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We need to have a discussion about this champion class

Kaiser Rienhard··21 votes·1,318 views

Bruisers have no role in this game. They don't do as much damage as carries, they are not as tanky as tanks. They are not as strong early as tanks and they are not as strong late as carries. They cannot splitpush because their waveclear is not as good as tanks and they cannot teamfight because they do not have as much utility as tanks. Their items cost more than tanks, carries and supports. The utility of their items are worse than tanks and their items do not do as much damage as carries. They have no rune tree they can call their own. Bruisers have almost no role in this game. They do not have a single point in the game where you would want them over another kind of champion. What needs to be addressed is to make it clear what kind of role in this game Bruisers are going to have and then commit to it. Otherwise you may as well delete the champions because there is no place for them.

This has been true for a long time now. Bruisers have been allowed to be strong a total of two times in this game. Once in season 3 and another in season 6 (with 6 lasting about as long as a snow cone in summer). Compared to how long tanks have been allowed to be better than than in every way possible in every stage of the game. Or compared to how much attention AD's get for their role, its nothing. It seems less than nothing. Why has this been allowed to remain the untouched and unaccounted for, for so long, I don't understand. Can someone help explain it to me?

30 Comments

Ralanr10 votes

So...just FYI, Bruisers as a class aren’t actually a thing.

Instead they have been cut into three things: divers, juggernauts, and skirmishers.

Divers and juggernauts are fighter subclasses. Juggernauts are your slow and immobile fighter that becomes very durable and is kited super easily: Darius, Trundle, Garen, Illaoi. Divers are the fighters that “dive” on a single target and don’t leave until they or the target is dead (their escape power isn’t great): Xin, Pantheon, Camille. Skirmishers are a subclass of slayers, making them siblings to the assassin class. They are very mobile but only inside a fight and really like 1v1: Kled, Riven, Yasuo.

Why are fighters so separate? Because the term bruiser basically homogenized the class to being too similar so Riot tried to better define them.

kaironen1 votes

I was confused about what the term bruiser meant from the op so thanks for clearing it up. I think before we think about fixing the diver and fighter subclass, they should focus on fixing the juggernaut one. I know that a lot of them have interesting playstyles and can be fun to play. However, it generally either feels oppressive to play vs as melee (darius in lane, illaoi in teamfights) yet they are generally weak in high elo due to how kiting, peals, and adc being strong. On the flip side, juggernauts are generally too strong in bronze so they are kept weak. Just think Garen for this case.

Muzét2 votes

I might be mistaken. But wasn't "Bruiser" a term used by players?

kaironen2 votes

I believe that it was used by the players, but then it got defined by riot in the subclasses. Which currently are skirmishers (usually duelists), juggernauts, and divers. Just look at Ralanr's post, he/she clears it up well :).

Muzét1 votes

I know well the subclasses it's just his last sentence made me think that Riot used this term before.

Ralanr1 votes

The term has “existed” for seasons. It’s just not fully accurate to what subclasss are.

People are slow to change. People still use the term ADC when the class has been called Marksmen officially for at least two seasons.

Chembaron Yamada3 votes

Just to be correct: Kled is considered to be a diver, not a skirmisher.

Ralanr2 votes

Honestly I see him as a skirmisher.

Teridax681 votes

Whether you call a class "fighters" or "bruisers" isn't really the most relevant, imo, and I feel the homogenization mostly came from the similarities between fighters and tanks, a problem that has remained unresolved, and even worsened over time. At the end of the day, the fighter class is meant to group melee champions who possess survivability and damage, with subclasses branching into AoE (juggernauts), burst mobility (divers) and persistent mobility (skirmishers/light fighters, who for some reason aren't fighters anymore). The differentiation among fighters is not what is relevant to the topic of discussion here, which is that fighters as a class aren't competitive with others in what are meant to be their core strengths.

