More Mobility = Less Damage

Drakzul the Dark·Mar 7, 2015·112 votes·5,328 views

That's what it SHOULD be Rito

127 Comments

IcyPepperMar 7, 201565 votes

Honestly, I've been thinking about this for a bit. I don't think damage is the issue here.

I think mobility and cc should be counterparts, ya know? A champion with low mobility should have good, solid cc to counter a champion with high mobility (who should not get cc, or as mcuh). And maybe range as well. Just like adc's don't typically have a lot of hard cc, maybe champions with mobility should suffer with nerfs to their range so they have to use their mobility offensively to get their damage in, without an immediate get out of jail free card.

But all in all, maybe it's not the mobility champs that are fault here. Maybe everyone else just needs a little mmph to step up the playing field.

Drakzul the DarkMar 7, 20157 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, I've been thinking about this for a bit. I don't think damage is the issue here.

I think mobility and cc should be counterparts, ya know? A champion with low mobility should have good, solid cc to counter a champion with high mobility (who should not get cc, or as mcuh). And maybe range as well. Just like adc's don't typically have a lot of hard cc, maybe champions with mobility should suffer with nerfs to their range so they have to use their mobility offensively to get their damage in, without an immediate get out of jail free card.

But all in all, maybe it's not the mobility champs that are fault here. Maybe everyone else just needs a little mmph to step up the playing field.

How can immobile champions step up to the playing field when Riot keeps raising the bar?

IcyPepperMar 7, 20153 votes

Increase their range (mobile champs can still dodge, but they can't just kite out of range safely), increase their cc capacity (maybe remove a damaging spell if that's all they have and replace it with something like Cho'Goth's knockup), and so on.

I mean, bot lane is (relatively) balanced. Kalista is a mobility monster, but relies more on her support than others and her ult is a knockup that doesn't deal damage (but it most certainly can be used for combos, so it's not pushover). Ashe has a slow toggle and an ultimate that sacrifices raw damage (it's scaling is AP, but the base damage is decent enough) for strong teamfighting utility. Sivir's kit is pokey but more defensive than one would think, Vayne is a little mobile but relies on aa more than most adc's, and Graves is an ad burster but has a smaller aa range than most.

Kalista probably will get nerfed someday, but it seems like bot lane is a little more balanced. Sure, you got dominant support picks, but they have their counters too (Leona, Thresh, and Blitz can be poked down with supports like Lulu, for instance. And Janna was the god support).

But keep in mind this is just opinion. I'm not going to bs anyone by saying it's absolute fact, and I encourage you to go beyond it and think of stuff for yourself too. Maybe Riot doesn't want to nerf their damage... so what do we do?

JevelFaithfulMar 7, 20152 votes

Ideally, they shouldn't raise the bar. I call riot not knowing what they're doing. IN the mean time, increasing damage (which works up to the point where the champion insta-burst everyone), adding small amounts of speed here and there. reducing penalty for missing. Making CC more responsive...

Ultimately, they'd need to rework the kit, at least a skill or 2 to give new tools for them to keep up. Riot is in a massive change of identity, the game started like DotA and it's something else entirely now. I say they'd be better making a new game at that point.

disregardableMar 7, 201547 votes

It's interesting you say that, because you just described Kassadin and Veigar before their most recent nerfs. Kassadin absolutely needed to use his mobility to engage and do damage, and Veigar had very strong CC to make up for his lack of mobility. Notice how Riot took away both of those features? I think I can definitively say that they're not going for that model. What they are going for I am not really certain. For right now, it seems like they're looking for League of Never Do Anything Exciting For More Than 2 Seconds.

IcyPepperMar 7, 20153 votes

Yeah, never really agreed with those nerfs.

I mean, I don't understand why Veigar's spell can't have a slow effect for a few seconds and then a stun, kind of like a... er, tussle? Snare? I can't really remember the word for it, but Karma has one.

SpecterVonBarenMar 7, 20157 votes

Problem with that is that then it would just be Viktor 's w. :/

67chromeMar 7, 20157 votes

I think mobility and cc should be counterparts, ya know?

They generally already are counterparts.

