The problem with Lissandra.

SenpaiElise·Mar 1, 2016·5 votes·916 views

Lissandra's Passive in a Nutshell, presented by RiotGames -We have a really awesome passive, but meh, we are riot games, it would be too balanced if we just let her this passive and give her normal mana regen. So Riot decided to do this: -Let's just give literally no mana regen, so her passive is kinda useful.

so Riot, if u didn't understood : Fix her mana regen or give her a different passive and normal mana regen if u think that would be unbalanced.

[zombie-brand-mindblown] ALSOOOO... 's Mana regen is HORRIBLE too. U need to buy 2-3 to stay at mana values > 0

SO PLEASE FIX THIS*[zombie-nunu-tears]* If u don't want to do it now, at least do something at the Mid year mage update , please <3

4 Comments

NahuiMar 1, 20165 votes

This is an example of poor game design that Riot is guilty of when it comes to perks of a champion, and there are some examples later. Basically, Riot gives a champion a sort of "advantage" unique to that champion. Sion endlessly stacks health, Thresh stacks AP and armor, Lissandra gets free spells, Orianna's basic attack etc.

So, the idea is "I'm gonna have a shit ton of health as Sion" or "A shit ton of armor as Thresh" or "A shit ton of mana as Lissandra." or "I'm gonna have high auto damage as Orianna".
And you are correct in that assumption. That's how it should be. That's the point of the champion, and partly why you pick them and why they incorporated that mechanic in their kit.

However. Riot implements a counter measure to these boons that serve to not really put your champion ahead ever. Sion has the lowest base health in the game. So sure, you stack health per creep but at 18 your max health is only like 1600 or so. Notice what Riot did there. So the amount of creeps you need to kill to contend with other champions at a base level is absurd and some of the higher end ones can't even be achieved. It's a mechanic in Sion's kit that makes you feel big, but was nerfed in terms of base stats by Riot.

Same with Thresh. Each soul gives armor, woo! Tanky thresh! Except...he has no armor gain unlike all other champs. So, his armor is actually..about the same. It's dumb and nonsensical and just bad design. Riot couldn't think of a legitimate passive so they give him a stacking passive that seems unique but they nerf him so that it really doesn't do anything.

Same with Lissandra. Sure you have a passive that lets you cast free spells here and there. So you'd expect your mana should hold out better than other champions. Wrong. Your mana regen is slashed to keep you "Even". So you are basically a champion with 4 spells and half a passive.

Orianna has her passive that augments auto damage. Scales with AP. So you assume "Hey, I'll have an advantage in CSing and auto trading with my laner because mine are stronger. right?" Wrong. Base AD slashed down to what I believe is either 40 or 41.

Galio used to be a victim to this but they realized he was useless and fixed it. His whole basis is being an MR tank. He acquires AP off of MR. So you're thinking, "I'll have lots of MR and be an effective MR tank and have some good AP to boot." Wrong. He had no MR per level. Another nerf to the base champion to somehow justify the kit they gave him. But, after nerfing his core item Athene's, they gave him 1.2 MR per level I think.

I'm surprised champions like Nasus don't start with like 10 AD, or Veigar doesn't get 80% effectiveness from building AP items. It's a poor design to incorporate a strength into a kit and justify it by nerfing the base champion.

qetzelMar 1, 20161 votes

I disagree.

Passives like that are desingned to change the way you play your champion. In Lissandra's case it didn't work - and unfortunately she is too strong at the moment to give her a better passive - but it is good for other champions.

Take Thresh. Having souls means he is giving something up if he doesn't occasionally walk towards the enemy's minion wave. It effectively lowers the amount of time he can spend sitting in a bush fishing for champions.

Orianna's passive encourages attacking later in the game. It makes Orianna players focus on more than just the ball, giving her an extra layer of complexity and mastery. Also, the base damage of the passive compensates for her lower attack damage. The AP ratio and the wind up bonus give her attacks more power than other champions in her class from level 1. So yeah. No, this was a bad example from you.

Sion's change emphasizes farming over other things. It means he can't just stick with his team once mid game comes around - he has to get that side lane farm. Possibly... In Sion's case I actually think that people just wanted the HP per kill to stay (because lets be honest, it is really cool) but Riot wanted more power in his abilities than better health stacking would allow.

Passives aren't necessarily there just to increase a champion's power - this is exemplified by Grave's and Jhin, who don't really have passives, just explanations of their auto attacks.

NahuiMar 2, 20161 votes

The wind up perhaps, but the regular auto attack does not. It's about the same at level one. However I can see the fact that they didn't want her to be a lane bully at level one. However, I still don't agree with base champion nerfs to justify a spell. I'd rather she be given a passive that doesn't require them to say "Well we need to make her worse than everyone in this field".

Souls for Thresh is fine, but not giving him armor gain is just silly. Giving him a reason to get out of the bush is also nonsensical because we have a champion called Blitzcrank that does effectively the same thing but in a more deadly fashion. I'm not saying the soul passive is bad, I'm saying how it justifies a nerf on the base champion bad.

Similar to Sion. No tank is allowed to simply stick with their team mid game forever. Every champion save support needs farm. However with Sion, you are forced to farm just to stay even with any other tank hence why he isn't too popular and never has been aside from release. So with Sion you are forced to choose between being as good of a tank as the other team's or helping your team. So we have a champion where you read "Stacks health per kill" and it implies he should be much tankier than others however he is then "compensated" by being the least tanky of all champions at base.

I also disagree with Jhin and Graves. Jhin does have a direct passive. He converts attack speed and crit into damage. He's also guaranteed a crit every 4th auto that does percent missing health damage. That's most certainly a passive.

Graves' can I guess be considered an explanation of an auto attack, however the fact that his auto is completely different from everyone else's in the game warrants it as a passive, really. AOE, individual damage per pellet, knockback on minions, and attack speed decreasing time of the reload mechanic.

Hex the FenFenMar 1, 20162 votes

I just want Lissandra to get a new passive tbh, and ofc better mana regen for them both. But I also wish Lissandra played more like a burst anti-assassin assassin. Her kit feels more like a "go in wreck shit up and pop a squishy" but its more like "go in you fucked up, OH NO OH GOD NO ULT MYSELF ULT MYSELF" while people laugh at your damage even after you have like 700 AP