Riot, must ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING have counterplay?

darkdill·Oct 15, 2014·3 votes·874 views

What happens when you get to the point where people say "Stop adding counterplay, it's boring!"? Will you simply say "F%ck you, it's our game!"?

Talon's ability to delete someone without them being able to fight back was a quality strength of his to make up for DOZENS of shortcomings, but you eliminated that part of him. Nowadays, picking him is REPORTABLE (seriously, all 9 other players will gang-report you for picking Talon since it's a "troll pick").

Meanwhile, you add counterplay to Gnar, sure, but he ends up completely overloaded with stuff he can do and basically gives bruisers like Renekton the middle finger because he can do everything they can, but BETTER. And why's that? "Counterplay!"

Too much of it can be a bad thing, Riot. Do you have a justification for that?

16 Comments

wolfaxOct 15, 20146 votes

Talon's was a perfectly justified change. Sue, he had other shortcomings, but the silence basically reduced his assassination attempts to solitaire. You either deleted them instantly or you didn't and almost certainly died during the retaliation. At least Zed is strong but allows both players skill levels to be tested to see who wins.

And Gnar overpowers bruisers in the top lane? Really? From what I've seen he's too unreliable for real competitive play.

darkdillOct 15, 20141 votes

Mega Gnar can still wipe out 2-3 of you if he charges in right. Can Renekton do that in high-end team fights? Not really.

DarksideEricOct 15, 20146 votes

Mega Gnar can still wipe out 2-3 of you if he charges in right. Can Renekton do that in high-end team fights? Not really.

Poppy can delete an entire team in 10 seconds "if done right" as well.

"If done right" isn't really a good argument tactic when comparing X Champion to Y Champion, because many, many Champions "when done right" can kill multiple enemies at once.

wolfaxOct 15, 20142 votes

Notice how Renekton is easily picked way more than Gnar. Just because Gnar can do that under the most ideal circumstances does not make him strong. It means he can be randomly good, but do to the semirandom nature of his transformations he has little control over engagements. He just has to hope things go really favorably.

You're also completely ignoring playstyles. Renekton is not meant to be an endgame champion. He can bully like no other in the early game. Gnar does not possess that bullying power, and honestly has a lot of issues in the early game. Put a Gnar against a Renekton in the early game and Gnar's going to be hurting.

DarksideEricOct 15, 20141 votes

Talon's was a perfectly justified change. Sue, he had other shortcomings, but the silence basically reduced his assassination attempts to solitaire. You either deleted them instantly or you didn't and almost certainly died during the retaliation. At least Zed is strong but allows both players skill levels to be tested to see who wins.

Zed's ability to kill has more leeway because he has more strengths than Talon does.

For instance, he's far more mobile than Talon, without question.

Talon needed more guaranteed ability to kill someone because of his other weaknesses.

Never mind that Talon's Silence did have counterplay... just no one's willing to use it.

darkdillOct 15, 20142 votes

If you mean Cleanse, I got reported once for picking it as a mid-laner. Not joking.

DarksideEricOct 15, 20141 votes

If you mean Cleanse, I got reported once for picking it as a mid-laner. Not joking.

So? People are idiots. When will you learn this?

I've been kicked out of servers in TRIBES for being an offensive Sniper (meaning... I was shooting at the enemy) in CTF games.

MarthianOct 15, 20141 votes

If you mean Cleanse or QSS, you should be able to avoid the effects in the first place. (Which simply isn't the case, along with both options being terrible in general)

And if he needed a Silence to guarantee a kill for himself, then his kit is designed poorly. His E was just too good: Free Silence, and put him in the perfect spot to unload his kit on someone.

MarthianOct 15, 20141 votes

All the Talons I saw, it was the opposite. As the target of Talon, you either are blown up, or Talon used his ult to get away to safety and you can't retaliate period.

Sir ArmaMalumOct 15, 20142 votes

Anytime a champion has a weakness to exploit that is counter-play, broadly speaking. Imho, when Riot adds counterplay to an older kit (i.e. Talon) the purpose is adding additional interactions to allow for more opportunities for playmaking. Talon pre-rework did not allow any during his combo once he blinked. The victim would be able to walk away a bit sure, but being silenced they could not retaliate. Just wait for the silence to come off and hope they live. To be frank, that's boring as hell, for both sides. Post-rework, actions could be taken by Talon's victim to fight back, which in turn allows for the Talon player to account for and address this retaliation, allowing for the great Talons to separate themselves from the good Talons.

######(To note: I have no opinion on Talon's rework itself, I do not play and have not played against him enough to validate an opinion on the rework's effectiveness as a whole.)

In summary, I believe counterplay is a boon to any PvP environment. Additional interactions allows for more expression of skill by the player. Can counterplay be done wrong? Of course! But the premise of counter play as a whole is something integral to a PvP game of any kind, imho.

AkumuOct 15, 20142 votes

"Its boring" to let your enemies have chance to react to what you're doing.

Clearly you're one of those kids that just likes to roll his face on his keyboard and pretend hes good at this game.

shppyOct 15, 20141 votes

Taking Talon's silence away was fine, the problem is Riot didn't replace it properly. They should have replaced the silence with a new cc that'd disable mobility spells only (like a snare, but without actually stopping the ability to walk). It's the kinda thing they should add to a lot of melees to help deal with ranged mobility/self-peel creep without having to overload melees with their own mobility and harder cc (which also helps those melees compete with ranged mobility/self-peel, but comes at the cost of pushing champs without mobility out of the game, which would not be the case with this new cc).

Replacing it with a slow instead was a mistake... doing so allows anyone with mobility (which is basically every ranged champ that's reasonably strong right now) to effortlessly escape in a way Talon himself cannot combat (because he just burned his only dash to get into melee range in the first place, and the MS from his ult doesn't compete with a dash).

However, the assertion that Riot crams counterplay into everything is false... Riot still refuses to offer actual counterplay to directly-targeted range. Instead, they simply seem to think 'stay out of range' is valid counterplay, despite the fact that doing so is not an option for half the roster... this is why Annie, for instance, got to keep her directly-targeted ranged stun (or instant ground-targeted, just as unavoidable besides staying out of range) at a nerfed value when she became a problem instead of it getting deleted like it should have been, or why ranged ADcs get to remain the most dominant and necessary class in the game despite the fact that their attack patterns are extremely low counterplay to melees.

MarthianOct 15, 20141 votes

The issue with Talon's Silence wasn't just not being able to do damage, it was also not being able to escape period.

An ADC will almost never outdamage Talon's burst combo.

MarthianOct 15, 20141 votes

And guess what? All 9 of those reporters are going to have their reports get less weighting.

In Talon's case, it was needed. It was absolutely no fun to play against him as he'd simply E-Q/W-R (Ignite) you and run away, resulting in your death, or not being able to retaliate against him. (And no, you DO NOT use his Ult to engage.)

The reason for counterplay is because it isn't fun at all for the person on the receiving end if they can't do anything at all to avoid a dangerous effect (such as Malzahar/Warwick's ultimate)