Boards›Gameplay

Unpopular Opinion: CertainlyT has really revolutionized this game with his work

Akali is SO HOT··30 votes·3,052 views

For all the shit people give him, what he has done with his creations has done a lot of good for the game. I've talked to some Rioters about this and they completely agree. The first great example I can give is Thresh. Look at every support before Thresh. You should notice that all of those champions were either shield/heal bots or CC bots. Thresh was the first support that brought something to the table that wasn't just generic shielding and healing or CCing the enemy team forever. If Thresh had not been made, then Tahm Kench, Rakan, and Pyke, who are all super fun and popular (Tahm to a lesser extent), would most definitely not exist. Thresh showed us and Riot that supports could do more than just sit back and spam shields/heals or go in and CC the enemy forever. Remember that Thresh was released all the way back in Season 3. To do something as crazy as that so early in League's life is absolutely amazing. Look where we are now. Supports went from ward bots who nobody ever wanted to play to fun and exciting champions that have access to so many cool items and things to do. If you are a Tahm, Rakan, or Pyke main, then you have CertainlyT to thank for that.

Next up is Yasuo. People can hate on Yasuo all they want, but he has inspired countless other designers to make champions with incredibly unique abilities that bring cool things to the table. If we look back at release order we have Aatrox, follwed by Lucian, then Jinx, and then Yasuo. In just a few champions we went from one of the absolute worst champions ever created to Yasuo. Before Yasuo, most melee champions just had a generic dash with some other abilities that could really be on any other champion. Take old Fiora for example. Her Q gave her 2 dashes, her W let her dodge 1 auto attack, her E was just a generic Attack Speed buff, and her passive was just a lame ass heal that nobody ever noticed. Her old ult was super lit, but that's all she really had. Yasuo brought everything crazy to the table. Tons of dashes, Windwall, a Q that did multiple different things, double crit chance, and an ultimate that was insanely fun to use and could synergize insanely well with team comps. There is a clear difference between champions made before Yasuo and champions made after Yasuo. Most champs before him didn't bring anything special to the table, but every single champion after has brought something out of left field to League. If you enjoy playing champions like Azir, Ekko, Kled, Camille, and Kayn, then you have CertainlyT to thank for it.

Although completely and utterly failed, the Morde rework put non marksman bot laners on the radar for Riot. Nobody really talked about bringing non marksman bot lane before this (mostly just nerf X ADC so a different one can take their place), but now look where we are. We got things like Heimer and Darius bot and a ton of mages too. It was a tricky thing to do and it took quite a while, but we are finally in a place where more than just ADCs can successfully go bot lane. You have CertainlyT to thank for that.

Not to even mention the Warwick rework which is one of the best reworks of all time. I'm not gonna try to deny that he has made some pretty big mistakes with champion kits that he has worked with in his career, but I can confirm that we would not have all of these amazing champions that we have today without him. This dude was doing 2017 and 2018 stuff in 2013.

This probably isn't the best time to post this considering people are probably freaking out about how busted and cancer new Akali will be and what not, but I'm posting this anyway.

60 Comments

Raiyza12 votes

There's nothing wrong with being unique.

There's a lot wrong with being overloaded. Yasuo, was and always has been, overloaded. Qualities of a mage, assassin, fighter, and tank if the player so wishes.

DoktorKaiser11 votes

He brought unique stuff, but for the sake of game balance and that in my book is a colossal mistake. His designs single handedly ruined league in my honest opinion, not just because they are extremely unfun to play against (my best friend quit after 6 months because he couldn't handle Yasuo as a champion in every single game), but because almost all of his champions are impossible to ever balance properly. I mean you can have "boring champions" like Rammus, Mundo and shit and have a somewhat balanced game with fun interactive gameplay, or you can have flashy cancers like Yasuo, Zoe, new Irelia and have a terrible game that made a lot of people , myself included, quit after 7+ fucking years. So yes he has revolutionized the game but at the cost of killing it, slowly but eventually.

Arakadia3 votes

I agree but don't pretend Mundo an Does rammus are fun or interactive.

