The Damage Creep Meta is a Complex Issue with Many Sources that Have Caused it.

Frosted Tips··28 votes·12,935 views

This meta has been formed from years of changes that were not seen until Tanks got rightfully nerfed and now that all the effects have stockpiled on top of eachother it has created this very noticeable damage meta. This Meta can not be fixed properly quickly because it encompasses many different aspects of the game. I would like to take a look into what I perceive as the main issues. These issues include the CDR overload, Removal of Mana Management, Item Efficiency, Penetration, and Awful Runes for Tanks.

CDR

The game is over saturated with CDR. CDR used to be something that you itemized for and gave up something in return. Things like damage, health, or resistance, but currently almost anyone besides Marksman easily build 40% CDR.

Everyone having 40% CDR means that their abilities are up more often which means they can use their abilities more often which means that there is more damage in the game.

(As a side note this also means the fishing for abilities to land is more common because there is less down time between strong engage abilities so people just fish for a pick 24/7)

Current items: Abyssal Mask, Adaptive Helm, Archangel's Staff, Ardent Censer, Athene's Unholy Grail, Banshee's Veil, Death's Dance, Duskblade of Draktharr, Essence Reaver, Eye of Ascension, Eye of the Aspect, Eye of the Watchers, Frozen Heart, Hextech GLP, Hextech Protobelt, Iceborn Gauntlet, Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Knight's Vow, Lich Bane, Luden's Echo, Maw of Malmortius, Mikael’s Crucible, Nashor's Tooth, Ohmwrecker, Redemption, Righteous Glory, Runic Echoes, Shurelya's Reverie, Spirit Visage, The Black Cleaver, Trinity Force, Twin Shadows, Warmog's Armor, Warrior, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Zeke's Convergence, and Zhonya's Hourglass. Total = 37

10% CDR - Abyssal Mask, Adaptive Helm, Ardent Censer, Athene's Unholy Grail, Banshee's Veil, Death's Dance, Duskblade of Draktharr, Eye of Ascension, Eye of the Aspect, Eye of the Watchers, Hextech Protobelt, Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Knight's Vow, Lich Bane, Maw of Malmortius, Mikael's Crucible, Ohmwrecker, Redemption, Righteous Glory, Runic Echoes, Shurelya's Reverie, Spirit Visage, Twin Shadows, Warmog's Armor, Warrior, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Zeke's Convergence, and Zhonya's Hourglass. Total = 28

20% CDR - Archangel's Staff, Essence Reaver, Frozen Heart, Hextech GLP, Iceborn Gauntlet, Luden's Echo, Nashor's Tooth, The Black Cleaver, Trinity Force. Total = 9

Season 3 items: Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Locket of the Iron Solari, Shurelya's Reverie, Morellonomicon, Spirit Visage, Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, Zeke's Herald, Nashor's Tooth, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Athene's Unholy Grail, Zephyr, The Black Cleaver, Deathfire Grasp(RIP), Frozen Heart, and Iceborn Gauntlet. Total = 14

10% CDR - Locket of the Iron Solari, Shurelya's Reverie, Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, Youmuu's Ghostblade, and Zephyr. Total = 5

15% CDR - Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Spirit Visage, Zeke's Herald, Athene's Unholy Grail, Deathfire Grasp, and Iceborn Gauntlet. Total = 6

20% CDR - Morellonomicon, Nashor's Tooth, and Frozen Heart. Total = 3

Mana Management

It seems now that managing your mana is a thing of the past. Mana issues seem to only occur before your first back. It seems as if later in the game I can just throw out ability after ability after ability. This means that damage is higher because people can use their abilities more often because they have enough mana more of the time to use those abilities. This one is hard to quantify, but if you played back before season 5 you would understand.

(Also links to the fishing for picks I ranted about in the CDR section.)

Items

Offensive

Offensive items have way too strong of defensive power. Even if they are meant to be a little defensive they seem to be too strong at both.

Banshee’s Veil, Maw of Malmortius, Zhonya's Hourglass, The Black Cleaver, and Trinity Force all rest 90-100% gold efficient without their passives and actives which are pretty strong.

