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Why the meta is ruining this game

PlaidHero··72 votes·10,488 views

So I just finished a solid game. Fun to play, granted we pretty much just messed around. Picked 3 mages and sent our ADC top with one of them and another mage bot with a support. Part way through, the other team accused us of cheating and unfair play because we sent 2 top. Seriously? Is this how League players think? That every single game needs to be the cookie cutter mage mid, top laner, jungler, and adc with a dedicated support bot? That's so boring. Yes it's how it's always been done, but that's why it's boring. My issue is that Riot is inadvertently supporting this meta. They create champions who fit into a specific meta role, and more often than not, they do not and cannot excel outside of that predetermined role. In my opinion, this strategy of design seriously hinders the game. Not only does it not allow for interesting new playstyles with different champions, but it discourages it. We aren't rewarded for trying different styles of play, simply left with a frustrating game. I don't want to use Dota as an example, but I will. Most champions in Dota can be picked and put into any role. Bloodseeker. He can jungle, solo, go mid, maybe be in a duo lane. The point is, wherever he goes, unless he's competing to farm, he doesn't fall off due to it. He isn't punished for trying something new, only put a little behind if that. I really don't like this idea of Riot making a champion, and then telling us EXACTLY where they belong. I don't want to be told how to play a game. I want to play it my way.

Now don't get me wrong. Some champions and heroes are made to be stronger in different areas. I'm not asking to erase that. I still want heroes like Soraka with a dedicated heal and kit centered around battlefield disruption. My point is, I don't want my only option for champions be what they were created for. Hell, they shouldn't even be created for a specific role. They should be created because a kit is fun and interesting. League has reached a point where it's champion design and number doesn't have to be so concrete and cookie cutter anymore. Yes, new champions do have some pretty cool abilities. But if I wanted to take a Vel'Koz duo, I'm sure I'd be yelled at. Despite him possessing a ton of slows and knockups, because Riot said he's a mid mage, that's how people think he should be played and will never ever view him any other way. And chances are he won't work any other way. I don't like that.

177 Comments

7ha7guy77733 votes

let Mundo go where he pleases

Sara Leah3 votes

mundo already goes where he pleases

7ha7guy7777 votes

people might complain about it though. i have no idea how effective adc mundo is.

BuyMeSkinsPls12 votes

people might complain about it though. i have no idea how effective adc mundo is.

About as effective as AD Soraka

Ulfgar Torunn10 votes

And then you realize that Mundo has a 100-200 AD steroid, a movement speed boost, damage mitigation, and a quasi-permaslow.

Not to mention the best crit animation in the game.

Ulric Greatsword8 votes

I think new Sion has the best crit animation, actually. With 100% crit chance, he russian step-kicks his enemies to death.

Centuros25 votes

So now it's cheating and unfair if you send 2 top?

I thought that was "noob" or "unskilled" or something.

I've seen a bit about Vel'Koz support: while he's not the best choice, he's not bad if you know how to play him.

PlaidHero20 votes

I just think it's absolutely ridiculous that sending 2 top is viewed as "unskilled", "cheating", or "weird".

Centuros3 votes

Especially since a solo-laner usually can't deal with two foes at once if they don't adjust their play properly... Maybe people should play really aggressive duo tops in low-to-mid rankings now?

Phife1 votes

Especially since a solo-laner usually can't deal with two foes at once if they don't adjust their play properly... Maybe people should play really aggressive duo tops in low-to-mid rankings now?

problem is then it will just be another FOTM / new meta that everyone will eventually do...

AbodyHUN6663 votes

up until people will start anticipating it and pick safe laners who can hold 1v2 while their jungler gets double buffs, their mid blue and adc red and all the dragons and barons. This is why FOTM lasts only for a month, people learn.

Vellich0r20 votes

it is weird, but not cheating, far from cheating. Its unfair, hell yeah, for your team, because the other team gets free jungle on both sides, free dragons, barons, and other objectives. it makes the game so excessively easy for the other team that you might as well sit down, smash the r button over and over again, and then wait till someone starts a surrender vote.

Vellich0r2 votes

he is actually really strong right now at support and in general, but say nothing, he must be my best kept secret that noone is allowed to know.

