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opinions on DFG

majulito·11/9/2014, 12:01:39 PM·7 votes·1,368 views

I personally find it unneeded in lol. An item that gives 10 cdr and 120 ap which is fine on its own. But undodgeable active that deals 15% max health damage and increases all magic damage by 20% for 4 seconds is unfair and only serves to delete someone. Something that powerful should not exist or should not be guaranteed to hit. Granted its only seen on a few champs typically , , .

This item I feel makes playing against , to some extent unfair and causes problems balancing them. not so much because his whole thing is deleting one person, he has no escapes, no resets, just one stun. He messes up and goes in to use it he could be dead.

When it comes to most start with and why wouldn't she. It gives the most ap and cdr with no mana attached. It increases her burst and almost guarantees a kill on her initial target, leading to resets. Unlike veigar she has a quick way in, her damage is fast, she takes reduced damage using shunpo and if she gets the kill she can do it again or shunpo out. Does she really need an item like this to exist?

For she previously had problems involving her balance because of . The problem was she didn't need to hit her charm or orb to kill you, just wrrr. If she used all her r's to kill someone you might be able to get her but if they die before she had a way out. Riot's solution was to nerf her and buff her charm so that landing it would do what does for 2 sec longer without the 15% health damage (not sure why that was the solution as opposed to buffing Q). With a she can still do what she was nerfed for doing before and hitting a charm only makes it worse.

If were removed QQ might go down and if she was found to be weak could be buffed without having to worry about the potential case. The same for in addition to making her charm more unique in its effect. who use to be the the poster boy for might also see some love as it was usually core on him because again the abuse case of wouldn't be there. It would also avoid any future complications with new or reworked champions.

54 Comments

Earl Eulrich11/9/2014, 12:12:32 PM5 votes

Yea, i wrote a similar thread a good while back.

DFG right now only enhances snowballing and "no-counterplay"-cases. It doesn´t add much depth besides that (except pressing one more button now is the pinnacle of gameplay). It maybe would be alright as an support-item with less/other-basestats that enhances all-dmg by 15% - so the support points on a focus-target and the team has to do a coordinated assault on this target t make the best of it - opposed to the current 1-person-does-it-all-gameplay.

The only problem would be that then only 2 120AP would remain and we probably would need to find a 3rd niche for an 120AP item to add some more choice.

Sire Hippington11/9/2014, 12:50:13 PM5 votes

DFG prettymuch only serves one one pattern, the all-in 100-0 kill, and a 100-0 burst pattern is about the most toxic u can have, especially with no counterplay involved(ahrie misses E+Q? no worrie, dfg+W+R are enougth, don't even need to click the enemy)

So yea, DFG is a pretty unhealthy item. It pretty much enables every bursty mage to envelope 100-0 patterns(DFG lisandra, dfg Annie, dfg syndra, i even seen dfg vlad exploding people)

Fed by Snu Snu11/9/2014, 2:03:41 PM4 votes

Ahri is once AGAIN getting to the point where she kills players without the need to land charm. She was nerfed specifically for that reason. The main culprit, once again, is DFG.

Katarina is retarded, you can be one item ahead but as soon as she gets DFG she can burst everything at that point in the game, snowball to no end and win a fight she wasn't supposed to. Once again, main culprit is DFG boosting her already high base damages.

Veigar already has a damage boost component on his R and even though he is the healthiest of these champions, he also gets out of hand with DFG, bursting even tanks later.

Notable mentions also include Syndra and LeBlanc, who can burst up to 120-150 MR targets with it.

Jungle Lux God11/9/2014, 6:00:34 PM4 votes

I feel like it's active really can't exist in it's current state because of how its primary users can abuse it.

The range on the item is small enough that it limits the users of the item to champions that deal almost all of their damage within the range of DFG, whether it is short range mages or AP assassins. These short range champs also have spells with lower counterplay to account for their range disadvantage and their relative squishiness. This combination of playsyles between low counterplay and 100-0 burst makes this item inherently unhealthy for the game.

The sad part about the item is that some champs got nerfed within the past year or so because of their strength with DFG. Ahri was nerfed almost exclusively for her strength with DFG after worlds last year, Lissandra got nerfs to her damage because of her strength with DFG before worlds this year, and Katarina's current nerfs on the PBE may also be due to DFG, and that doesn't even count every other mage in the game that have insane damage values off of it and have low counterplay accompanying it, like Veigar, Syndra, Annie, etc.

Even worse is that Riot's only nerfs to DFG have been to the cooldown, not the amplification, of it despite its low counterplay and ability for the user to kill any champ at will. And Riot even acknowledged its low counterplay in the patch 4.13 notes, where its cooldown was increased. From their context for DFG's nerfs in the 4.13 notes:

"Deathfire Grasp amps up a lot of existing low-interaction gameplay (ie: huge burst with no opportunity to react) without adding more skill to the mix. While this is a larger problem we'll have to tackle in the future, we felt that it was important to at least increase DFG's cooldown so that it's more appropriately balanced against a lot of 'anti-burst' spells / items (ie: exhaust, heal, Zhonya's Hourglass, etc). If we don't have to worry about DFG turning a champion into a one-shot wizard (hello Lissandra), it also means we can potentially give healthy assassins better tools to work with."

Riot is basically saying here that "there is a problem that conflicts with our core design values in the game, but rather than properly fix the problem now we are going to put a small bandage fix on it now and fix it later". This was the patch right before worlds, so it is understandable that they didn't do too much to change the item, but considering how they nerfed some champs ridiculously hard, even gutting, because of low counterplay (hello Olaf), the item should have been made downright unusable while Riot finds good way to make it healthy for the game.