Defensive

Defensive Items just feel overall so weak currently. Honestly sense the resistance and health changes for tank items they have just felt so off.

Adaptive Helm, Randuin's Omen, Abyssal Mask, and Deadman's Plate all hover around 80-90% gold efficient without their passives which are not that insane.

Penetration

In combination with the changes to tank items penetration became much more potent and now Penetration almost seems to negate any penetration built when it should just help deal with high resistance. Just my recommendation is to lower Void by 10% and LDR by 5%.

Runes

Tank keystone runes are bad for non support tanks. They are just more useful for other classes.They need a new one added or atleast rework one of the current ones. Look at the champions that use Grasp the best, all fighters and Caitlyn, and those who use Colossus the best, Lissandra and support tanks, and look at who uses Guardian, support tanks. Excluding Conditioning almost all the Tank runes are better and more effective on non-tanks.

TL/DR: Cooldown Reduction is too common which means more abilities per fight which means more damage. Mana Management is nonexistent and means abilities are always available which means more damage. Items suck for tanks. Runes suck for tanks. Penetration is a bit too strong.

That has all lead to the damage creep meta. What are your thoughts?

60 Comments

A girl Supp Main9 votes

I agree with all of this, and to add even further to the cool down reduction inflation is the rune that gives you 10% at 10 and converts excess to adaptive damage as well as the one that gives 5% and raises the total cap to 45%. You don't even have to consider that CDR exists at this point unless you're Riven because you just get it naturally and if you do go over the cap, you get extra damage.

Another thing that isn't mentioned, but as a support, I've slowly watched grow is the addition of extra gold to the game. Support items generate gold out of nothing just by existing and their passives add even more gold. This is why mage supports were either almost a troll pick or required serious skill to pull off in earlier seasons, but now they keep about on par with any other carry if they start to get kills. Especially with basically unlimited Mana after five minutes. Sightstone and wards not existing also complimented going straight into damage.

On top of the support items pumping outside gold into the map, there has been buffs to gold amounts earned from creeps as well, then turret plating gives gold for some reason.

Frosted Tips2 votes

Yeah I think a lot of those also have some significance as well. Especially how effective support items are currently. I really wish supports would earn a little less gold than they currently do. I really do think you brought up some interesting points I missed/thought were a little less significant to damage and more significant to games ending quicker.

LordGeovanni1 votes

lol unless you're riven. especially if you're riven

Nyarlathοtep9 votes

lower Void by 10% and LDR by 5%.

What the actual fuck. Why hit harder void when mages clearly have downtimes. Mages have cds and mana. Those that buy ldr can still use their 100% ratio aa to deal dmg at no cost whatsoever. I understand a 5% but 10%? Wtf are you even thinking.

Frosted Tips8 votes

Well my reasoning is that currently MR itemization sucks and getting high MR is pretty bad, so it usually doesn't rival Armor levels in the game, and because Mages are more about bursting squishies and Marksman are more about killing tanks so I think it will help reinforce that. It may be too much of a nerf, but it was just a suggestion.

Nyarlathοtep6 votes

Mr sucks? Quite the reverse you mean. Mr is too good unless you have penetration. Hell i can buy a single mr item and middle finger the enemy lb all game until she buys void stuff or finishes oblivion orb. However this will kill my mana output.

And also mages ALREADY have troubles dealing with tanks. Have you ever tried to kill a tank without a sustained dmg dealer? Well, it sucks. Your spells do hit him quite decently. However mana and cdr impended you hard.

Marksmen are about killing everything within their range. Mages are all about (usually) aoe dmg and maybe cc. However mages have the least tools of dealing with tanks (as dmg dealers). Liandrys is just not enough.

AjXtar3 votes

Void staff 40% Magic Penetration. That alone is a fuck ton and MR itemization sucks. Just by building Sorcerer's Shoes and Oblivion Orb mages are dealing almost true damage to pretty much everyone in the game and those 2 items are also ignoring a big chunk from tanks MR.

