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Rengar Nerfs, Unhealthy Metas, and How Riot Should View Balance Changes

Shuks·2/4/2016, 9:48:51 AM·10 votes·2,088 views

I recently just posted a thread about the current state of assassins as a joke, but people have actually been participating in a legitimate discussion which is awesome. So I decided to create a much better post, here it is

Okay, so recently our good pal Rengar got hit with the nerf bat...quite hard. Saintivious went as far as to say he's dead (in his latest patch rundown)

I'm not here to complain about a champion I enjoy playing being nerfed, in fact I'm looking forward to the changes in patch 6.3, however; I do want to use Rengar as an example about how Riot chooses to operate balance changes, in hopes that a healthy discussion spawns and a Rioter involved in the community gets some valuable information that can be used to create a better experience for players of all skill levels.

The recent nerfs to Rengar (specifically the Bola Strike nerf) pretty much ruined his ability to execute his role as an assassin that punishes his opponents poor positioning. In short, Rengar's one true purpose as a champion was made almost obsolete because of how difficult it is to execute his assassination combo. So lets look at the facts for a minute, Rengar had existed in his pre 6.2 state for a very, very long time without players giving any attention to him...

What started the Rengar FoTM QQ train in the first place?

TLDR: Nightblue3, Dekar173, indirect buffs & game knowledge predominantly among low elo players.

For starters, Rengar hasn't been tampered with in a very long time. His rise to FoTM status is due to popular streamers, the inability of players to make correct decisions in dealing with an assassin of Rengar's nature, and indirect buffs due to item changes. For example, item 2043 s were massively nerfed at the start of the season (indirectly buffing all stealth champions) and players have less options in dealing with assassins because of the options available for keeping adequate vision (especially when playing from behind). However, this is not to say that pink wards are not an adequate choice for countering Rengar. In fact, pink wards are one of the most effective tools available for stopping Rengar in his tracks and I strongly encourage anyone playing against him to utilize this. Rengar also has more assassination options now because of the increased price of item 3157 . This directly limits an AP carry's ability to deal with champions such as Rengar and Zed while creating more options for these champions to snowball.

So was Riot's decision to gut Rengar the most optimal, healthy balance decision they could have made?

I'm going to have to say no, simply because no champion deserves to receive nerfs that fundamentally change the fluidity of a kit, making the sole purpose of the champion unnecessarily hard to execute while providing zero compensation, and not exhausting other balance options in the first place. I'm going to be honest and speak for everyone out there that enjoys playing Rengar, he straight up isn't fun to play right now. Even when I win with him. This is the epitome of an unhealthy nerf.

What can Riot do differently moving forward?

Something that I personally believe that Riot needs to consider continuing to emphasize balance changes around competitive play and no low elo solo queue QQ threads. There are so many other champions that needed balance changes much more than Rengar: Poppy, Kench, GRAVES, Elise, Kindred, RYZE, Jax... Just to name a few.

Something that Riot has continually failed to do is implement a system to help players just fundamentally improve their gameplay. The hardest part about dealing with assassins is that players just don't have the tools to learn how to deal with them in an accessible, easy to use interface. It could be something as simple as a YouTube serious, and if any Rioter is seriously considering making such a necessary implementation, I'd love to be a part of it. I want to see players actually improve & make better decisions when playing against assassins because it would simply make a better environment for every skill level

I don't want to make this initial post too long as I want to leave room for discussion. Let me know what you think.

27 Comments

weeaboomer2/4/2016, 10:33:09 AM5 votes

{quoted}

no champion deserves to receive nerfs that fundamentally change the fluidity of a kit, making the sole purpose of the champion unnecessarily hard to execute while providing zero compensation, and not exhausting other balance options in the first place.

Ahem. Akali

Widder882/4/2016, 11:22:41 AM4 votes

{quoted}

What started the Rengar FoTM QQ train in the first place?

TLDR: Nightblue3, Dekar173, indirect buffs & game knowledge predominantly among low elo players.

Rengar had a better win rate in high elo than in low elo. And he was more often banned in high elo than in low elo too.

The problem was that skill didn't help against a skilled Rengar. I don't like reworks, but Rengar is actually one of the few champions, if not the only champion, who should be reworked. As long he is not reworked, it is fine for me if he is up.

