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The flaws in the item system are the root of most problems

Moody P·11/8/2019, 5:19:38 PM·64 votes·15,253 views

especially when you consider the blatant disparity between low and high mechanic designs on champions and that the newer models consistently outclass older ones on most classes

there are too many items in this game that exist as stat sticks which are utterly insufficient for the bulk of "simple" champions (namely juggernauts and pre-kalista marksmen, but I would also add some older assassins and divers and maybe certain mages.) this setup actually plays to their detriment in the name of balance because champions who's kits largely revolve around their numbers but have limited ways in applying them don't really want more numbers to hit you with. They want items that help them get to where they can apply it. Playing other games will make you acutely aware of how League is lacking here, and I'll use one obvious example (dota) and one less obvious example: World of Warcraft. Playing both of these (WOW more than dota I'll admit) has made me hate League's item system and how boring it is.

Dota2 actually has most of its roster as very mechanically simple champions. Its difficulty extends from its macro play and knowledge of the game at large and application is far more valuable across the roster. Immobile melee champions in this game can compete with absurd stunlocks and range advantages through good usage of their items. Armlet allows for toggling to get health and damage bonus but then decay HP rapidly; it allows for temporary survival and damage and so managing the toggle to maximize its benefits becomes very important. Blink Dagger enables flanking and playmaking. BKB allows you to escape deadly CCs and magic bursts. Insane healing is available through Satanic but it's on a timer active with a cooldown. The result is that melee champions remain simple in their own right but maintain high level viability because they are well supported by the game itself and have to be good to succeed.

In World of Warcraft, I'd like to actually compare 2 different classes; Warriors and Warlocks, and how the Engineering profession that enables PVP is a boon to both of them. Both are actually pretty easy to understand, and very impressive when mastered; while these classes are mechanically not too hard, there are some key weaknesses to both that get greatly covered by Engineering trinkets and items provided you're proficient enough with their usage. Warriors are extremely susceptible to being kited, and Engineering is basically mandatory of you PVP as one, and Warlocks have a hard time keeping people away once they're in melee. Engineering skills provide both with CCs and additional gap closers that enable them to outplay opponents and remain competitive against classes that would otherwise be hard counters.

In League of Legends, Garen can run at you. The items he builds only do 2 things in how he approaches a fight; he runs at you faster, and he does more damage if he reaches you. As a result, he must be overtuned to remain competitive. Miss Fortune banks on her ultimate and has no way of preventing immediate death if she gets caught channeling it. Her ultimate must then be made absurdly powerful provided the enemy team is somehow incapable of stopping it. And so on. I would even say assassins preAkali are victims of the same problem; they aren't really useful enough to did anything but kill people, and Riot has decided to make them annoyingly good at deleting enemies without making them teammates you actually want on your team

Almost any time a beat stick champion becomes a problem you can see that it's because Riot has never properly supported them. Unless specific stat items are obscenely disgusting on their most brainless users (Devourer, Feral flare, preArdent Lethality) they're almost always far more useful on champions who can more reliably apply it, because those champions are just better in general. Its the same thing with ADCs right now; KogMaw will do more damage than KaiSa but KaiSa is not a slave to her teammates' competence to be able to carry. Therefore unless KogMaw becomes ridiculously overpowered KaiSa will always be preferable.

The way you solve this is by giving these champions what they need; usefulness and reliability. I've complained about it many times now whenever Riot throws more numbers onto a weak juggernaut. Sure, you've made them stronger, but I don't need Darius to be stronger. I need him to be useful. I didn't ask for Nasus to get 50% CDR on Q on his ultimate; I asked for him to not be so hard to justify playing to my teammates.

I really hope that season 11 comes with Items Reforged or something, because I would bet money that as newer and better designs release that beatstick champions who only have items that make them beatstick you harder will continue to become less worth the lock in champion select. A more robust and engaging item setup would be a breath of fresh air for me.

50 Comments

WoonStruck11/8/2019, 7:01:16 PM21 votes

Basically.

This is the reason Vlad's played as an pseudo-assassin instead of an AP bruiser the majority of the time. What does he have over Aatrox? Aatrox has more mobility, more base damage, more utility, more consistent healing in a fight, even after all of his nerfs...All Vlad can really do is burst harder...So he plays to that goal, especially since his W enables that playpattern.

If items enabled champions more instead of making them a bigger stat-stick, Vlad would be forced to play more like an AP bruiser because he wouldn't be able to 1 shot the back line...but he'd more reliably be able to get there or follow up on his team's actions. The moment he's unable to feasibly 1 shot the back line, he's forced to build tankier items so he can survive to a 2nd rotation outside of a wombo-comp.