3TWarrior1 votes

again, compared to literal true damage from auto attackers

you also have to be in range of them and as a squishy champ, you shouldn't be. The combination you list is also a full item of gold and has almost no value other than the increased damage due to no mana and no power-spike items

let's use brand bottom lane as an example. If he rushed these items, his damage would be fairly high, but he would have no sustain, fewer than adequate gold income and his build order would be completely off

AjXtar2 votes

Are you fucking kidding me, dude? You talk about range when mages are ranged champions and the bruisers are melee champions and you are talking about range like the range is a problem FOR THE FUCKING MAGES, but not for the bruisers who are much easier to kite, cc and kill?

And you are also talking about the "squishy mages". Seriously?

Brand range on his Q is 1050. His W has 900 range. His build is full hp. https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Brand/Support/ Check his build. 3 items, that's 900 hp.

The majority of mages are building a lot of defensive items and they have items to do so. The builds are also cheaper than bruiser builds. MUCH, MUCH CHEAPER. Stop talking shit when you have no idea what you are talking about.

3TWarrior1 votes

One, I did not mention bruisers/fighters/divers

two, most melee champions have a means of defense or output more damage than the mages do and more consistently. I assume you interpreted that the mage would be the one getting into range of the other player, which is nonsensical, but the opposing player can easily bait the mage's cooldowns or even negate most of their magic pen with mercurial treads

three, this site does not provide likely build order, only average build time, so you have no idea if they are building those items or not and if we "assume" what the player might build

item 3020 (1100) item 3092 (1800) item 3151 (3100) item 3165 (3000) item 3135 (2650) item 3089 (3600)

You have to figure out where to put in Zhonya's at the very least unless you sell your support item, which would not help much and void would probably be exchanged for rylai's. build depends upon the player and game time

let's assume brand goes for damage as cheaply as possible

item 3020 item 3165 item 3098 even just that is already 4600 gold or item 3916 item 3136 item 3020 item 3098 for the same and you will be depending entirely upon your base kit for everything with only 400 hp and 80 ap + runes and magic pen

item 3057 (1200) item 3111 (1100) item 3145 (1050) leaves 1250 gold on the same budget, which a solo laner would have more of

Brand also has fairly bad base damage and AP ratios with his only strength being his ultimate hitting targets close together and %hp damage if he manages to proc enough

If you wanted to, you could negate 25/33 magic penetration for just 450 gold, which leaves even more for the typical jax build or otherwise

AjXtar2 votes

First of all, you said melee. Bruisers are melee and you and everyone else has problems with them, so they are the topic here.

Second of all, the site does provide the build. In fact if you scrolled a little down from the 3 items build, you could have seen the items and all. Item 1, boots, item two and so on.

Third of all, bruiser items are fucking expensive. You keep mentioning brand build costs, but then you ignore AGAIN the most basic concept of the bruiser build and weaknesses. You just say "but, eh. cd and shit". Seriously? This is dumb double standard to the max. Trinity force costs 3700. Not to mention that bruisers have to build tiamat to have some wave clear. Mages that in their kits. that timat is slowing down the powerspike and it adds a lot more to the final cost of the build.

4th. Brand doesn't need items. He can be one or two items behind and still deal more damage than everyione. That shit is at the top of the charts all the time. In fact, his win rate and play rate shows how r%%%%%ed that champion is.

5th. A bruiser at level 18 will have 58 mr or 64 if they will chose for one mr rune. Brand with just boots and oblivion orb is ingoring 33 MR. he builds those items super early when EVERYONE has very low mr(35 to 45) depending on the class. His damage is close to true damage.

Not to mention the damage over time, the % health damage, the damage from liandry and so on. A tank doesn't even stand a chance against him, even without void staff.

JeaneGreene1 votes

But you do realize that buying a 450 gold item can almost negate a 2000+ gold purchase. item 3916 is strongest when your opponents don't build MR, but the minute you dip into item 1033, you start to reduce its effectiveness, big time. (It also just so happens that item 3155 is 102% -> 159% gold efficient).

AirKingNeo2 votes

That argument is faulty. Resistance items don't negate everything about an item that gives pen. Oblivion Orb still gives HP and AP. Stop acting as if it does otherwise.

