Maybe they do want to balance people like Lee Sin, Zed, Thresh, et cetera, but can't.
Maybe the higher ups are all, "No, they make us money awesome playstyles! Don't you dare touch them in any meaningful way!!!"
Maybe ...
I'd certainly like to hope ...
Though, the problem isn't exactly gone. Still ...
Maybe.
DorkunedAuras1 votesThis is the same reason the new hobbit movies sucked. Higher ups demanded more movies so their money pit could be 3x the size
Shahamut1 votesbalancing someone like lee sin, thresh, and zed (mostly lee and zed) is incredibly hard, since most of their power comes from the skill cap.
What I mean is, the hard thing to "balance" is that champions like lee sin and zed have sooooooooo much outplay potential with their extreme mobility, that it is hard to balance numbers without putting them into "derp I deal no dmg" zone.
For Lee Sin, small damage nerfs wouldn't be too terrible, he still has lots of mobility and ways to gank and escape etc, but for Zed, just nerfing his damage borders on him not being an assassin anymore. Which is kind of his thing.
Im not saying the balance team is right or wrong, and I definitely don't like Zed or Lee much, but I can understand their position. Though calling Zed healthy is a bit much I think :P
Zmuecat2 votesZed: Reduce his ability to wave clear on his Q. Damage to minions reduced by a percentage, doesn't even have to be a lot. Contrary to popular belief, I do believe his actual Assassination is just fine as it has several ways to deal with it (CC/Exhaust/items), but I do agree that his ability to safely farm so well isn't as fair.
Lee Sin: Remove ward hopping (on all champions). He retains all of his power outside of Q->Q2->Wardhop behind->R. I don't like ward hopping though, so I may be biased, but I feel that champions being able to jump to something you can't see or they can place randomly is not fair, especially when they can already jump to champions, monsters, minions and other things, especially when flash exists.
Thresh, reduce the range of his lantern OR remove his AA power up. Does Thresh honestly need his AA power up? Wouldn't that reduce some of his lane pressure at the least, where he already has some amazing power?
These are all ways that you can START on balancing these champions. Hell if they don't work, I guess they can just revert the changes.
2000boxes1 votesreading your ward hop opinion i must ask you, whats your opinion on kalista's passive her passive is literally a wardless ward hop
Zmuecat1 votesHer passive is interesting. It's different, and I tried it and it's fairly hard to use. As a user, I can see that fun in it.
But, trying to land any ability that isn't targeted is a pain, so much so that I'd like it removed. Early game you have her longer attack animation due to less attack speed, and you can abuse her because she can't cancel it. But, unless I'm insane, as her attack speed increases, she becomes virtually immune, if she is better than you, to any skillshot you can produce.
I have not played against her enough to have a great opinion on this, but I believe this is a horrible passive for an ADC. It could be good on a melee champion that has to be in the center of everything, but giving more mobility to ADCs is something I'm against, since they are generally babysat all game.
I do not like her ult, though. It works way too well with some champions, and more importantly, removes MY control of my champion when she's my ally. I don't like this. I hate when my enemies CC me, why did Riot think that I'd like for an Ally to FORCE me to do something. Maybe it can save me, but if you are going to give a spell that FORCES an ally to do something, it should go to a support character, seeing as they are a role that has to be with another person at all times to be effective.
Her stacking spears also need to be capped to monsters. I don't know why Riot added this.
Her kit as a whole annoys me, but I can work around it early game or with certain champions with targeted CC.
Shahamut1 votesZed: That is certainly one option, what I don't like about Zed's assassination pattern is only having to deal 50% of your current health to kill you, as Death Mark will do the rest.
I would rather see Death Mark up the damage you take from Zed for the duration, significantly, but not double it after the fact.
I have seen a good Zed more or less waste his mark after going in and dealing 70% of their health in an instant before disappearing... Maybe I'm only seeing the really fed ones? I dunno, but the only way I know how to beat a zed is with supression. Yay Skarner? :P
Lee Sin: Ward hoping is a touchy subject. It would certainly ruin his big combo, so I don't see it ever happening. But I think this is less troublesome. Lee Sin uses energy, but his energy regain is so easy to proc, you pretty well are resourcless unless you are dumb.
Come to think of it, that kind of goes for Zed too in my opinion. His energy restoration is pretty simple. Maybe something could be done for both of them to have some energy problems early? I dunno.
I personally think Thresh is ok. His basic attack bonus damage isn't all that much honestly, unless the game goes like 50+ minutes I guess, and he has like 200+ souls :P Or they are playing him top lane and going AD :P
I still think its really not as easy as we might like to think it is. Short of changing their kit... Which they definitely are NOT going to do.
Zmuecat1 votesThese champions do not need kit changes. These champions are regarded as fun by a lot of people. Changing their kits as a whole would actually hurt the game, because it would seem like Riot is against fun.
Zed is a great Assassin, maybe a tad too safe for some, but he has ways to deal with him. And honestly, unless I was supporting and decided to not build armor for some reason, I never died to Zed with his ult down. I honestly think that reducing damage to minions from his Q will solve a lot of problems. This will hurt his ability to split push, as well as farm in lane when his lane opponent denies him melee range or pushes him to his tower. It will also mean that farming under his tower would be slightly harder.