DoktorKaiser1 votes

They aren't ? Rammus is rolling towards your ADC, you stand in front of them to protect them. That is interactive. Mundo is healing like a madman, you buy grievous wounds and kite him around. None of these apply to Yasuo whose only counterplay is "CC him" which is a counterplay to anything in this game or Zoe , if you try that Rammus strategy with Zoe (which is what you are supposed to do when her bubble is coming towards you) you just die instead of your ADC which means you did nothing. They might not be fun to play compared to CT's champions (because they aren't so overpowered and overloaded that they make you feel like a god) but they are fun to play against (if their numbers are balanced) and have loads of counterplay that don't require you having 68 targeted stuns in your team.

Arakadia3 votes

They aren't ? Rammus is rolling towards your ADC, you stand in front of them to protect them. That is interactive.

This is literally the only thing you can do and that requires you to have a frontliner or support with you at all times to avoid his Q. And even then it isn't avoiding it, its letting someone else body block the shot.

In reality what happens is Rammus clicks you to death or presses E and you cant do anything for 2.25 (max rank) seconds except damage yourself and put yourself in a worse position.

Mundo is healing like a madman, you buy grievous wounds and kite him around.

Buying an item isn't counterplay.

Grievous wounds is effective counter-itemization, but even then he is literally nothing but a ball of stats and a skill shot he can spam in close range for easy hits.

His only counterplay is to CC him.

SEKAI9 votes

What's the difference between the guy who wrote the Alien, and the guy who wrote Event Horizon?

The guy who wrote the Alien had an actual idea, the other guy just wanted to be seen as cool and sophisticated.

CertainlyT is the latter type of the 2, his designs are ""unique"" for the sake of being ""unique"", and he doesn't give a rat's ass about everything else in the game as well as how their creations actually fit into the game. An utterly self-absorbed designer that focuses solely on selling their fame/brand, than actually creating a good product that everybody enjoys. And this is not even counting how most of his designs are either just a) re-iteration of/"""inspired by""" another EXISTING idea that's not his own and/or b) radicalised version of the idea up to 11 without any brake, almost no exception so far, so one has to wonder why it is "revolutionary" given it's 'derivative' as all hell. And that's why his design philosophy is a complete failure.

Linna Excel2 votes

{quoted}

What's the difference between the guy who wrote the Alien, and the guy who wrote Event Horizon?

The difference is the guy who wrote alien decided to ruin his universe while the guy who did event horizon did what he needed to and left it alone afterward.

The art team is the former, CertainlyT is the latter.

SEKAI6 votes

[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K3awK1I5,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2018-07-16T17:32:00.273+0000)

The difference is the guy who wrote alien decided to ruin his universe while the guy who did event horizon did what he needed to and left it alone afterward.

The art team is the former, CertainlyT is the latter.

Alien was not ruined by its creators. And the guy who wrote Event Horizon didn't "did what he needed to and left it alone afterward", the movie simply bombed big-time and so it died a still-born.

Nice twisting, though.

Linna Excel3 votes

You obviously haven't seen the alien prequels.

Event Horizon may have bombed, but I think it did what it needed to as an eldritch horror set in space. There is a reason why movies become cult classics.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

What's the difference between the guy who wrote the Alien, and the guy who wrote Event Horizon?

The guy who wrote the Alien had an actual idea, the other guy just wanted to be seen as cool and sophisticated.

CT brings in a ton of unique ideas to the game that you'll only find on his champs, at least by the time of their releases.

Deneviel8 votes

His champ are all frustating to play against, overloaded and broken. Any and i mean litterally any champ CertainlyT designed added so much that has always been a pick or ban at any tier. Also **ALL **of the champ he designed went on reworks or massive change after the release.

Darius: His R changed like 3 times before the rework and still now he is a real PITA to face. Tresh: Nefed after he was a pick or ban for the whole e-sports, his passive got moved and his wole kit tweaked Zyra: She is a shadow of the nigthmare she was upon release ..... and i speak as someone who love her Yasuo: no comment ..... BTW the only good thing of this meta is that he is becoming a pick or ban to counter Zoe and is doing even too well in Asia Esports, so maybe the will finally address him once and for all. Zoe ..... Pick or ban in this year E-sports. She is just pure cancer. Got so much change since release that i lost the count.

