Instead of buffing champions who are weak can we start nerfing champions who are strong instead

Moonfall Saber·Sep 5, 2017·121 votes·3,464 views

Damage creep is through the roof. Throwing paper airplanes at the tower would make them fall over at this point.

78 Comments

DezellSep 6, 201712 votes

You know, way back in the day (S1?) it used to be the exact opposite problem. As in, constant forum posts of "Can we buff instead of nerf?"

No point to make here, just a random thought.

Oni MasterSep 6, 20176 votes

Yeah, the problem there was that just about everyone mindlessly parroted the old David Sirlin quote, "It's better to buff everyone than nerf someone." It makes the game worse and worse to stick to just one ideology like that because then power creep / defense creep happens.

ModCaptainMårvelousSep 6, 20179 votes

I would rather have power normalization. Reset the curve entirely.

Buff -and- nerf those who need it. I think people need to be reminded that Riot caught a huge amount of flak in Seasons 1-3 because their balance strategy was to nerf everything into a fun-sized variant until we're all holding toothpicks. Nerfing everything won't fix the problem, it'll just reverse the problem and make games 2 hour long slogfest wet noodle fights.

(AKA: The main criticism of Dunkey's league quitting video about 2+ years ago.)

Shuyin178Sep 6, 20172 votes

I loved season 3 because you didn't die in 5 seconds. You had to actually work for your kills which made the game far more enjoyable.

Also, Dunkey quit League because his account got perma-banned and thought he could overturn the verdict because of how long he played LoL even though he was at the peak of toxicity. He cried about how his toxicity didn't matter and that he should be able to play the game still. Riot told him no so he quit. Simple as that, had nothing to do with the state of the game, he was just making excuses and pointing the finger at everything but his own actions.

CithriaCSep 7, 20171 votes

Correct, though wasnt it a two week ban for toxicity the reason he made the video?

Shuyin178Sep 7, 20171 votes

I don't think he would have freaked out as bad if it was a 2-week, but its been since he posted it that I've seen it. Probably going to watch it then edit which one it was into this.

UPDATE : It was 2 weeks for threatening a dude's life. But yeah, still stands that he he was pointing fingers at everyone but his own action to threaten the dude's life. I'd post what he said exactly, but ya know I'd rather not get banned myself because it was pretty bad. lol

Potato DocSep 6, 20175 votes

Its funny because originally this was riots game model. Nerf the strong and see how it works out with the weak. The weak get buffs if after enough proof nobody can get that champion to work, and it was a pretty great model that worked with some great patches and seasons, while champions were over tuned sometimes they were pretty obvious and easily targets for bans.

Critmaster GarenSep 6, 20175 votes

to be fair, they have been doing both. and having an ideal champion strength that theyre buffing and nerfing champions towards has been far more enjoyable than their past approach of just nerfing champions.

especially since this created a situations where a lot of champions were just left out of balancing for years in a shitty non functional state.

aatrox would just sit in his ditch for the next 3 years until everyone is nerfed to his level for example, instead of their recent attempts to buff and balance him.

the damage creep isnt a result of champion buffs and nerfs, but mostly mastery and item changes.

PrinceOfStormsSep 6, 20174 votes

to be fair, they have been doing both.

If they'd be doing both, Riot would actually address the design flaws with the entire Marksman class, rather than letting them remain meta for 7 seasons. It's just a game of musical chairs botlane as to which champions are disgusting.

Spank the FoxSep 6, 20177 votes

Nice way to hamfist another much needed ADC rant that is unrelated to the topic as a whole.

mikemcpartySep 6, 20172 votes

It is related to the discussion though. You have adcs being buffed based on one another with no regard for any other champions and how they might interact and play against them. That is a huge issue. You don't have mages melting towers atm and the adc creep is clearly the reason why.

skyskee008Sep 6, 20171 votes

What ADCs have been buffed though? Their itemization has been made cheaper but ADCs?

Since season 6:

Ashe: heavily nerfed (W cd and damage, Q damage, Q uptime)

Vayne: Buffed then nerfed then buff reverted

Cait: Gutted

Ezreal: nerfed hard because of blue ez then buffed

Trist: CD lowered on Q by a couple secs. Doesn't realistically increase her damage

Kalista: nerfed a lot, then buffed slightly but it doesn't increase her damage.

Twitch: nerfed attack speed from stealth and bonus AD on ult iirc. Stealth duration increased? Doesn't increase his damage.

