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Trying to understand Nerf choices?

Aitikian·11/25/2015, 5:55:00 PM·3 votes·1,337 views

Looking @ win rates between October 25 - 19 November for ALL regions, ranked play.

[Platinum] 1. Skarner (60%) 2. Malphite (59%) 3. Lissandra (58%) 4. Volibear (58%) 5. Malazhar (58%) 6. Sion (57%) 7. Singed (57%) 8. Annie (57%) 9. Brand (57%) 10. Xin (56%).. Shortly behind 11. Taric 12. Evelyn 13. Irelia 14. Gangplank 15. Zyra. *rounded to nearest whole number *bottom of the list is 122. Thresh 123. Yorkick 124. Leblanc 125. Azir 126. Ryze

[Diamond] 1. Heimdinger (61%) 2. Skarner (60%) 3. Malazhar (60%) 4. Zilean (59%) 5. Ahri (59%) 6. Galio (59%) 7. Nautilas (59%) 8. Anivia (58%) 9. Aatrox (58%) 10. Mundo (57%)... 11. Varus 12. Swain 13. Annie 14. Nami 15. Kayle *bottom of list 122. Yasou 123. Bard 124. Kassadin 125. Volibear 126. Azir.

Swain to be nerfed, Swain is 53 out of 126 champions in ALL (bronze-challenger) Ranked play from October 25 to November 19th at a 52% win rate. (Win rate all regions last month for Swain [Platinum: 44. (53%), Diamond: 12. (57%) , Master: 27. (53%) CHALLENGER: 92. (50%)]) Malazhar who has higher win rates in not only platinum and diamond but in all divisions and is a more popular champion remains unchanged.

Understand nerfs happen based of top play performance which the first list includes but doesn't reflect as a whole, however only in one division, which is not even professional level play, is Swain in a place that could be considered overpowered. In both Masters and Challenger Swain is barley middle of the pack, in Challenger true professional level play Swain is amongst the worst of all Champions.

Granted some of these other champions are getting nerfs such as Aniva Brand however you have champions at 60%!!!!! win rates not getting nerfed but are instead nerfing ones at 52%?

I'm just trying to find the logic here I'm sure its not as black and white as I see it but in everything I've read and seen I haven't seen any nerfs that would affect some of these other champions.

On the other end of the scale we have Urgot, Thresh, Kassadin, Nidalee, Ryze at the bottom all at about 46% win rate except Ryze who is currently at 41%? (bronze-challenger win rates) I'm not disagreeing with Zed, Kha'zix buffs but why are we not addressing issues with the lowest champions and highest champions before all other to balance out gameplay? How is nerfing a champion already in the middle of the win rate pool going to help balance?

*Edited to more accurately reflect win rates of top tier play

15 Comments

karruck11/25/2015, 6:05:24 PM2 votes

dont look at all ranked just diamond and plat games those are the only ones riot really looks at

qetzel11/25/2015, 8:12:26 PM2 votes

If you look at champion.gg it gives you a graph showing the win rate of champions when the player has 0-5 5-15 15-50 0-125 125+ games on that champion.

If you have a look at the champions being nerfed next patch, most of them have a winrate among dedicated players of about 60%, which is significantly higher than the average of 55%, suggesting that if you really know that champion then they are a bit too strong.

Except in the case of Anivia, where even those with 5 games on her have over 50% winrate.

Aitikian11/25/2015, 8:41:27 PM1 votes

Additional information from champion.gg (actually reinforces my argument) *Champion (Win Rate%, # player base average games played)

  1. Mundo[Jungle] (57%, 25), 2. Brand (57%, 45) 3. Rammus (56%, 67) 4. (56%, 34) 5. Tryndamere[Jungle] (56%, 58) 6. Tryndamere[Top] (56%, 90) 7. Anivia (55%, 106) 8. Mundo[Top] (55%, 23) 9. Graves (55%, 47) 10. Vel'koz (55%, 98) *11. Malzahar (55%, 95) 16. Swain (55%, 116)

Only 23 other champions out of 196 had more average games played then Swain, all of which had lower win rates. The statistics should favor champions with greater then 100 games boasting a higher win rate. Swain is not in the top 10, not even in the top 15 and yet he is getting nerfed yet Mundo, Tryndamere, Vel'koz, Malzahar all with higher win rates and lower average games played remain untouched.

So even with this data I'm still perplexed at to how Riot bases their decisions on who they are balancing, some of their choices are pretty obvious and make lots of sense some of their other choices I'm at a complete loss with. All sound logic to me says start at 1 and work your way down. I would say balancing the top 5 and bottom 5 each patch and watching how those changes effect the rest of the champion pool.

Riv x Kobe11/25/2015, 9:25:21 PM1 votes

I like how this shows pick rate. Oh wait.