In the end, regardless of differentiation, the core strengths of any champion classified as a fighter is that they're survivable and contribute damage, generally DPS. In this respect, there is some degree of overlap with tanks, who are survivable and mainly contribute crowd control, and marksmen, who are ranged and contribute DPS. In an ideal game state, fighters should be the class to pick if you want a survivable damage-dealer, which would be especially relevant in an environment where assassins are strong, as the class counters marksmen but not fighters. However, marksmen far surpass any other class, including fighters, in DPS, and the latter have never been as durable as tanks. This was deemed acceptable for a long time, as fighters were once stronger than tanks by dint of contributing similar amounts of CC, but now that tanks have far more crowd control on average, plus a lot more damage, it is now they that are upstaging fighters at their own game.

I think the core issue here is that, whereas marksmen and tanks have received increases to their own strengths over time, fighters have remained relatively constant, which is why they've fallen out of favor. However, I don't think that this should entail changes to fighters, as I feel their damage is pretty decent already; rather, the competition needs to be reined in. It's been quite some time now that marksmen have been criticized for dealing too much damage, even when not factoring in their reliability, and that same criticism has been applied to tanks, who have been given a lot of damage in the name of waveclear and satisfaction, in ignorance of the consequences these would have to their trading power or damage output during their CC combos. While marksmen absolutely deserve to have top-tier DPS, that spot also deserves to be shared with fighters, and I think we need to accept that tanks cannot have waveclear without it bleeding into excessive damage, and thereby turning them into even more loaded divers.

Anonagon2 votes

The semantics of subclass definitions are really irrelevant to the current state of bruisers as a whole, as the majority of champions in all three bruiser subclasses are fairing incredibly poorly in the current meta, especially in the top lane.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Meanwhile riot calls everything a fighter in the client. Even GP but jarvan is tank? Wat. This whole class butchering into different brands is insanely stupid. You call kled a slayer who really likes the 1v1 yet kled is basically the best teamfighting bruiser in the game he also is exactly the same kind of diver as camille. Single target, goes in and kills or dies/dismounts. Camille is more of an assassin than kled or even yasuo yet you list her as someone who doesnt have escape or low escape power. Hello? Anyone? So either i'm confused as fuck or riots terms are completely bullshit. When people say bruiser they either mean juggernauts: nasus, darius, yorick or fighters: camille, riven, jax. That's really all you need to know to talk about the current state of toplane everything else just complicate things unnecessarily while not being actually correct imo and only relies on semanthics. People refer to bruisers because it's an old and traditional term for a class between tanks and glasscannon carries.

All you do imo is confuse the discussion and change the direction into something that doesn't benefit the discussion at all.

vinnythetaco6 votes

I hate bruisers so them sucking is okay with me. I dont need a tanky champ that also does a lot of damage Irelia and the others can go and just become tanks or assassins. I dont need more jaxes jumping on me and 3 shoting me thank you very much.

xelaker1 votes

yea, that's the issue with the bruiser model. When they do well they have the best of both worlds.

GayFluffyUnicorn4 votes

Ofc you hate them. The sole reason bruisers are bad are low elo players. Especially adc players. The higher you go and the better the mechanics the worse bruisers are by default.

The Yetii Rider3 votes

"Their items cost more than tanks, carries and supports. The utility of their items are worse than tanks and their items do not do as much damage as carries."

This is objectively false. If you look at the ACTUAL damage that a bruiser gets off item 3074 , it far exceeds any amount of damage a marksman or mage gets off an individual item. Not only do you get 75 AD and all the delicious perks of that, you get an active that lets you sweep in an area, and your auto attacks now deal damage in an area as well.

In terms of raw damage, walk into any wave and you will gain about 700 damage total over the next couple of autos, because you are dealing damage to 7 or 8 minions at once instead of 1. item 3087 anditem 3085 don't even come close, they only seem to because they scale so well with other items. But the individual item does next to nothing, that's why marksmen rush item 3142 oritem 3031 first.

FireDrizzle2 votes

Remove pta bonus damage from all sources and give it some stacking ad to compensate. Nerf crit items so bruisers arent bursted down so hard and just so adcs arent busted. Buff Black cleavers stats but change the armour shred to penetration. Nerf the strongest tanks.

If they did that I think they would be in a decent place.

