Some Criticism of Patch 8.23

Ok, so I'm not a fan of the patch, but after all of the angry posts, I felt trying to take a more constructive approach might generate some feedback beyond "delete this" or "revert this" or "fire the balance team". Even if it is only the first patch of preseason, I feel it is worth criticizing and pointing out what should be targeted going into next patch. There are some good things here, so let me get those out of the way:

Positives:

• The increase on tower damage has made diving much more risky, which is a godsend if you are being bullied early game. Now the enemy needs to contemplate whether sending you to the grey screen is worth giving you their shut down gold. Towers actually feel threatening again.
• The small stat runes at least feel nice and give you a sense of choice. We will return to them in the negatives though.
• Seeing super minions on the minimap is really nice.
• Plates are both good and bad, but let's start with the good part. Taking a plate feels rewarding, even just the sound and visuals are enough for me. It's nice to have small milestones to take during laning phase. They also do extend laning phase, so they achieved their intended job, with some caveats addressed later.
• The extension of laning phase to 14 minutes is very welcome for me. I love that I have another 4-5 minutes before I need to run around the map trying to secure objectives and avoid roaming gank squads, etc. The laning phase is personally where I get the most enjoyment out of this game.

That's all I can really praise from these changes. So now we get to things that I think need to be toned down (to varying extents).

Negatives

• Dark harvest. Everyone knows it's a problem. I played two games of Lux recently, one with comet and one with dark harvest. I swear, in the dark harvest game I was doing much more than 100% of peoples health with my combo, while with comet, it could be pretty close. The damage just isn't even comparable. Moreover, why should I ever take comet when dark harvest is just more consistent? Comet and harvest both proc off of ability damage now, except dark harvest also procs off of autos and will never miss. Yeah, you need to get people beneath 50% health, which means comet can be better given the right circumstances. But right now, damage is so high that 50% hp is not hard to achieve. I haven't even mentioned champions like Karthus and Kayn, who straight up abuse this keystone. It feels like any other keystone is just inferior. The sheer damage this thing offers is insane, and I don't see its current state being anything other than "better than everything" or "worse than everything".
• Rune shards are insanely imbalanced. I personally see them as only good for early game, since the scaling shards suck so much. For the defensive shard, you can have 5 armour at level 1, or 15 health at level 1. Clearly 1/3 of a cloth armour is better than 1/10 of a ruby crystal. At level 18, you get 90hp, which is 3/5's of a ruby crystal, or in other words, basically nothing at level 18. You can take small, incremental health increases throughout the game, or 5% less damage for the early game. Am I just dumb, or is the health rune just insanely outclassed? At least the scaling CDR shard gives you 10% CDR by 18, but it turns out just having 10 AP early game is better. Then in the middle shard, you can have 1/3 of a cloth armour, or 1/2 an amp tome. The game seems like it is punishing you for trying to be defensive instead of offensive.
• The Sorcery and Resolve tree have some serious issues after the changes to minor runes. With celerity being gutted, I'm always going to take transcendence now. Absolute focus Is probably going to be inactive most of the time due to the amount of damage currently and is very niche in my eyes. Being forced into a cdr rune just feels very meh. This is even worse in the resolve tree, where the top row gives most champions no option other than demolish. If you don't have a shield and you're a solo laner, you're taking demolish if you want a resolve keystone. Funnily enough, demolish feels really good now due to the amount of gold you can get from plates, so it's a shame that the first time it might be able to compete with bone plating, the rune is moved away. At least if you have a shield, you might take shield bash. These kinds of problems have existed in other trees and rows before as well, but it's disheartening to see Riot replicate this error not once, but twice in the same patch.
• Turret plates feel ok if the lane is kind of even. When the lane is one sided, they make me want to cry. You are already punished for picking a scaling champion into an early game champion through the harass and CS denial you will experience. The amount of damage in the game, including the rune shards, makes this worse. The turret plating could honestly be a good reward for this, however as they currently are it feels like they not only reward picking an early game champion, but propel you so far ahead that the scaling champion will never come back. Moreover, the bonus resistance they offer once destroyed doesn't seem to do enough, if anything. I've witnessed bot laners tear through 3 plates in quick succession, and this is where turrets should be getting more defensive bonuses since there are two people there. Losing all resistances when plating falls away feels like a bit much as well, it's not like they were super durable even with the plates.
• Baron buffed minions now feels like garbage to play against. It's like if banner of command was given to the entire wave. 70% damage reduction results in gameplay where you are desperately trying to clear the wave without dying to the enemy team, and most of the time just needed to back off because you're never going to win that fight. Once the enemy gets baron, you're counterplay options seem to disappear. The additional reduction on caster minions now means that the team with baron doesn't even really need to try defend their wave. The wave could crash into the tower, and the enemy team could meander in 2 seconds later and the wave would still probably have at least 40% hp. Baron should reward good play, not encourage bad play.
• The pace of the game feels completely off after 14 minutes. The game just explodes after turret plating falls off, the lane that destroyed the most plates proceeds to wreak havoc around the map, people get one shot with dark harvest, which ever team is ahead breathes on the outer turrets and they fall while the team who is behind can't even get to the enemies outer turrets. The minion waves get faster at 15 minutes so the team who is ahead can keep pushing, and god forbid someone starts splitting and doesn't respect the deathball of 5 people midlane. If there is one person ahead on both sides, the game seems to at some point lean into one teams favour, and the other falls into a death spiral after giving the other team a bunch of bounties. People do so much damage coming out of laning phase I can't even tell what happens some times. Of course, comebacks are possible since the only thing that matters is baron, and whichever team gets it seems to be propelled back into the game (most times).
• Finally, there are a couple things I'm not particularly sure are a problem yet, but they don't feel great, such as the first dragon of each type being worth the most, getting shutdown for CSing, ignite still being so valuable and warding being nerfed (in a meta with overtuned damage and one shot potential as well). They also still have some problem champions who seem to be obnoxious very often and for some reason aren't on a watch list, like Sion who is mostly just power farming and split pushing all day without much opportunity to hurt him unless you are ahead.

I have a lot of problems with preseason so far. I know there are other problems that other people have that I haven't addressed, like klepto, but that is because I haven't personally experienced them and/ or don't know enough to criticize them fairly. I wouldn't be surprised if a meta revolving around picking early game power and taking as many plates as possible was to develop. The game not only provides you tools to begin snowballing in the early game, but also rewards you for doing so and doesn't seem to want to help out people who want to power spike in the mid or late game. I feel pushed into certain runes, in particular dark harvest seems to be a better electrocute and a better comet. It's a little sad that Riot seems to promote playing your way, when the current state of the game encourages playing only one way; aggressively snowballing early game advantages.

If you disagree with any of this, please let me know why. It's fair enough if you have experienced differently while playing, however this is how the majority of my games have been playing out, and from what I can see on the boards, it seems I am not alone. I've tried to keep my comments respectful (even if they are a little hyperbolic at times), please try and keep yours the same.