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It might be time to admit that (nearly) map-wide teleportation doesn't belong on a champion

The Ecdysiast·Jul 12, 2019·3 votes·1,862 views

In a game where your positioning is a major part of winning, having a free get-anywhere on a cooldown similar to other champions' "big damage" moves has time and again created balancing nightmares. Mostly, it's created champions who get nerfed for the vast majority of players because such abilities are best in a coordinated, drilled team like the professionals.

So it may be time to admit that that's just not a fair ability for any champion to have. Because it either makes a game-changing impact, or their base kit gets nerfed enough so that it's worthless to pick them in the first place.

, then, should have their ultimates changed entirely. Rek'sai already got a similar treatment, and it gave them room to adjust her more.

Of course, that would mean another rework for Ryze-- memes aside-- but it'd help the balancing of these champions' kits a whole lot if they didn't have their ultimates holding them back.

12 Comments

KazekibaJul 12, 20191 votes

Ryze as he is, is fine. Just make his R a giant meteor that scales exclusively on his current Mana and/or consumes huge amounts of it. Like how Olaf E Health cost is tied to its damage, what if Ryze R could do like 50 / 175 / 300 (+5/12.5/20% current mana) and cost 10/25/40% current mana to cast? A slow delayed AoE (not projectile) up to like 575 units in diameter that just flattens anything under it

The EcdysiastJul 13, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Ryze as he is, is fine. Just make his R a giant meteor that scales exclusively on his current Mana and/or consumes huge amounts of it. Like how Olaf E Health cost is tied to its damage, what if Ryze R could do like 50 / 175 / 300 (+5/12.5/20% current mana) and cost 10/25/40% current mana to cast? A slow delayed AoE (not projectile) up to like 575 units in diameter that just flattens anything under it

No, yeah, I didn't mean a FULL rework. Just, completely change his ult. And REVERT the recent changes, 'cause they removed all the skill expression and all the reward.

I think it should still be a blink though, since they established that in the story. But more like Ezreal's E than a TP.

KazekibaJul 13, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Ecdysiast,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AoEydcuX,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2019-07-13T02:51:49.404+0000)

I think it should still be a blink though, since they established that in the story.

Thats suggesting that Riot's story writing is at all any good, which it isn't. Of course Ryze's abilities are described in the Universe, they basically just throw as many game references in the blurbs as possible. Doesn't stop them from giving him a different, more interesting, ~~not at all ripped from DotA 2~~ Ult. Ryze's problem has always lied with his Ultimate - It's not a damage tool, despite Ryze being able to build relatively tanky and doing lots and lots of damage, having access to at least 1 or 2 giant shields the size of an ADCs entire HP pool. It's a teleport, or it's a steroid, or its an upgrade to his basic abilities on top of giving him Spell Vamp and/or shredding MR. Non-damage ultimates like Aatrox, Kalista, Azir, and Ryze are always going to have an exaggerated Pro play strength and make keeping a champion playable in solo Q without being cancerous in pro impossible. You can't make Ryze's WR higher by improving his R function because that just makes him 100% PB in Pro, you can't nerf his R for Pro use without making him have a 39% wr in solo Q unless you just reduce it to a 1 point skill like Jayce but then he just has way too much damage for someone who can build item 3027 item 3151 item 3102 item 3157 item 2065

The EcdysiastJul 13, 20191 votes

Not just the story though, it's in his high-quality animation, too. Albeit, they could take it out of his kit and simply say he's capable of it, but not not often enough to be an ability. It's not like Gangplank sails in game, right? lol

My suggestion for one that's still a blink was this: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/uTK7oLNN-memes-aside-its-time-for-another-ryze-rework

But, of course, it would probably best just to make it a damage ability.

Troll for TrumpJul 13, 20192 votes

Ryze is NOT fine, he's toxic as hell to lane against as a melee, considering the way you beat him is literally staying away from your own minions. It used to just be "stay away from almost dead minions".

SEKAIJul 12, 20191 votes

The problem isn't teleporting.

The problem is too many champs having teleports, and too good at it.

Shen's teleport is restricted by his teammates, only teleports himself, and has a long charge time to signify their arrival. Pantheon is similar to Shen only that it trades distance (no longer global) for being able to land anywhere he wants, and also trade Shen R's shield for AoE damage. Twisted Fate has basically Pantheon's teleport, but trades the AoE damage upon arrival with his global reveal.