Wullf1 votes

too late...

though i do not pick him in ranked. Because he excels in long range damage/poke and in good cc, which is not exactly what most teams need. Sustain, cc and utility is mostly better choice,

Vellich0r1 votes

I swear, your place of residence will soon be found! (i promise this is a humor. please do not take it as an actual serious threatm k thx.)

Wullf2 votes

how carefuly made to make me think that this is joke.

Little do you know that group of potassium assasins are on its way to banana you to death. (please take this threat seriously, potassium assasin DO exist and yes I AM evil)

Meep Man3 votes

I find playing two top instead of a jungle pretty good since you can effectively get a second carry and a second tank, which can be insane since it puts a lot of pressure on the enemy Top Laner and causes the jungle to either camp top or have to choose whether which one of the enemy team's carries will get fed, which will be the top lane one in most cases. The only problems with this is it makes the enemy jungler usually gank middle lane more, making the need for mobility in the middle lane increase and it also means your team will need to be coordinated in order for each carry to get the needed amount of gold to succeed. But lately after the big carry buffs, two carries is an extremely devastating combos, especially since you will also have two supports to dispense sustain, crowd control, and overall control of a teamfight.

KingDerrickHenry1 votes

you know how experience works? That solo laner 1v2ing while hugging his tower is gonna out level you, the jungler that you dont have, also gonna out level you. You know what happens in 2v2s when one group has levels on the other?

Tuss3 votes

Kinda hard to get experience while dead.

And the one who is more skilled wins, since beyond the first three levels and ult leveling ones items tend to give just as much, if not more power. And since top lane's starved as heck for gold, better hope jungle's free farm payed off.

shalexade2 votes

With all due respect, this isn't how it works at a decent skill level.

The jungler eats blue, he eats red, he eats another blue buff, then he ganks top and your 2 l3's dies to 2 l4's.

You don't tower dive someone at l3 to ensure that they are dead. They will get XP and they will out level you. Levels are a massive power spike in the early game.

You deny them the first 2, maybe 3 waves of CS- then find yourself getting smashed whenever the jungle decides his top lane needs a double kill.

Good trade off.

Meep Man2 votes

With all due respect, a good duo top lane performs just as well as a good duo bot lane. Levels are powerful, yes, but a 2v1 is still a 2v1. Also, with the supports lately and how ADCs work, you can simply ward and escape easily with a ADC like Tristana, a tank like Braum, or Thresh lantern. You are looking at this on paper when I doubt you have ever made an actual team composition out of it. You say the jungler will go to the enemy jungle and farm on their blues and reds and various monsters, but that can all be countered by simply warding and your duo lanes can pick them up at the start of the game each for a huge early game advantage. Or Middle Lane can take it. Suddenly, bottom/top lane walks into lane with a Level 1 Red Buff, Middle Lane walks into lane with blue buff. Suddenly the lanes have a huge advantage and, with the Season 5 changes to Red Buff, you can push down towers much quicker early game due to the bonus true damage.

Early Game Lanes walk out. Middle lane and the lane closest go to blue and the other lane goes to red, depending on what team you are. Bottom/Top Lane can effectively harass or kill the enemy with Red Buff as well as increasing their pushing and farming power slightly. Middle Lane gets a huge benefit of being able to spam spells with ease and allowing them to bully their enemy out of lane. Top Lane is going 2v1 so they don't need a buff to help since they already have the advantage, only being behind by usually 1-2 levels from then on once they both reach Level 3. When the buffs respawn, the closest lane can get Red and Middle Lane can get Blue again to gain back the advantage again AND deny them from the enemy jungler. The enemy jungler can go ahead and farm in the enemy jungle but they will find themselves gaining little benefits and using much more of their time farming than ganking when they could gain equal gold by simply farming from their own jungle by going between the constantly respawning monsters.

Good Top ADCs: Tristana Vayne Caitlyn Ezreal Graves Quinn Lucian Sivir Urgot Varus Good Top Supports: Braum Thresh Leona Blitzcrank Morgana Top Lane becomes home to the more aggressive supports that limit their opponents crowd control and/or mobility while having decent mobility themselves. The ADCs become the equally mobile and aggressive early game carries that can be found in current Bottom Lane such as Caitlyn, Ezreal, and Graves. Quinn and Urgot also have a home since they gain a support. Quinn becomes a much more aggressive ADC Fighter that can match the enemy Top Lane from a range and Urgot becomes a super harass champion that never really has to put himself in danger of a gank.