If you look at the fastest champions (Yi, Nid, Ezreal, Corkie) those are 4 of the ~10 champions in the game with no CC at all. If you look at champions with no mobility (Annie, Galio, Anivia, Ashe, Varus) you tend to get powerhouses of perma-stun potential.

the only archetype this really breaks down in is the CC tank/initiator roll, where they usually do need mobility to properly initiate and/or pin a priority target. That said - CC tanks usually pay for having both CC and mobility in a lack of damage.

Knight SoIaire Mar 7, 20153 votes

If you look at the fastest champions (Yi, Nid, Ezreal, Corkie) those are 4 of the ~10 champions in the game with no CC at all. If you look at champions with no mobility (Annie, Galio, Anivia, Ashe, Varus) you tend to get powerhouses of perma-stun potential.

yeah but what about panth and vi both rocking that 355 move spedd (the same as master yi has) while also being very mobile and having hard cc

you listed those who actualy follow that rule, but the hting is that those are maybe 10 champs out of 120, the rest mixes cc utility and mobility, some even do it to a realy insane extent (kalista,yasuo,lee sin)

SelvosMar 7, 201533 votes

Riven

Kit with lots of mobility and two AoE CC abilities based around building damage. No resource. Low cooldowns.

I believe Riven is the worst designed champion in the game. Sure, she's empowering to play as once you learn how to play her, but she's incredibly frustrating to play against either on the lane or later on in the game if she is ahead on her lane.

If Riven is shut down hard, then she is essentially useless with her low HP around the mid and late game. That's because she doesn't really scale at all with tank items, so she can't transition into an effective off-tank in case she loses lane. She's incredibly frustrating to play as if you get shut down.

Riven is a character who either has a huge impact, or no impact at all. Either way, at least one player will feel useless or frustrated in every game Riven is picked. Often, it will the the entire team that's facing a fed Riven around the mid-game.

I honestly think she should get a rework. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her if she had a better thought-out kit. Her visual design is actually pretty good.

aperson1Mar 7, 20153 votes

Riven's rework will never happen for the same reason Lee Sin's rework will never happen.

Just look at how much whining occurred on reddit when an unintentional bug on PBE auto-canceled Riven's Q animation. It's the reason why the buffered input canceling bugfix (the one that prevents Kass from randomly blinking away in the middle of a CC chain) didn't make it to live.

Spacefight0rMar 7, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Kit with lots of mobility and two AoE CC abilities based around building damage. No resource. Low cooldowns.

I believe Riven is the worst designed champion in the game. Sure, she's empowering to play as once you learn how to play her, but she's incredibly frustrating to play against either on the lane or later on in the game if she is ahead on her lane.

If Riven is shut down hard, then she is essentially useless with her low HP around the mid and late game. That's because she doesn't really scale at all with tank items, so she can't transition into an effective off-tank in case she loses lane. She's incredibly frustrating to play as if you get shut down.

Riven is a character who either has a huge impact, or no impact at all. Either way, at least one player will feel useless or frustrated in every game Riven is picked. Often, it will the the entire team that's facing a fed Riven around the mid-game.

I honestly think she should get a rework. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her if she had a better thought-out kit. Her visual design is actually pretty good.

I'm always surprised when people think Riven is a bad design. She is probably the least binary melee champion (can engage, disengage, has to make decisions on ability usage, directly trades mobility for damage, etc.) Most melees just run at each other and slug it out until the champion with better items/scaling wins.

JevelFaithfulMar 7, 20157 votes

Actually, being binary means that you're feast or famine. more or less. Riven supposedly fit that bill.

Spacefight0rMar 7, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Actually, being binary means that you're feast or famine. more or less. Riven supposedly fit that bill.

That is a form of binary in the macro sense, but not specifically what I meant. I was referring the decisions a player is making in a fight. Pre-nerf Talon was a good example of what I see as a binary champion. He would cycle through his abilities and actives, get a kill or not get a kill. He either had the damage for the kill or didn't. He really only has one decision to make: Will my combo kill or not. What his opponent did had no bearing on his decision. This also refers to a lot of autoattack heavy fighters. They'll get gap close, hit their abilities in a predetermined fashion and the player with the better stats and scaling wins.

