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Lets talk current balance (bot lane and top lane)

tseihei·1/30/2018, 10:16:06 AM·14 votes·1,279 views

I've seen a number of people stating things such as :

Now, I would like to say I have all the knowledge in the world to point at one direct cause and claim that is the issue behind all of this, but I honestly believe that many of them are connected. Some of them I blatantly pointed out within sub bullets, but my theory of all this goes a bit further.

Before I start getting too deep into that though, let me introduce myself: I'm a Low-Diamond support main that has been playing since before riven was released. (so like the very end of season 1) http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=tseihei Obviously, I have seen a lot of changes through my time playing the game in every role. I hope this allows me to have a bit more insight as to some of the changes that I believe have led to the current state of balance.

The general idea that I have is that a couple key things have played a role in many of the issues.

  1. Exp changes (Specifically looking at catch up exp)
  2. Support Role changes

So lets start of with the first on the list; Exp Changes. What I believe has become a very large issue in league of legends is that no one is able to get more than a few level lead anymore. In other words, the Range of champion levels at any one given point during the game is much smaller than it used to be.

OK, but why is that inherently bad? Well, looking back at why many exp changes were put into practice. This goes back to split push heavy top laners primarily such as Tryndamere . It used to be that Trynd could gain a 4-5 level lead over everyone else on the Rift by continually farming waves-jg camps. This proved to be a very effective strategy. If Trynd happened to roam into a team fight, he would be far ahead in strength over the rest of the map.

This became an issue, and thus, catch up exp was born. So now, with equal kills but solo minions, top laners only end up a 1-2 levels ahead of the bottom lane marksman. As I recently witnessed in one of my games, a Singed with a 3+ level lead can completely stomp an ADC during team fights.

And that brings me to conclude my first point. The lack of exp that solo laners, such as top, are awarded compared to marksman make the difference in strength minimal. This is even worse considering that top laners will scale better with levels than their marksman counterparts.

Look at where a top lane level lead used to _really _ power spike them; Mid-game Without this level lead, where are marksman seemingly too strong?: Mid-game

Thus, a possible solution towards making top lane more viable into the win/loss would be to** pull back the reigns on catch up exp**.

Pt.1 Summary: Top lane used to have several level lead, specifically when split pushing. This made them strong mid game coming out of lane, which catch up exp has diminished. This makes top laners mid-game, exp-based, power spike not very strong compared to marksman. Thus, marksman have become much stronger than mid-game top laners. Reducing catch up exp could be a viable option to both buffing solo laners, and "nerfing" bot lane marksman. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Experience_(champion) <-Catch up exp shown by things such as extra exp for being a low level jungler, or the way champion take down exp is calculated.

Pt.2 Glad you could read this far or did you just skip to this part? Referring back to my second point, I would like to address some of the support changes that have occurred and relate that back to my main point; That support changes may be one of the reasons for the many problems with the current state of the game.

So what changes have happened? Well, A lot. From Season 3 sight stone being introduced, we began the concept of supports having more than just warding and team fight Crowd control duties. Supports in season 3-8 have really all been summed up into one thing: item 3504 Support are more about itemization, and less about macro play. And I believe this can be translated in another way.

Supporting is more about helping your team mates directly, through buffs, heals, shields, crowd control, etc; item 2056 as opposed to helping your teammates in more indirect ways, such as vision, objective control, and strategy.

Supports have been continually pulled away from vision, where in season 3 for example, you could place an unlimited amount of wards in accordance with your allowance. Since then, the game has continually added and changed support itemization to give supports more of an impact through enabling their teammates actions, at the cost of macro play such as vision (caps and ward limits have gone down and green wards can no longer be purchased)

So for supports to remain in a balanced state, we had to cater items towards them. As a support player, I can honestly say that the current support itemization doesn't make me feel as though I am expressing skill, I just feel like I'm pressing every heal and shield I can into one person.

I believe support would be a much better balanced role if we placed more focus on objective control and strategy than enabling teammates. Something similar to skarner's capture points on the map is something I would love to see for supports. (which could be gated to supports through itemization) We also have a very modular runes system now, where we could come up with some very interesting ways to enable supports to participate in map control. ( which has been done with things such as zombie ward)

item 2055 To make a more specific point; Supports should be given unique ways to interact with the terrain, towers, and epic monsters. and Enabling teammates should be a task left for their abilities, not items.

