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%HP Damage and mobility creep.

NinjaCÅT·9/21/2015, 3:32:27 PM·7 votes·2,196 views

So, I (and many others) have noticed more and more mobility as well as %HP damage in league of legends. I can't even count how many threads I've seen complaining about it.

I could ask "Riot why do you let this go on? why do you keep adding these things?" But that's been done enough.

I'm here to ask Why do you care? Yes %HP damage and mobility are being added to a lot of champions, but why is that bad? I'm not here to say its not bad, but I've only seen "Wow, more %hp damage on X's kit. really rito?" and "Oh look another new champion with mobility." I've never actually seen anyone explain why that's a bad thing. Whats so bad about those mechanics?

Mobility is fun, blinks/dashes make a fights more interesting, and more potential for outplays, rather than just seeing who has better stats. %damage just makes a skill good against tanks. No one is QQing about snares/stuns, which are anti squishy champions. Some skills are good against X, some skills are good against Y some skills are good against tanks. So what?

I would just like here hear some discussion on WHY this is/isn't hurting league as a game.

25 Comments

Jbels9/21/2015, 3:39:35 PM10 votes

What's important isn't that Mobility and %HP keep being added to the game, it's how irrelevant it's making older champions who didn't receive overloaded kits to help them survive this game (Overloaded =/= Overpowered)

A Miss Fortune9/21/2015, 4:48:46 PM8 votes

Mobility use to be a unique feature that a champion had. Champions with mobility traded something like damage or reliability for their mobility too. Now mobility is a MUST have. If you don't have mobility, you have to counter it and only a few champions are an exception for pro play. Looking at the LCS picks you can see that pretty much every ADC has at least a dash, blink, movement speed buff, or at least have a lot of Crowd Control (Ashe has multiple AoE slows and a stun for example.).

Lucian was only ever played solely because he had a low cooldown, low mana costing dash and a movement speed buff. Without it he would probably be the worst ADC in the game and one of the worst champions too. Despite him having an EXTREMEEELYY low win rate, he was still played over and over again because he had mobility.

It would be nice for mobility to be a unique feature rather than something that determines if a champion is viable or not. That, and I'd much prefer a strategic fight of immobile champions rather than a random clutter of infinite dashes and "outplays". Without mobility, champions have to be more careful and especially in teamfights you have to think about what you're going to do. In Zed's case, he just presses R and blinks out to fix his mistake, or in Ahri's case she'll just dash out with a burst of movement speed and if you dare chase her, she'll charm you. With immobile champions it isn't like this, if you make a mistake, you die as you should.

Sasogwa9/21/2015, 10:27:03 PM3 votes

For %HP damage, because it leads to stupid scenarios. Why should people have %health in their kit if they don't need it? This particular stat should be only used on special tankmelters in very little number. Also botrk is broken and since last buff introduces the concept of : the more HP you have, the easier it is to duel you. Because I lifesteal on the %health. The fact building health would have negative worth is just ridiculous. It's also broken because of its ridiculous powerspike and the fact it is actually still really good if you fight non-tank champions.

It seems also that with all the items right now, damage largely outscales tankiness. Sure, it's not fun to kill someone in 15 seconds while focusing him as 5 lategame, but it's not fun either to die in 1.5 seconds to not even a full team as a full tank. Either way, there's a middle and I'm not sure we reached it. Midgame is kinda fine, but lategame, tankiness falls off so badly it's not even funny.

Also mechanics such as true damage %health, despite filling the niche of 'I can fight everyone' is just ridiculous. It doesn't take in account the fact that if you're more tanky, you also deal less damage, so it's even easier to duel you. The unfun factor is too big in that one. Anyway, all of this favourises a carry meta. Who doesn't build health? Squishy champions. And in parallel, the mobility is constantly increasing and the only counters to mobility are

  1. more mobility
  2. "retard" point&click range CC, which is gradually being removed from League (think Sion's old Q, old Veigar's cage (which was arguably not point&click and had 0.25 cast time, but it's very close from it). This kind of CC is usually not appreciated (cf. Annie threads) but it's one of the last remaining counters.
  3. having more range. But usually having long range means skillshots, which are actually countered by mobility. So meh.

Anyway, we're pretty much headed into a "muh plays so skill tons of outplay" kind of meta which is more mechanic-oriented but way less strategy/counterbuild/comp thinking-oriented. And in my humble opinion, I dislike that.

Kitten of Evil9/21/2015, 5:52:45 PM2 votes

Mobility isn't bad per se, but it has to be paid for in a champion's power budget. After all, it is undoubtedly an advantage. A Vel'Koz or a Brand has to be extremely conscious of the mini-map and of their positioning at all times, because if they get jumped, they will probably die (unless they have flash). Ekko or Zed, on the other hand, don't have to worry as much about positioning because if they get jumped, they can hop over a wall.

Do Ekko or Zed pay for being mobile? Not really. Ekko in particular loses nothing, since his mobility skill does damage, applies a stack of passive, isn't his primary waveclear, and has a low cooldown.

