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The loss of DFG

Cale017·1/15/2015, 10:36:33 AM·2 votes·878 views

Is not the death of the mage class in League of Legends. The nerfs to mana regen are not the death of the mage class. Making the Morellonomicon cost more is not the death of the mage class. Then focusing their balance changes around AD champions is not the death of the mage class.

Why? Because having an all AD team is a bad idea in most cases. Doing all of one kind of damage makes you easy to itemize against. People can focus all their gold into just one of the two resistances and the rest into health and/or damage. And god forbid they build a Thornmail. Or have Rammus.

Or both.

Stop freaking out, people. Please. Just because Riot has been focusing their changes on the other side of the chart doesn't mean that the one not getting as much love is being forgotten entirely. AD champions take up more slots, are usually in more places on a map, and usually act as the engagement or peel for a team so they're picked more often. Not because the mage class is dying, but because the mages have set parameters and uses. They're damage. Damage that mixes up what tanks have to worry about. Some have insane amounts of damage that even stacking like crazy won't save you from, some have a mix of damage and utility to make them horrors in teamfights, some have mobility and damage to make it so that they can juke around whatever you throw at them and then deal their own back. And that's pretty much it. You rarely see a mage initiating a fight. You rarely see them roaming before their lane is won. You don't see them divebombing the enemy team alongside their tank. They have their role, wherever they fall between caster to assassin, and they stick to it. If having a branch of champions focused only on doing one thing to the exclusion of all other possible options were a bad thing, ADCs would have meant the death of the melee champion and, last time I checked, if a Wukong jumps on an ADC he's probably going to get the kill.

Chill out, seriously. Especially when the change being made isn't even that bad. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a fed mage build a DFG and just think to myself, "Great, now they've got another free 500+ damage on a hotkey." The play patterns that it creates ARE unfair to play against. They make any amount of MR you build mean next to nothing, which last time I checked quite a lot of people including myself are bringing up more and more often as unhealthy for tanks to deal with, AND does enough damage to rival a champion ability with a button press. In addition, most champions that build it don't even need it to kill you. Aside from the mass AP and the nice chunk of CDR, the effect itself isn't strictly necessary. In a teamfight you shouldn't be focusing the tank in the first place, so you don't need the extra burst on the one person who MIGHT survive your full salvo anyways, and if you're solo against a tank, chances are good that you're still going to kill them long before they can kill you because you're just dealing THAT much damage.

DFG isn't necessary, in fact it's unhealthy. If anything this is one step closer to balancing champions that everyone bitches and moans about like Fizz, Akali, Syndra, Katarina, insert hyper carry AP champion of choice here. Funfact: I've built a DFG, in over two years of playing this game, maybe three or four times. Each of which I would realize AFTER getting a kill, or several, that I had never even activated it. Funny how it wasn't necessary for me to perform my job even with the champions who use it.

I know this may be hard to understand at first, but even the champions who use DFG can still do a lot of damage without it. Something about having a passive 30% boost from another high powered AP item I can think of comes to mind, along with several scaling weapons that AD champions just don't have, and the ability to mix stats together a lot easier than an AD champ can.

Know how many AD items give MR and CDR on the same thing?

How about a mass amount of AD along with armor, and an active that makes you invincible for a few seconds?

Oh, and let's not forget about the AD item that multiplies your total AD.

Until the day comes that AP champs are removed from the game, they aren't dying or even on their way to die. There are QQ threads that pop up routinely about how overpowered some of them seem, and people debating over whether or not X AP champion is worth a damn because one person can play them like a master while another whiffs skillshots.

I can almost guarantee that anyone who's complaining about DFG being removed probably lacks vision of the larger picture at play here, and has also complained about an Akali, Fizz, or Leblanc 100-0ing you and it being OP.

Surprise, surprise. This is going to alleviate that issue. Almost like they're balancing the game in response to community outcry about how much assassins are currently dominating the meta. I KNOW, right?? Crazy!

Funny how many people are blind to that. If you think you NEED DFG to be effective, I'd suggest you learn to prioritize and work with your team better instead. I guarantee you that there's nothing it gives you that you couldn't do just fine without.

26 Comments

Melies1/15/2015, 8:59:44 PM2 votes

To be completely honest I've always felt that item 3128 was not a healthy item. Essentially it was an item that had very little counter play, and is considered core on any bursty ap or semi-bursty ap. It's removal can potentially be a good thing as it may lead to a bit more versatility. Also with it's removal changes can be brought to the champions that used it as a crutch, without them becoming crazy powerful.