OK, but what does any of that really have to do with game balance such as assassins and top lane game control?

With supports having too much of their power poured into buffing/healing/shielding, it makes whomever they define as the carry near invincible. The sheer mass of added stats that marksman have available is atrocious. item 3107 item 3504 item 3190 aery, +Lulu e,r,w+runes healing. IMO, no one should ever expect an assassin or burst ad/ap champion to do well with all of this. If an adc dies to an assassin, someone messed up. Either the support didn't react in time, or the adc was out in a place they should not have been. And yes, I am implying that all of these items and abilities are reserved for the marksman

item 3147item 3814 So assassins have become unplayable because of support changes, or have at the very least required items to counter support changes that should never have been added in the first place.

So if we shift supports away from buffing, with some other tweaking afterwords, we can bring marksman back into line, making solo lanes applicable towards the end result of the game.

16 Comments

Rainfall1/30/2018, 2:25:45 PM5 votes

what top needs is fervor,but riot only listens to pros. The pros told riot that toplane should be a jungle camp that teleports bot at 7 minutes for turret fb and to gank and riot listened.

FurriesAreHot1/30/2018, 4:30:23 PM4 votes

ADC main's opinion:

First Turret Gold promotes snowballing, and makes getting an IE even easier.

item 3031 has too much power behind it, whichever ADC gets it first wins the rest of lane.

ADC build diversity is basically non-existent.

Why are tanks killing me faster than assassins?

Runes in general I HATE.

I don't feel like kiting matters to the game anymore.

I don't feel like im engaged with my supports, atleast those that arent my friends in discord screaming profanities at eachother (its more fun than it sounds)

Unrelated but Important:

My support main friend used to play DoTA 2, and said the following, which after playing 100 hours of DoTA 2, I agree with:

Dragon Pit and Baron Pit shouldn't be on 1 distinct side, as it creates an inherent imbalance.

Nymzo1/30/2018, 3:54:19 PM3 votes

I want to give my two cents about the support part.

{quoted}

So what changes have happened? Well, A lot. From Season 3 sight stone being introduced, we began the concept of supports having more than just warding and team fight Crowd control duties. Supports in season 3-8 have really all been summed up into one thing: item 3504 Support are more about itemization, and less about macro play. And I believe this can be translated in another way.

Supporting is more about helping your team mates directly, through buffs, heals, shields, crowd control, etc; item 2056 as opposed to helping your teammates in more indirect ways, such as vision, objective control, and strategy.

Supports have been continually pulled away from vision, where in season 3 for example, you could place an unlimited amount of wards in accordance with your allowance. Since then, the game has continually added and changed support itemization to give supports more of an impact through enabling their teammates actions, at the cost of macro play such as vision (caps and ward limits have gone down and green wards can no longer be purchased)

So for supports to remain in a balanced state, we had to cater items towards them. As a support player, I can honestly say that the current support itemization doesn&#039;t make me feel as though I am expressing skill, I just feel like I&#039;m pressing every heal and shield I can into one person.

I agree. Before support was the role known for having less income and being less item dependant which means it was all about champion pick and personnal skill along with a few mandatory things like warding.

But since pre season 7, it did a full 180 degree on itself: with metas that force support to rush said item or you are at great risk of being useless and of losing the game. Hell I'm not even sure if we have that much less income anymore with everything being cheaper and with a few runes. All of that to make the role more appealing for autofill players.

I believe support would be a much better balanced role if we placed more focus on objective control and strategy than enabling teammates. Something similar to skarner&#039;s capture points on the map is something I would love to see for supports. (which could be gated to supports through itemization) We also have a very modular runes system now, where we could come up with some very interesting ways to enable supports to participate in map control. ( which has been done with things such as zombie ward)

item 2055 To make a more specific point; Supports should be given unique ways to interact with the terrain, towers, and epic monsters. and Enabling teammates should be a task left for their abilities, not items.

That however, I will have to disagree. Your idea is similar to the one of someone who suggested ''shines'' two years ago being avaliable through the map for supports and I called that idea bad too.

Skarner's capture point are terrible design by themselves. Only he get a big bonus for capturing them, the rest of his teammates and his enemies get a little bit of gold and ''well he doesn't have them so... that's good for us I guess.'' But if he doesn't have them under his control, he doesn't have a passif.

