Consider this Preseason the ultimate and final trial for the Balance Team

No joke or satire. Balance team has been joking around for the past couple of years. Whether you agree or disagree with such a time length, you could just focus on the past year as a good example as my examples are within the past year.

Before even looking at examples, you probably want to know what exact I, and probably most people, want to see coming out of the balance team and gameplay. Using Worlds for an example, you'll see almost every kill, if not all of them, where the results of jungler ganks or 5 man deathballs. Where's the self snowballing and skill expression of map rotation? It's literally just picking up the nearest objective these days, though most players don't even do that themselves. Point is: It's boring and it's not fun to watch or play. I don't like seeing teamwide snowballing so you auto win the 5 man deathballs, nor do I enjoy solo kills being not worth it.

I simply want a state of the game where no class(es) are ungodly overpowered in comparison to another, splitpushing is a viable tactic and not negated by taking Baron, solo kills are meaningful, teamwide snowballing isn't as high as it currently is, no class(es) or items invalidate another class. I want powercreeped reduced.

These examples aren't your memed, "Ekko fares well against mages...", these are actual statements in patches or by Rioters that reveal how terrible balance has been.

https://i.imgur.com/zhXLbxf.png

In summary, he's saying "We buffed supports as class and gave them more impact in hopes that it would make support more popular as a role." Do you notice the problem with this? Perhaps making supports stronger inadvertently makes ADCs broken. Perhaps this inadvertently makes assassins and bruisers weaker. Did Riot consider any of this? Based on the previous patches of the game not buffing bruisers or assassins in any way, nor nerfing the peeling effects of ADCs (or lifesteal), no they did not.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LeBlancMains/comments/6wqe87/dear_riot_balance_team/dmax6n1/

This one happens to be a favorite of the boards. If AD carries have been broken since, we'll say, right before mid season, why wasn't this covered in 2-3 patches? If they didn't realize it, yet somehow 'crowd sources' did, then isn't that a fault on their research? Also I'm fairly certain the game has been competitive in others states, but maybe this is just a result of other unfixed factors.

https://i.imgur.com/A4X8PI2.png

Personally, I think this should have been memed more than the Ekko thing. This wasn't a simple mistake, this was just absolute backwards design. Before being nerfed, Fiora was very powered. Now she's nerfed and an overpowered item, which is killing the bruiser class, exists. If you are a game designer, what do you do? Perhaps nerf the overpowered item? Maybe making Fiora auto win again, but this time only if her opponent can't buy Bramble Vest, is a bad design choice.

Keep in mind the original context about giving Thornmail heal reduction, "Against champions and teams that lean on heavy healing and regeneration effects, tanky melee types sometimes feel like they’re actually hurting their team by serving as convenient health batteries." Clearly, they're talking about AD carries because the only melee champion who could drain tank is Fiora. Surely, Aatrox and Irelia are not related. So here's a good question, Why is the heal reduction not against ranged only?

https://i.imgur.com/l1d1mJB.png

He's talking about Sterak's Gage. I didn't know it gave anything near 20% cooldown reduction and 24% armor pen and a movement speed bonus extra.

https://i.imgur.com/vx7EMWE.png

Apparently Riot isn't aware about what champions are broken. Don't know what else to say.

https://i.imgur.com/OX1CqOH.png

First thing pointing out: This guy is not someone who works in balance design or playtesting. Second thing, focus on that 54% winrate for Pantheon. You can check op.gg for his winrate over the past 6 months if you'd like. Apparently, 'better communication' would help people better understand why a champion who you can't outplay or interact with is allowed to be broken.

https://i.imgur.com/kRngWxZ.png

Just using this to point out that there isn't a single person at fault, but instead an entire team.

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What does any of this mean? I'm spreading the news. It's up for your interpretation for the most part, but it's a clear sign that something is going wrong.

The balance team has worked on the game for over 4 years now. The gloves are off, and there's no excuses left. They couldn't or refused to balance season 7. Now the game is in total chaos from a lack of checking numbers, despite apparently working on preseason instead of fixing the remaining season 7. I give them until the season officially begins to solve this chaos, and everything they refuses to fix in season 7 that still remains. If they cannot reach, "a state of the game where no class(es) are ungodly overpowered in comparison to another, splitpushing is a viable tactic and not negated by taking Baron, solo kills are meaningful, teamwide snowballing isn't as high as it currently is, no class(es) or items invalidate another class." by half way minimum, then they have failed.

Unofficially the last chance the balance team has to prove themselves as people who aren't faking a balance team. Here's a hint, "In most cases with direct gameplay, 'Do not increase defenses; reduce damage instead.' will almost always apply." Good luck.