Riot, how are older champs who's kits aren't super overloaded supposed to survive?

LupusNox·12/7/2014, 11:14:12 PM·106 votes·9,014 views

A while ago, a couple of Rioters talked about power and mobility creep and how it needs to be addressed.

This needs to happen sooner rather than later, as it is hurting the game more than it is hurting it. This game has 122 champions as of the Kalista patch, and as of those, about 100 of them came out before power creep was a permanent fixture of new champs kits. They were balanced in their own way up until that point.

But now, in order for champs to seem fresh, strong and competitive, Riot has been just jam packing the kits of the last 20 champs. Double passives, passives on every skill, the amount of champs with 8 skills instead of 4 has more than doubled since Jayce came out. Insane mobility has become the norm, more champs are released that don't have a resource than those that do, cooldowns are trivial even on many of these champs. (Looking at you Yasuo)

The last 4 champions have all had mobility built into their kit, with Kalista taking the cake there. Gnar is an absolute mixture of lane bully ranged DPS and team fighting MVP tank that has as much damage as any and CC to match up with the likes of Naut and Leona. Azir has passives on top of passives. He has absolute zone of control, the ability to STOP gap closers, DPS that is insane and he can make a turret. Braum can eat ults. He can literally stop autos from hitting a target and get % damage reduction. He has a stun, a knockup, a slow. He's super tanky. These champs have almost no downsides.

My friends and I played a 5v5 game where we all picked old champs, the restriction being that they have to be one of the first 50 champs made. The team that we were matched up against picked all champs that had been in the last 10 released. We started playing and it was clear from the beginning; even though my team was more mechanically skilled than the other team, their champs provided so many crutches and free stats that it didn't really matter. We were able to drag out the game to 40 minutes and take an inhib just because we were more coordinated, but in the end we couldn't match up with their sheer mobility, damage and free get of dodge abilities.

Riot, something needs to be done about mobility creep and it needs to be done now. I don't know when you are going to figure out that having extra skills or passives that are better than skills are going to be the nail in the coffin for old champs that don't have all that stuff going for them. Take an early champ, Poppy, who was released in Jan 2010. Sure, she seems OP on paper and Riot would never let her be good now because her design is poor, but even if she was strong, she wouldn't be able to match up and do her job anymore. Current supports have too much CC where they can disable her for most of her ult, while ADCs have so much mobility that they could kite her for her whole ult.

Riot, if you don't address power creep soon, the game will continue along its current path where only the newest champs and those that are LCS favorites will really be viable.

184 Comments

Teridax6812/8/2014, 1:58:08 AM58 votes

Champions like Kayle , Morgana and Tristana , some of the oldest champions in the game with straightforward kits, have all been ultra-strong in the past season, to the point where they had to be nerfed. Even Twitch and KogMaw , two immobile marksmen with steroid-focused kits, were dominant until they received nerfs to their early game. Right now, we have a problem with Warwick being far too strong in the new jungle. By contrast, champions like Gnar , Velkoz , the new Sion , or even Azir don't have spectacularly high pick rates.

Yes, there are issues of mobility creep and even knockup and mechanic creep, but not so much an issue of power creep. More mechanics or gapclosers do not equate to more power, since the amount of power a champion receives is based on their whole kit, and not their individual mechanics. However, I agree that some old champions need an update, not because they need to be loaded with more mechanics, but because a lot of old kits are unhealthy. Poppy is a good example of this, because she has massive amounts of invisible power and very little counterplay to her ultimate. She can't be allowed to just be buffed, because her kit is so toxic that a viable Poppy would be seriously harmful to the game. Other champions, like Urgot and Taric , have critical flaws in their kit that force them to be sub-par, and need a rework before they can get buffed.

If we had to go to extremes, though, I'd rather have a League where the most popular picks are the freshest champions with tons of different mechanics in their kit, because these champions are the product of a much more mature design philosophy and tend to be more interesting than a lot of old champions. Both Riot and League have evolved for the better, and if the old roster can't catch up, it would be better to take a look at them, see what makes them unviable, and update them, than to just halt the current champion creation process and add arbitrary limits to what could be fun and interesting kits.

doubleguac12/8/2014, 3:12:51 AM18 votes

People have such selective memories.

