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A realization about Riot's balance team

DevilishMetal··55 votes·3,795 views

Often times when I'm bored I'll think about ways to balance different champions, thinking to myself, "Well if Riot just did this and this maybe the champion could put its strengths in line without gutting it." A lot of the time it seems relatively reasonable, like making Vayne's Silver Bolts shred armor instead of dealing true damage.

However, after Darius's rework, I realized that we (the community) have nothing on the balance team.

Dar is meant to be a pentakill machine, both thematically and in game. His problem was that he could either deal damage and die instantly or be tanky and not deal damage. It was kind of like Renekton- strong early, weak late unless you're really fed.

The rework managed to not only make Darius's theme fit, but they completely redefined his build and playstyle. Honestly, I'm amazed at what they managed to do. It may have been a liiiitle over the top at first, but it seems okay now.

In conclusion: The balance team might ACTUALLY know what they're doing. I know, right? But I think we as a community should have an ounce more trust towards them.

That's just my 5 cents.

DevilishMetal

72 Comments

Actually xPeke18 votes

Balance team is good with reworks, and most of the time they nerf and actually buff the good things

And then we hear "Riot never listens to us" With the 4 juggernauts, they carefully listend to the playerbase, and look at what we ended up with "PBE TESTERS: Skarner his clears are still a little weak, BUFF" "PBE TESTERS" Darius and Garen got absolutely gutted, buff pls"

So, everything got buffed and now we got 4 op champions, thankfully Riot has been slowly nerfing them. and thank god riot nerfs carefully and does't OLAF champions anymore

Adrian Umbra24 votes

"PBE TESTERS: Mordekaiser is nothing like the champion we currently enjoy, is really weak in solo lanes, and is pretty toxic in duo lanes if he gets ahead." "CT: Morde was too toxic to be in a solo lane. Enjoy being kited forever if you don't have a support to help you." "PBE TESTERS: How does this make Morde more balanceable again?" "CT: ..........." "LIVE PLAYERBASE: MORDEKAISER IS NOTHING LIKE THE CHAMPION WE ENJOYED, IS GUTTED IN SOLO LANES, AND IS HORRIBLY TOXIC TO PLAY AGAINST IN DUO LANES!" "CT: My bad, guys, who could have seen this coming?"

To be fair, the original incarnation of Garen at least was terrible, felt terrible, and was quickly changed to something that players enjoy. With the exception of the Mordekaiser rework, Riot did an excellent job of listening to their testers and playerbase and as (IMO) ended up with three champions who are overall better off because of it. They were released overtuned and resulted in a juggernaut banfest, but I'm not going to exactly blame them for not realizing that, as that was a direct result of Riot listening to their testers rather than ignoring them.

Mordekaiser on the other hand was a classic example of communication failure.

Actually xPeke4 votes

They did a great job with Darius, Garen and Skarner. They were just overtuned a bit to much.

Actually xPeke4 votes

Fiora and Gangplank got some great updates too. Been playing Fiora top a bit and even got dat project skin (no first strike though. to pricey)

Fiora her playstyle feels like a real duelist now. She's basically blade dancing around you trying to hit your weak spots

Balance wise i think shes fine after her nerfs, it reduced her lane bullyness (which was extremely high) while not having a giant impact on her late game

MalzaharAnyLane4 votes

The new Fiora kit is terrible and doesn't make sense.

The fact that she is either weaker or stronger doesn't matter, her kit doesn't make sense and her ult just snowballs teams that are winning while doing nothing of substance for anyone while her team is behind.

The new passive is harder to balance than her old ult, it's either too weak or too strong.

Actually xPeke3 votes

I think her kit kinda makes sense though, just not her ult AoE heal.

kile1471 votes

Well her old ult was literally the entirety of her character. That was the only thing she offered to the games she was in. Playing against her was cc her and hope she dies before it ends, or she will ult and win teamfight. I don't particularly like her ult but everything else about her kit fits her thematically and gameplay wise.

The Soulforged1 votes

Skarner can't do anything but jungle though :/

MistaMac1 votes

I'm pretty sure CT uses antidepressants already

Adrian Umbra1 votes

This was not intended to be whining about CT or bashing him. This is specific feedback about how he's handled this rework. I do not have a problem with the guy himself. I do have a problem with his disappearance a week and a half before the juggernauts were shipped to live. I have a problem with how he responded to tester feedback before that. And I have a problem with his responses a month after the rework when he showed up briefly to belittle the PBE testers and say he had no idea this would happen.