JevelFaithfulMar 8, 20151 votes

OH in that light yeah I agree. You're the first one I see use binary that way. People usually say she's bad design in the macro sense and because some design choices kind of break the rules of what a champion be like.

She is ressourceless for seemingly no reason. Actually the reason is the same as yasuo : they need to spam constantly. But yasuo at least has a random passive to use his bar (which is something people complained about), it's out of place but it serves a gameplay purpose. Riven just look like they said "we don't like mana so we'll make her manaless =)". It's more complicated but it kind of feels that way.

Add the first point to the fact she has at least 3 dashes in her kit on a champion that is made to be a fighter more than an assassin... And she plays toplane where mobility and range are not automatic. Keep in mind that this she is a rather old champion and that level of mobility is on par with ultimate abilities or Kalista/Yasuo, which are said to have too much mobility even today.

And she's has offense and defense all out of AD. How many other champion can build glass canon and still end up "tanky". I think that side of her was hit a lot so tanky is in quote but the choice of making defense out of offense is unorthodox. It's the reason she snowballs that much.
(If you wonder, most ap can live with building shield/heal out of ap because ap doesn't also boost AA. Also, most shield characters tend to be support who have less gold and don't build pure AP.)

HeWolfMar 8, 20151 votes

League of Legends' Forums Rule No.1: Start a unspecific-concept discussion and get ready to talk about Riven.

From my point of view, her problem is the unstoppable snowballing(or comebacking) machine her passive makes her. A passive that amplifies her ADon autoattacks based on -get ready for it- % OF HER AD. If you don't modify that, you can't balance her without comitting a "Kassadin 5.14".

JevelFaithfulMar 8, 20151 votes

I'm actually not sure I agree on the passive. Basically, what we have now is a character that stacks 80% AD with little to no AS and has no use for AS. I don't see how you can encourage the AA-skill weaving without either reworking her skills to be 100% defensive or giving damage on-hit. How is that different from MF (Or tristana) having an AD ratio on Q and an AS steroid? Or how is that different from Draven having an ad scaling on Q? Both of those are skills that "amplifies her AD on skill use based on -get ready for it- % of their AD". In the case of AS buff, it's on every AA (like riven) and it's multiplicative (like riven).

Her passive looks like just another part of her skills to me. Might as well add +%AD on all of her skills (the shield too). Because that'S what her passive is. The number might be too high, but I don't see how it's fundamentally broken.

I always attributed her snowballing to the fact she gets survivability and damage from everything in her inventory. And technically, her mobility is already a decent unscaling defense. It works, always. And it's 70 of what she needs to stay alive in most lane situation.

HeWolfMar 8, 20152 votes

The problem I'm referring to is that anybody who has a little practice on Riven can perfectly play her without landing a single AA without her passive on it. In other words, she gets a consistent higher value from the items she gets. What this means is that once she gets ahead by one item, she actually gets ahead by "more" than one item (the damage the item gives+the percertage her passive adds).

I never complain about her. I know there are plenty of ways of countering her because I tried to learn her once. I only try to figure out what could be the hidden problem on her outrageous snowball.

JevelFaithfulMar 8, 20151 votes

I don't doubt someone can chain the passive and it probably doesn't help as you point out. But if they do that, do they really get much out of it compared to MF/trist who use their AS boost? Or a draven who chain his axes? Or pretty much every champion with a spamable scaling skill? Then again, the number might be too high right now.

If she does that, she is also "wasting" time casting, so she's never going to get a 2.0 attack speed like most adcs get. Especially since she builds straight ad.

I never really played a lot of toplane so correct me if I'm dead wrong, but don't most champ have to buy a few defense items? I thought most champ started with a defensive item as their first or second buy. But I think riven basically build straight damage and still get some additional defense due to her mobility and disengage, right? Someone dropped that one of the reliable way to kill her was CC, that means basically removing her dashes (and her stun, shield and retaliation).