Having innovative ideas is fine but if those are the result i really hope he will never create 'nother champ

Oleandervine4 votes

You forgot Kalista, the Mordekaiser GU, the Caitlyn GU, and the Graves GU. Warwick is his only success story, because he had limitations such as "you can't do that with a noob entry level champ" and "you have to preserve the simplicity."

Deneviel1 votes

{quoted}

You forgot Kalista, the Mordekaiser GU, the Caitlyn GU, and the Graves GU. Warwick is his only success story, because he had limitations such as "you can't do that with a noob entry level champ" and "you have to preserve the simplicity."

Oh well it's not like it change something ... Kali was pick or ban in esports too and got her share or nerf buff and change ( like the passive ). As for Morde, Graves and Ciat the still aren't out so luckly for us XD

Oleandervine1 votes

No, Morde, Graves, and Cait were released years ago. CertainlyT's rework tried to move Morde to the bot lane, and he gave him the ability to ult the dragon. Mordekaiser proved so horribly OP, he had to be gutted again. Graves and Caitlyn also proved to be OP nightmares, and they've still had difficulty getting them back to balanced.

Deneviel1 votes

{quoted}

No, Morde, Graves, and Cait were released years ago. CertainlyT's rework tried to move Morde to the bot lane, and he gave him the ability to ult the dragon. Mordekaiser proved so horribly OP, he had to be gutted again. Graves and Caitlyn also proved to be OP nightmares, and they've still had difficulty getting them back to balanced.

Oh sorry, honestly forgot about the fact that he was directly involved in their reworks :/

saltran5 votes

An unpopular opinion that is an actually unpopular opinion?

Witch

Akali is SO HOT4 votes

Blasphemy

Slythion5 votes

Sure Yasuo may have "inspired" other champions, but those champions are actually healthy. Save for Thresh, one of CT's very few enjoyable successes, his other creations ruin the game when standing alone.

Yasuo was tolerable, but ever since Zoe was somehow approved to be added to the game my enjoyment of the game has decreased noticeably. It's cool that he can inspire and has unique ideas, but he has shown a lack of constraint and a lack of consideration for every aspect of the game for player enjoyment in a way that proves to me he shouldn't be allowed to head a rework or creation with as free of a leash as he's had.

I'd rather him be constricted to working with other creators and feeding them cool "unique" ideas than to allow him to create another god-awful champion like Zoe who's only redeeming feature is that she has cool and unique stuff in her kit, nevermind how terrible of a design she is.

Keevalroy4 votes

It takes a great designer to create a healthy and balanced champion, but any dipshit off the street can create something like he does. Introducing Douchebag, the Resourceless Mistake

Passive 1: "Oops Shield" - Douchebag gains a shield (maximum of 50 +.4 AD% health) for taking damage over 5 seconds. When the shield breaks, Douchebag gains a 35% movement speed buff and ignores minion collision.

Passive 2: Spammer - After killing a minion, Douchebag's abilities have a 20% refresh rate.

Q: Woosh Woosh: Douchebag can launch a lightning bolt that passes through terrain and barriers, inflicting % max health true damage with increased damage to low health targets.

W: Oops Heal - Douchebag doesn't know to strategize, so when he takes lethal damage, he immediately gains 50% health. Can also be activated.

E: Crazi Boi Dashin - (no CD btw cuz lolzies) Douchebag dashes forward in lane at a maximum of 800 units gaining a stacking attack speed buff (max 70%) for every unit damaged, applying stacking armor penetration. This can also go through terrain and over walls.

R: #LCSBigPlays - Douchebag gains (20/30/45) increase to his base stats, can attack 200 units farther away, has (150/300/450) increased health, and dubstep blasts your opponents eardrums as Douchebag flies 50 feet in the air, dabs, and instantly kills anything in a 2000 unit area. Causes the Live Gameplay team to immediately cream themselves whenever used in a professional game.

There, it took me just a few minutes to draft this fun and unique design. Where's my invitation to the champ design team?

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

That's not how it works sorry.

Keevalroy2 votes

Apparently it is, but alright. You're free to disagree.