Mobility means you don't have to care (as much) about positioning. Having one less thing to worry about is an advantage and should be budgeted as such.

TurquoiseYoshi9/22/2015, 12:02:10 AM2 votes

%HP damage is fine. It's a good way to counter HP stacking on tanks.

Mobility creep is a decent thing as long as mobility isn't a major portion of the kit. Having a dash isn't too bad, but making kits centered around it (Yasuo and Kalista) gets a bit odd.

Lovelle9/21/2015, 10:54:48 PM2 votes

Well, I started playing LoL in season 2. Trundle DrMundo Sion are the types of champions I've always enjoyed playing.

Compared to back then, it feels like %hp damage is just way too common now. It really hurts the less mobile champions that aren't overtuned.

The least Riot could do is add some defensive items with %damage reduction, especially an AD item. As it stands, Last Whisper + Botrk has no counterplay if you're a tank. Then to make matters worse, Riot is now making true damage more common, while simultaneously nerfing tank items.

The best tanks are the ones that deal the most damage and have %based reduction and/or % bonus armor/mr scaling. Anything less is generally outclassed because defensive scaling just isn't as strong as it used to be. The game feels heavily biased toward damage dealers and it seems to increase with each season. It makes the game feel dumbed down and less strategic (but more reactive) compared to previous seasons.

I, for one, would like to see the penetration changes at the start of S3 reverted. Since a lot more champions deal %hp damage and/or true damage now I think it would balance things out.

The Voids Call9/21/2015, 5:27:55 PM2 votes

Another issue which is brought about by mobility creep and lots of % damage (or just really high ratios) is twitch style gameplay and a low average time to kill... The reason i personally dislike these two things is because it removes more strategy from the combat of the game and focuses it more on fast reaction times.

This is evident in the ways which pick/ban phase honestly decides the game more than the actual gameplay sometimes, and niche fun builds are becoming less viable because it's vital you play your champion to their maximum potential to have a decent chance of winning, because you can't simply outplay enemies with a kit which has it's power redistributed but on average lower.

e.g. AP Varus is a build i use to play the shit out of, but as time has progressed and mobility creep and burst damage have been on the rise, it become nearly impossible to play that build because even if i outplay the enemy their burst is so high (and time-to-kill so low), that i'd have to make 4 good plays to their 1 half ass play.

It kept the game interesting with tons of different strategies to win, things like protect the kogmaw, all healers/tanks, double jungle. These were all possible because burst and mobility were lower.

MorganFreemanBot9/22/2015, 12:15:37 AM1 votes

Trundle This is my main champ, primarily in top or jungle.

Darius was my other main champion until the rework. At which point he's so different, so heavily banned, and (imo) so useless at what I used to use him for. So I don't play him too much.

Swain is my favorite mid.

Taric is my favorite support.

Draven My favorite ADC.

What do all of these champs have in common?

They hail from S2 or earlier, back before this mass mobility migration. All of these champions have limited tools to counteract such things. Admittedly this affects some more than others. But as I said, my main champion is trundle...

So I genuinely ask you, what am I supposed to do? My favorite champ has a 0.25 second snare and a large, immobile snare zone / movement blocker (on a freaking 23 second cooldown). Those are the only tools which I have to close the gap. Yet all these champions with dashes can simply dash **THROUGH **pillar and turn it against me if I ever try to use it to get close.

The same is true of %max HP damage. My only hope for ever getting in close is being tough and tanky, which is fine. Trundle's a phenomenal tank.. Until you implemented damage which scales with my stats. Doing more damage the tougher I get, effectively leaving me at the same survivability regardless of what I build vs said champion. Great, I just lost my only answer.

So basically you're telling me that I'm fucked with my favorite champs, because they're outdated. I can't close the gap or get close to people to hurt them because they're too mobile, but if I try to build tank to weather the storm they have free % max health damage to kill me just as fast. Mobility creep is a problem because it removes chunks of the roster at a time, % max health is a damage because it punishes tanks for being tanky. It's as simple as that.

shadecrapper9/21/2015, 3:37:17 PM1 votes

Riot tried to balance champions haveing 5k+ HP along with being super tanky, mainly because they wind up dealing more damage then the ADC that went full dps

Big Lincoln9/21/2015, 3:45:12 PM1 votes

mobility usually gives power to the mobile, while immobile champs have been getting their usual options (point and click skills) slowly taken away. I think it's too strong to be this common, especially when there arent meaningful trade offs for it

Of course, the juggernauts were a step toward making immobile melees able to combat this, and look at how people reacted

Kögâ9/21/2015, 6:17:50 PM1 votes

Because league used to be about strategy and positioning. Mobility gives SOOOO much forgiveness its really irritating when X champ gets caught out, but get away because of endless mobility.

luckmallory9/21/2015, 3:35:32 PM1 votes

I honestly love it. Haven't had more fun playing league since seasons 2