In the past year: Annie Fiddlesticks LeeSin Leblanc Leona JarvanIV DrMundo Morgana KogMaw Tristana Kayle Renekton Orianna Vayne Alistar Caitlyn Kassadin Ryze Jax TwistedFate Corki Pantheon Zilean Rammus Blitzcrank Janna Akali and Nasus have all gone through periods where they have been popular and strong picks in either competitive play or solo queue.

All of these champions were released in S1. The champions listed above make up a huge percentage of all the champions released in S1. While some of them received modest buffs shortly before going FotM, none of them saw large scale reworks--they have roughly the same kits they had in S1.

Holistically, it's impossible to argue that old kits are weaker than new kits. New champions tend to be more overloaded than old ones--they have more tools at their disposal, but their individual skills tend to be weaker. No champion released in the last year has any single skill close to as powerful and game changing as, say, Amumu's ult. They're just more likely to have 8 skills, 2 passives, and be manaless than old champions.

Noam Braumsky12/8/2014, 1:05:15 AM17 votes

There are a few champs that can keep up with the newest releases, but then there are the others like Kennen. Oh yeah, Kennen's a thing, isn't he? Nobody plays Kennen. Riot doesn't do anything with him. He's weak overall as a champion. And he is still not getting any attention in any way. Riot needs to love some of the aged champs more.

aperson112/7/2014, 11:27:35 PM17 votes

Riot's champ design is in a feedback loop right now. They create "interesting" champions with a bunch of crazy mechanics that makes them incredibly powerful generalists. These champions are then bought because if you don't pick or ban them, your chances of winning are significantly lower. Riot sees the shop data indicating that these champions are bought and played like crazy and assume that people actually like these champions for their mechanics or their theme. They then exaggerate these qualities even more for their next release.

I guess it's ok for them as long as they keep raking in the cash.

The Queen Viper12/8/2014, 3:06:15 AM9 votes

Survive? They don't ... which is why RITO started doing "reworks", however after these "reworks" they still end up being as bad or even worse as they used to... but meanwhile RITO manages to put a new overloaded champion so everyone goes "ooooh shiny" and forgets the old champ. ^^

You have to remember that there are more or less than 50 champs in this game... if you want to play to win ofc.

ChaoticPinecone12/8/2014, 2:09:09 AM7 votes

i find it funny that of all the champions to focus on, you mention Poppy. the Poppy that makoon played top lane and got 10+ kills on 2 games in a row. the Poppy that started the game 1/5 and ended up coming back to get a quadra.

if you go through all the champions that have been played on the pro scene in the past year, 80%+ of them have been picked.

of the first 50 champions you have - warwick (first pick and ban now), TF (unicorns of lovE's tf jungle yesterday) alistar (recently nerfed due to being overpowered after sheen top lane), jax (first pick during the regular season 4), ryze (first pick during regular season), trist (another first pick), twitch (Samung at worlds), Rammus (2 teams played at worlds for clutch victoires), kassadin (seen a lot of play top), janna (first rate support now, blitz (recently played in OGN), Corki (best adc right now), poppy (maknoon), pantheon (top rate in new jungle), ezreal (top tier adc right now - enough for faker to play him mid recently). and these are just listing the very recently picked or the hotly contested picks.

Auryiel12/8/2014, 5:00:08 AM7 votes

Mobility creep is a problem. But yeah we don't wanna do anything about it

  • Riot
A Superb Villain12/8/2014, 1:31:48 AM6 votes

By killing everyone else before they kill him.

Veigar

Hayaishi12/8/2014, 12:21:17 AM6 votes

They aren't.

Riot doesn't care if older releases struggle, but they also don't mind if they work fine. Their logic is "We want players to focus on learning the new champions more thus more money, any older champion can be left to rot until we rework it"

DHKany12/8/2014, 1:02:45 PM6 votes

Older champions have seen the play yes, but that doesn't change the fact that the new kits are unnecessarily overloaded with features.