The shine idea was in my opinion terrible for multiple reasons: it gave little almost invisible bonus and it encourage snowballing since there's no way the support in the team that is behind will ever be able to approach them without being spotted and murdered (since they were all outside of the base somewhere I expect your capture points to be).

Your capture points in a nutshell would basically a big shiny trap for supports when they would have to isolate themselves from their team basically giving assasins a walking bag of gold on a silver plate. And guess what, you should never isolate yourself from your team.

We don't need more focus on objective control, you warded and dewarded the area. There you go, you job is done now go back near your teammates.

Instead, Riot should focus on making the champions more unique. Personally, I have yet to see a support with a unique mechanic like Kayn's passif or Orrn's passif. I also have yet to see a shapeshifting support, all the shapeshifter are dmg dealer or... one tank Gnar at top lane. Hell how about a ninja support that use energy (no Shen does not count he wasn't designed to be a support). I could go on forever but I think you get the point.

OK, but what does any of that really have to do with game balance such as assassins and top lane game control?

With supports having too much of their power poured into buffing/healing/shielding, it makes whomever they define as the carry near invincible. The sheer mass of added stats that marksman have available is atrocious. item 3107 item 3504 item 3190 aery, +Lulu e,r,w+runes healing. IMO, no one should ever expect an assassin or burst ad/ap champion to do well with all of this. If an adc dies to an assassin, someone messed up. Either the support didn&#039;t react in time, or the adc was out in a place they should not have been. And yes, I am implying that all of these items and abilities are reserved for the marksman

item 3147item 3814 So assassins have become unplayable because of support changes, or have at the very least required items to counter support changes that should never have been added in the first place. So if we shift supports away from buffing, with some other tweaking afterwords, we can bring marksman back into line, making solo lanes applicable towards the end result of the game.

Again for another time as I said in many threads, you guys do not want to change supports, you want an Enchanter rework. All you just said only applie to Enchanters, I have yet to see a Catcher doing this shit or even a goddamn tank.

HavinABadTiem1/30/2018, 2:09:06 PM1 votes

The issue I have with vision is that it's so limited. I'd much prefer to spend gold on wards and have more than one/two out at a time than fall prey to some gank because they went completely around my one ward, regardless of how well placed it is, to fist me from behind. The catch-up experience is a plague that I'd rather not address, since I get pretty heated about it. I'll just say that if you fall behind, you deserve the loss. Plain and simple.

Brain Errör 4041/30/2018, 9:16:31 PM1 votes

Interesting post. I especially love the insight on solo laners exp specifically. I remember roaming bot and being 2-3 levels on them consistently as a mid/top laner. Now it's normally a 1 or 2 level lead roaming down bot most times, which isn't really beneficial nor helpful to anyone since they seem to get the most out of it.

Pandeonor1/31/2018, 12:34:11 PM1 votes

TL:DR

You want supporter more to be shot calling and warding only -- and not have any impact or do any harm in fights/teamfights?

I would say that was and is still the reason why the position of a supporter ist unpopular and why autofill is still indispensable. I´ve heard that in other games of this genre this is fact.

Longtowel1/31/2018, 10:38:54 PM1 votes

I sympathize with the issue that Supports fill the heal-bot role.

Lulu is a bit ridiculous right now as she just spam all of her skills and items on an ADC and give another 200% of his HP in the fraction of a second.

You're right, it doesn't reward skill. What I suggest as a balance change, now that face of the mountain is removed, is to change the locket, for example, lower the shield and the cooldown, and change it from a team wide barrier to say a 2 man or 3 man barrier to the closest allies, so that the support needs to watch the positioning to make sure that she can shield who she wanted to shield (A bit like the guardian talent, which I quite like.) This way, the item becomes something that can be used multiple times during a fight, and takes a bit more thinking.

Another idea could be is to give the items some form of mechanism that a shielding/ healing/ defensive item active will get a say 3 second CD reduction if the support uses an offensive spell, or cast a CC on an enemy. Conversely, we give a cooldown to Offensive/ Crowd Control items when the support uses a defensive ability. This way, supports have a little extra utility outside of what their original role is supposed to be, but not as much as a specialist. For example, Leona will be able to use smaller shields and heals during fights to support her Carries but cannot do it as effectively as Lulu. But Lulu can bring a little more CC and Damage to the fight as she uses her shields and buffs.