Lucian: Q, W, and ult range reduced. Pretty much gutted.

Sivir: Changed to have W crit, then nerfed a fuck ton, buffed her Q damage slightly.

Jhin: Every ability damage nerfed+mana costs nerfed+DFT nerfed + ult utility nerfed

MF: Don't think she's been changed.

Kog: Reverted. Don't remember changes. IK AP kog was nerfed.

Can't think of any more off the top of my head. But sure, ADCs just keep getting buffed.

CithriaCSep 7, 20172 votes

ADC's have been buffed since season 6.

Anyways since season 6 All adcs(mages, and others) got magic resist this season, which was a buff.

Jinx got buffed

Ashe was slightly buffed, her slow got stronger with crit and attack speed, q duration went up(4 to 5) and its stacks now fall off one at a time. The q damage was reduced by .1, and her W cd got increased 1 second at max level. Ashe can kite with her q better overall.

Vayne was buffed, the "revert" and nerf were the same thing(not even a revert), her tumbles bonus ad scaling is down by .2 late game but, she got buffed allowing her q to crit, and it even works on towers now.

Cait: yea, not checking, your probably right

Ezreal: R cooldown up, q early cooldown down(better for tear)

pause: non damage buffs are still buffs

Trist: yup, the q buff was her only buff this season(minus the squishy champ magic resist boost), can you believe that she wasnt changed at all in season 6.

Kalista: Her rend has been only getting buffs for 2 seasons, nerfed ult, nerfs that force kalista to be with her oathsworn to recover her nerfed attack speed. She is getting back in lcs, but overall nerf.

Twitch: If we count season 5, he was buffed. Twitch q buffed overall(now camoflauge, attack speed nerf, less mana needed), W buff, ult mana cost reduced,duration down, base damage up.

MF: buffed passive, and q buffed and crit was added to it(if first bounce killed, crit scales with ie). Strut(can't tell if its a buff or nerf, never played mf back then).

Lucian: passive buff, q, w , and ult range down. Q damage down by 20, q mana up by 20. Lucian q and w cast times went down(better combos late game- was fun watching this happen, people who saw video on reddit thought lucian was in practice tool because of how smooth it got). Pretty far from a gutting.

Sivir: q got 30 extra damage(even at lvl 1), W was buffed to crit. These were her only changes in the last 2 seasons barring the great squishy champ magic resist boost(mentioned above), I really thought there would be more.

Jhin: Q damage up, R (base)damage up-slow down, R scaling down by .05, W nerfed damage, ignoring buffs and nerfs for 2 patches after his release b/c new champs need to be adjusted.

Kog: Ap build gutted, R/W/Q buffed if you ignore rework

Xayah: too early

All in all, Adcs were buffed for the last 2 seasons, most are in a better spot then they were at the end of season 5(poor caitlyn).

Buffing items that a character uses is a buff for the character. The items got more AD and lifesteal, the crit cost reduction, caused most ADC's to reach teamfighting power earlier.

Sure, ADC's have been getting buffed, but the buffs that really tipped the scale were the item buffs.

skyskee008Sep 7, 20171 votes

Ashes Q duration actually went down from 5 to 4. This was after worlds where she was super dominant and got hit with nerfs a few patches in tow. Her early W cd also got hit hard. Also Q damage reduced by .1 means she effectively loses 5% damage with Q on (5 bolts with 20-24% damage).

Jhin R BASE damage was readjusted because it FIRST got nerfed hard AND DFT got nerfed which put him in a shit spot. They also lowered the slow so they decided to add some damage back to ult. W nerfed damage and scaling.

Jhin s ult used to do a retarded amount of damage before.

Lucian first got gutted because of ghostblade. Then the item got gutted too and he started getting buffs. When he started synergizing with Bork they nerfed him AND the item. He's practically unplayable botlane and good midlane situationally but still has a shot win rate mid too.

Vayne Q always crit. They only changed it so it crit uniformly with her auto instead of seperately. Her buff was on towers.

Twitch got an attack speed nerf on Q, and his stealth was buffed in terms of longevity - camouflage is not a buff though.

Varus: Q cd hit super hard. Among other things since he was top tier.

Draven: Changed Q from base AD to BonuS AD - nerfing his early and buffing his late.

Jinx: Q rockets don't scale as well with attack speed - nerfing her late game. Ult damage up/trap damage up (a joke). So overall shift of power/nerf.

