The witch-hunt to rip out "stun and burst"
When I read and watch RIOT's logic for the 5.4 patch it makes me feel like I'm playing a different game than them. I'm sure this isn't fair, but the way the live balance team works on this game, is like some new engineer working on nice car they didn't build, and throwing away all the "extra parts". It seems disrespectful the way the way they want to change the design. I understand that they are responsible for the successes or failure of the game so they need the power to change the game as they see fit. But, I guess I don't think the game needs as much change as they apparently do.
This notion that long stuns and big burst are "bad" is misguided, in my opinion. It's true that those things can lead to moments in the game of "no counter play"; Say getting flash on, then stunned, then burst’ed. I disagree that, that needs to removed from the game, I think it makes the game better. I also, say that the "counterplay" to prevent that happens before that moment, or after that moment.
The Veigar changes where clearly motivated by this line of thought that "stun and burst is bad". The same line of thought that killed old Xerath. To me it seems like they hate "stun and burst" so much they would rather destroy Veigar (and any like him) than leave stun and burst in the game. This makes me think they value some academic understanding of game balance over what should be the basic question of any change to a game "will this make the game more fun". I personally have less fun play as and against Veigar now. Maybe I’m in the minority.
Is the current live balance team better at making games than the individuals who made LoL? Are the same people there, I really don't know? But the "stun and burst" paradigm was put into the game on purpose. It help make LoL great, and now it seems like there is a witch hunt to rip it out of the game, and it sucks.