He did not communicate effectively and, as a result, Morde has ended up being more binary and toxic than ever before. That's his responsibility, but at the moment, I'd feel more confident if another Rioter or team handled any additional tweaks. I'd rather not have my feedback effectively deflected with "Get a better support" or "I know best".

kile1471 votes

In his defense, any conversation he enters becomes a clusterfuck of people asking/lecturing about the other champs he has made. He is so hated in the community now that I'm not sure that meaningful conversation is truly possible (which leads to him being hated more). He's kinda stuck in this hole that we keep pushing him back into, though I don't feel entirely bad for him since he did dig the hole himself.

Adrian Umbra1 votes

He did a pretty good job of staying on topic and only responding to the relevant comments in the thread. I'd say he's got the skills to keep the conversation on track and ask the questions or respond to the remarks that he wants to respond to. Yes, there's a lot of community hate, but there's also a lot of the community that just want to have a decent conversation with the guy over his decisions. The excuse of community hate also wears pretty thin after a while, especially when continued silence only deepens the rift. I know he's busy doing his job, but there's also a lot of communication that WAS part of his job that didn't happen and that's now coming home to roost.

My advice for CT: start up a Mordekaiser communication thread. Ignore the number of upvotes or downvotes is has. Try to talk with the portion of the community that isn't just blind hate spamming. Be honest, admit to the mistakes that were made, apologize, and figure out what can be done to improve the situation. Then try doing it and work to solve the issue. THAT is how you get rid of the enormously negative stigma that he's currently experiencing. Communicate. Admit mistakes. Work to fix the issue.

Dunkrius2g1 votes

I always hear the term "Olaf". How did Olaf got... "Olaf 'ed"?

Actually xPeke3 votes

Well. You know how Riot does nerfs carefully? Like slowly over patches. This is because otherwise they might gutt a champion completly (aka Olaf)

Olaf a time ago, recieved a few giant nerfs in one patch time conpletly destroying his kit. Resulting in the term "olafd" for when a champion gets overnerfed

Imagen the mighty nerf hammer Today it just hits you slightly a bit In the past it used to squash you to a pancake.

In olafs case he got smashed ro oblivion.

Dunkrius2g2 votes

v3.12

http://giphy.com/gifs/WgFOEhAcSpCjS/html5

AbiwonKenabi1 votes

I remember before Olaf, people compared this to Evelynn at the time.

Ah, those were the days...wow I've been playing this game for too long...

Pika3101 votes

Imagen the mighty nerf hammer Today it just hits you slightly a bit In the past it used to squash you to a pancake.

If only this were true, but alas no. They still do major nerfs, just as Sona ate 24 simultaneous nerfs just in patch 4.13 alone.

Actually xPeke1 votes

Kassadin came pretty close to being olafd. He was nerfd since his release, and a few months ago Riot nerfed the only thing that still made hin decent, his ult

At the time on the PBE kassadin his ult was nerfed it had smaller radius than now. It had like 400? But the thing was Kassadin his ult still has a cast time so you were faster walking then using your ult

Thank god they rebuffed it

Cow says meow1 votes

"Doesn't OLAF champions anymore", hate that line. Olaf isn't a useless champion.

Actually xPeke2 votes

I'm not saying he's useless or weak. I'm saying he used to be when he got giant nerfs. Riot started buffing him after realised what they had done and he's in a fine spot now IMO

AbiwonKenabi1 votes

The term is not to indicate Olaf is bad, he's actually in a decent spot right now.

The term stems from a specific time a couple years back when Olaf was completely dominating, so instead of careful nerfs, Riot hit him with a bunch of big nerf that basically made Olaf disappear overnight. He was really bad after that.

We're not insulting our favorite Viking, don't worry :)

BoilTheOil1 votes

wait so there is another viking?

kile1471 votes

https://33.media.tumblr.com/5e5a51108b67f3bc3fec1205a991243a/tumblr_nu43fgen6E1tbt5dxo1_500.gif

DogshítPlayer1 votes

CORRECTION RIOTREPETOIOR OR HOWERVA U SPELL IT LISTENED TO US

Keevalroy9 votes

I think we as a community should have an ounce more trust towards them.

Never again.

Be optimistic if you want; during the later Cinderhulk patches where we had the most viable champions at one time and overall the healthiest meta we've seen in years, I knew it was too good to be true, and sure enough they fucked everything up without any intent to fix what they broke.