Zero Skill Tank2 votes

Bruisers have been allowed to be strong a total of two times in this game.

Bruisers are fucking DOMINATING over the jungle right now and Riot doesn't seem to be doing anything about it.

This social justice for bruisers movement needs to die -_-" Bruisers are bad on top, because they lost their resistance runes, while tanks never relied on runes to do damage. That's literally it.

Apocalypsic1 votes

That's literally not it at all.

Kythers1 votes

bruisers are useless cause illegal immigrant juggernauts took all their jobs

Dreadlocks1 votes

Am i missing something.. which bruisers are we talking about?

Kaiser Rienhard1 votes

tanks and poke champions took all of their jobs

Critmaster Garen3 votes

{quoted}

bruisers are useless cause illegal immigrant juggernauts took all their jobs

there is one juggernaut going strong right now. ONE. thats yorick.

meanwhile irelia with press the attack trades me for 1/3 of my health in a second with just a sheen as garen. it all depends on the matchup, and how top is flooded with too many too strong ranged champions who slap melees around with their poke, and how fighters dont really have a midgame powerspike anymore since adc itemization is cheaper and outscales theirs.

you get bullied around for 10 minutes by a ranged opponent, and when you dont lose too hard and finally get to a point where you can start fighting back, you look at botlane and theyre already pushing for yours or the enemy inhib turret. or start rotating top with the other 4 people for your turret.

im not saying bruisers arent struggling, but juggernauts are generally not doing any better.

looks at darius. shit.

mundo. shit.

volibear. shit.

maybe for the first time in history, garen is doing ok compared to the other fighters with hanging out just around 50% winrate.

you can go through the list and juggs are generally in the same spot as divers.

the whole state of top lane in general is a mess with top laners having barely any agency over the game anymore.

Mordepool4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=A1eyENk0,comment-id=00000002,timestamp=2017-12-01T21:37:00.314+0000)

there is one juggernaut going strong right now. ONE. thats yorick.

meanwhile irelia with press the attack trades me for 1/3 of my health in a second with just a sheen as garen. it all depends on the matchup, and how top is flooded with too many too strong ranged champions who slap melees around with their poke, and how fighters dont really have a midgame powerspike anymore since adc itemization is cheaper and outscales theirs.

you get bullied around for 10 minutes by a ranged opponent, and when you dont lose too hard and finally get to a point where you can start fighting back, you look at botlane and theyre already pushing for yours or the enemy inhib turret. or start rotating top with the other 4 people for your turret.

im not saying bruisers arent struggling, but juggernauts are generally not doing any better.

looks at darius. shit.

mundo. shit.

volibear. shit.

maybe for the first time in history, garen is doing ok compared to the other fighters with hanging out just around 50% winrate.

you can go through the list and juggs are generally in the same spot as divers.

the whole state of top lane in general is a mess with top laners having barely any agency over the game anymore.

That's Because Marksmen itemization needs a nerf. Thier Movement speed needs a nerf aswell Kiting is so easy for them it's negates any chance a melee champion has against them

ModWulf Helhammer1 votes

Bruisers are a problematic class.

Ideally, they are supposed to be a mix between tank and assassin, with each individual champion falling somewhere in that spectrum.

The problem is that that mixture of classes has some pretty inherent balance problems with it.

Assassins are supposed to be squishy, so that if they mess up on their engage, they can be punished and killed. Tanks aren't supposed to do much damage, so that they can't solo down the enemy team with their tanky builds, CC, and then said damage. Bruiser's however, are supposed to be both, they are tanky since they don't have as much mobility (usually), and they have a lot of damage since they don't have much CC. This leads to situations where each champion would rather go towards their better option. Wukong has target access, so he's built as an assassin. Renekton and Warwick have CC and self sustain, so they build more as tanks, allowing base damage and that sustain to allow them to win an attrition battle, or at least hold down the enemy for their team to follow up on it.

