't see Riot do much if anything about it.

It's unfortunate, because non-professionals constitute 99.999% of the community.

Assassins are another questionable design pattern.

Generalist2 votes

I agree with your assassin comment however blitz and thresh I believe are fine where they are. They are support champs and as such they're disruptive, have cc, and do little damage. Good warding does tons to prevent blitz and thresh from making the most of their kits. Also compared to other supports they have little to offer their team if they miss their hooks. Thats 10 seconds of punishing they take should the enemy team decide to act on it.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

If a guy is getting hit by 90% of grabs, I'm pretty sure he's gonna keep getting grabbed no matter how many wards I scatter. Heck plenty of the time there's not even a bush involved, they just walk too close to the minions and blitz speeds past everything and bam, free adc kill.

Also, they both have plenty to offer outside the hook, especially Thresh. Blitz can still get in your face and silence/popup, and by the time you're done dealing with that, another grab is right around the corner. Thresh can lantern, and flay/ult if he gets close(which would also often end up leading into another grab), so he still zones quite well without an active hook.

7ha7guy7771 votes

{quoted}

Also, they both have plenty to offer outside the hook, especially Thresh. Blitz can still get in your face and silence/popup, and by the time you're done dealing with that, another grab is right around the corner. Thresh can lantern, and flay/ult if he gets close(which would also often end up leading into another grab), so he still zones quite well without an active hook.

if you decide to duo bot with a friend as adc thresh and blitz support, expect the enemy team to get pissed if they don't have a poke heavy bot lane. if one hook lands, the other has a much higher chance of landing. 200% AD scaling on Flay's on-hit at max rank can pack a punch once you get some souls and AD

InsaneSamurai1 votes

This is true, even if it works just as well against a premade team, odds are they aren't going to explode on the guy getting grabbed. Also I think with Blitz, his kit is so focused on the troll that he generally doesn't bring enough else to the table to be worth considering in a team comp for professional games. Also they'd know that when the adc got grabbed under turret and erased, that running back to lane and pushing the same way is not gonna work, whereas in solo queue the rage seems to take over and the dude just runs right back and does it again, perhaps worse this time cause he reeeeally wants revenge on that sup :)

Zahz1 votes

whats wrong with assassins? they werent an issue before season 5. This sort of situation happens every preseason and always settles out.

l Main Renekton1 votes

{quoted}

whats wrong with assassins? they werent an issue before season 5. This sort of situation happens every preseason and always settles out.

Season 3

CoolKnightST2 votes

Their is a skillcap bound to these champion and they tend to slow the team down by using only 20% of their kit and probaly never utilize these abilities together. If you get grabbed by a hook to often their are only 3 explanations:

  1. You didn't controle vision and got grabbed because of it
  2. The enemy hooker is just better than you
  3. You don't known how to sidestep properly

Their is a 4th reason namely lags like packet drops that prevent you from moving or even result into tempory disconnections. And even that one is no valid reason for raging since any other champion could capalize on this opening the same way.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

The thing is, and I'm sure you've seen this plenty of times as well, when a Thresh/Blitz gets into someones head, it doesn't matter why they are getting grabbed, it just matters that they are getting grabbed. Over and over, and the grabber will never let up because he keeps hitting his guaranteed kill move on a guy who can't dodge it for whatever reason. Blitz/Thresh players seem to revel in it, taunting and laughing and doing everything they can to piss off their target more. At that point he's practically griefing the dude, and the gameplay factors barely even matter anymore beyond "how can you possibly stop their megafed adc?".

JevelFaithful1 votes

I'm not going to talk about the taunting part. But the rest is acutally jsut smart play. Once you have targeted the weak spot on a team, go for him. Just like you don't want to blitz-pull the amumu or the Karthus into your team, you want to target the one you can hit and that you can kill.

In other words, I can agree with you that the psychological warfare of taunting to enrage the guy is... annoying after the 3rd time. But going for the weakest target is just playing smart. Riot does their best to make the game enjoyable in win and loss, but a moba is a competitive game.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

That's my point. The weakest target will already be identified and gunned for appropriately no matter who is in the game because that's what you do. Having a champ that excels in that and amplifies any penalties it incurs just seems wrong. Why encourage people to ruin someone else's game even harder? This should be about tactics, not "can he abuse the guy on your team enough to become untouchable?".

JevelFaithful1 votes

Just to point out, this strategy is "countered" in league by the diminishing reward from deaths. Blitz won,t become godlike in that situation, but he's still forcing a 4v5.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

His adc will become close enough though. Once bot lane has killed the enemy laner(s) a few times, the gold from the kills plus the gold from several minutes worth of free farming creates an adc that will be practically impossible to deal with if they keep them protected.