The same can't be said about Ryze or Galio or Tahm's teleport. They basically have overall better and/or less balanceable versions of the traditional global TP trio.

The EcdysiastJul 13, 20191 votes

No, actually, Shen, Pantheon, and TF were the biggest abusers of it for a long time. And they still suffer in their scalings for it, along with receiving nerfs basically every time there's a tournament coming up.

It's definitely not that just two more champions got it.

KazekibaJul 13, 20191 votes

{quoted}

The problem isn't teleporting.

The problem is too many champs having teleports, and too good at it.

Shen's teleport is restricted by his teammates, only teleports himself, and has a long charge time to signify their arrival. Pantheon is similar to Shen only that it trades distance (no longer global) for being able to land anywhere he wants, and also trade Shen R's shield for AoE damage. Twisted Fate has basically Pantheon's teleport, but trades the AoE damage upon arrival with his global reveal.

The same can't be said about Ryze or Galio or Tahm's teleport. They basically have overall better and/or less balanceable versions of the traditional global TP trio.

Galio's R is literally a worse version of Shen's. Its a long wind up teleport to an ally champion.... And uh, a bit of AoE damage on landing. So like a Pantheon R that relies on an ally to cast on? It's actually bad. Abyssal Voyage is straight up 2 TF ults though, if you have knowledge on the enemy team's likely location. (though TF does help for stealth/bush camping.) and at level 16 its nigh global too. Fun

preternaturalJul 12, 20191 votes

just remove the tp summoner spell and you can balance those champions.

SEKAIJul 12, 20191 votes

{quoted}

just remove the tp summoner spell and you can balance those champions.

With the state it's in (lol 6 min CD and can't even be manually cancelled during channel), you can more or less consider it removed. Or at least very close on its way out.

Teleport is only relevant on Ryze and Shen out of that list in the OP. Ryze only really uses teleport for first back to get his Tear; Shen only uses it because splitpushing is all he's good for outside of R-E gank.

preternaturalJul 13, 20191 votes

{quoted}

With the state it's in (lol 6 min CD and can't even be manually cancelled during channel), you can more or less consider it removed. Or at least very close on its way out.

Teleport is only relevant on Ryze and Shen out of that list in the OP. Ryze only really uses teleport for first back to get his Tear; Shen only uses it because splitpushing is all he's good for outside of R-E gank.

you can balance around individual champions having global presence if you remove the thing that allows every champion to have global presence because now those champions (kit porters in the op) have to match up to the ones that can match their innate presence with a nifty summoner spell, which in turn can never be tuned correctly for both these niche matchups and the general state of the game, and in the reverse those niche picks i'm calling kit porters can never be balanced correctly because are they being balanced with use of teleport in mind, or maybe they aren't being balanced with that in mind, but how will they lane effectively without a dmg or healing ulti, etc etc le played out balance nightmare.

"oh wowow how do you balance this? oh i know lemme give the kit porters extra base dmg on their basic abilities because "why the fuck not it'll be fair"" but it's not fair at all because there's items which are functionally broken when completed but we can't even get to that point of balance because we're still dealing with the mechanics of champions who don't have ulti's being solo laners (udyr for all intents and purposes has been abandoned while rito does or doesn't attempt to figure out how to make no ult champions "good") but ya'll don't get that so iunno why you're responding to me when it's evaded you and i'm far too jaded to be elucidating long form logic on some league of legends forum.

simply remove teleport, i've rationalised it myself, one can either listen or not but don't be bumping me with an unconsidered response. heck the entire map can be balanced reasonably without teleport existing cause it's a literal specter on every lane. i mean fucking hell bottom lane has all these ridiculous peel measures granted to it for that very reason, because someone just summoner 12 's in and the lane is now over cause you couldn't run the length of the lane fast enough or turn around a 4v2 (not impossible but this is soloq and rito won't give us anon voice comms) or just neutralise it. added to that that it's still a shitter net cause you can't punish someone for not being able to stay alive and catch a creep wave, they just tp back, but people got upset time i said that as if the defensively minded professional scene doesn't only run TP top for this very reason. whatever. it's all monkey see monkey do here and a pale imitation of it at that.

Moody PJul 13, 20191 votes

I have issues with most of these champs besides Shen that don't involve their ultimates at all

Shens only real issue is how early his ultimate becomes global, in my opinion.

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