Good Middle Lanes: Anivia Ahri Cassiopeia Kassadin Leblanc Lissandra Lux Orianna Syndra Veigar Ziggs Suddenly these Mages become 100% more aggressive from the blue buff, enough to keep them safe to build items to continue their advantage. The blue buff advantage will also probably land them so sick kills. (Yes, Kassadin is really good again)

Good Bottom ADCs: Draven Lucian MissFortune Tristana Twitch KogMaw Vayne Good Bottom Supports: Sona Soraka Thresh Braum Janna Zyra Nami Alistar Morgana Bottom Lane remains about the same, but will probably have much more late game ADCs in order to give your team the late game killing power it needs. The supports are much less about being aggressive and much more about keeping their carries safe from harm, although they can still initiate or control a fight when needed.

summoner 11 can be picked up by the Top Lane or Bottom Lane support in order to still have that objective control of Dragon and Baron.

You don't need a jungler to take advantage of the buffs.

Matthevv25 votes

I have a feeling that you don't quite have a grasp on what meta means. A meta will always exist. If Riot makes some changes and somehow completely ruins the current meta, a new meta will be found pretty quick.

People are always going to look for the most optimal strategy and there is nothing you can do about it. The current meta is fine as it is. Of course nobody is forcing you to follow the meta, but try to keep that to normal games or ranked 5's with friends who are on board with it.

People play ranked to run the most optimal strategy because it is has the highest chance of succeeding. In a competitive environment you are just going to have to accept that and stop being such a hipster. Seriously, people who refuse to follow the meta are essentially league of legends hipsters.

PlaidHero13 votes

Not at all. Again, let's talk Dota. Sometimes there's a jungler. Sometimes there's two duo lanes. Sometimes there's even a trilane. It changes based on what a team wants to do, but is also something that happens all the time in pub matches. The league meta is extremely strict. So yes, this current meta is ruining the game because it only serves to constrict what a team can do. A trilane wouldn't work in League because of this. This isn't about "optimal" strategy, it's about champion design forcing champions into specific roles instead of leaving it up to the player. Is your definition of hipster somebody who has an unpopular opinion? Are you trying to use that against me?

Matthevv6 votes

Not at all. Again, let's talk Dota. Sometimes there's a jungler. Sometimes there's two duo lanes. Sometimes there's even a trilane. It changes based on what a team wants to do, but is also something that happens all the time in pub matches. The league meta is extremely strict. So yes, this current meta is ruining the game because it only serves to constrict what a team can do. A trilane wouldn't work in League because of this. This isn't about "optimal" strategy, it's about champion design forcing champions into specific roles instead of leaving it up to the player. Is your definition of hipster somebody who has an unpopular opinion? Are you trying to use that against me?

The way dota balances their heroes is by the philosophy that if everybody is OP then nobody is. If you want to play a game with that kind of balance go play dota. There is a reason why so many more people play league over dota.

pWasHere4 votes

And this is how you can tell someone has never played Dota.

KzooCrasher5 votes

He has a point Dota already exists if you like Dota better go play that. League on the other hand is a completely different game (and more successful) so if you want Dota go play that.

To the OP: Your a moron. You have a game where the enemy team says something crazy and you come here to generalize it to how all or most league players think of it.... and FYI no it has not always been like this the meta has changed a lot over the years... do some research before saying things like its always been this way. Look play what you want how you want league grants you that freedom but just realize most people won't want that and some may even get mad about it.

pWasHere5 votes

This is stupid logic. There is nothing wrong with wanting one of the best things about Dot a, the more inclusive meta, to make a transition. Yes they are two different games, but saying they can't learn from each other is harmful to the progress of mobas in general. And league had a huge head start. Stop acting like the fact the Lol is more successful means anything

KzooCrasher5 votes

When did I say we can't learn anything from Dota? I'd love the quote of me saying that..... fundamentally changing the core of league so this guy can run duo top more viably is definitely a dumb idea. You'd be taking in your words the best thing about Dota and replacing the best part of LoL with it.... why not ask for reasonable changes.....

pWasHere6 votes

You didn't say it, but you implied it.