JevelFaithful1 votes

True. But that's only in lane. And even a fed adc can't 1v5. And if you see it coming, alistar/leona/thresh WANT to be grabed by a blitz once in a while, it's a free engage.

Your point stands, but it's not an auto win. It can be an unfun lane, but agian that's not automatically an unfun lane. I've seen blitz lane being turned around massively.

Colgate Minuette2 votes

I agree with BLITZ creating toxicity, because his grab is just so obnoxious that when I'm forced to play Blitz instead of Thresh even I feel like an asshole.

But Thresh not so much, his animation is SO PAINFULLY SLOW that I feel anyone who can't actually dodge Thresh's hooks (Unless that Thresh is good enough to throw where you can't dodge/and/or throw where you're dodging to) Deserves to kinda be made fun of a bit cause that's an easy thing to dodge.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

It is nice to have that windup, and Thresh is definitely much easier to juke, but you still see people getting nailed by it all game for whatever reason. I'm at the point where I dodge enough to be ok with it. I will always hate the basic idea of the free-kill non-ult skillshot, but I don't fear as much for myself getting instagibbed. The thing is, I've played this game a TON, and not everyone else has. So when I'm going bot lane against these guys and I can dodge the hooks, but my laning partner can't, its the same thing over and over again just because they picked a grab champ. You might as well have been getting hooked the whole time if the lane is a 1v2 with a free kill for the enemy coming down every minute or two.

Pæan1 votes

The biggest thing that urks me about blitzcrank is that he pulls people thru walls. Literally nobody else can pull through a wall. If you get pulled thru a wall you are basically dead upon meeting that blitz uppercut.

JevelFaithful2 votes

Fun part. Is that technically he's right... But that's part of a team based competive game.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

Glad you paid attention to the logical part :) It's a shame people like trolling each other so much that they just downvote me for threatening their precious free kills :P

JevelFaithful1 votes

What you said is true. And blitz's design is kinda outdated. But I think a champ with a skill like Thresh's hook or ahri's charm is actually a pretty good thing to have in league. It opens some tactial possibilities.

Blitz's pull is just a bit more aggressive in that regard, maybe I'd see it on a different champion (my personnal problem isn't the pull as much as the knockup+silence after). But I like having 1/2 champion with such skills in the game.

In any competitive game you'll find a part that makes some players that will rage. In league we have assassins and Blitz that are by design rage inducing. I think Riot actually did a pretty good job at minimizing those part. Blitz is the worst, and considering he's a very old design, that's very good.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

I agree on the issue being the extra cc. In another moba there is a champ with basically Blitz's exact grab, but the only follow up cc he has is a slow, and it feels much more acceptable.

JevelFaithful1 votes

Ccuriosity, what's that moba? I tought about dota, but pudge has WW's ult it seems.

InsaneSamurai2 votes

Infinite Crisis(Atomic Green Lantern i think was the champ). It's pretty well done, and quite fun, but it's extremely similar to league. From what I've seen in Dota, it seems like they want even more broken seeming mechanics on their champs, so many of them have things that would just break the game if they were in league.

JevelFaithful1 votes

About dota : not so much that they want the most broken mechanics. The game is just balanced differently. Those abilities and the hard-counter nature of the champions actually give the possibility that if something is too good, there's something situationnal that can nullify it. A champion can more easily turn a fight around in the right sutuation. The game is more snowbally. Champions have greater strength but also greater weakness (think ashe (1 trick pony) vs jinx (all around good utility and damage). And, I think, most "carries" don't carry the whole game. Shut down the midgame carry and you have a pretty big advantage.

(mind you, I don,t play dota. I just have friends playing it)

SleepyLionCub1 votes

I disagree about blitz, but agree with thresh somewhat.

Blitz grab is powerful and can grab you from a medium range, giving him power. However, after that he can only silence and knock you up for 1 second. His whole combo only extends to 2 seconds of hard cc.

Thresh's Q lasts for 1.5 seconds and knocked back for another .5 seconds. Making the hard cc time the same. However on the softer cc Blitz crank only gets a .5 silence. While thresh gets a 40% 1 second slow, AND a 2 second long 99% slow.

This means that blitzcrank and thresh share the same stun times, however thresh can heavily slow you afterwards for 3 seconds, or longer. While blitz can only silence you for .5 seconds. I dont know about any of you guys, but id rather be silenced for .5 seconds than heavily slowed for 3 seconds.

