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My thoughts on 9.6 removing double tear build & Riot lessening item diversity overall

Sonic Adventure·3/19/2019, 11:46:48 PM·32 votes·14,877 views

_Patch 9.6: You can no longer build Muramana and Seraph together. _

I understand these are my personal feelings about these type of decisions and some people can find them strange, but I think like there might be also some universal point to this, and want to share anyway, even if it's just for myself.

Ever since I started playing League, one of my favorite aspects of it was the possibility of build diversity, theorycrafting, coming up with optimal builds, sometimes unconventional ones. In general, the ability to be a better player not just with mechanics, but with strategy and creative thinking.

In fact, although this might sound weird, I enjoy the time I spend not playing League, thinking about item/rune builds to try, just as much as the one in game.

Although Ezreal has often being a champion that I liked to theorycraft about for obvious reasons due to his kit, I never really found myself picking him often as playing champions that are seen every other it's not something I find fun personally.

Nonetheless, when I read the patch notes I immediately fell concerned that in order to address one single character, Riot will globally decrease item diversity.

I'm not a person that will have the little common sense to ignore how qualified you have to be to work for Riot, but I really wonder if this is the only solution. I can't help but feel that this is a rather convenient choice to avoid future headaches for other double tear builds becoming popular / upcoming champions. I genuinely think these type of things will lower the game's richness and fun in the long term in a similar fashion of what happened to WoW.

If Ezreal is becoming too dominant, is it really not possible to change his particular numbers without have any secondary harmful effects to the game?

Anyway, thanks for reading

-J P.S: On another hand, RIP to the griefer build

I wonder what the next 6 item troll build will be, thoughts?

101 Comments

Hethalean3/20/2019, 12:07:10 AM12 votes

Tbf, ezreal is the ONLY champ who builds manamune, and thus both Seraph and Manamune together. They just need to remove Manamune imo, and look at Ezreal's kit since only he builds it. When a champion is lock stepped with an item, the item should go and the champion should be looked at imo.

S V 3/20/2019, 12:19:51 AM11 votes

I also feel the same way. Over the years, I believe that, Riot Games has become more invasive in trying to control the meta that should have been left to the players through items, select nerfs, and even changing a champion completely. It could just be my own idea that I don't like it when companies, government, or developers interfere too much when people make their own builds, playstyles, and combos. I do understand the cases where champions need an obvious nerf when a mechanic is found in the live servers (Not found in Alpha or Beta testing) proves to be too much, but as of recent events such as the positional ranking (Even though it's taken down) and some of the champion reworks such as Yorick or Urgot (And a ton of Ryze reworks), I find that Riot Games has gone to areas that are supposed to be left to player creativity. If they want to fix other champions, I would see it better in introducing the "rework" as a new champion or instead of directly nerfing a champion that has a minor advantage, buff other champions' kits.

ZephyrDrake3/20/2019, 12:30:10 AM8 votes

Literally ezreal was the only champion building both items. Pure AD ez is fine, pure AP ez is fine. Only double stacking tear ez is too strong and the only champion in the game that does it. Why would you nerf a champion directly when getting rid of the problematic build that only that champion uses is the source of the issue?

Illabethe3/20/2019, 12:50:26 AM8 votes

Here's the part of PBE that REALLY concerns me: Kayn in blue form getting HALF the cooldown on his Shadow Step? WTF? At 11 Base Cooldown he will LITERALLY be able to spam wall walk, and be uncatchable. And in a game with 1 shot squishies he is so good at deleting...... he will literally be able to go on 10-20 kill killing sprees just URFing around the map.

La Bello3/20/2019, 1:53:45 AM7 votes

yeah I actually liked doing the double tear build on Syndra. As a matter of fact it was literally the ONLY way I would ever play her becuase I find her kit extremely cookie cutter and boring otherwise and the interaction between Muramana and her ult was satisfying as all hell to do. Now that build is dead and all because of ONE fucking champion with a running history of abusing specific items item 3025

Rest in Peace. double tear build Kassadin Ryze Syndra Blitzcrank Jax

anyways the build diversity in this game is atrocious and narrow. Riot balance team should honestly just rehaul like 70% of the itempool by now. Its far too constricting and not enough room for self expression or exploration. its like Riot doesn't want people to think anymore about ANYTHING and would rather everyone just pick up presets and autobuy a preset slew of items. thats actually why I like Nexus Blitz just because the item options in that mode are so refreshing to toy around with.

fire2633/20/2019, 1:44:48 AM4 votes

I agree with this myself, considering I enjoy trying off meta builds as well. I never really tried many builds using these two items, but I remember going double tear Anivia and having a ton of fun with it. Archangels is pretty standard already, and Muramana increases your mana by a ton, giving you much more bonus AP and even some AD so you can do a bit of damage with auto's, and the onhit passive of Muramana synergizes great with Anivia E. Sad to see builds like this go, and I hope they end up bringing it back and find another way to deal with Ezreal, as now that it's put into the spotlight I'm thinking of some other weird builds utilizing these items that I will never be able to try.

Jamaree3/20/2019, 1:03:19 AM4 votes

Besides Ezreal and the blue moon Ryze, who actually even went double tear?

Alüe3/20/2019, 3:37:59 AM4 votes

The pruning of diversity and theorycrafting has been occuring since season 5 and perhaps even earlier. I wish they had focused on balancing and keeping new content rather than removing the old rune system, rune stats and diversive builds. League may have had a huge learning curve but man i had fun playing with my friends and trying wacky builds that would sometimes work. I honestly don't want to bag on this game but i feel the majority of the dev staff has a god complex and doesn't wish to hear feedback from a community. This game became huge because of its unique gameplay.

Yokkers3/20/2019, 12:43:02 PM4 votes

build diversity just keeps getting worse and worse, they removed the old runes ( say what YOU will about YOUR experience but I had multiple builds for plenty of champions ), now this?? league is starting to become hella boring between one shot meta and forcing people to buy a certain set of items, they really lack creativity if this is the only way they could think to nerf ONE over tuned build.

Karunamon3/20/2019, 4:25:03 AM3 votes

Yeah this struck me as weird too.

Here we have a champion that always seems to be under the spotlight for "interesting" builds, whether they be runes or mysteries. Instead of reworking the champion, ya gut the items, which is going to have a lot higher ripple effect over the whole game than working on the one champion.

Radiant Seraph3/20/2019, 2:54:24 PM3 votes

Now I can't run full mana bruiser top blitzcrank with his new buffs D':

The thigh guy3/20/2019, 1:26:41 AM2 votes

Love it. Let’s directly fuck a champion with a 48.3-49% winrate while monsters like Riven, Vayne, jinx and sivir run rampant.

Daddy Ants3/20/2019, 10:41:49 AM1 votes

There's no "Secondary harmful effects" to the game.

Ezreal was the only double tear user.