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About killing different ways to play a champion [Reaction to new Cait's traps]

Sans Paille·10/28/2015, 11:55:58 PM·19 votes·2,009 views

When I first played LoL back in s1, I quickly noticed that AP ratios were often inserted here and there on AD champions (to increase possible build paths perhaps). I've always been the kind of guy who try weird builds just for the sake of being different and try new stuff. That's what I learned while playing some of these weird builds: Playing certain champions as they were not intended to be played can sometime prove to be WAY more fun. (and I'm not talking about the fun that comes from being original, I'm talking about raw gameplay enjoyment)

Ex: Khazix I played a couple of games of AP Kha'Zix with my friends in troll custom games. (when DFG was still a thing) (Our basic rule was that: you were forced to play with a fucked-up build). Turns out it was a lot more viable than I thought, and it was A LOT of fun. The gameplay felt a lot more fluid and assassin-like. I'm not gonna expand on every detail of why it felt more fun. My point is that I had a lot more fun with this build (even though it wasn't really viable in a gold or + tier game) than the standard Kha'Zix build. Some of his assets were tweaked/modified and AP Kha'Zix is no longer even do-able. (lich bane nerf, increase invis cooldown, no more dfg, no dmg reduc on his ult).

If AP Kha'Zix was more viable, I'm sure the majority of people would still play him AD, BUT many would play differently. The amount of gameplay possibilities within a certain champion has been decreasing for the past few years (for the exeption of Tahm Kench maybe). Mainly because the other "weird playstyle" doesn't fit the character's intended style. Ex: ApMasterYi Ap Corki Ad Fizz Ad Malphite Ap Taric <-- a personal favorite

I understand that some of them may have changed due to the fact that it was annoying as hell to play against (ap yi), but for the most part, it doesn't seem justified to me. I feel like a specific playstyle should** NEVER BE ENFORCED**, even if it means the character's style isn't respected.

--------------------------Now onto Cait's new traps-------------------------- AP Caitlyn may not be viable, but it's a lot of fun. Placing traps, and knowing that you'll only do your job if you succeed in making people walk into it is an almost unique playstyle (a bit similar to teemo in fact, but not as annoying that's for sure). AD cait does MANY things better that AP Cait, but so does AP Cait (When One for All was in Howling Abyss, a team with 4 AP - 1 AD Caits would often beat a 5 AD Caits team (I've done it a couple of times)) The new Cait's traps do not deal any damage now. Sure, not many people played AP Cait, but this amount IS NOT ZERO. I'm still playing AP Cait when I get her in ARAM and it's plenty viable.

Please Riot, do not reduce the amount of different ways to play a certain Champion. Sure I can choose between a item 3046 or a item 3087, but at the end of the day, I'm still playing an almost identical playstyle of AD Caitlyn. I want to be able to actually choose my gameplay.

(I'm just talking about not destroying here, but I'd actually wished they would create more possibilites)

24 Comments

Twiggles10/29/2015, 2:45:35 AM15 votes

How about this. Caitlyn is a sharpshooter. Not someone who runs around throwing uranium coated bear traps at people. The traps are a supplement to her kit, but the whole point of playing a sniper in ANY game is to use their gun.

Putting as much emphasis on Caitlyn's traps like you're trying to is like trying to play the TF2 Sniper using only Jarate and the Bushwacka without ever scoping in with your Sniper Rifle. Sure it's technically viable since you can oneshot most people since you auto-crit blokes with your knife, but you're giving up the thing that makes the Sniper the Sniper. You're using a loadout in a grossly sub-optimal way just because it can technically work sometimes. It's fun for a bit, but then it just gets sad whenever your Jarate's on cooldown or there's a Scout kiting you around and blowing you away in 2 Scattergun shots.

I'm sorry if the changes take some of the fun away for you, but having high damage magically nuclear bear traps just doesn't make sense with Caitlyn's identity as a character. She's all about the long range auto-attacks, and that's what the changes bring to the forefront. Personally, I'm looking forward to the changes.

Hayaishi210/29/2015, 12:06:59 AM9 votes

God, not this again.

Llanite10/29/2015, 2:29:48 AM6 votes

It was stated that they don't like weird builds. They are either too weak = burden to the team, too strong or too toxic. Let's face it, the only one having fun is you, at the expense of everyone else.

GloriousKaiser10/29/2015, 3:03:14 AM4 votes

Need I remind everyone of AP YI?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ZFGAH4CJA

The Community can be it's worst balance nightmare. They advocate for "balance" and "fair counterplay", but then they turn around and say not to nerf these BS abuse-able ratios? There has to be some sort of point where we lean one way or the other. We can't have creative builds and balance, it's just not possible since one will always be more viable than the other, and the other will be grossly imbalanced/antifun.

ON THE OTHER HAND

I have done build like these before too. And they were fun, they kept the game fresh, and they kept everyone's metagame on their toes. LoL was fun because building items to create playstyles was a BIG part of this game. But since every champion has to have one-primary build path, it appears that this game is going to go for singular, optimal build paths.

That's okay, although, I know a large amount of the community are displeased by this. Namely the comedy LoL Youtube Channels. Oh well...

bubee10/29/2015, 5:27:31 PM2 votes

They kinda did this to ap Tristana by nerfing her ap ratios on rework, I remember I used to have so much fun with DFG and ap tris, so much fun.

Remlap122310/29/2015, 5:22:09 AM2 votes

AP Sion. AP Yi. That is all.

Typik III10/29/2015, 12:02:43 AM2 votes

Well said Senpaï

ItemsGuy10/29/2015, 3:18:43 AM1 votes

If champions become more fun through a dysfunctional and counter-intuitive off-build, then it is the fault of the core kit for not being fun as intended. If Cait/Kha'Zix/whoever becomes more fun through sheer novelty when you boil them down to an awkward flaw in their kit (physical champions with AP ratios in many cases), then either the gameplay as intended needs to be improved, or there is another champ out there that does what that off-build does but in a healthier and more holistic way (poking resourcelessly with 1 ability as AP Rek'Sai vs. poking with 3 mana-gated abilities as Vel'Koz, for example).

If the game needs to be "kept fresh" through putting weird combinations of items on various champions, then that means the roster itself needs to be looked at. If the forefront of "freshness" in this game isn't the prospect of every match being totally different by virtue of different assortments of ally and enemy champions causing each game to play out in a completely different way, then you are either seeing the same champions too much, or too many champions feel identical to each other--both are problems that are on the design team to solve, and being able to stack attackspeed on Gragas isn't going to fix that in any sort of sustainable way.

Miku Lv9910/29/2015, 5:41:25 AM1 votes

Yeah new Cait is going to suck. Since she scales a lot more with crit, you also must buy item 3046 so your headshots do that extra 15% more damage than they would with item 3087 . As if that weren't bad enough, all Cait supports must buy item 3050 so your headshots do another extra 50% more damage (OK, only 45% more damage if you already have item 3031 item 3046 . But still, if you work out the math of it, it's just too strong to pass up. If you get your crit rate up to 100%, then not only do you do 250% damage on all hits, but the headshots are also up to a whopping +150% damage so they'd be up to 400% damage and ignore a lot of their armor.

Also traps deal no damage means Cait has some harder counters than before. Guess what, one level 1 black shield and one enemy can just walk into all your traps and they're all gone and did nothing at all. Unlike before where it'd at least damage the shield.