Thresh basically cc locks you for a stupid amount of time, and its bs.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

Agreed, which is why Thresh is basically OP right now and Blitz is picked much less often. The one thing keeping Blitz in is the lower CD on his popup, but that usually won't come into play that much during the laning phase, which is where they pose the biggest problem.

I don't know if Blitz is technically OP or not, but I do know that allowing a death-inducing string of events to easily occur to any squishy that gets hit by one skillshot is just over the line. I really don't think don't get hit by this non-ultimate move, ever is actually counterplay to anything(except maaaybe Sion :D).

Hex the FenFen1 votes

I see Blitz as a huge issue. He does not do little damage, he actually does quite a bit of damage on his own. This may be because he was designed as a Fighter and not really as a support. And it is not even the fact of can you dodge a skill shot or not, or can you ward properly. It is an issue when Blitzcrank can just run up to your face cause of his tank and his passive and just Q or E you to your face. Then what will you do? Your support can CC blitz if that is the kind of support you have, otherwise you are most likely dead. I have seen this new trend with Blitz players lately, more so in Ranked, where they do not try to land their grabs they just W up to either the ADC or the Support and then Q, E. Unless you have a hard instant stun like Leona, there is not a whole lot you can do against that. And since Blitz does plenty of damage on his own his ADC doesn't even need to help him until he has to get away. I have always found blitz as an issue. I mean his entire kit is designed on killing and keeping the opponent near you, he was designed as a solo laner and yet taken in as a support.

AccountaBilabudy1 votes

Blitz hooks are far more obnoxious and harder to dodge than Thresh. Play any ADC that doesnt have a dash/flash and you're pretty much zoned bot lane. It's not his hook, or his knock-up...its the speed boost. All Blitz has to do is zoomzoom at you. What can you do? You have to run away, otherwise he gets to you, knocks you up, and then you're a free pull because while youre in mid air, blitz backs up a little bit, then pulls as you hit the ground. It requires your own support to be on top of their game and zone out the other ADC or CC blitz somehow but in solo queue you cant rely on your partner.

AccountaBilabudy1 votes

Which is why I ban him anytime I am not personally playing support. If i see him picked i know to grab Leona or Taric or Nautilus but I don't take chances when I'm not supporting because when your support picks Janna and they pick Blitz its gg bot lane zoned.

Firu1 votes

{quoted}

When you build a champion that encourages players to figure out who has the worst reflexes on the enemy team and grab them all day for free kills, you're just making the game a worse place. This is much worse with Blitz than Thresh in this specific area, but they can both cause the same problems. One, the normal tactics of the game start to get ignored, because it becomes all about baiting that one guy to get grabbed. Pushing objectives becomes nearly impossible, because a guy on your team can't dodge a grab to save his life, and every time you push he gets yanked under tower and erased, then it's a 4v5. People on your team are mad that blitz/thresh is trolling them so hard, and they often get mad at the poor guy who has been singled out. This causes all kinds of problems. People won't push at all anymore because 'dude will just feed', so we can't take an objective, but people also won't surrender because they'd rather sit there and do nothing for 10 more minutes just so they can yell at the guy whose game is getting ruined by mr. grab. Is all this really worth a random cool video here and there and the smiles of people who like to troll others while technically following the rules?

I mean Blitz specifically is horrible in this aspect. He doesn't even translate into much for the team lategame unless there is someone he can abuse with grabs, so it's like his entire purpose is to be a troll. He's still often effective because his trolling can get an adc more fed than a Master Yi in bronze(and his existence in a lane basically destroys your opponents farm instantly), but are these really appropriate/healthy ways to be effective?

Edit: Yay forums. Not much disagreeing, but people sure do like to downvote. I'm sorry if you like trolling people but it has no place in the game :P

Wait, this was a serious and not trolling post? The whole point of the game seems to be to identify the weakest member(s) of a team and play off that to your advantage so your team wins.

I'm silver and have lost my fair share to Blitzcrank's pull. But even I know that's as much my fault as the Blitzcrank player's skill. You know from the start the ONE thing a Blitzcrank will want to do. Pull you. Bad Blitzcrank players telegraph this to a point humor. Good ones don't. I can see the frustration though because of HOW this skill difference manifests itself.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

That's the point. You do that in this game anyway, we don't need a champ who takes that action and cranks it up to 11. It just gets champs fed beyond all reason while pissing off everyone on the enemy team. You can't make a guy stop getting hit by grabs, so if he's getting caught 90% of the time, there is just about nothing you can say or do to stop that from happening save running in front of him the whole time so you're the one who becomes the free kill instead. This will often cause teammates to start raging on each other because they know if someone is that commonly getting grabbed than their lane is already over, and likely the game since only one team will have a functional adc/sup combo.

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