That's why for the most part, the class as a whole will never function as intended (as a mixture of durability and damage), with the exception of a few champions that have specific other purposes (Vi has great single target priority, Renekton is a strong lane bully, etc.), but even still then are usually not meta, just strong background picks. Additionally, why juggernauts have never really been meta or strong picks since their rework (when they were nearly all OP). Why pick someone tanky that only contributes damage, when a regular tank will have a much greater impact on the field, as they have both offensive and defensive capabilities with their CC.

Unfortunately, I don't think the class will ever been in a neutral spot balance wise without large scale fundamental changes in how the game works (I'm talking like "League becomes HotS" level changes)

Penns1 votes

thats their role tho hehe

Elkington1 votes

If Itemization was better (particularly defensive) than bruisers would be fine. They should have the most flexibility when it comes to itemization due to how flexible they're required to be in-game. The problem is that carries/assassins abuse their itemization and its kept intentionally weak, to the point where only tanks and/or supports can make use of it due to being inherently gold efficient.

Overloaded carries and assassins are the reasons that bruiser itemization will never be good again. The game is just evolving (or devolving in the eyes of some) into something that most of them just aren't equipped to deal with.

Z3Sleeper1 votes

Pretty sure you're talking about Juggernauts. Divers and Skirmishers are currently fine.

Feel Apathy1 votes

You're silver 5 with negative jax kda and winrate, Surely it's not the fighter class that's bad in your case.

If a champion's not that great at the moment why even play it ? Do you want to lose just so you can complain later on the forums?

You know I used to be one of those few Skarner mains, guess what? I don't play him anymore as he's a hindrance to the team and provides unique that helps the team.

higura1 votes

Bruisers have no role in this game.

i don't really know what you mean by "bruisers", juggernauts? divers?.

They don't do as much damage as carries, they are not as tanky as tanks.

neither does enchanters or assassins or really any other class for that matter, i don't really get your point with this.

you just took 2 classes, compared their strong points to a 3 class and ignored any drawbacks they have.

They are not as strong early as tanks and they are not as strong late as carries.

again, we need to know what class we are talking about and even then is it inaccurate.

exsample if we are talking juggernauts am i fairly certain a DrMundo , Olaf or Garen is not gonna have much trouble laneing against most tanks early game, while Nasus is a beast late game.

also, again, just because champions doesn't scale as well as carries, doesn't it mean they need buffs.

They cannot splitpush because their waveclear is not as good as tanks and they cannot teamfight because they do not have as much utility as tanks.

just looking quick through the list: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/3A5uuBw7-champion-subclass-list

i see plenty of champions that can spiltpush/team fight in each of the different classes.

DragonShea1 votes

Bruiser are damage dealers, always have been, always will be, but the problem is that Riot believe that Marksman should be the sole damage carry in the game, any damage dealers should be able to carry a game, be it fighters, ADC, Slayers or Mages. The real issue is that there is too much damage and that ADC's and Hyper Tanks exist. That, and the fact that taking a Safer alternative to a Marksman is not viable as Marksman are giving protection and means to negate their vulnerabilities so as they can have more survivability, Tanks and supports are made to protect the ADC, not the entire team so they can do their job. When you give a dps class means to cover their weaknesses while denying other from getting the same advantages your are gonna break that role.

Yes, ADCs are broken.

Play an ADC? expect to get melted from a good play or you own stupidity if the tank or support can't peel.

Play a Diver? expect that if you get in at the wrong time, you will learn that it was at that moment you knew, you fucked up and then you will get dogpiled on.

Play a jugg? expect that people will make sure you are dead by the time you reach them if you don't wait for the right moment to walk into a fight.

Play an Assassin, know how to get in and out before the enemy team can catch you or you are boned.

All DPS class much have clear strengths and weaknesses, both for the sake of balance and to suit each player's taste in fighting style.

The problem is that ADC's have too much and that divers and juggs are more or less ok as it stands, they have clear strengths and weaknesses. But I am sure as you know that ADC's will always complain when an assassin 100 to 0 them, well in my books. that is what an assassin is supposed to to. Either way, the game focuses too much on extremes and not enough on versatility and how to balance that as generalists tend to be seen as OP when viable.

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