Akali is SO HOT1 votes

Yeah true

SwiftKitten884 votes

CertainlyT has brilliant design, and if he was making a single player game. he could probably make one of the best games of all time.. but he should NEVER be allowed to touch a multiplayer game.. he has absolutely zero concept of counter-play/balance, and having to actually DEAL with things which may be fun to play.. but are horrendously broken.

he is a GREAT designer.. every design he has is FUN and exciting FOR THE PERSON PLAYING. but he can never hold back to make the things he does remotely fair for the other side.. he needs to leave riot and design SINGLE PLAYER game.. he couldn't literally do AMAZING work there..

i mean there is no better person to design a fun sophisticated and overloaded thing than him... he would be absolutely brilliant IF he would STAY THE HELL AWAY from multiplayer game.

MULTIPLAYER games require there to be fun on BOTH sides.. the person playing AND the person facing...

CertainlyT CANNOT do the 2nd part. and needs to accept that and move on the games where his talent at creating fantastically Overpowered and unique kits can be met with praise for everyone involved.. and not utter horror because other people have to face what he just made.

Sona Ping3 votes

The thing about revolutions, they are praised by the revolutionaries as right and needed and if successful, any subsequent positives are attributed to it as proof of it's righteousness.

The unavoidable, impartial truth of the matter, however, is that a lot of innocent people are fed to the revolution through a guillotine.

Linna Excel2 votes

That didn't happen in the American revolution. The people who didn't like it left to help develop canada.

Elewd3 votes

Gonna agree, if he didnt make his crazy champs we wouldn't have half of the fun champs everyone loves so much, or reworks that went so well. Just remember Certanly did the warwick one as well.

Pika Fox3 votes

People like to bitch and complain, but all of his designs are undeniably amazing; thematically and gameplay wise, and are all an absolute joy to play for those that love the gameplay patterns. He is by large margine one of the best designers Riot has, and definitely pioneered many champions who raised the bar for what a champion should be as the game evolved.

Weiner the Pooh3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pika Fox,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K3awK1I5,comment-id=0013,timestamp=2018-07-16T19:34:55.799+0000)

People like to bitch and complain, but all of his designs are undeniably amazing; thematically and gameplay wise, and are all an absolute joy to play for those that love the gameplay patterns. He is by large margine one of the best designers Riot has, and definitely pioneered many champions who raised the bar for what a champion should be as the game evolved.

The thing about his characters is that, they’re fun to play, they are miserable to play against. Fightng any of his characters requires a list of things to go right, while all his characters need to do is push their buttons at you. And to just make fighting them even more annoying, most of his characters have overloaded mobility.

Pika Fox3 votes

All of his champions have windows of power and plenty of counterplay, as well as having limited, conditional mobility. He doesnt have any hyper mobile champions currently. No, dashing through targets isnt plenty of mobility. Riven, talon, gragas and nid are hyper mobile.

Oleandervine4 votes

I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me that his champions like Kalista and Yasuo are not hyper mobile? They can infinitely dash, while every other champion has a cooldown attached. Sure, it's conditional, but conditional unlimited is a helluva lot worse than people who have real cooldowns.

And WTF? Gragas is hyper mobile? Since when? Talon also is just as conditionally mobile as Yasuo or Kalista. I think I need to get the name of your dealer, you've clearly got some strong stuff.

Pika Fox2 votes

Kalista requires an auto attack target to use her mobility, and Yasuo requires an enemy he hasnt recently dashed to. Neither fall under hyper mobility.

And until Talons rework, Gragas was the most mobile champion in the game. He is extremely mobile with E, remarkably.

Talon is far less conditionally mobile. There is plenty of terrain in SR for him to use his mobility to cross large portions of the map extremely quickly. Yasuo cant get from mid to bot quickly. Neither can Kali.

Akali is SO HOT3 votes

They require more work to play against, but saying that you need a whole list of things to do to play against them is just wrong. All of his champions have clear weaknesses that you can capitalize on. It's not the fault of the designer that people don't want to learn or adapt to the game. Just because you refuse to learn how to beat a champion, it doesn't make that champion broken or overloaded. If you go into a game having that mentality, then you shouldn't be surprised when that champion beats you. This goes for all champions and not just CertainlyT's. Unfortunately, many players have this mentality which is why all you ever see are Yasuo/Zed nerf threads on the front page.