3TWarrior1 votes

their entire argument was based on the value of standard items increasing their damage, but a 450 purchase can account for 25/33 magic pen, reducing their "true damage" claim

but if we look, most champions either build Mobility Boots or Ninja Tabis(which deal with the EXCESSIVE amount of damage that auto attackers provide and only BARELY)

let's look at item 3916 (25 ap and 200 health) , item 3020 no bonuses , for 2600 gold, you gained 8 magic resist penetration, 25 AP and 200 health, which is only about 1200 gold of stats currently and provides almost nothing to use

let's use anivia who has some of the highest AP ratios, her abilities would only gain 25 damage compared to someone else's high damage bonuses

let's say sheen. it increases damage by at least 60 for every instance on a 1.5 second cooldown

item 2015 for 800 adds 50 damage to any instance where it's charged

item 1038 adds 40 to every auto attack

item 3145 - 50 to 125 bonus magic damage on 45 second coodlwon

JeaneGreene1 votes

And Hexdrinker also gives you Ad, and an amazing shield with the lifeline passive, for less gold.

3TWarrior1 votes

I did not say melee until you introduced it by trying to proclaim strange decisions (such as that a mage would walk into a melee's auto attack range intentionally...)

2, yes I did not notice that but why would I scroll that far down when there is an "items" tab like every other website

3, bruiser items are fairly cheap for their powerspike value. 1200 for sheen, 1200 for tiamat, 1500 for cutlass, etc and all of these provide TARGETED damage and then twice the value for a bit extra if you upgrade right away or you can specialize elsewhere at your choice

4, yes, brand is strong, but there are stronger picks. He's popular because he has a simple kit that gets results visibly. Sona has half his pick rate, exceeds his win rate and matches his highest win rate, but no one would argue sona is "strong"

5, by your own source, other than boots, the penetration items are his least common picks with roughly 5% pick rate in the initial items? As has been explained below, a 450 gold purchase almost completely negates his MR pen for 25/33 value

Brand is good against tanks, but tanks overall are bad right now. The site even provides odd data. If brand's best counters have a negative win rate, how are they a counter to him?

AirKingNeo2 votes

auto attacks don't deal true damage. They have to face 65% of their opponent's armor and opponents build more armor than MR.

3TWarrior1 votes

conquerer converts 20% of damage into true damage. Infinity edge converts 10% of crit damage into true damage. If the values overlap, it's less impactful but if the values are cumulative, then the impact is much larger

let's take 200 damage crit. 20% of 200 is 40 true damage with 160 damage left over, if the crit then applies to that, it's 144 physical and 56 true

let's reverse the order, 200 * 0.9 = 180 + 20 true damage 180 * 0.8 = 144 physical and 56 true, so there's no difference in if the order is changed, but let's change how the interaction occurs as conquerer states "20% of all damage converted to true damage)

200 * 0.9 = 180 + 20 true 180 * 0.8 = 144 physical damage and since true damage can not be "converted" to true damage, 36 + 20 = 56 true

so in all 3 situations, the true damage is the same an appears to work using multiplication

then, let's say the target has 100 armor or 50% damage reduction. 72 physical + 56 true = 128 net damage

of course, those are just example numbers and do not show the impact of builds, but it is a net tally of over 25% of your original damage converted into true damage

AirKingNeo1 votes

Marksmen don't take Conqueror.

Even your math supports my argument. Most damage taken is still physical.

Nyarlathοtep1 votes

Yep. Which is why i said revert void back to its 35% mpen. And here's a pro tip. If the enemy mage has SS and Oblvion orb, just go fucking buy a merc treads. And there you go until void he will deal significantly less dmg. If you are still crying about it well, remember, dmg outscales defense.

AirKingNeo3 votes

Except Void Staff was broken at 35% pen, so it should be lowered to 30%.

Nyarlathοtep

No it wasnt. You are spouting bullshit and you know it. You just want to see mages for once in the dumpster.

AirKingNeo1 votes

I'm telling you the statistical (and therefore actual) truth. Not my fault if you won't accept it because you don't look at the facts.

