Current Meta: "High Immediate Impact" Meta

Anyone a little confused on how it seems like, despite this being a Bruiser Meta or whichever thing people are calling it, some Bruisers are still absolute hot garbage? Or how, despite some people saying Tanks are bad, some Tanks still prove to perform extremely well, especially in higher up ELOs? Well, I think I have figured out what to call the game the way it currently is and that is the "High Immediate Impact" Meta.

You see, the way you find out how good a champion is by figuring out how high their immediate impact is. If a champion doesn't do a ton at the start of a fight, there is little chance they will survive to carry out their prolonged impact due to how impossible it is currently to deal with champions that have all their impact packed into the first few seconds of a fight. This impact can either be through large amounts of crowd control, large burst damage, or anything else that just immediately sets your team in a good position. Another factor that also matters is what I like to call someone's "Duration of High Impact". You see, some champions don't seemingly fit into the above, but they kind of do. If you notice that a champion is performing well, but doesn't seem to have too high of an impact on a fight, look at their duration of high impact. Everyone needs to be very impactful immediately in a fight, but some can afford to be slightly less effective if they they still have a fairly front loaded burst of impact but over a longer duration, especially if mechanics in that champion's kit pretty much guarantee said slightly delayed yet still high impact is going to happen.

Let's look at characters that are valued currently due to a higher pick rate:

Top Lane

Jungle

Middle Lane

Bottom Lane

Support

Notice anything about all these picks? That's right! They all have either a.) a more "burst/initiate" style of play or b.) directly counter that style of play or c.) while not as bursty as others, have insane mechanics that almost guarantee they will execute their impact on a fight. Some can even do several of these! The only outliers are Singed and Ezreal. Singed is arguable since he can fall in the last two categories simply due to how punishing it is to interact with him at all. Ezreal is mainly just due to him being not affected by Crit changes, although he can also fall into the "counters the burst style" due to his ability to disengage consistently. So, if you are looking for a decent pick to climb, outside of some extremely overpowered champions that might arise from balance changes, look towards who has the most immediate impact on a fight or who can most immediately negate the opposing immediate impact on a fight. Or just someone who has some absurd mechanic (like Mundo) that allows them to just not give a crap (although these champions are in low supply).

I think this is the main reason why many Marksman suddenly feel less impactful on the game alongside a few other things. Most Marksman, simply by their nature, don't have a huge immediate impact on a fight. They now ACTUALLY do sustained damage and, while that is useful in some cases, the issue is that they usually just won't survive to make such a delayed impact on a fight. They will either be stunned by a strong Tank or Support initiation, killed by a bursty Assassin or Fighter, or just chipped away by a rampaging Mundo or Singed. The same ALSO applies to Bruisers and Tanks that aim at impacting a fight over a more prolonged period of time. By the time you are going to end up making said impact, you will usually be either close to dead or already dead.

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So why is this meta this way? Well, here's my opinion on the matter:

1. Defensive Stats Are Currently Undesirable At Best While getting some defensive stats is pretty mandatory, the only champions that really want to have a largely defensive build are champions with insane defensive steroids that multiply with said stats, like Mundo. Armor especially just isn't helping at all right now due to the abundant number of ways to ignore it either through Conqueror, Lethality, or some other way. A good offensive is the best defense has never been more true as simply overwhelming an enemy with an immediate, extremely high burst of damage often leaves the enemy dead or with no choice but to retreat UNLESS they kill you so quickly with their own burst that their low health doesn't even matter.

2. Shields and Heals Just Got Nerfed Strong peel compositions that simply rely on a strong heal or shield to ward off burst just don't cut it anymore. The burst is going to overwhelm the enemy almost no matter how hard you try unless you are just one fed as hell Lulu or Janna. It's better now to simply stop enemies before they hit you with your own burst of crowd control or simply play someone like Brand and be like "Hah, you thought I dealt no burst damage myself!? Death is the best crowd control!"

3. Sustained Damage Just Got Nerfed ADCs basically. The strongest form of sustained damage just got nerfed and now it is just too costly to invest into. Only Burst Damage Marksman and Ezreal remain after the nerfs.