NahDogSolRahn2/4/2016, 11:00:25 AM2 votes

Akali needs a rework, not Sion/Poppy/Shen level, more like ashe or MF, tweaks here and there, maaaaaaaaaaaybe a new ability, just to fix the "ball of stats" thing she has going for her. Irelia too, while we are talking about female champs with a ridiculous amount of kill potential.

1 800 MID LANE2/4/2016, 10:17:44 AM2 votes

I think I understand what they're going for when they completely gut a champion.

Say we have another champion like Rengar come along. Everyone likes it, but it's almost 100% pick-or-ban. Naturally, they nerf it. This time around, they only nerf the champion slightly. Giving just the tiny extra bit of counter play.

Now we have the champion at 80% ban rate and 15% pick rate. Okay, so invloved in 95% of games. Better, but definitely not healthy. Let's nerf this guy a little more.

This champion now has a pretty nice amount of counterplay compared to when it was released, but it's still wayyy OP with 70% ban rate and the same 15% pick rate. By now, people are pretty fed up with his strength, and the people that play him are fed up with nerfs, but he's got to be nerfed some more so here we go again. BOOM! Nerf bat. This continues on and on and on until this champion is FINALLY at a healthy state. The problem is that they now have had a lot of people fed up with an OP champion and nerfs to their main for a very long time. An upset customer base is never good.

--

Rewind to the beginning of this. A champion comes out OP as hell and rather than nerf it little by little, they completely gut this guy. FINALLY we don't have to deal with this atrocity anymore.

Now, we slowly get him buffed and buffed into a healthy state. Players weren't as fed up for so long that they had a disgusting champion in the game, and the people who truely loved to play him are pleased with the steady increase in power into a balanced state. Everyone is much happier in this scenario. It's unfortunate that a champion had to get gutted, but it's also less strenuous on everyone.

Håppy2/4/2016, 10:20:37 AM2 votes

I firmly disagree with the claim they need to prioritize their balancing around the competitive scene (By this, I mean professional scene, Esports, etc, because that's what everyone means). Because, you know what? LCS players are all in the top 1% of all League of Legends players. I'm not even joking, if you're in Diamond 5 (Which every LCS player can easily get to, and then go up from there), you're in the top 1%. Gold 5, is top 15% for reference. That means that right now, 85% of all League players are Silver and below. Last year, Gold 5 meant you were in the top 30%, which still means that 70% of all League players were Silver 1 and below. 70%, that's a fucking LOT of people, and to say that Riot should just ignore them and focus on the 1% is just straight up retarded, excuse my language, but that's how strongly I feel on the matter.

VasilisGreen2/4/2016, 10:30:12 AM1 votes

Speaking of changes, i quote you

No champion deserves to receive nerfs that fundamentally change the fluidity of a kit, making the sole purpose of the champion unnecessarily hard to execute while providing zero compensation, and not exhausting other balance options in the first place.

Remember when they implemented a Delay on Zed's ult when Febiven solokilled Faker??? That is exactly the same thing and when i posted about it i was downvoted to oblivion...

I completely agree with your post tho and i hope it gets theattention it deserves. Nice job man!

FurriesAreHot2/4/2016, 11:40:35 AM1 votes

I feel the current meta is dry unhealthy, it feels like I can't play mid lane anymore due to constant Yasuos, and the issue is far worse than s5, and the overall power of mages has been decreased

Akali is SO HOT2/4/2016, 4:27:05 PM1 votes

The problem with making a "Youtube Serious" channel or whatever is that despite all of the advice that higher elo players give lower elo players they don't want to take it and assume that Assassins and bad teammates are the reasons they are held back instead of the real problem which is their inability to learn and get better. I've tried giving advice millions of times on this board to lower elo players but because I'm an Akali main they dismiss it immediately and go on to complain that Zed is overpowered and he's the reason why they are Bronze or Silver.

Riot has basically proven that they favor ADCs and Mages over Assassins and the only time they actually do give buffs to Assassins is when they nerf them really hard and watch their winrate plummet to the low 40s (Akali is a great example of this). The last time Assassins were truely viable was in season 3 when Xelnath completely broke penetration and since then all of the nerfs have made most of them obsolete and the reason reason they are played is because they are fun.