Its easy to see how better itemization would stop enabling toxic play patterns and allow more champions to play in the way they were intended by design.

Another example is Malphite. If he wasn't forced to use his ult to engage, think of how much more dynamic his playstyle would be in teamfights. As a tank, of course.

Part of the reason he ended up played as AP is because his animations were improved. When building tank, you'd do the exact same thing...die in the exact same way...just doing less damage and having lower overall impact.

Linna Excel11/8/2019, 7:41:28 PM9 votes

The downside to what you are proposing is that players have to remember to use their actives and use them properly. Not everyone wants another set of timers to worry about. Not every can remember to use them. Not everyone wants them.

Then you've got to consider that people are playing and investing time in league because there are things in DotA they don't want or like. Riot needs to be very careful about copying a different game because it could drive players away. Don't get me wrong, this might be the one thing riot needs to copy, but it might not be as well.

Finally, if you want to compare league to another game, why not compare it to Overwatch? Overwatch got rid of things like items and levels and focused purely on gameplay. As a result matches are a lot quicker and more fun. Last night I had a ranked game that lasted 42 minutes, in part because the other team took 2 inhib turrets and decided to throw as slowly as possible. I remember thinking at around 35 minutes that the other team was throwing. Getting rid of levels and items would certainly speed up league a lot and it would get rid of all the problems associated with items like keeping them balanced, making sure every class has good items, actives, etc.

So why not go the overwatch route? If you need item actives to "fix" a character, the character is still broken, you're just sweeping it under a rug. Every match.

D357R0Y3R11/8/2019, 6:30:03 PM7 votes

true

SirHydro11/9/2019, 2:32:01 PM3 votes

You put more effort into this post than Riot puts into their game.

Theorex11/9/2019, 5:03:07 AM2 votes

The only roles in the game that I feel actually have good items are Tanks, followed by enchanters (although I really do with enchanters got something that worked with Mages for mages bot).

AP Itemization is all levels of fucked.
There are too many different style of champions that tap into the AP tree. To better understand what I mean by this. Lets take a look at AD itemization.

You have three different basic levels of AD itemization. You have the ADC paths, the Bruiser paths, and the Assassin path. Which have very very very little overlap, normally meeting at defensive items. Hexdrinker/Maw > QSS/Scimitar > GA. Unless you're name is Yasuo, where all of your items are in Bruiser and ADC paths.

But lets go back and take a look at AP items.

The primary difference in AP itemization is normally the starting one or two items. Then you get massive overlap. Singed builds two tank items, a Rylia, a Torment, and Morello/Void/Rabadons. Oh Look at that, Cass and Malzahar also build Rylia, Torment, and Morello/Void/Rabadons. Also wow Look at this, a DoT mage and a Machine Gun Mage are building the same items!

Lets go to Assassins. Oh look a Ludens, Sorcs, Morello, Void, Rabadons, and Zhonyas on LeBlanc. Meanwhile Lux is Ludens, Sorcs, Void, Rabadons, Zhonya's, and Banshee (because she is against the LB).

The question isn't "Why are AP items broken." As much as "How do we fix AP items?"

And to that note, you can't. High Ratios mean more damage, which means higher AP yield items are better. Low Ratios mean less damage, meaning you need to supplement damage from items.

You first have to normalize the damage ratios between all AP champions, and champions that work best with AP scaling. Set that as base line, then do a systematic rework to AP items. Making them dependent on what type of champion you are.

A Diver. Alright you need HP, AP, and 5% CDR. An Assassin. Alright you need AP.
A DoT Mage. You need item Damage such as Torment. A Machine Gun Mage. You want Scaling AMP damage (Something like You gain 5% increased damage scaling up to 75% per spell casted on an enemy champion. Making them stack 15 spells to get capped.) A artillery mage. You need AP and CDR. <<< Which is what breaks the system right here. Because too low of AP value, they just go the Assassin items. Too high of AP value, assassins go their items. Too high of CDR, Divers go their items, and too low of CDR then they go Diver Items. This is before accounting for AP tanks.

THEN YOU GET INTO TANKS.

DoT AP Tank. Mixes over with DoT mages, which isn't the worse since they are both DoT.

But lets take a look at AD champions.

AD Bruisers. HP, AD, and CDR. AD Assassins. Leathality, AD, and CDR. ADC. Attack Speed, Crit/On-Hit, AD. AD wtf else. Whatever the fuck Yasuo is.

Bruisers gain very little from Lethality, and would lose more from HP. AD assassins, gain a bit from HP, but lose their one shot potential without Lethality. ADC lose lots of damage, if they build anything that isn't for an ADC.

You don't get this with Mages. There aren't trade offs like this because it is systematically improbable for it to happen.