OVERALL ADCs have been nerfed. Pretty much the only top tier ADCs right now are the ones that didn't get hit with the nerf bat hard.

Trist/Kog/Twitch/Draven are the top tier ADCs and NONE of them had significant buffs. Nope. Every other AD just got nerfed.

Idk where you get your facts from but you clearly have not kept up with patches on ADCs. Pretty much every ADC change is a nerf unless they're gutter garbage <47% win rate. Only reason Ezreal/Lucian/Jhin got their buffs.

Phylol on YouTube makes a video every time there's an ADC change too.

CithriaCSep 7, 20171 votes

I did keep up on ADC changes(that hurt... not really).

Your comment asked what ADCs have been buffed since season 6(aka after season 5). It implied that ADCs have been overall nerfed in s6 and s7.

My reply was that overall ADCs have been buffed since the end of s5. The only S5 change I mentioned was for twitch. More ADCs were

Whether an ADC is good or not, that also depends on their items, but overall ADC's have been buffed.

I get the patch notes from lol.gamepedia.com, they allow you to see all champion buffs and nerfs throughout each patch and season easily(even bug fixes). Phylol doesn't make a video everytime an ADC is changed, those are usually lumped in with the usual patch videos.

Sidenote: All item cost reductions are midgame buffs. They allow ADCs like trist to teamfight earlier. The magic resist buff was a widespread mid and late game buff.

0 HogapuSep 7, 20171 votes

So damage is the only thing that matters?

skyskee008Sep 7, 20171 votes

Powercreep comes mostly from Damage. And yeah - in terms of this discussion it is. People saying "ADCs killing everything and 1shotting everyone" even though in terms of damage they're no better off than they were before.

In fact their end game builds are generally worse off in terms of stats/AD than before. They might reach the build 200 gold faster but it doesn't increase their damage overall.

LW has been nerfed hard too - but people seem to forget that when understanding why tanks are so strong.

Dirty BastardSep 5, 20174 votes

I think they are aiming to make games faster, so buffing creates faster game play whereas nerfing would make games longer.

JbelsSep 6, 201744 votes

{quoted}

I think they are aiming to make games faster, so buffing creates faster game play whereas nerfing would make games longer.

Because God knows all people who play this game ever complain about is how long the games are

Amasa DelanoSep 6, 20176 votes

Longer games make it less approachable, and make people with busier schedules more like to play a game if they have limited time. Right now, if I have an hour to set aside, I'll play a game. What if I had to set aside an hour and a half instead? or two hours?

KoKobotoSep 6, 201726 votes

Bruh. Games don't last more than an hour unless it's really close (which is as a GREAT game usually) or both teams just suck...

Also if you got no time than don't play league. League isn't just some pick-up game shitt. Or you could play ARAM or Twisted Treeline or Rotating Game modes.

Amasa DelanoSep 6, 20174 votes

That's what I was saying. I set aside an hour because I know that no game will take longer than that (or sometimes close, like 50 minutes). If games could take longer than that, I would have to set aside more time.

If I don't have time, I don't play League, which is what I was trying to say. If/when game times increase, I just will have time to play League less frequently (needing 1.5 hours to squeeze in a SR game rather than 1 hour).

KoKobotoSep 6, 20176 votes

No you said "Longer games make it less approachable and yadda yadda yadda busy people can't play it". Busy people can't play golf either. Busy people shouldn't change the game or try justifying the change because that's not how the game is.

Amasa DelanoSep 6, 20173 votes

I was just trying to give a possible reason why Riot might want to make games shorter, from a business standpoint. I understand what you're saying, though.

SpoofghoulSep 6, 20174 votes

They tried to make it shorter to attract the COD kiddies with 10 minute attention spans and zero clue what the word strategy even means It's just bad decision as those people will never stick to league anyway becasue there are many more games that are more appealing to that group of people then league

Look i'm about to get very very busy doing 2 studies next to a full time job and still having to exercise my kickboxing and powerlifting because i do those too

i simply won't have the time to play much of any game at all

So which game will i pick with my busy schedule?

The one which is the most fun, and with 15 min roflstomps i can guarantee you that wont be league

pro rusher 2Sep 6, 20171 votes

You made your point very unclear :) got a few downvotes :D

Amasa DelanoSep 7, 20171 votes

I see that. :)

inplaneSep 7, 20171 votes

{quoted}

No you said "Longer games make it less approachable and yadda yadda yadda busy people can't play it". Busy people can't play golf either. Busy people shouldn't change the game or try justifying the change because that's not how the game is.