Suppose in the preseason they find a way to make the game healthier. So? How long is this going to last before boring and outdated champions appear in the LCS and are promptly shat on to bring modern, refined, and polished champions back? We can't have the LCS uglified by Yoricks and Mundos can we?

We're being fed lies while they hide from and attempt to distract us from clear problems. It's gone on long enough and personally I'm too sick of it to find any support for them.

HaiLnKill3 votes

sejuani being unkillable and 1v3in ur squishies wasnt really that healthy doe

Keevalroy4 votes

Besides the outliers of Gragas and Sej. OVERALL, it was a healthy meta.

Transgressor4 votes

Fucking Sejuani over cancer LeeSin, J4, Rengar and XinZao any day. That was all that was fucking played before cinderhulk.

Actually xPeke3 votes

rather have sejuani than a Lee Sin, sadly riot buffed the fuck out of him and his ult became a execute for an entire team now that punishes people building health

kile1471 votes

So instead we have Darius being unkillable and 1v5ing your entire team, tanks and squishies...

Lao Fu the Tiger4 votes

Someone once made the all too true quote that if the community were to collectively become the balance team, League would be the crappiest game in the world.

Transgressor1 votes

Hence the term "feedback". Hence why we're not game developers, but consumers. Tell that someone, when you tell a car manufacturer their engines are faulty 90% of the time, they rush to fix their shit, without you having to be a mechanical engineer or owning a car company.

Final Boss Naut3 votes

i wont trust riots balance team ever again after what they did to teemo. cool i got a gimmick "riot walking away with his playstyle"

i mean really, he used to be able to have micro vision everywhere, but they cut the duration in half, gave it a gimmick, all while pulling the wool over everyone's eyes about how they ruined the gameplay i loved about teemo. i loved being able to go into top lane, and after level 11 never having to worry about a gank again because by the time im lvl 11 i could have mushies everywhere near my lane, so i could constant pressure fairly safely. but now, i get to toss them teemo's further "good joke for killing the rat" at the cost of everything i liked about him.

DevilishMetal10 votes

[{quoted}](name=Final Boss Naut,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9AIzBAGZ,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-09-24T13:41:23.094+0000)

i wont trust riots balance team ever again after what they did to teemo. cool i got a gimmick "riot walking away with his playstyle"

i mean really, he used to be able to have micro vision everywhere, but they cut the duration in half, gave it a gimmick, all while pulling the wool over everyone's eyes about how they ruined the gameplay i loved about teemo. i loved being able to go into top lane, and after level 11 never having to worry about a gank again because by the time im lvl 11 i could have mushies everywhere near my lane, so i could constant pressure fairly safely. but now, i get to toss them teemo's further "good joke for killing the rat" at the cost of everything i liked about him.

I think the goal of that was to allow him a bit more teamfight potential (which he lacked) as a trade for losing some of his his objectivr control and safety in lane (both of which he had a teensy bit too much of). Just my opinions :)

Vekkna9 votes

Except he didn't end up with any meaningful teamfight potential. The majority of the time you throw shrooms into a fight they're either killed accidentally by aoe damage before arming or the fight moves before arming. And even then, you don't even get meaningful range until level 16.

At least pre-nerf you had a lot more options for kiting into favorable zones, but not really anymore. It's a net nerf. A very, very large net nerf.

Actually xPeke4 votes

Im glad they rekt Teemo, never liked him.

Also, seriously a 10minute mushroom was pretty OP though, you can still have mushrooms in every bush near top lane you just need to replace them quicker

Vekkna5 votes

It doesn't matter whether you liked him or not. He was objectively not unbalanced.

The problem is the double nerf to duration and arm time. You can't use them defensively anymore. It's almost impossible to use them offensively without an Amumu ulti or other outside cc. And traps being what they are, there's always a big chance that they'll expire without doing anything, and now that's the rule more than the exception.

DevilishMetal2 votes

{quoted}

It doesn't matter whether you liked him or not. He was objectively not unbalanced.

The problem is the double nerf to duration and arm time. You can't use them defensively anymore. It's almost impossible to use them offensively without an Amumu ulti or other outside cc. And traps being what they are, there's always a big chance that they'll expire without doing anything, and now that's the rule more than the exception.

I said this to someone else but I'll expand on it here: What if they decreased the arm time and made it more of a grenade than a trap?