Depending on how its done, it could also promote Supports to weave spells together with item actives instead of mindlessly spamming all the abilities at once.

We could also, alternatively, add a health cost to some of the defensive active items, such as locket, Crucible and Redemption. This way, Supports are making themselves slightly more vulnerable while helping out the team, which first makes them a little bit more of a higher priority target in a teamfight, as it would give incentives for the enemy to take out the support, because leaving them alive would allow them to continously bring more utlity and CC to a fight.

This system might bring Supports away from ADCs a little bit, and make them more a team support, since their abilities and items have a higher impact to the whole team instead of one person, because they can change the focus of their support as the battle field changes.

Another idea, with items like Knights Vow and Zekes, they could use a little change to make them more interactive. Instead of an item that you chain to your ADC and just leave alone for the rest of the game, make them items with an Active. So you pop the Knights Vow on a team mate as the fight starts and it lasts for a few seconds. Of course mostly its going to be on your ADC, but if you see the enemy trying to engage on your Mage, you could pop knights vow on him to shield away some of the damage. For Zekes, we could give it an Adaptive Damage bonus rather than something that strictly benefits Marksman. WIth the same Active concept, you could use Zekes on your midlane Ahri as she goes in for her burst, giving her some extra damage on her spells and a slow so she would be a bit harder to kite. Then as she retreats to safety, you could then redirect the bonuses to your Twitch who has just come out of the shadows.

This requires supports to think more strategically about who it is that needs the support right now, and putting your Knights Vow on the wrong person could mean that the vulnerable aren't receiving your help.

I really like Supports like Soraka and Nami, who fills the fantasy of a support really well. They really shine in their roles, with Soraka boasting some of the best clutch healing in the game, but at the cost of her own safety. In a fight, there is a strong incentive to try and take out the soraka, or otherwise she will go on to heal 100000 points over the course of the fight. However, she isn't simply emptying her mana bar, she is making herself weaker and weaker at every turn. This makes her feel powerful but gives her a weakness. Nami on the other hand is a good mix of both offense a defence, CC, and a powerful Ult if used correctly. She feels like a champion that could work really well if she could weave items into her abilities, by having a mechanism that rewards spells interacting with each other or used in a chain rather than all at the same time.

A champion like Lulu is not so well designed in my mind, that just straight up denies all kill potential by pressing all of the buttons available. I like the concept of her ult, which is a clutch defense (a heal really) and a knockup that could interrupt Assassins. But the shield and everything on top of that just destroys all potentials of counter play, which meant that it is frustrating to play against.

If a Rengar/ Khazix is jumping onto a Kog'maw, Lulu could just spam all the skills and make sure Kog has the time to murder his assassin, with little counter play. But what if Khazix is really good, and manages to dodge the knockup, and then proceeds to burst? What if Zed ults onto Vayne, flashes away to dodge the knockup, and then warps back in for the kill? If the assassin could do that, then they should be rewarded with higher kill potential, rather than having to face a another mountain of shields.

Perhaps if we change Lulu's ult so that the ADC gains Max health boost depending on how many enemies are hit by the knock up, it would promote more strategic use of the spell. If the knock up didn't hit anyone, the ADC does not get a boost and is still vulnerable. We could then change the shield to scale to Max health, so that shielding after a successful knockup is more meaningful, and that the ADC has more survivability if ganged upon. We could give Lulu a new mechanic around our beloved little fairy, Pix. Just like Orianna's ball, Pix needs to be on the target first before spells can be used on them. So Lulu cannot instantaneously buff the ADC and Polymorph the enemy, or Ult the ADC and speed herself up at the same time. Of course this would be a bit of a nerf but we could make it up in the strength or CD of her spells.

Another way to do it is give Pix a 'energy' system, so that Lulu can only use 2 of her spells instantaneously, so that Lulu needs to choose the best spell for the situation, and make each spell more effective to make up for the wait.

That way, Lulu needs to decide, if she needs to lock down the ADC's target with a slow and give your ADC a little extra damage with the passive, or if she needs to save her ADC using the Ult + Shield Combo.

All in all, I feel like that the game's supports could use a reimagining of what they are and what they can do, along with support items that can alter their playstyle.