And I really don't see how making this game open to other strategies would hurt it at all. Frankly I cannot watch competitive Lol because of how stale it is.

And saying we need to "fundamentally change the core of Lol" in order to introduce more strategies is complete and utter hyperbole.

Matthevv3 votes

Except you do not fundamentally understand how dota achieves this state of balance. In order for league to become more like dota in this way you would have to ruin the very thing that makes league, league.

Seriously, this would be the most drastic change to the game ever made, and I really don't want that. If I truly hated this meta I would be playing dota or smite or something else.

pWasHere3 votes

Frankly I disagree on the drasticness of the changes. And as the Moba market begins to become more saturated, it can only help.

Sessamo6 votes

Friend, no. Things like trilanes and duo top don't fail in League because Riot has intentionally stomped them out (although they have kinda) they suck in League because the numbers just don't work.

Level advantage is way bigger in League. Levels give almost double the stats that they do in data, and a lot of champions have passives that also scale with level. Falling behind a level in dota isn't as significant because gold is more important, and the active denial that multiple laners can provide reduces how much your enemy gets ahead.

Unless Riot were willing to heavily slash back the importance of levels or is willing to add things like denial to the game, you're never going to see teams seriously running duo tops, trilanes or jungle+dedicated roamer. The math simply doesn't support it, and your team falls massively behind.

Eresse5 votes

Actually it is about optimal back in season one we had adc mid and mage support bottom. now we had to switch that because the adc needs gold while the apc needs experience and levels, the current meta is the optimal gold - xp set up for each character.

Rebonack1 votes

I have a feeling that you don't quite have a grasp on what meta means. A meta will always exist. If Riot makes some changes and somehow completely ruins the current meta, a new meta will be found pretty quick.

People are always going to look for the most optimal strategy and there is nothing you can do about it. The current meta is fine as it is. Of course nobody is forcing you to follow the meta, but try to keep that to normal games or ranked 5's with friends who are on board with it.

People play ranked to run the most optimal strategy because it is has the highest chance of succeeding. In a competitive environment you are just going to have to accept that and stop being such a hipster. Seriously, people who refuse to follow the meta are essentially league of legends hipsters.

This isn't strictly true.

Lane setups aside from 1/1/2/J have been used before in Ranked, but every time they pop up and manage to compete with the standard lane setup, Riot nerfs them until they aren't viable anymore. Off hand? 2/1/2 and 1/1/1/J/R have both seen success in the past, but targeted nerfs killed them off.

Gold income has more or less been fixed for weird lanes, but XP is still wonky thanks to how minion XP gets divided up. It would be trivial to make Trilane an option simply by fiddling with XP division ratios, but I doubt they would ever do that because it would be something other than 1/1/2/J.

Matthevv2 votes

Off hand? 2/1/2 and 1/1/1/J/R have both seen success in the past, but targeted nerfs killed them off.

2/1/2 was only possible when Riot introduced the new support items and face of the mountain items were so OP you were not allowed to take anything but that item bot lane.

As for 1/1/1/J/R, I remember when that was the NA meta in Season 1. Riot did NOT nerf that lane setup, EU just introduced the 1/1/2/J to us at Dreamhack and royally stomped NA into the ground.

Those are just inferior setups, Riot hasn't purposely nerfed them out of existence.

Konidias19 votes

I play Quinn in every role. It works for me. I feel like people are far too concerned about the meta like it's going to win them games without trying.

Too many people just want to copy builds and pro strats and strictly follow the meta... because they don't want to actually have to work and improve. They want easy wins. That's why so many people are happy to take a free win due to feeders/afks on the opposing side. They LOVE it. It's free elo and that's what the majority want. They want to be the "top" player without any effort.

The easiest way they see of doing this is following the meta strictly.

It's funny because I'm in Silver rank (I jumped right into ranked after level 30, so yeah... I kind of had it coming) but it's funny to see people at this level arguing about people going outside the meta. Like I say I'm going Quinn mid and people lose their minds. I've had people dodge, say "gg we lost", call me an idiot/noob/troll/whatever. Pretty much heard it all. The funny thing is that I can carry the game hard and at the end of the game we win and my teammates are still like "I'm still not convinced Quinn mid is a good choice".

