It’s not a “damage meta” anymore. Damage has become the core aspect of this game.

It is clear that Riot wants their game balanced around damage. Everything does damage, even supports. Riot does not want styles of play to vary greatly and would rather champions be viable based on the amount of damage they can do - everything else they bring to the table is just a benefit. These secondary traits are where the meta is then defined. If the majority of the champions bursting you down are tanks, it’s a tank meta. If it’s assassins, it’s an assassin meta. If it’s mages, it’s a mage meta. Damage is simply like flash at this point based on years of horrible balancing concepts: every needs it and every does it, so it just exists in the background as an after thought rather than a special feature.

This is also why I was never keen on the term “damage creep” because it implies riot has accidentally raised damage and the damage in the game is a miscalculated side effect of poor balancing. It’s not. It was calculated and it continues to be because riot balances in a lazy fashion. Rather than allow unique designs to carry through other means (disruption, engaging, split pushing, objective power, utility in genera), Riot balances so that carrying is done one way: damage and burst. As unique as all of these different kits are, Riot has created one way to carry and that is why so many of these champions are prone to abuse (tanks killing everything; adcs having burst; utility mages/supports having burst potential because AP itemization is valued by its damage and not its passives or uniqueness). And this is honestly why the game has become trash because strategy is out the window and everyone just deathball zergs down middle for 25 minutes until someone knocks themselves out on a brick wall after banging their head on it for that entire duration.