This is so true and it remains true for the most part. RTS MOBAs should remain as a time-consuming genre because it's the root of what makes the game fun. Damage or kill that root and watch the game slowly wilt until it does.

Mr New BootySep 7, 20171 votes

I was going to say the same shit, play aram if stressed for time, ranked etc isnt the place for "mom says its dinner time or i have to work in 15m we need to win fast" there is literally game modes for that

Project omenSep 6, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Amasa Delano,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AXlqB0OE,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2017-09-06T01:51:22.499+0000)

Longer games make it less approachable, and make people with busier schedules more like to play a game if they have limited time. Right now, if I have an hour to set aside, I'll play a game. What if I had to set aside an hour and a half instead? or two hours?

Despite getting downvoted because people don't like short games, this guy is right. Riot is trying to make the game accessible to everyone and not just people who have a lot of free time or competitive players.

Not xPekeSep 6, 20171 votes

No. Riot is making games shorter because of LC$ and because nowadays kids have the attention span of a potato and need everything to be fast paced.

The game got popular for a reason. All these changes is only changing it's identity.

FütanariSep 6, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Not xPeke,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AXlqB0OE,comment-id=00010000000000020000,timestamp=2017-09-06T17:33:07.239+0000)

No. Riot is making games shorter because of LC$ and because nowadays kids have the attention span of a potato and need everything to be fast paced.

The game got popular for a reason. All these changes is only changing it's identity.

All games go downhill eventually just a fyi. League will die soon enough just like wow will

Amasa DelanoSep 7, 20171 votes

Thank you. I don't mind the downvotes, and I'm glad at least one person agrees with me. :)

CaptainAntiHerozSep 6, 20171 votes

Yeah, I mean who doesn't like getting one shot by zed, yasuo, Tristana.... Etc

VeltoxSep 6, 20172 votes

Zed can't really one shot anymore with the lifesteal/shields creep and item 3026 .

Dirty BastardSep 7, 20171 votes

Of course they do, I still see games go past 40min.

Not xPekeSep 6, 20171 votes

"aiming to"? They already have.

The average game on Summoner's rift used to be between 35-40 minutes. It's currently sitting below 30 minutes across ALL elos.

Such a shame that the game has taken this turn. If we wanted a fast paced game we wouldn't be playing LoL, we'd go play Call of Duty.

We all know they did it for the LC$ anyway. It's so obvious.

Dirty BastardSep 7, 20171 votes

You say "they already have" like they are finished making games shorter... this is just the beginning or haven't you seen the dev blogs.

Not xPekeSep 7, 20171 votes

"they already have" doesn't indicate that at all ^^.

That's simply pointing out that they already have made games shorter.

But yes, I haven't seen the dev blogs but I've read up and heard about what they're doing so I have an idea. Sucks. Don't think I'll see season 9 till the end. Such a shame :C. (obviously my personal opinion, you're entitld to prefering shorter games, I just think it's really stupid).

Dirty BastardSep 7, 20171 votes

I personally think that they should leave it be, as it was. I preferred things as they were personally.

Not xPekeSep 7, 20171 votes

fair ^^

SleepcomaSep 7, 20171 votes

not sure why you got downvoted lol. you are correct (im not saying shorter games are a good thing, as I also am in favor of longer games)

Dirty BastardSep 7, 20172 votes

People love to down vote even when someone is right, so is w/e anyhow.

TheHappyReaperzSep 6, 20174 votes

Because Riot never nerfs champions, all they do is buff them.

aspects1Sep 6, 20173 votes

buff the towers as well :D

RozzetaSep 6, 20173 votes

I've never thought I'd see a thread like this back in season 2.

SzGamer227Sep 6, 20173 votes

Nerf champions that are strong and weak champions stay weak.

mikemcpartySep 6, 20175 votes

Strong champions become weaker, normalizing everything. There are some champions who have inherently strong kits (thresh and yasuo come to mind). These champions should be over-nerfed and weaker to make up for the utility in their kits.

The Great DivideSep 6, 20172 votes

You know, I feel the power creep thing. Like I too think that there is too much damage. But then again, I also remember having 800 AP consistently back in seasons 4 and 5, and I wonder how there is power creep when AP numbers have gone down drastically since then

(Just literally me pondering this phenomenon)