SO yeah, I still think most champion get more out of their items (on a regular basis) than the straight cost. I think her build habits are more of a problem. And by extension the kit that allows her to build that way.

added : I checked a few build for her. And what strikes me first is that those are ADC build. Accept there's brutaliser/Malmortius instead of a PD/Statick.

HeWolfMar 8, 20151 votes

Honestly, we could keep discussing and we'll always get to the point where we say:

50.36% Win rate (average by definition).
Dominant in toplane? Can dominate early if played well/countered badly. But nowadays there's not more than 3 champions that are completely countered by her in lane (I said three to give some room for the champions I might miss but I don't think she harcounters anybody). Threat her like a LeBlanc and everything is fine.

I don't think she's a problem but I can understand it's hard to deal with the fact that if you lose a couple trades with her, she doesn't need more than spamming to win the lane. People will always complain about her because she's the scapegoat whenever they get salty about champion design.

JevelFaithfulMar 8, 20151 votes

Yeah I agree with you on that. Right now she seems to have hit a point of balance and she's not that much of a problem.

I think the conversation started that her design was fishy and then we started on why it was so. She's snowbally for some reason.

HeWolfMar 8, 20152 votes

I honestly don't think that people should complain about her anymore, it was nice to discuss the topic with someone who does not blindly throw statements without thinking. item 3151

JevelFaithfulMar 8, 20151 votes

Nice chatting with you too.

WolfBVMar 8, 20151 votes

Riven seems like a great example of "The best defense is a good offense."

JevelFaithfulMar 8, 20151 votes

Yeah. Accept it might be missplaced. That phrase usually refers to an offensive playstyle. But on her (if I'm right, see conversation with HeisenWolf), it's not just that the best offense is a good defense. It'S "buy a sword, get a shield free!". It's being the tank without building tank and without acting like a tank.

Admitedly, she isn't "the tank". She just gets tanky enough to do her job without focussing any resource on that tankyness.

Spacefight0rMar 8, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yeah. Accept it might be missplaced. That phrase usually refers to an offensive playstyle. But on her (if I'm right, see conversation with HeisenWolf), it's not just that the best offense is a good defense. It'S "buy a sword, get a shield free!". It's being the tank without building tank and without acting like a tank.

Admitedly, she isn't "the tank". She just gets tanky enough to do her job without focussing any resource on that tankyness.

Likewise, plenty of champions get high damage with out building damage as well. Some tanks get solid base damages that will carry them to mid game such as Renekton, Gnar, Malphite, Volibear, etc. with out building any offensive items. Then you have champions like Irelia, Jax, and Darius that get to build 1 or 2 offensive items and the rest tank and have more tankiness and damage than Riven. So it's okay to get "free" damage to function, but not okay to get enough "free" tankiness to function?

JevelFaithfulMar 8, 20151 votes

No it's not okay either, but the situation is not the same. By the way, neither of those champ has ALL of his kit scale off of Defense. They all have 1 skill tha tscales off of defense and the rest is AP/AD.

I think the %age damage on Gnar is out of place so I'm not sure about it. Voli has it on an execute, so it makes sense. Voli/Malph get damage out of hp/mr I think, but it's a minor part of their kit.

Also, notice how riven has 3 agressive moves and 1 defensive (all out of ad). While Voli and malph also have 3-4 agressive skills and 1 defensive (only 1 out of defense). The situation is not really symetric. Riven build damage and has all her kit scales off of it. While the others build defense and only have 1 skill scaling from it. So they still function mostly like like tankies.

In her prime, riven was both deadly and unkillable (throught shield and dashes). Keep in mind that riven is right now pretty much ok in term of power. We can talk about her design, but I don,t think she's an unacceptable horror. She just has more potential to get out of control.

JedenVojakMar 7, 20151 votes

Riven is fine - she has no range, and is squishy; she has to use her abilities to make up for those shortcomings and her kit allows her to do this - she has a stun and knockup to keep people in melee range, a shield to help her live through proper use of her abilities, and her ult to finish off fleeing opponents.

She is perhaps the purest example of a full damage AD caster in the game and she works very well in that role - glass cannon melee is traditionally very hard to perform in the game.

There are enough tanky ad bruisers in the game. We don't need another one.