Hyquiem3 votes

You just love him b/c he made your champion stronger,

Akali is SO HOT3 votes

I'm actually not sure how I feel about the rework right now. I might stop playing her because she's too different or I might really love the new Akali. I made this thread because people always act like CertainlyT can do no good and QQ about anything that might upset them a little bit.

Rins Thigh Socks3 votes

-6 votes

Holy shit, an actually unpopular opinion.

Akali is SO HOT3 votes

I might be the first ever in history to post a legit unpopular opinion thread here

Edge of Daybreak1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ahri Lover Rock,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K3awK1I5,comment-id=0016,timestamp=2018-07-17T01:02:34.378+0000)

-6 votes

Holy shit, an actually unpopular opinion.

I'm unsure whether to upvote because it's actually unpopular or downvote to maintain that it is actually unpopular!

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

Upvote on your main account and then downvote on a different account so you did both, but it remained power neutral.

Selegun3 votes

Damn strait he is great for the future of the game!

Side note, did you see how he reused Rek'sai's tremor detect in Akali's smoke screen? It took me a while to notice it but he uses it to show where she is in the cloud. Look for the small puffs of white while she moves if you have not already while watching the teaser. Super creative to re-use the mechanic for counterplay like that.

Ralanr2 votes

I'm gonna be totally honest, I expected you to be one of the people bashing CT for "ruining" Akali.

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

Her Shroud and new E are lit af and I like her passive too. I find Q to be underwhelming because it had a lot more potential. Her ult I'm still not too sure about. It looks super cool, but, at the same time, it feels like a downgrade from her current ult. I'll have to play her a lot on PBE before I come to any conclusions. As of now, I think it's pretty good.

Ralanr3 votes

So far my only issue is that her shroud makes her undetectable by turrets.

I get that it’s basically like windwall, an obstacle you have to play around instead of finding a tool to push through it, but it still feels like too much.

Danjeng2 votes

That's because playing a CT champion is fun. Playing against one is not.

saltran2 votes

{quoted}

That's because playing a CT champion is fun. Playing against one is not.

Oh because playing against other champs is fun, if we made a list of champs is fun to play against it would be interesting.

Akali is SO HOT1 votes

The list would be based on whatever circlejerk can hijack the thread first lol.

Weiner the Pooh3 votes

{quoted}

I'm gonna be totally honest, I expected you to be one of the people bashing CT for "ruining" Akali.

He didn’t ruin what existed, he’s just pushing more over loaded anti fun garbage into the game.

La Bello2 votes

I think functionally his designs are amazing. they just occasionally have too much excess power thats unnecessary and needs to be removed.

Overloaded probably being the best word here. the only ability I REALLY dislike is windwall but even that could be solved if the damn thing had a set HP bar or something instead of just being able to swallow a infinite amount of projectiles and perpetually zone off half of the enemy team.

Oleandervine1 votes

After all, Braum was developed with a skill that was based on Windwall, except it refined and perfected it. I'm not particularly sure why they thought Windwall was still in a good spot after they clearly made a watered down version for Braum.

OurLestrade1 votes

He's always been one of the most controversial types in that everything he does is unique and interesting but comes at the price of very poor balance. The problem comes between the casual types and the people who take League way too seriously. I may be a Shen fan boy, but even I know that there will never be balance. What's the right call?

Dope Solo1 votes

Uganda also had a revolution.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Akali is SO HOT

I hope the balance team has learned a valuable lesson from watching worlds 2017
Gameplay145 comments
250
votes
Akali and Shen walk into a bar
General Discussion28 comments
222
votes
Jarvan has been nerfed and Vi has nerfs on PBE
Gameplay119 comments
217
votes
"We're increasing the burst windows for Assassins for counterplay"
Gameplay140 comments
211
votes
Alright Riot you took out a lot of the iconic memes in the game already
Gameplay66 comments
210
votes
Can we give back the "Ninja" buff to all of the Ninjas please?
Gameplay90 comments
205
votes