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Burst vs Sustained damage

Linna Excel··2 votes·4,251 views

To start with I think both are interesting forms of damage and I think both should have a place in the game. However in terms of game balance, it feels to me like LOL's design favors burst damage over sustained damage. Does anyone else get this feeling? That someone who can do 3k damage in 2 seconds but then has a bit of a cooldown is better than someone who could do 10k damage in 10 seconds (numbers are random examples). The two meet in a fight and the guy with the 3k damage will probably win because he'll do 1000 more damage by that 2nd second meaning the other guy is dead and his team is out their damage dealer on the wrong end of a 4v5.

To put it in perspective, you guys know how you hate an assassin meta? Well assassins tend to be (but not always) burst champs. So an assassin meta means the other team is going to burst yours down if you aren't running better and more fed assassins.

Another example of things being skewed towards burst is bot lane. What's the item most ADC champs want to finish early? For a lot of them it's something like IE or ER. Sure graves rushes firecannon, but he's kinda bursty before hand and it is a bursty item for him. Corki rushes TF because that's how he gets his burst. A weapon like IE or ER gives a non bursty ADC that damage burst he needs, even if it is a little bit random when it comes early on. I mean the champs who run bork do it because their burst of damage relies on AS... Kalista with her E and Vayne with her W. I'd argue this is why Soraka is doing so well... her W is great at cancelling out the other guy's burst. So as long as Soraka plays safe and hits the occasional Q, her team is much more likely to win bot lane as she's kind of an anti-burst champ. This is also why Janna is so good, she can delay and reset the other team's ability to burst you down. Leona is good because she brings that burst of damage.

So if LOL was MtG, it seems like riot is favoring red weenie and burn decks in balance over the blue-black control decks. I'm not sure this is a great idea in that I think riot seems to be favoring speed a little too much lately. I get it they want the games to be shorter and longer games are dreadful but at the same time, I think they need more than who spams the fastest wins. Don't get me wrong, I hate tank metas as much as assassin metas, so I'm not asking for more beef. However it seems like sustained damage in general needs a little TLC.

5 Comments

Slamurai Jack2 votes

Of course the game favors burst; people fucking hate picking tanks. They also hate building tanky; people build extremely greedily and die to a stiff breeze.

Penguin Eclipse1 votes

I hate that Zed has both.

TehNACHO1 votes

Well yeah. That's why the system isn't binary, but a Triangle.

I nickname it the Damage Triangle. I think the guy I learned this idea from called it something else but I was never able to find it again. Anyway, you got two parts of the Triangle and their interaction correct: Burst Damage and DPS. The third element is what you directly apply this damage against; EHP, or Tankiness.

You can think of it like this: Burst beats DPS: You pointed this out and explained it, so no need for me to repeat DPS beats Tankiness: Tankiness has a hard limit to how much EHP it can grant a champion. DPS, with enough time, can go waaaaay beyond that hard limit. It's not a coincidence that many ADCs and the Melee Carries of the game are also naturally the best Tank Busters of the game, like Vayne or Fiora. Tankiness beats Burst: This is the balancing lever to the problem you noticed. While Tankiness has a hard limit to how much EHP it can grant, Burst's hard limit to how much damage a champion can supply within an instant is oftentimes balanced to be well below what a Tanky champion can put up with.

It's not necessarily that Sustained Damage needs to be buffed, if I'm reading your post correctly. After all, if Sustained Damage can play on relatively equal grounds against Burst Champions, the whole Triangle falls apart and there would be literally no reason to play a Tank or an Assassin in that sort of meta. Instead, if there is an overarching problem within that interaction of the game, I think a buff to the Tanky champions of the game would be a better balancing lever. Buffing them would increase the demand and value of an ADC in the team, while at the same time would help inhibit Burst Champions. It evens the playing ground, technically, all while playing by the natural rules of the numbers behind this game.

theragingnerd1 votes

remember the sustained damage dealers if left alive are going to reek more havoc on the teamfight then the sustained damage dealers

Abyssphere1 votes

It's possible for the game to be skewed more towards one or the other at any given point, agreed, but I think in general neither form of damage is inherently superior. In your example the bursty character has the ability to do 3k damage in 2 seconds, while the sustained DPS character can do 2k damage in 2 seconds, but can keep that damage up. In a flat out burst vs burst fight, assuming 3k damage is enough to kill the DPS character, the bursty one will win. However, that's often not the case.

Sustained damage characters are usually given the ability to survive burst, which allows them to live long enough to put out their sustained damage. Melee champions are tankier and often get defensive abilities to withstand burst, ADCs get lifesteal, and sustained DPS mages get sustain like Vlad or Swain, or massive range like Azir. So it's not always that reliable to burst a sustained DPS character down in reality.

Basically burst wins IF the burst can reliably 100-0 the sustained DPS character. This is why assassins exist, so they can kill the enemy ADC. However, in the event that the burst doesn't 100-0 then it loses because the sustained damage will eventually 100-0 and then the character putting it out can likely turn to someone else and kill them too. Burst is risky.

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