SelvosMar 7, 20155 votes

From a balance perspective, you are correct. Riven is fine. Shut her down early or pick a team with CC, and you force Riven to dance around the fights and only join as mop-up or risk blowing up. Yet, this isn't rewarding for the opposing team. You "outplay" riven with hard CC. If you don't have it, you'll either lose or see her escape. At the same time Riven herself gets hard CC, incredible escape and chasing potential and incredible damage. Riven is balanced in a convoluted way by having her numbers be low enough. She isn't fun to play against one bit. Her overall design is what I consider bad. We can agree to disagree. I would like to point out that Riven shared many weaknesses with the hyperscaling ADCs of old who could 1v5 when farmed up. Either you have the CC or you just lose. Those weren't fun to play against, and I fail to see how Riven could either. Many other champions have suffered from this same problem, and the solution has been almost universally to nerf them until they no longer see the light of day. I'm hoping we could prevent that with a rework.

PatMcGroynMar 9, 20151 votes

Actually, Riven DOES scale well with tank items once she has CDR and Lifesteal. Her shield and lifesteal make her into a semi draink tank. I've always thought that full damage Riven was shit for anything other than split pushing. Riven should have AT LEAST a Guardian Angel if she's going to team fight. Personally, I think the best 5 item build on her is: item 3158 item 3074 item 3035 item 3065 item 3143 item 3026

Raid Boss MordeMar 7, 20152 votes

You forgot about Mordekaiser

Where's his CC for not having any mobility? Where's his mobility for not having any CC?

Baron of BreadMar 7, 20152 votes

In exchange for mobility and CC Mordekaiser was the purest of champions, for all he needed was DAMAGE. Which he has a crap ton of.

RIP the only champ with no CC or mobility

Taric the LegendMar 8, 20151 votes

Except the fact they added a mobility of sorts to his w to slightly fix that.

Raid Boss MordeMar 8, 20151 votes

It still isn't that good though. You would normally try to use it to escape and enemy. That normally doesn't help because his W has a cast time, making you stop while running, and thus dying to whoever was chasing you. Use it to chase? Too bad he has to stop to cast it. His W doesn't really help at all, especially because it's so situational.

AbrahamBaconhamMar 8, 20151 votes

Instead he has low interaction in lane, spellvamp synergy, and deceptively massive burst. Also, a shield.

Raid Boss MordeMar 8, 20151 votes

Spellvamp synergy? Not exactly. Spellvamp is mandatory on him because of his high health costs combined with the fact that he has no sustain (besides ult). Vlad has much more synergy with spellvamp because of his Q, which heals him + spellvamp + no health cost. There are a lot of other champs who have much more burst than Morde. and have a much easier time getting their burst off. They normally have CC or something to help them get their enemy. Once again, Mordekaiser's shield is the only thing he has, and even then, it's not really good until lategame. You'll be draining your own health the whole laning phase if you're trying to keep the shield up, especially because of the recent health regen nerfs to him.

4nth0l0gyMar 7, 20153 votes

This is correct, with the correction of "Hard, reliable CC". And some Champs follow this design philosophy already! Galio, alistar, maokai are all fairly immobile but have strong, near-immediate CC. Same with pre-5.4 veigar. Also on the other end, we have Katarina master yi, who have tons of mobility and no CC. But then it gets muddy. You've got hypermobile Champs like kalista and yasuo who also have pretty good CC available even without their ults. You also have brands and mordekaisers, who have little or no CC and certainly none that is reliable given their lack of mobility. Those champions dont get any chance of counterplay against a leblanc because they dont have a bat to hit the ball with. That's where the shoring up needs to happen: the immobile Champs without hard cc. It might also mean leblanc loses her chain stuns, or that ahri loses her charm (though I think she's fine though, given that her mobility is tied to her non-low-CD ult).

You can still have champs that aren't perfect at this by the way. Karthus isn't a problem if he doesn't have Hard CC because of his global presence, for example.

KögâMar 7, 201512 votes

            CC,    Mobility,    Damage

Balanced champs get to pick 2. Alistar, Veigar, Yi etc.

Then there is LB....