SecretAgentHulk11/9/2014, 4:16:50 PM4 votes

But but but what about DFGaren?

The Soulforged11/9/2014, 7:20:28 PM3 votes

I've got to agree that encourages champions to just 100-0 enemies from the game, which is not always too healthy. Giving a champ who can already 100-0 an enemy allows them to burst down tanks and heavy bruisers as well. No champions really rely on it as an item as much as say lich bane, but it's a useful asset to any champion who wishes to burst. I would prefer taking away dfg to buff kat over keeping the item.

OyddAWqJ5r11/9/2014, 8:28:04 PM2 votes

Ah crap, meant to vote that it's not healthy for the game. >.> Ah well, yeah man you make good points. It's just unnecessary. With it's removal we could see buffs to champions who it is core on.

TeemoHunter133711/9/2014, 4:34:35 PM2 votes

this is the go to item for ahri.

without this item, ahri is nothing. same with leblanc.

Junkο11/9/2014, 1:24:25 PM2 votes

Only noobs buy DFG on Kat

Doogmi11/10/2014, 11:06:12 AM1 votes

To me it isn't a big deal at all. The max percentage health it deals still has to go through magic resist so the more you have the less it deals. In addition to zhonyas you can also qss it, rendering the active useless. And it only lasts four seconds. The window is small so there is room to cc your opponent and flash/use gap closer to completely avoid increased magic damage all together.

Frikgeek11/10/2014, 1:12:04 PM1 votes

You overuse icons, it makes your post a slog to read through. You're not writing a book aimed at helping children learn the alphabet, just use normal letters like normal people.

OT: You counter DFG with a zhonyas as an AP carry, general tankyness as a bruiser or a tank, and good positioning as an adc or squishy support(but in those cases you can be bursted down without DFG). Champions that use DFG are most likely out of options if their full burst failed to kill their target. It's also a 90s cooldown, so if you've managed to escape from the burst relatively healthy you can re-engage and have an advantage in the fight.

And unless you're twitch with no MR runes and 0 defensive items an Ahri shouldn't be able to 100-0 you without hitting her skillshots.

LoL always had 100-0 burst mages, and the problem only exists when they have both long range and no skillshots. Annie and Veigar are balanced by their range while Syndra and Ahri are balanced by their skillshots. The solution is to either position better, optimally outside of their flash+CC range and ward the brushes where they might be waiting for you.

And 120 AP and 10% CDR is nowhere near good enough for an item that costs 3100g. A deathcap will give you 170-300 AP(depending on how much you already have) for only 200g more. And a morellonomicon will give you more CDR and some mana regen to actually use it, for 900g less(you can buy an extra blasting wand, giving you a total of 120 AP). DFG is bought for the active, the stats on it are only ~meh.

MrBuffington11/9/2014, 2:48:16 PM1 votes

i think DFG is fun for off builds like Ouroboro's DFGaren (DFG Poppy is also really fun).

As far as game balance, I feel it's only justified because of stuff like Void Staff, which many people, including Reds, have agreed is a problem

Espy Psyche11/9/2014, 4:14:06 PM1 votes

Kinda surprised nobody's mentioned Sona since it pretty much gives her the same ability. If she builds AP (which, with her already constant Q-AA burst in lane she can easily get kills for gold), a DFG and a Lich Bane pretty much enable her to do DFG + R + Q + Power Chord auto to instantly 100-0 a lot of champions. It's especially good on teams with an AD mid like Zed, because nobody will build any MR and Sona can shred 80% of the tank's health or more. That wins a teamfight pretty much instantly if she hits more than just him with her R.

7ha7guy77711/9/2014, 4:30:19 PM1 votes

there's also the problem of stacking dfg with champions like swain, vladimir, and ahri who can boost their damage to a target for a set amount of time. the way swain's built in dfg works, he can actually boost the dfg % hp damage and boost the remaining damage on his built in dfg.

Llanite11/9/2014, 5:13:06 PM1 votes

The active has 120s CD, you can simply item 3157 before it hits.

For the math, item 3128 is 20% base spell dmg + 20% AP. item 3089 is 30% AP. A maxed spell has 240 dmg, DFG = 48 dmg, unleveled spell is 60, DFG = 12, an lvl1 ult is 200 dmg, DFG = 40. Total 100 more or less + 15% HP, says you have 1000HP, post mitigation it's somewhere 60+100=160 dmg.

Kat Head11/9/2014, 6:15:13 PM1 votes

Katarina has 0 single target killing power without item 3128 , the cdr on it is worthless because of her passive. They need to revert the recent nerf to and make it a assassin only item.

item 3128 should be usable on Ahri Akali Leblanc Fizz Kassadin Katarina and whatever assassins I am forgetting.

Mage Champions such as Annie Syndra Lissandra should not be able to abuse this item. They are not assassins, but this item allows them to assassinate any squishy they please. item 3128 is bad for the game when it on champions with this much cc and that are not intended to be assassins.

AmightyT11/9/2014, 6:28:17 PM1 votes

I think I wouldn't be bothered by it if AD champs had an analog.

Anıme11/9/2014, 6:39:52 PM1 votes

Without this item, certain champions simply cannot fight tanks late-game. While this does mean it can be used to 100-0 squishier targets extremely easily, it needs to be in the game to prevent mages from feeling "Useless" late-game against tankier opponents.

RoyaiChaos11/9/2014, 9:23:57 PM1 votes

Healthy? Maybe not Necessary? Yes