I think people should worry less about the meta, and more about improving their overall play. The meta really does not matter in the majority of games. What matters is who is better/smarter or works harder to win. That's the secret.

I've won games as Quinn support.

Quinn. Support.

Like literally getting no CS... still won. Because I outplayed the opposing team and got my kills mid/late game and made an impact regardless.

Will that work at Challenger levels? Uhhh obviously not... but all I'm saying is people in like Bronze/Silver/Gold really need to relax and forget about the meta... because you're at a level of play where it really does not matter. It does not matter at all.

I can't believe the amount of armchair quarterbacks there are in SILVER games. People are so concerned about what all their teammates are picking, what summoner spells their teammates take, etc... It's maddening. Focus on your own game, because in the long run, that's what matters. I'm tired of people focusing on me and watching me like a hawk just because I'm playing outside the meta. It's like people come up with excuses before the game even starts, so that if they do badly, they can have someone else to blame.

It's happened too... I've gone Quinn top and I get some guy saying "we need a tanky top, omg we lose" and midway through the game, I'm doing the best on my team, the guy who was worried before the game is bot lane and has a negative KDA and is losing lane... you know what he says? "we should have had a tanky top"

Like... uh... how is a tanky top going to change the fact that you're losing bot lane? I really don't understand people.

Wolfeur7 votes

To paraphrase Jack Sparrow: The problem is not the meta, the problem is the players' attitude about the meta.

FantasySniper16 votes

*Captain Jack Sparrow

OrangePulp6 votes

I would say that most people don't think that going outside the meta is cheating; don't let a few random people color your view of the whole player base. To be honest, when I see something outside the norm, I'm usually pretty thankful, because it tends to be an easier match. The main reason the meta exists is that it's generally the most optimum way to play the game.

As for champion role placement and how it compares to DotA 2, I think League is simply a more structured game than DotA. I can't say one is objectively better than the other, although I much prefer League myself. I find it interesting to compare it to something like basketball: You can put five centers on the court if you really want to, but that's not going to win you games. Sometimes teams will run with small lineups (four guards and a PF for a lot of offense) or big lineups (a twin towers setup with two centers in), but most of the time you have a fairly typical team makeup. You can see the same thing in league: you might run an adc mid, or go for a really offensive kill lane bot, but either way you're still building around the core concept. And I think there are advantages to that; by having a designated meta which includes a jungler, they can focus on what will make that fun and interesting, and do cool things like the upcoming jungle changes.

PlaidHero2 votes

I just want variety and to not be punished for trying something outside of the norm. More often than not, if you use a champion outside of their predetermined role, you will not do well. I don't think that's good design. Like I said, I want the option of maybe running something new. While I do technically have that now, it won't ever really do well because of how champions are designed.

MEMEME6702 votes

If this is what you want, why bring DotA into it?

You can't bloodseeker support, and you can't Dazzle jungle or solo lane. All of the dedicated supports in DotA are only that, dedicated supports.

VERY occasionally you MIGHT be able to get away with a carry going in the unsafe lane, but that's relying on your opponent not knowing how to play the game well enough to punish you for it, so carries are stuck in their specific niche too.

Tbh, it sounds like you're angry at these specific people, which is fine. But you shouldn't extrapolate that into being a problem with the meta, because it's not. I would say this game has either the same or more champ > role diversity than DotA.

As for your example btw, Lee Sin, and Diana are both champions that fit just as many roles as Bloodseeker does.

windwolf7771 votes

You can't bloodseeker support, and you can't Dazzle jungle or solo lane. All of the dedicated supports in DotA are only that, dedicated supports.

As for your example btw, Lee Sin, and Diana are both champions that fit just as many roles as Bloodseeker does.

(Skip this post if you don't really care that much for DotA) Actually, I come from dota to lol and like both games. Just wanted to say, you can jungle dazzle or possibly support blood. Dazzle's heal also is a nuke depending on how many units there are. A way to abuse this is going into the jungle with a few couriers following you, and using the heal to nuke the jungle creeps. This even works on the magic immune mud golems because his spells deal physical damage.