Also Kalista being a champion revolving entirely around kiting while half of the forums were bitching about how easy ranged champions kite melee champions shows how attentive Riot really are.

MrSc0tty12/8/2014, 12:40:41 PM4 votes

Because old champs have power jam packed into single things.

Hello Azir, I see your absolute zone control, multiple Passives, high utility and mobility and raise you Veigar an undodgeable 2.5s giant AOE stun and targeted burst that will kill you instantaneously when I hit level six. You wanna talk free stats? If I end a game with less than 120 free AP, I'm doing that shit wrong.

Galio free stats? A guardian is always prepared! I can get 90 armor, 90 MR and thanks to my free stat passive 45 AP too, plus a heal for every time I'm hit. I can 10-100 myself off the laser turret with ease!

The reason old champs are often underpowered is that they have skills that are ABSURD but that are iconic parts of their character. They trend much towards big, HUGE AOEs and crazy 2+ second targeted hard cc. Blitzcrank is a walking grab now because he can take any enemy teammate up to 1000 range away and disable them for 3 full seconds with his combo. People talk about how overloaded thresh is, but the difference between 1.7 seconds and slows and 3 seconds with 1000 range of displacement is enough to fit a lot more in a kit.

Permanent slows, targeted nukes, targeted disables and stat buffs/auras are a much bigger part of an overall power budget than a mobility move or a slow skillshot. And if you look at overall winrates, the champs that are often the very strongest in Soloqueue (I.e. What you play and what you will always play) are the immobile champs that don't rely on perfect use of mobility to gain a small edge. MF has long been the highest winrate ADC. Amumu and Rammus are kings of the jungle. Janna and Sona are still queens of supporting.

And let's not forget that the most mobile champions existed long, long before "league of mobility creep". Kassadin, pre-nerf Shaco, Rammus, Akali, Tristiana with her crazy leap, TF with his global teleport...

SmokingPuffin12/8/2014, 4:43:34 PM3 votes

This needs to happen sooner rather than later, as it is hurting the game more than it is hurting it. This game has 122 champions as of the Kalista patch, and as of those, about 100 of them came out before power creep was a permanent fixture of new champs kits. They were balanced in their own way up until that point.

Not buying this thesis. Whether you sort by most popular or highest win rate, the top 10 champion only have one or two representatives from the last 20 you claim to all be power creeped. That's below the representation we'd expect just from a random draw.

Take an early champ, Poppy, who was released in Jan 2010. Sure, she seems OP on paper and Riot would never let her be good now because her design is poor, but even if she was strong, she wouldn't be able to match up and do her job anymore.

Poppy actually looks like she needs a nerf. Watch the IEM games.

My friends and I played a 5v5 game where we all picked old champs, the restriction being that they have to be one of the first 50 champs made. The team that we were matched up against picked all champs that had been in the last 10 released. We started playing and it was clear from the beginning; even though my team was more mechanically skilled than the other team, their champs provided so many crutches and free stats that it didn't really matter.

The first 50 champs have quite a few strong meta picks. A team like Corki Janna TwistedFate Kayle Warwick would be right at home in a major competitive tournament, for example.

But wait, there's more: Morgana Annie Nunu Soraka Ryze Sivir Tristana Jax Alistar Zilean Twitch Tryndamere DrMundo Katarina Nidalee are all from 2009 and have been strong picks at some point in the past year.

Riot, if you don't address power creep soon, the game will continue along its current path where only the newest champs and **those that are LCS favorites **will really be viable.

The bolded part guarantees this will always happen. Competitive players spam the best stuff. If its good, they play it lots.

Direwolfiez12/8/2014, 2:43:04 AM3 votes

If you want to see some funny shit, play Ashe against a Kalista. You'll be crying the entire game, she negates Ashe's entire existence.

Jamnon12/9/2014, 10:59:31 PM1 votes

They aren't.

Bc esports.