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How is Sylas not just a standard problematic bruiser from 2014 and earlier?

Quepha·4/2/2019, 4:16:15 AM·8 votes·7,951 views

Let's pull up a C L A S S I C red post about League's Bruiser/Fighter/Melee (later called diver) problem from the one and only Morello so long ago: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3608061&page=9#post44409164 I recommend reading the whole thing but I'll just pull out what I think of as the important bits

And oh, what a love letter it was. Xin was tough as a nail, bursty as an assassin and had chainable CC. Our solution was to try to give them everything we could to make up for the melee nature. While Xin's tuning was absurd on launch, the formula worked in the "here's how melee can be viable in LoL." The problem is that approach left us little we could do to adjust playbalance outside of power and numbers.

...

The problem was that we didn't have nearly the sophistication with understanding what effect this would have on the game long-term. We'd all get different insights and peeks into it, but never anything to change course. It was really in the end of 2011 (after a very storied Volibear development) where we went "OK, what the **** is happening here."

...

Now, we get into last year and up to today. Fighters have these problem more than even (Hi, Riven!) and they all live in a world where any of them that don't are completely useless. In the short-term, we try to play whack-a-mole to keep it in check somewhat, but it's a bit of a futile battle - as long asone champion has this problem, no others can show up with interesting stuff, meaningful weaknesses, or a laning phase that doesn't have everything.

My understanding is that the problem was that melee champions kept getting all the important skills to counteract being melee in spades and then... what else can you do? If the melee generalist is remotely viable then why pick anything else over him.

And Sylas seems to be this champion yet again, after Riot has spent years trying to refine melee champions into solid niches by saying juggernauts are always going to have trouble getting to targets and divers are just not going to get the burst required to pop a target, here comes Sylas to destroy all their hard work. When he gets in he's got great burst or he can slow his combo down for solid sustained damage, but if he can't get in he can still harass from a bit of range, he can AoE for waveclear, he deals extra turret damage and synergizes with the spellblade line to split push even faster, he's got cc (soft and hard), he's got mobility, he can shield himself to soak damage, and he can heal himself to sustain and stay out in lane (I'll get to his ult later). His early game's not bad, his mid game's really good, and his late game's pretty solid too. He's got the tools to survive against ranged targets, but they're all even better at bullying melee. He's got the damage to solo carry, but also the utility to help his team win when he's behind.

tl;dr he just seems pretty good at... everything...

And nothing captures that more than his ult. What's his ult? Whatever ult the enemy has, the ult of his choice, out of 5 ults it will be the ult he most wants/needs to use (or at 16 ALL of the ults he wants to use) and odds are the enemy will have at least one good ult. You're against him in lane: Is your ult really strong and you depend on it? Well he gets all that strength too. Is your ult just for utility so he can't get much done with it? Then that means you aren't getting much out of it either (or worse, your jungler shows up with a really good ult and Sylas gets to use THAT one). Instead of designing something to give Sylas a clear niche, Sylas has the most generically powerful ult in the game because it just does the best of the enemy's ults and there's no way the enemy is going to pick 5 champions with crappy ults that don't influence the game.

So what is Sylas supposed to look like when he's balanced? When should he be a good pick? When your team needs damage, or cc, or a brawler, or a split pusher, or an assassin? so... any time? When should he be a bad pick? When the enemy doesn't have ults? Because that sounds an awful lot like Sylas is forcing the enemy team to pick a really, really bad team comp.

44 Comments

PhDs Nuts4/2/2019, 4:38:27 AM10 votes

Fighting Sylas combines all the fun of not having any true weakness to exploit with all the joy of playing against a high damage drain tank.

iiGazeii4/2/2019, 4:53:43 AM5 votes

I think it'd be cool if they split his scalings so that your build forces you to choose one role or the other (diver vs juggernaut)

For example: Q - Slow scales with health/resistances, damage scales with AP W - Range scales with health/resistances, damage/heal scales with AP. E - Dash/skillshot range scales with health/resistances, damage/shield scales with AP.

If he wants mobility, he needs to build tanky, sacrificing burst for target access (diver). If he wants burst and sustain, he needs to build AP, sacrificing mobility for damage and survivability (juggernaut).

XJ999999999999994/2/2019, 4:37:13 AM5 votes

There's no way we can start making interesting characters in these lanes when you get a ton of tool variety, reliability, power, and stats for just playing your character competently.

yeah league seems to be just play a broken champion decently and you climb. really good at another champion? Doesn't matter if they aren't broken like the rest.