And since they changed BS with the AoE delayed silence, he can now play as a ganker, carry, nuker, or possibly support. (Ganker with Urn, Eul's to stop TP, etc, Carry with Basher, AS items, and BKB, Nuker with the reworked Q which makes the target take and deal more damage meaning you can use your Q on an enemy use Dagon on them (magical burst item), and burst them down, or support with ganking once he hits 6 with his AoE silence, and ulti (which I heard is one argument a LoL dev used as hidden knowledge or anti-fun or something like that).

MEMEME6701 votes

Jungle dazzle by...wasting 300 gold on 2 couriers, and then if the enemy ever invades they can easily kill one or both couriers, giving them a solid amount of gold and ruining your potential to jungle... Doesn't sound like a thing.

And support BS has one good ability, because Q is going to be mediocre until your carry has items (And you can't really q the enemy carry, assuming you're against one, because you have no damage). Sounds like a good way to get every creep denied by a ranged support if you ask me.

Also, BS's ult is used as an argument for Burden of Knowledge. You have to know what the skill does before you play against him in order to do well, because it doesn't communicate effectively (or atleast, didn't in the original DotA) what it's doing to you, so new players run away (which is the logical thing to do when ganked) and die but don't know why, and then are stuck doing this until they look up BS and memorize his ult.

windwolf7771 votes

Jungle dazzle by...wasting 300 gold on 2 couriers, and then if the enemy ever invades they can easily kill one or both couriers, giving them a solid amount of gold and ruining your potential to jungle... Doesn't sound like a thing.

And support BS has one good ability, because Q is going to be mediocre until your carry has items (And you can't really q the enemy carry, assuming you're against one, because you have no damage). Sounds like a good way to get every creep denied by a ranged support if you ask me.

Also, BS's ult is used as an argument for Burden of Knowledge. You have to know what the skill does before you play against him in order to do well, because it doesn't communicate effectively (or atleast, didn't in the original DotA) what it's doing to you, so new players run away (which is the logical thing to do when ganked) and die but don't know why, and then are stuck doing this until they look up BS and memorize his ult.

Ok, to your points: You said Dazzle couldn't jungle, I proved you wrong about that. You never brought up the skill of enemy players or rage of ally players. I merely said, Dazzle can jungle. (And I think Dazzle Jungle gets more than 2 because the heal increases based on the number of units being affected)(As of now max of 4 ((himself and 3 other targets) at level 1)

Bloodseeker changed. Q is now a steroid that makes the afflicted hero (allied or enemy) take and deal increased damage, get on kill heal (of anything), and if a hero give 25% of their HP to the killer). Also, he has a delayed AoE silence. So if he gets a Eul's (2.5 sec tornado) to keep them in the AoE, he can silence, and use the Q to give sustain as a support.

Yes, I do know about the burden of knowledge argument. Which I find kinda stupid and insulting to LoL players. (Are the devs saying that they're too stupid to read and learn about a hero? ((off topic question aside (((I don't mean I'm calling LoL players stupid because I am one too now but sorry.)). However, if you look at the debuff on you once it's cast, it says "Deals a percentage of the distance you move as damage." Meaning right there look at the debuff "Oh, I move, I take damage. I probably shouldn't move" Plus But don't you think that learning what EVERY champ & item & mastery & rune & page & debuff, etc, etc does is a burden of knowledge? Not to mention learning the effective rune and mastery pages, items, etc is a burden of knowledge? And dota 2 also has a wiki where you can learn. Just the same as LoL.

MEMEME6702 votes

Well I mean, if you don't take in the skill of enemy players or the rage of ally players then the point is moot, because that means in League basically anyone can jungle (every ranged char can micro well enough with the correct runes // masteries and smite, and I mean, when given a leash, what melee char can't either?).

The OP is talking about realistic character/role diversity, and that is the context of this discussion. Don't forget that.

I knew that when I posted but I forgot q heal was on everything. He could maybe be fine, but I don't like the idea of my carries sustain being on only when they're extremely weak to basically any damage from the enemy, especially because all he can do is try to w it, which without euls or some other form of cc is always going to miss, and is half his mana pool early game.