Lee Sin is a great champion. Ward hopping is stupid. Ward hopping makes it so if you dodge his Q (read: his GAPCLOSER) he can still catch you. Other champions who can ward hop don't have the same level danger, but I still dislike getting away from a champion (especially if I had to use flash) and instead of them having to use flash, just drop a ward and finish me anyways.
Before trinkets were introduced, I didn't mind it as much because the enemy had to BUY and use a slot to accomplish this, but trinkets make this far to easy.
Thresh is great, but he honestly does not need a charging AA. This isn't because I hate it, he just doesn't need it. He has the CC/utility of melee tanks, while being (slightly) ranged. This is something that if you removed, what is he losing? Some early game pressure? He's not a poke champion, he's an all in champion... Or at least that's what I see.
Kuroi861 votesUm...
That is certainly one option, what I don't like about Zed's assassination pattern is only having to deal 50% of your current health to kill you, as Death Mark will do the rest.
Physical Damage: 100% AD + 20 / 35 / 50% of damage dealt
Shinjusuke1 votesLet's be honest: Lee Sin isn't reworked/nerfed like he should have been years ago simply because he has the highest amount of fans of any champion.
Riot didn't give a crap when they reworked Kassadin, or Skarner, or Karma, or Cass, or Yi, or...
well you get the idea.
But when it's Lee Sin's turn to get changed from his ridiculous state, all the sudden it's "oh there were a bunch of well-reasoned arguments", aka the chinese scene complained and the Lee Sin mains couldn't handle their favorite child finally being brought into line with every other champion in the game.
At least the attackspeed nerf did a lot about Zed's backdooring and dueling potential (which is what made him op, not just being an assassin).
No matter how you look at it, Riot's playing favorites with Lee Sin. Any of the reasons he's not getting changed just go back to this fact.
He's been complained about for years and been a (if not the) top jungler for years, without significant nerfing or reworking. Can't say that about any other champion in the game.
He's the only champion whose gotten their rework cancelled once it was viewable by the public. Again, can't say that about any other champion. Think about that: The champion with the highest play rate in the game also happens to be the only one to not get reworked despite the outcry of his players... hmmm....
Riot has said he's problematic (Gee, you think?) more than once, over this several year period, yet sees fit to ignore him while every other jungler gets nerfed around him.
Riot claims at each jungle rework and set of jungler nerfs (hello, repeated stripping of Kha'zix) that they're trying to "open up jungler diversity". Unless that means hurting their favorite child by actually knocking him down a peg. They're fine nerfing every other top tier jungler, sometimes in groups, except for Lee Sin
I don't think Riot refuses to nerf him for pure money reasons, I think they refuse to nerf him because either A) they just have a massive boner for him, which would make sense with this level of obsession (see: Big Plays spotlight being almost exclusively the same champion), B) They want views on their events C) They (the most sad one to think about) legitimately are just so out of touch with game state that they actually deluded themselves into thinking he's fine how he is, or D) can't deal with the backlash (apparently it's fine to give the finger to small groups of dedicated champion fans, but not your big views-bringer, eh guys?) E) The balance and design teams are (relatively) small, at this point I really wouldn't be surprised at all if the people on those teams actually are constantly postponing or shooting down changes to Lee Sin just because they personally like him. I have a lot of respect for Riot as a company, believe it or not, but stuff like this really hammers in the thought sometimes that "wow, maybe these guys really are just jerks with favored picks".
Seriously. Lee Sin is NOT a new balance topic. He's had the same overloaded, overtuned kit for 3 years, had the same complaints from the junglers who aren't obsessed with his "plays" for that entire time, had the same PR bullshit responses of "we'll get to him after this jungle rework" or "we're 'assessing' him", yada yada yada QQ QQ. It's not a new issue. It's just one Riot actively avoids because he's popular, whether they'll admit it to themselves or not.
You guys play favorites with this champion. End of story.
MPendragon1 votesYou're right. Riot can't do anything about balance, because they work for the LCS.
Erockandroll1 votesI don't know about Lee sin. It sounded like the new Jungle hit him pretty hard. Also considering I am seeing a lot more J4 than I'm seeing Lee sin.
Contrary to popular belief, I do believe his actual Assassination is just fine as it has several ways to deal with it (CC/Exhaust/items), but I do agree that his ability to safely farm so well isn't as fair.
The problem with using CC/item/exhaust is that the champion has to be balanced between the haves and have nots. Zed will get his Death mark at level 6 while the ADC will only buy QSS as his last item. also Is forcing Zed's Opponent to take Exhaust for the sake of countering him, a fair trade off? maybe not.
I'm not so sure about the safe farm argument since Assassins are no longer allowed to farm champions, which makes feast or famine playstyle unrewarding. If anything I would target Zed's defenses. give him the Riven treatment with his HP5, why does he need regen if he will build BotRK anyway?
The other problem with this argument is if the Higher ups are really tailoring towards the LCS. They would have to rotate the viability list just to keep everything fresh. And it's a false assumption that, no one else can make Big plays.
