Riot You Need a New Balance Team

What your balance team has been doing has gone beyond tolerable levels of bullshit. They're not even trying to hide the fact that they play favorites, then spit in our faces when we call them on it by nerfing other champions that didn't have a problem in the fist place. Do you think the Lee Sin nerf threads are funny or something? Do you honestly think an attack speed touch to Zed is a reasonable nerf? Did you not see how many people were opposed to the Sona and Ahri nerfs?

Or is it that you just don't give a damn? Seems like that's the most reasonable conclusion since you can't seem to understand what you're doing to the game. I watched that patch rundown and it made me sick hearing that you apparently want diversity in the game. Alright, so removing DFG and not compensating the champions affected by it is a brilliant idea right? Removing the item and slowly filling the holes left by it afterwards is great for retaining those off-builds.

The jungle is garbage, and you're making it worse. I don't understand why you insist that increasing the cost of the upgraded smite is a good thing. A lot of junglers are already struggling to get through the first clear, so why make it even harder? You just want Lee Sin to be stronger don't you? No, there's no tinfoil hat this time, we know you want to see Lee every game. Want to disagree? Then explain how he hasn't been nerfed yet - or do you need to nerf Sona again to compensate for his incoming 7.45 / 7.40 health regen nerf.

None of that matters in the LCS, your balance team's favorite thing to watch, does it? From watching so many LCS matches, they've grown to love certain champions from watching their flashy, fun, and exciting plays, such as Lee Sin's. That would explain why he's never going to be nerfed - you guys like him way too much and want to see him succeed. But wait, there's ANOTHER champion in contention for the Favorite Child title. You have acknowledged that Zed is a champion who might be an issue for mid laners, and have stated that you do in fact like watching his plays...so you nerf his attack speed and call it a day...what the fuck?

Was the reasoning behind killing Ahri's role as an assassin actually that she could fight Zed? Huh, if Zed get's charmed, he could die from that burst, so let's make it so that getting hit with charm is only a minor inconvenience at the hefty cost of mana - yes, she has to use resources to do damage, Zed doesn't. I just wanted to explain that last part since I'm convinced some of you don't actually play the game, otherwise the balance changes would make some amount of sense wouldn't they?

Changes that you keep shoving out have been discussed in great detail over many threads about similar topics, yet all of them seem to be ignored. What is the point of PBE if our feedback on balance is worthless? Why should we even try to talk to you if you're just going to brick-wall us and say (behind your computer screens because typing it would be bad for business) : "It's our game, deal with it. If you don't like it, you don't have to play." Again, want to disagree? Prove me wrong. Talk to us, let's come up with some compromises to some of these 'experimental' changes that make it to the live servers regardless of feedback. And what I mean by talk to us doesn't mean hiding on reddit since most of the posters can't actually prove they've played a single game of League in their life. On here, you can actually see their account.

If you can't do that, if you can't perform the simplest of solutions to break down the wall between Riot and community by talking to us, then you've failed as designers. Balance feedback is meant to be expressed and debated. It was for a little while, then you guys kinda disappeared after stating "Sorry, we'll do better at communicating." You hate being called liars, but I've seen that excuse, and that action enough times that it's lost meaning to me. YOU need to be the ones to talk as well. Don't make Kateykhaos walk through a minefield explaining that she isn't in charge of balance but she believes X is for Y reason. Don't make Rioters who's job isn't about the topic be the one to communicate. The thought is appreciated, but it's not solving anything.

Edit: Why are people still commenting on this? This was posted over 4 months ago. Everything but my criticisms are out of date.

Edit 2: Okay, it's over 6 months later, stop commenting. Yes the balance team is still untrustworthy and will probably always be a constant source of disappointment and anger to the community. We don't need to keep bringing it up here. Make another thread. And yes I still stand by my original point - you need to clear out your balance team and sub in people who_ aren't_ a bunch of lying hypocrites or condescending egomaniacs that actually give a shit about the players instead of how League looks for spectators.

Edit 3: Almost 10 months later, I'm still waiting for these lying egomaniacs to be replaced. They're continuing to feign interest in the community with these little PR driven Q&A posts before they go back into hiding, ignoring questions about their favoritism and lying where they don't want to admit their intentions, and dismissing concerns over their blatant hypocrisy. But what do I know, I'm just a "conspiracy theorist." Right?