You're misrepresenting (or misunderstanding) the BoK point. The point is that, for a large subset of new players who are exposed to bloodseeker, this is what will happen. (NOTE: This is in DotA 1, as the argument was made when DotA 2 didn't exist yet, and DotA 2 has overcome this specific instance of it.)

He comes and ganks them post-six, they run and die for apparently no reason (the dude hasn't even touched them.) and they have no way of knowing what happened. Your debuffs are gone once you die, there's no death recap, etc.

And this will happen basically as long as BS continues to gank their lane, because when they don't know why they died they can't stop it. And when they're being ganked they have no time to check their debuff bar (I'm not sure original Rupture even had a descriptive debuff anyway) to find out.

That's not to say some players won't figure it out quickly, or wiki him beforehand, it's just saying that it will for some players make the game way less interesting because of the way it works. And that's not very good to have in a game.

Runes, masteries, even most hero abilities are nothing like this. And the ones that are usually explain themselves pretty easily, with Taunted! above your head or something.

Kuroi866 votes

Some people are just too stuck on the meta. But here's the thing, the community makes the meta. Pro players show us all who they think is strong in what situations, then people latch onto it in the hopes of winning. That is how the meta is made.

Why do we have one top, mid and jungle with two bot? Because it was the way the pros came up with to best distribute gold and give everyone the best chance they could to reach the late game with as much gold as possible.
Riot doesn't inadvertently support this, they openly support this. They support the meta because it works. This does not mean that they are trying to stagnate things. Look at Miss Fortune this season, she got an AP scaling added onto her Q to encourage breaking the meta and building MF AP when you don't feel like playing AD MF. Riot likes breaking the meta just as much as the pros do (Look at Jayce breaking into worlds.)

Yes, the meta exists and many people are too stuck in the mud to do anything else. You're going to run into those people because they only want to win instead of just fool around and have fun. Don't let that get to you. Learn the meta and have fun with it, but don't forget that ADCrit Nasus is still fun as heck to pop people with.

Smegma1236 votes

Your problem is people don't like what you pick. You're blaming Riot, you're blaming the concept of meta, you're generalising the entire playerbase based on this one game as far as I can understand.

But your root problem is people don't like what you pick. You are, in other words, angry that they don't like the same thing as you.

If you had a disgusting cologne, and you loved it, but nobody liked it, what would you do? Sue the cologne company? Blame popular perception of smell? If you love X music but everybody else around you hates it, what would you do? What if you absolutely love asparagus, and you went to a restaurant that didn't serve asparagus? What would you do?

Here are some things where you got it wrong, in my opinion from my experience :

  1. While this was widely prevalent a year ago, even more two years ago, today people don't really whine about your pick - at least as much as before.
  2. Switching up lane matchups and things like that are a commonly accepted thing. 2 top, sacrificing a jungler is probably not, but lane swaps are more than common, and unusual laners as well. You'll get the occassional Teemo mid(me) or something - and I don't hear people complain if I lock Teemo mid.
  3. Your cookie cutter setup is not how it has always been done. The "meta" has undergone a great number of changes. In just one example out of many changes, 4 years ago, AD carries were sent mid.
  4. Riot is not supporting this meta or that meta - in fact with season 5, they have explicitly stated that their main goal is to heighten strategic diversity (make multiple metas viable).
  5. Vel'koz is a sick support in the right hands - as far as I know, thats a well known fact.
Rainbowgasm5 votes

5 man premade goes by completely different rules than Solo Queue. The point of the Solo Queue meta is to be simple enough to pull off with out voice chat or playing multiple games with the same people.

DrinkMoreWhiskey5 votes

There will always be meta in strategy games. Meta is just what the most efficient way to achieve objective x. If you change the game, all that happens a new meta emerges to replace the old one.

Saying dota doesn't have a meta is just as stupid. It maybe has a more diverse meta but it does have a meta as well.

Mecha MaIphite4 votes

Most players don't really care if you go against the meta if you do reasonably well. I can work with a solo bot and two junglers, provided they gank reasonably and just don't do anything stupid.

It's when you butcher the meta just for the sake of playing something ridiculous that bothers me. Yes, some champs are better suited to certain roles, and that's the way I like it.

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