Also, you just admitted that mages haven't been in the dumpster.

Nyarlathοtep

I'm telling you the statistical (and therefore actual) truth

No you dont. Some mages having good winrate =/= mages being op or something. Is xerath op? No. Is vel- actually nevermind. I just remembered someone calling him op. Is karthus, anivia, syndra, veigar, lux or tf broken/op? No they arent. Or at least in soloq. Pro play CANT be used as a measurement for soloq. Period.

Also, you just admitted that mages haven't been in the dumpster.

Well duh? Even the closest to the true ap carry has utility just because its part of their fantasy. They will never be in the dumpster unless you hit their strengths. Damage or their utility. However SOME mages have WAY LESS utility unlike others so them having their dmg nerfed because others might abuse an item (void in our case) is extremely stupid.

AirKingNeo1 votes

No you dont. Some mages having good winrate =/= mages being op or something.

High winrate and pickrate = OP, so you might wanna understand how statistics works.

Nevermind you cherrypicking certain mages. Let's look at actual stats: Galio building built full AP, Kassadin (builds mages items), Zoe, Vladimir, Cassiopeia, Ahri, Lissandra are all top mid laners right now.

Nyarlathοtep

High winrate and pickrate = OP, so you might wanna understand how statistics works.

Which is why i said SOME. All of who you mentioned (apart vlad, he has low pickrate and average winrate) do have high winrate. Although zoe has 49% while liss and ahri hover at 51% winrate more or less. Source opgg.

An ap assassin buying mage items?!??!?!?! Who would have thought. He is still not a mage. A mage is a mage because of his kit. Not items.

doodlebob6663 votes

And also mages ALREADY have troubles dealing with tanks. Have you ever tried to kill a tank without a sustained dmg dealer? Well, it sucks. Your spells do hit him quite decently. However mana and cdr impended you hard.

thats the point of a tank you shouldn't be able to kill one easily without a sustained damage dealer, its not even like mages have none

Azir AurelionSol Cassiopeia Ryze Karthus Velkoz Malzahar Anivia Brand all these champs can chunk tanks incredibly hard.

3TWarrior2 votes

4 of those are sustained damage dealers and 2 - 3 of them have tools for tanks

anivia does have high sustained damage, but you'd be hard pressed to get the coordination to force the opponents into her ultimate and karthus, while a sustained damage dealer, his kit is unreliable for it

doodlebob6662 votes

Karthus can get his damage out pretty reliably in a team fight it’s just not optimal to do since he can kill off a back liner for higher payoff, tanks get melted by him but they aren’t worth his time in a team fight

  1. Annivia can mess with tanks pretty well because most have trouble with her wall since a lot only have mobility to get in not out Maokai Amumu Poppy need a target andNautilus Chogath Sion Skarner Rammus Ornn Malphite Nunu Singed have no easy way of getting to the other side easily (I know Ornn can break the wall but if he does that he uses his only mobility with a decent windup to go a short distance to stay within the ult ) and since they are going to position at the front of the team catching them out with the wall and then ulting can shred them vary hard
King Braum2 votes

Azir, Brand and Anivia are all control mages that can easily build into sustained %HP damage, Vel'Koz has a true damage mechanic. Keeping tanks away with DoT Damage is litterally their job as control mages.

In contrast, getting in the face of any of these will usually mean they're dead.

doodlebob6662 votes

I’m not saying they are op I’m just saying that mages saying they have no options against tanks and that they do badly against them is disingenuous. I’m not saying any of these champs are op Just that they are mages who deal with tanks well since the top comment was implying that mages as a class are weak to tanks, despite the fact that tank metas invariabley cause mages to dominate mid

Nyarlathοtep1 votes

thats the point of a tank you shouldn't be able to kill one easily without a sustained damage dealer, its not even like mages have none

Aside those that you mentioned, the rest have an extremely hard time damaging a tank. And why shouldnt they?

doodlebob6661 votes

tbh i think mages have too much of an easy time against tanks because of how much armor tanks have to get early since you need sunfire against for wave clear, then you need ninja tabi's to survive the adc and then you can think about itemizing mr at the point where your not farming as much because you have to group so by the time you get spirit visage a mage would be way up in gold compared to you

Nyarlathοtep

No they dont. As a long mage player, mages have trouble dealing with tanks.