KaisadiIIaMar 7, 201513 votes

Where is LeBlanc's CC? A Snare that requires you to use an awkward skillshot that can't go through minions and then wait 1.5 seconds?

LeBlanc may be problematic, but her "cc" isn't.

stuartk11Mar 7, 20159 votes

{quoted}

Where is LeBlanc's CC? A Snare that requires you to use an awkward skillshot that can't go through minions and then wait 1.5 seconds?

LeBlanc may be problematic, but her "cc" isn't.

So she has a skillshot CC. You call that problematic? I understand it is a tether (takes about the same time as Karma's W), but that isn't really an excuse to completely excuse it. Besides, you could merely combo it, by using E, then using your R - E combo to stun an opponent for a long period of time, similar to a full combo with Leona. You can't excuse it just because it doesn't pass through minions, and you have to wait around 1.5 seconds for a stun. There are champions that have less burst damage, no mobility and very little or no CC at all.

KaisadiIIaMar 7, 20154 votes

It's not a stun but a snare. Most champions will either die or kill LeBlanc before these 1.5 seconds. The only use I can imagine is to snare a tank while you are bursting them various times (which I don't know why would you do it), or early game if you are really behind and you need to burst various times an enemy (and, if you are behind, they'll probably kill you before you do it).

stuartk11Mar 7, 20157 votes

{quoted}

It's not a stun but a snare. Most champions will either die or kill LeBlanc before these 1.5 seconds. The only use I can imagine is to snare a tank while you are bursting them various times (which I don't know why would you do it), or early game if you are really behind and you need to burst various times an enemy (and, if you are behind, they'll probably kill you before you do it).

By your reasoning then, even though LeBlanc is so strong right now, she doesn't even get to use one of her spells to much use. She can burst you down without CC or an extra spell if you follow through that, which is even more of a reason why LeBlanc should be nerfed.

PatMcGroynMar 9, 20151 votes

Yeah, LeBlanc has it all. Mobility, Burst, Waveclear, CC. The only thing she DOESN'T have is built in sustain or tankiness.

JevelFaithfulMar 7, 20151 votes

Like Shunobu said, leblanc doesn't really have meaningful CC now. Tether is either a situationnal tool at best. It has way too much delay to be used in her combo outside of extended engagement.

Back when she had her silence, I'd have agreed with you.

ReazaleMar 7, 20156 votes

She still has it and its not useless, against squishis is not needed much beyond the initial dmg , but against bruisers/tanks is really usefull.

Lost In TimeMar 7, 20158 votes

Except we have people like Ezreal who has good mobility and usually gets blamed for having no damage unless fed.

So, we can't nerf Ezreal's damage or nerf his mobility, so how about we buff immobile ADC's damage, right?

Jinx Draven Vayne

...oh, right. Can't do that either.

Same for mages, like Malzahar Swain when compared to Ahri

Rinky DinkyMar 7, 20155 votes

Mordekaiser should have more upfront burst than Leblanc

AquodoxMar 8, 20151 votes

That is a thought provoking point.

For his lack of all mobility, Mord should have far more burst/damage out put than Leblanc. However, i can see the reason why Mord is in this predicament in finding the perfect way to buff him.

From what i can envision, if Mord becomes buffed so he can output far more damage than what is live, then people will start having a problem. Mord would build sudo-tank and perform perfectly well. The amount of damage he will be about to soak up due to his defense and shield would be ridiculous, all while out putting a threatening amount of sustained damaged which constantly charges his shield.

Leblanc has outstanding burst, as well as mobility to have some method of survival. To compensate, she is extremely squishy. If she fails to burst someone down with her full combo, she is left wide open with no escapes. I am not saying she is balanced, for it is rather unfun to play against a skilled Leblanc, but i can understand why she is given burst and utility.

Mord is such in a weird stage because no one knows how to balance this champion in a way that he does not become an oppressing force to face against. Buff his damage, but that allows him room to go tanky and take on a team. Give him better mobility, but Riot will for sure nerf some of his damage to compensate since in the long term, being able to chase someone down and do sustain damage is equivalent to more damage over a period of time.

Raid Boss MordeMar 8, 20152 votes