Lovelle4/2/2019, 5:21:41 AM3 votes

One of the huge differences between Sylas and Xin is that the latter has to actually commit, while Sylas can generally disengage whenever he pleases. It makes no sense for him to have so much sustain when he's among the most mobile melee champions in the game. As long as you have the mechanics, Sylas can pretty much do what he wants, when he wants, and if the opponent has less tools and/or mobility (which will most likely be the case) they just have to deal with it.

ChaosReyn4/2/2019, 4:48:34 AM1 votes

You lost me at Morello. All I heard was reasons to nerf Irelia.

MagicFlyingLlama4/2/2019, 4:42:43 AM1 votes

Nobody from 2014 has at least one dash on every ability.

Moody P4/2/2019, 10:05:39 AM1 votes

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/MsKPLrnE-sylas-is-boring

Just wanted to humblebrag that (as always) I am ahead of the curve and said this months ago

Hold Riot to a higher standard on their champions. Sylas is not acceptable for a 2019 launch.

Sire Hippington4/2/2019, 1:31:48 PM1 votes

When should he be a good pick? [...] When should he be a bad pick?

Well, that can be said about many champs in many rolls though.

Take kaisa for example, she can be magic dps, physical dps, poke, has burst vs squishys but also tankshredding, self peel and good kiteing but also longranged followup on divecomps, and with the right support her laneing is quite strong aswell while she spikes hard at 2 items allready just keeps scaleing from there. So if she's any good powerwise, why would you ever not pick her?

This is more of a general thing in LoLs design, and i never understtod why this is precived as a bad thing on fighters, but fine on everyone else.

Familiar Faces4/3/2019, 11:34:50 AM1 votes

Tbh, his kit is waaay too loaded for having the best ultimate in the game. And then has way too much power. His kit is loaded, his numbers are loaded and his ultimate... Many champs can't build the stats that boosts their ultimate without sacrificing not being as reliable with their purpose or rest of their kit. Ashe can't boost her ultimate without sacrificing the rest of her kit. Rammus can't boost his dmg without sacrificing his function (dmg absorbing). And alot of these champs have extreme ult ratios to compensate for the fact they sacrifice too much of their role or function if they invest too much into the stat that scales their ultimate. And Sylas straight bypasses this. His burst scales on AP and CDR. His DPS scales on AP and CDR. His sustain scales on AP and CDR (and his missing hp). His shield scales on AP and CDR. And any ultimate he steals scales on the very stat that makes the rest of his kit flourish.

Clearly the testing department needs revision. Of course he was going to be super problematic.

The Bad Touch4/3/2019, 1:31:42 PM1 votes

Yeh. You literally can't even play Amumu at the moment unless you ban that fucker first. Amumu's ulti has silly high AP scaling and is balanced around a tanky build on a jungler's budget. Malphite is almost as bad.

Also good luck taking Shen into him if he goes top. He just does your Job better.

I also pretty much had to stop playing Leona when Sylas released. A sylas roam to bot was a 100% dead ADC. Leo ulti actually hurts with AP.. and the CC mixed with his damage just gutted Leo as a viable pick unless he's banned. Same with MF honestly. Hell most of the champs I played were mainly due to a fondess for their ulti's. If I had to pick a single reason for me quitting league... it was Sylas.

The Bad Touch4/4/2019, 6:25:28 PM1 votes

Since when the hell is Trundle tanky?

You're talking about a champ that builds Triforce/Titantic.

You can get the same HP with AP items.... And Sylas heals for more than either.

The issue with Sylas is he's a strong champ WITHOUT his ulti... then he can steal the ulti of a walking ulti-bot like MF, Amu, Shen, Galeo, Malphite, Kennen, Fiddle, Syndra, Malz, ect and just becomes an utter nightmare.

The entire game is based around power budgets. Look at MF her Ulti takes up like 50% of her total power budget. She has utter shit for auto's, a small steroid, a next to no damage E with a small slow, and only her Q is really decent other than her R. So MF is a 6/10 without her R.

Sylas on the other hand has his entire kit in his q/w/e and is probably a 9/10 without his ulti up. Guess what happens when you give a 9/10 base ability champ a 5/10 Ultimate? You get a 40% over budget OP champ.