Most tanks dont need sunfire. They have enough aoe for waveclear.

LordGeovanni1 votes

How is mr too good. only tanks even have the slot to buy more than one mr item so you basicly going up against an 800 + ap mage with multiple 80% scalings if you want to be generous to the mages weak claim on 3-6 second cooldows with the 40% cdr they get ad no less than 36 penetration with one 55 magic resist item.

AirKingNeo2 votes

Because magic pen overpowered right now? Like 40% magic pen on void staff is fucking broken.

LordGeovanni1 votes

Because mages down times arent actually real because they are already made up for by being downtimes so mages skills have higher base damages than adcs and they have better scaling than adcs and they have items that put out better numbers to scale off of and they have top ap items that also have cdr like item 3285 (which has another ap scaling that fucntions as a 5th spells) item 3348 item 3100 (6th spell) item 3152 (7th spell) no one really uses it but if mages ever wanted to along with item 3100 or havingitem 3115 you can throw that down time arguement in the garbage where it belongs where your mage 'downtimes' are 3 second q nukes that are only 2.25 seconds by time its done being thrown out and have mages can instantly move to a safe place after throwing their spell out to wait for it to almost be up again to come back in to use it again.

Moody P4 votes

reminder that tanks and tank items made damage creep necessary and the only real solution is to nerf them first

macspam3 votes

just a small point, your CDR list needs a couple fixes. Hextech GLP and Frozen Heart both give 20% CDR

Frosted Tips1 votes

Thank you fixed it.

softest boy2 votes

The existence of transcendence as a rune shows how they feel about the abundance of cool down reduction in the game. We have a lot of it? Make a rune that benefits people who overcap it!

AirKingNeo2 votes

except the part where no one overcaps on it to benefit

MorganFreemanBot1 votes

Mana management is most definitely still a thing, the way it was managed has just changed.

Before the s6 (was it s6? Maybe s5?) mage rework, mages had infinite mana in the form of regen. Morello's and Athene's were both items which gave gigantic amounts of mana regen (and, ironically, a solid 20% cdr), and you'd see every single mid lane mage build one of the two as their first item. Slap on a tear item, a ROA, or one of a few other items which had mana tacked on that mages used to build, and mages would literally never run oom in the field.

Currently, mages have extremely deep mana pools. Almost every mage item gives enough mana to execute a full combo and then some, but there are very few which actually increase your regen. This leads to a scenario where mages can free cast for a noticeable amount of time, but once they actually run out of mana they won't be getting it back without snagging blue or scoring a quick back.

So Riot took what was a deep, ever replenishing, and near infinite pool.. and replaced it with a deep pool that's slow to fill, essentially making it so that mages could burn mana for lengthy periods of time, but would be punished with low mana vulnerable periods if they spend extended durations casting in the field.

AirKingNeo3 votes

Mana management doesn't exist if you're a mage. Lost Chapter is fucking broken.

Rαy1 votes

While this thread holds truth, I think the biggest and most prominent issue is/was Runes Reforged.

I strongly believe that most of this overwhelming damage creeping around would vanish if Runes Reforged gets reverted.

LordGeovanni1 votes

item 3190 doesnt have cdr any more anditem 3172 inst avaliable in game modes outside of nexus blitz anymore

Frosted Tips2 votes

Yes I know I was comparing the amount of CDR in season 3 versus now. Disclaimer I picked season 3 because that is when I started not because I think league was the most balanced or healthiest at that time.

LordGeovanni1 votes

oh okay most people think that season 3 was the most healthy time in league's history between that and season5's tank meta (which was actually a result of the mage meta that preceeded it with 4 mages one adc that no one seems to remember)

Kumiho Ahri1 votes

I havent seen such a well done thread about the issues of the meta in a while. Hope Rito will see this. +1 [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

More from Gameplay

More by Frosted Tips