Can someone explain why duskblade is getting a nerf but IE and Shiv aren't?

Tharosyl··4 votes·567 views

In a meta that is all about bot lane and where assassins are by far the worst and lowest winrate class why would you nerf duskblade an item that predominantly melee assassins use over IE and Shiv items that predominately ranged adcs use and both give 1 auto attack far far greater damage than duskblade does. I've heard this is the best place to post to get an answer from riot as all you get on their support boards are drones reading from a script. can anyone explain the logic behind this? When an adc late game has a shield for 1k on them it's hard enough being an assassin let alone when they shiv crit you for over 1k it's just mindblowing. The only possible explanation that i can come up with is the people balancing the game are stuck in such a low elo that adc's don't have the impact that they do everywhere else and are facechecking bushes where duskblade users one shot them?

17 Comments

Zhugan4 votes

Riot has, for years, favored a meta around 100% guaranteeing that someone on a team plays an ADC.

Honestly, at this point, I don't see how people are surprised that remains to be true.

GigglesO4 votes

{quoted}

Riot has, for years, favored a meta around 100% guaranteeing that someone on a team plays an ADC.

Honestly, at this point, I don't see how people are surprised that remains to be true.

Except for that one time in Season 5 when morde was perma-banned.

Zhugan3 votes

And Morde was nerfed into oblivion for committing the sin of replacing an ADC.

That actually kind proves my point, tbh.

AirKingNeo2 votes

or because Morde was toxic by forcing down a mid turret and more if he got Dragon...

Zhugan2 votes

And Morde had to be THAT powerful and that toxic to replace an ADC.

Once again, proving my point.

AirKingNeo3 votes

Or maybe he was just extremely overpowered in general? You didn't correlate Morde's brokenness with 'replacing an adc', so it did not prove your point.

Zhugan2 votes

You want correlation? Okay.

In Season 5 Morde was worth using to replace an ADC. This was, honestly, in spite of often losing lanes, not scaling as well as an ADC, being easy to kite, and often creating a skewed damage profile for his team by pushing things pretty heavily toward magic damage.

The reason that he was picked was because securing first dragon with Morde made it easy for Morde to use that dragon to push through at least one tower because the dragon was a massive tank and he allowed his support to hit level 6 faster giving an advantage in early fights (not poke) bot lane which meant that it was easy to secure that first dragon. These particular advantages often meant that Morde's weaknesses weren't as important as his strengths because it made it easy for his team to snowball a very fast victory.

All of this brokeness could only be placed bot lane (because he lost two abilities at the time in a solo lane), and it made no sense to replace a support with Morde because the ADC wouldn't be able to get meaningful farm which kind of invalidates the point of the class.

In short, Morde was bonkers and replacing an ADC when he saw play and he was QUICKLY nerfed into oblivion.

MEANWHILE, in mid, top, and jungle it has been fine for say, assassins or tanks or bruisers or juggernauts to be more or less irrelevant for literally months and months of patch notes. Often these roles are made largely inferior because of a specific champion or small group of champions. Yet, for months and months, those champions are allowed to remain more or less unchanged while pushing out an entire class of opposition.

If that isn't a correlative favoring of ADCs I don't know what is.

GigglesO2 votes

{quoted}

If that isn't a correlative favoring of ADCs I don't know what is.

Thats the thing, they do favor adc's. Look at the base stat changes at the beginning of the season where adc's got a massive armor and ad buff. Compared to everyone else their buff was huge.

GigglesO4 votes

{quoted}

can anyone explain the logic behind this?

So I saw a rengar go 0/6 purchased duskblade instantly 4/6 Its been needing it.

I am not however defending adc itemization.

makkii3 votes

I mean I hate adc as much as the next guy but they are nerfing shiv soon, and nerfing adcs across the board in mid season patch. Both have been confirmed

Zhugan2 votes

So nerf a bunch of stuff like Tabi's, Duskblade, etc that exist to counter ADCs and then nerf ADCs?

Honestly, I'll believe that they have meaningful nerfs coming to ADCs when I see them and they last for more than a patch or two. (Cause a whole lot of ADC nerfs have come through in recent patches with compensation buffs in literally the next patch.)

GigglesO2 votes

{quoted}

compensation buffs in literally the next patch.

Oh the life of the adc.

GigglesO1 votes

They just waited until LCS was over. They will be buffed again in time for mid season invitational and worlds.

HalcyonDweller3 votes

Umm, Shiv is getting nerfed....

AirKingNeo2 votes

Because Shiv is being nerfed.

Cowgirl Ed1 votes

ad assassins are garbage right now also LMAO @ COMPENSATION BUFFS

u might wanna start to ban wukong as well now, if u havent noticed the huge buff

Truehiro1 votes

Except for the fact that Shiv is getting a confirmed nerf this patch. Losing base damage and the bonus damage on minions. IE already costs more than a duskblade for an effect that isn't as impactful until you get more items that supplement it(namely Shiv, which once again IS getting nerfed, so this combo will be weaker anyway). A lot of times instead of nerfing IE they just hit the other crit items since they are normally more problematic

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