Riot mentioned what they are going to change certain aspects of champions that relied on the burst, and while I enjoy Ahri, I have more of an interest in what will happen to Katarina. She has always been, and will always be my favorite champion and the removal of item 3128 is making me somewhat apprehensive. Mostly due to the removal of a guaranteed reset, and the loss of 120 ap. I look forward for the evolution of the bursty ap champions that relied on this item. But I desperately want to know what they will do with Katarina. I also need to start thinking of adjustments to my build.

item 3070 Katarina item 3070

asktiks1/15/2015, 12:23:23 PM2 votes

the disconnect is real with this one...

funny how you are blind to the double standard...

zed is THE most complained champ on the game, yet they PRECISELY EXPRESS THAT THEY WANT HIM TO DELETE YOU WITH ONE BUTTON PUSH , and at the same time they cite " we remove dfg because we think that one shotting a champ with no counterplay is not healthy for the game"

can you not see the hypocrisy with this? can you not see how casters continue to get the middle finger with mana regen nerfs, morellos cost increased to make it "fair" meanwhile casters HAVE to waste one item slot just to cover mana regen and be able to stay in lane but lets give energy users a free pass so they can continue to dominate

funny how you are blind to all that

ive been here long enough to know how the buff nerf train goes, and I can PROMISE YOU that we will have to wait MONTHS for the supposed compensation buffs for caster champs (and just wait and see how they buff veigar to cancer status because they feel he needs it meanwhile lets nerf sindras one poke spell because we cant have "lane bullies" yet we express that we LIKE zed being a lane bully....

riot is going the way of blizzard and makes me wanna play dota 2 more frequently with every thing they do or say about game and its direction , I HAAAAATE the current meta and all these changes enforce it further..

Droogzy1/15/2015, 5:19:24 PM2 votes

While yes, you want a varied source of damage so itemization becomes difficult, the biggest problem right now is there is such a massive discrepancy between AD and AP, between manaless user and mana users. This is especially highlighted with manaless AD user as well in the mid lane (Looking at you Zed). Assassins were already rising up to a problematic state, shooting nerfs after nerfs at mages with mana regen doesn't help the situation though, it only escalates it as manaless assassins and fizz are going to sky-rocket in popularity.

The short end of the stick I guess is why worry about being OOM so much when there are other champions who are incredibly potent who don't have that problem? Mana Regen was already posing a huge problem, but now the removal of one of two items which could allow someone to fight back against an assassin is gone, it's just crippling as it is, if this keeps up, the small diversity pool in the mid lane is only going to get smaller. For one example it doesn't take a genius to see that Ahri alone is most likely never going to see a lot of play again.

While I see the point you're trying to make, it's not just about the DFG, its about the state of mana users on the whole that are getting hit hard by this as a collateral. Assassins that use DFG are still going to assassinate their targets without it, in other words, the removal of the DFG does nothing to curb assassins, but only further hurt mages instead.

You talk about itemization, but as it stands right now, considering most AP damage comes from the mid-lane (only exception I can think of is Corki, Ezreal, and Lissandra), why not just play Zed, beat the shit out of the mana user until they are so far behind they literally tickle you. Which I must say, is disturbingly easy to do so with him, then suddenly, you don't have to worry about AP. If the only reason to use AP simply so you're not using an all AD team, I have to be honest, I think that sums up a huge problem with AP then.

iainB851/15/2015, 5:37:53 PM2 votes

You actually make the opposite point you think you do with your original post.

You pretty much sum up "mages aren't dead because going all AD makes it too easy to itemize resistances"

IF that is the only reason to go AP, that shows what a poor state it really is in.

Moulin Rouge1/15/2015, 5:39:19 PM2 votes

Can you not see how casters have been stacking Morello's early and finding out how stupidly overefficient it is for the price? Getting two of them puts you at the CDR cap within the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the game, gives you 300% mana regen, and 160 AP. The only thing that's wasted here is the unique passive. At that point they're free to cast whatever they want whenever they want as often as they want.

At the cost of what?

An early Rabadons?

A Zhonyas that could save their ass?

A rylais for the needed HP+100AP?

Yes, building two morello's is good but you're doing it at the cost or much more effective items just so you won't go OOM. That's how bad mana regen is at this point.

iainB851/15/2015, 5:43:50 PM2 votes

If you read the patch notes the price of Morello's is going up. It's not very efficient any more, which is another blow to AP mana users.

iainB851/15/2015, 6:13:05 PM2 votes

You missed the point entirely.

A lot of companies are able to make changes to their items AND balance the characters in their game all in ONE PATCH. They strive to have their game in a state of balance as much as possible.

League of Legends is the only game I've played where they make major changes that they fully admit will break things, then say that they will begin to think of how to fix them at a later patch.

It's probably in part due to their free to play pricing model, which has lead to them having more champions than the game really needs, and more then they can obviously handle. It doesn't make it any less frustrating as a player, either way.

Knight SoIaire 1/15/2015, 6:50:30 PM2 votes

Why? Because having an all AD team is a bad idea in most cases

unless your team of aps cant compete and get enough gold to counter itemize

mages arent dead but everything else is in a better spot

i played ahri vs bots today (i rly lack time to play real games) one q here and one q here and i was in base every like 5 minutes because i drained my mana and potions without realy spamming my skills i always had them for some time and refiled portions of my mana with dorans ring

while anything energy based or manaless has the skills of similar potency and cooldowns yet isnt forced to go b like i do

when mages were 100% of the time at 100% mana energy and manaless champs were ballanced to their level now as mages got rekt mana wise energy and manaless champs need neerfs to put them in the spot they should be

Droogzy1/15/2015, 8:27:05 PM2 votes

Generally speaking, I do wholesomely agree the removal of the DFG is a necessary evil, it had to go, but I just question and don't necessarily agree this is the right time for it to take its departure from the game.

Chaotic Reks1/15/2015, 12:10:37 PM1 votes

you've never played with or against Fizz Akali Diana Katarina Kassadin have you?