Actually xPeke1 votes

It's still a ward AoE slow. although i wouldn't be bothered much if they increased the duration to 7.5 minutes. because halving the duration was pretty harsh

Narasimha1 votes

I... think thats the point. They're traps. They're not meant to be rapidly deployed. You set them up as you go, for insurance or for a quick ward.

Vekkna3 votes

Yes, they're traps, and they should stay on the map for a long enough time to actually be able to use them.

And it's not like we're talking about just any trap. It's an ultimate ability. In that context it's just bad now. The damage is bad for an ulti. The recharge at max rank and normal build is only 3 seconds less than a Lux or Yasuo ulti. The scaling is gutter trash compared to other DoT aoe ultis like Brand or Rumble. And it costs a ridiculous fuckton of mana to use.

The only thing that made Noxious Trap worthwhile at all was its duration. Especially now that everybody and their kitchen sink is running around with 3k hp, the justification for the nerf (lots of accidental kills) doesn't even exist just 2 patches later.

The point is that Teemo's ulti isn't just a trap. It's his only real means of doing damage in late game without dying. So nerfing the duration was a direct nerf to his viability outside of laning, split pushing, taking objectives, team fight strats (kiting to shroom fields), and survivability.

R1101 votes

killed accidentally by aoe damage

They can actually only be damaged by autoattacks unlike Zyra plants who have a similar looking health bar. Teemo shrooms now have 6 health and take 3 damage from melee attacks and 2 from ranged attacks.

I have been planning to try Teemo because I think the gameplay (together with the passive changes) might be more fun compared to the old Teemo. I agree that the changes probably made him slightly weaker.

KatCraft2 votes

I prefered the old Darius. Being a lane bully champ, the need to snow ball was the price he should of paid with how good he is in lane.

Now he's just a lane bully, with a more clunky but more stat loaded kit, with a late game that's just as strong if not stronger than his early game.

The old Darius was built around how well you position and use your abilities, and he did take skill to use properly. New Darius you just build tank and button mash for heals and your passive to face roll people.

He's now just a clunky broken mess I don't really want to play anymore. The old Darius design made sense, now it doesn't.

HayRoss2 votes

I think the real reason everyone hates Darius right now is that he builds full tank and still deals stupid damage

Shonjl2 votes

My only gripe with Darius is he has the best of all worlds. He can build pure tank and not only get back massive chunks of his HP on a low CD, it gets as low as 5 seconds late game. But he has the ability to deal massive damage even without his passive.

I don't mind if he becomes a monster once his passive is up but he doesn't even need it most times. I just feel he needs his heal removed or make his damage crap and FORCE him to have his passive up to do damage. He should have to sacrifice something like most champs do for what he does. Want to be a mega tank that heals? Sacrifice his damage so he has to have his passive up to deal it. Want to deal high damage but also have heals? Remove his tankiness so he can be killed. Want to be a mega tank that can also deal damage? Remove his heal so he can be countered by being poked down.

Like I said, as it is he has the best of all worlds with literally none of the negatives. He has ADC levels of damage without being squishy. He has Braum levels of tankiness but is able output damage levels of ADCS, and he has sustain that would make WW which is the god of sustain put to shame. Something has to give, he has to have some weakness. He is an oppressive lane bully early game, and a monster lategame even if he wasnt fed.

RedCyclone2 votes

The same guys who buffed Lee when he was still being picked in 40% of games yeaaah

Jungle Lux God2 votes

The smartest thing about Riot's balance team is that they know that this game cannot be perfectly balanced.

There are too many variables in this game for it to be perfectly balanced, and so their strategy is instead to buff their strengths and nerf their weaknesses. This strategy creates more balance in the game by making it so that everyone is viable without requiring there to be perfect balance in the game.

In the short term, this might mean that our favorite champion needs to go multiple patches without being very good, but in the long term it means that, eventually, our favorite champions will be viable somewhere, even if they are the weakest champion in their particular role, because they always bring value to a team that other champions don't.

Duke Anax1 votes

The thing is Life Balance and Rework are handled by different people at Riot. So don't give praise where none is due.

DevilishMetal2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Duke Anax,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9AIzBAGZ,comment-id=0014,timestamp=2015-09-25T10:25:36.031+0000)

The thing is Life Balance and Rework are handled by different people at Riot. So don't give praise where none is due.

I know, but the community usually treats them as the same team so i just said balance to avoid confusion.

CasterGilgamesh1 votes

the balance team doesn't know how to let other champions be strong lol they just buff one champion until people start spam playing them then nerf them to ground only to bring more champions to do the same thing

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