MetalGearTeemo11/8/2019, 9:21:41 PM1 votes

This is the end result of balancing around the position rather then the kit itself. Dota 2 has always done this better, and riot's designed themselves into such a corner now it can never be unfucked short a new game I feel.

It started when they started designing around flash instead of just nerfing flash. Now, years later...

BigFBear11/8/2019, 9:25:57 PM1 votes

This is the reason why item 3800 is almost a must have item on Volibear in Dia+

In high elo he is very easy to kite without it because everyone is playing modern high mobility champs there.

I would love an "Items Reforge" so much!!

Ikruti11/8/2019, 9:55:53 PM1 votes

I agree to an extent. Most of the frustration when playing many champions is their lack of agency. It comes from being put in a position where your opponent has to make a mistake and let you play rather than you getting to act upon the situation yourself. It puts you into a purely reactive style. Then, as you said, if the champion isn't going to be utter garbage they need to be taken to the extreme, so that if by some small miracle you're allowed that one moment to shine, that it's devastating and worth being stonewalled the other 99% of the time.

But a few things to consider.

First is Riot's balance philosophy. They believe that you always buff the strengths and exaggerate the weaknesses for fear of champions becoming homogeneous.

Second is whether or not items are the correct place to do this balancing. If you have a class of immobile champions, the basic thing are all going to want is mobility. If you add mobility improving items, will those not just become core items? Are you just making mandatory items with new names at that point? And what about when high mobility champs take those same items making them have a disgusting level of mobility? Are you not back in the same spot where your champions who needed the help again get outclassed by the champions that have the stuff built in to their kit and the buy the same items? I suppose you could try to restrict who buys those items but Riot has shown little interest in making items only be purchasable by specific characters (a few melee only items aside).

I think it's actually a pretty complex issue overall and I like the idea but not sure how well it would work in practice.

kuzzy4711/9/2019, 1:40:58 AM1 votes

You gave a bad example for warriors in wow. Warriors in wow have 0 survivability on top of getting cced to death. They are a class dependant on healer. So don't compare 2 different games.

Elon Musky11/8/2019, 8:41:55 PM1 votes

This is a very good point.

I don't want Garen to be nerfed/buffed with CDR and damage stats, I want the items he uses to be fixed because it's ridiculous that a champion can become broken because of a single item, it makes the game even more snowball-y than it already is (because a Garen ahead of his opponent in gold can get the items faster and be a super speedy damage-bearing spinny dude faster).

And then there are champions who rely so much on an item to be strong that once the item is nerfed, they become largely unplayable in competitive play, which creates the dynamic between KogMaw and KaiSa. I remember KogMaw was once OP as hell, well before KaiSa was released, and after KogMaw was reverted and nerfed, he became even more dependent on rageblade. However, rageblade made KaiSa ridiculously strong, so that item was nerfed...which hurt KogMaw and left KaiSa largely unscathed. (At least if I remember correctly, I haven't played League competitively in a while due to the sheer toxicity of it).

Ichiza11/9/2019, 5:05:42 AM1 votes

item 3520 I like the way you think

UpDownLeftRightAB11/9/2019, 6:15:23 AM1 votes

Did having runes like the old ones where we could pick our own stats to patch in holes help the item disparity feel better? From my personal experience, it kind of felt like it did.

Hayaishi211/9/2019, 6:48:57 AM1 votes

While i don't wanna take anything from this well thought out post, i think the ACTUAL root of our problems is that Riot does not want a balanced game where every champion can compete with each other.

With that said i agree with most of what OP stated.

Raiyza11/9/2019, 7:41:03 AM1 votes

I've said this in so many threads already...

There is no tradeoff with items. Every item gives too many stats. You should have to make decisions on what items to get. Not the same goddamn items every damn game.

ZackTheWaffleMan11/8/2019, 7:16:42 PM1 votes

Very good post; I agree with all of the listed points

SheikhEleazar11/9/2019, 7:16:08 PM1 votes

If items compesnated for the weaknesses of every champion, they would all play the same way.

TheI3igDaddy11/9/2019, 8:23:26 PM1 votes

And then you get every other item with 10% CDR so now every game is a mini-version of URF, because champion CD's aren't increased to compensate.

JavelinJoe11/10/2019, 7:15:09 PM1 votes

We need more role specific items. Similar to how melee and range have a specific item(s). We need one for those who are classified as certain rolls (like assassin, marksmen, juggernaut, etc..). Warmog's 3000 hp requirement is also a good option. It allows for high stat champions to benefit, but those who need only a little to do a lot wont. That way champions who need utility items or stat-stick items can get them while not giving them to champions who could abuse them.