Okay Riot, you won: I won't play ARAM anymore.

XIII Vanitas·May 8, 2018·68 votes·20,534 views

I am - or rather, I was - an avid ARAM player, with more than 1800 wins and 1500 losses to prove it. This game mode used to be really fun, but it has become utter garbage after being left to rot by Riot: not only the last map-specific balance change dates back to patch 7.10, but the remake feature that was introduced 2 years ago on SR is still nowhere to be seen.

Due to the prolonged neglect, specific champions, teamcomps and runes (cough Dark Harvest cough) have become way too OP, to the point that players' skills have less impact on the game than the RNG that assigns you a champion. What are the consequences of being able to predict the outcome of the game since champ select? The answer is simple: you have more dissatisfied players (if I win I don't feel like I earned it, if I lose I don't feel like I deserve it), annoyingly high dodge rates (for example, tonight I had to go through 13 lobbies just to play 7 games) and pesky ARAM-only accounts that "cheat" the system by unlocking only the best champions (which causes your own champion pool to be indirectly manipulated, since mirror matchups aren't allowed).

Riot doesn't seem to want to make any change whatsoever to improve our experience, most likely because it wouldn't be cost-effective: they would have to spend money to hire dedicated personnel, but the economic return would be minimal because ARAM players probably are less likely to spend RP than the average player and because plenty of ARAM games are filled with people who are there just because they don't have enough free time to play on SR.

That's why I give up. I lost all hope this game mode will ever go back to its former glory, Riot simply doesn't care enough.

So goodbye, ARAM, it was fun while it lasted.

100 Comments

Seer of MindMay 8, 201826 votes

Not to mention the ARAM only accounts. Literally always see veigar in every game I play

XIII VanitasMay 8, 20185 votes

I've mentioned them in the second paragraph!

VerxintMay 8, 201818 votes

What's funny is that would be an easy fix: pool all the champs every player owns into the random possibilities for each player. Or just make all champs available, one of the two

ModCaptainMårvelousMay 8, 201827 votes

I mentioned this literally the day ARAM came out as a normal queue to a Rioter. His response was "Nobody is going to do that".

Fast forward 5+ years and not only do people still do that, it's gotten easier as both the amount of poke champs goes up, the cost of them goes down and you can stockpile them even easier. The only time ARAM had a legit meta shake-up was the addition of Snowball, which changed the very face of the mode and made tanks/melee not an insta-lose anymore.

I just wish they'd enable all and remove warmogs. That's all you really need.

Vah MedohMay 8, 20186 votes

The amount of wisdom in "Nobody is going to do that" on a (suposed) total random gameplay.

ModCaptainMårvelousMay 8, 201811 votes

At the time you could argue that an ARAM account was a lot more work than it was worth. After all, a lot of the good poke champs (Ez, Varus, Lux, etc.) were 6300 and farming that out was a bitch of an experience. That said yes, it as gonna 100% happen

cocacolalipsMay 8, 20186 votes

Remove warmogs and all the melee fighters/tanks champions become trash tier and the whole eco system is out of the window and mages rule the game mode even harder.

If you have no tank to absorb the poke and push the minion wave, you have no teamfight, with no teamfight, assassins and adcs never get to fight and thus also become trash tier and now everyone sucks but mages/supports.

that's definitely NOT what we need LOL

I don't think the people suggesting to remove warmogs / dark harvest quite understand the ramifications of those suggestions.

ModCaptainMårvelousMay 8, 20189 votes

So replace it with something else? Fighters/Tanks also won't be made trash tier just because of this, nor would removing dark harvest be all that bad.

Warmogs disrupts the very idea of ARAM in it being a "fight until you die" mode. Beyond certain champs who have the benefit of built-in regen, warmogs turns any 3k+ having champ into a machine that can step away for a handful of seconds to restore HP. Add in clarity and you have a restore that's pretty stupid to deal with. It also sucks when they get something like Warmogsraka who will just be a healbot that you can't really deal with because they'll back off.

You're also assuming there has to be a tank to absorb poke and push the wave. Like...most poke in ARAM is ranged. You could always...dodge it? You're also assuming tanks are necessary to push the wave, which is absolutely not true at all. Even a modest mage these days on ARAM can burst through the wave so that point is moot. Plus, this does nothing against the many good tank options still on ARAM.

Remove warmogs, replace it with something more conducive to the mode. Maybe something where you get a shield for each spell you're hit when you attack someone. Something that syncs with ARAM and still follows the rules.

cocacolalipsMay 8, 20184 votes

I'm not sure we play / have the same outlook on the game (I play at 3k mmr), let me tell you how an average game goes.

A team starts the game with lane priority (usually the team with more mages) since teams are rarely perfectly balanced. That team is going to push, possibly take one turret or 2, maybe even the inhibitor.

10 minutes forward, that same team pretty much instantly clears any minion wave coming at them from 1-2 screens away, that means their minions are pushing toward you since your minions are dead.

To effectively counter-push and take objectives down, you need your minions and your damage dealers by the enemy turrets, to keep your minions and your teammates alive and healthy, you have to step up as a tank and walk past your minion wave and your teammates to protect them from the poke and scare those pesky mages away. That's what you do as a tank by mid-late game, you stand in front of your minions and teammates so they don't die and your minion wave can push toward the enemy turrets.

By doing that you are going to take damage however, it's inevitable, if you are actively avoiding taking damage, your minions and teammates aren't and they die, and you are no longer counter-pushing. Fail.

Now your minion wave is pushing toward the enemy base, great, but that's only the first step, you still have to dive the enemy team under their turrets along with your minions and damage dealers, as a tank/fighter you are at low health however, since you had to spend that health to counter-push in the first place. That's where warmogs plays its role, it ensures your team can dive and have a fair 5V5 fight following an erratic counter-push.

If you remove warmogs, those dives can't happen or when they happen they will always fail, if those dives can't happen, there is no point counter-pushing, if you can't counter-push, you are left trying to fight without minions inside/close to your own base, but then even if you win the fight, you do nothing with it because you are inside your base or close to it, and you have to walk all the way to the enemy base, kill half a dozen minions waves on the way and by the time you get there, the enemy team has respawned and your team is at low health from the previous fight and you die without taking any objective down accomplishing nothing.

In a game where it's possible to win without actively fighting (poke), it should also be possible to stall without fighting, it's a question of balance. If you want to remove the latter, you also have to remove the former, if you want to remove warmogs you have to neuter poke one way or another. But ARAM is a game mode that is about sieging, and poke will always be very strong in those scenarios like History has shown time and again (Archers/Catapults vs Castles etc), unless you are going to fundamentally rework how ARAM is played (but why, you can play Ascension/Poro King if you don't like poke), warmogs should stay.

ModCaptainMårvelousMay 8, 20186 votes

So we are basically playing the same game, I see. I get what you're telling me though. You're looking at it too much at how ARAM is now, however, and not what ARAM was always designed to be.

ARAM, as a mode, wasn't just random champs. The key concept was that you had to fight until you drop, buy, repeat until eventually you won. In a perfectly open champ pool, this is fine. It means that in an average situation the teams will lean toward an equal balance of range, poke, initiation and general archetypes. Poke is the first way this has been fucked up: People will get aram accounts and abuse this situation, stacking the deck with aram-strong champs (and let's not get into tanks with some poke who can be giant ass pains to deal with).

This overabundance of poke encouraged Riot to add more tools for melee, mainly regeneration, snowball, the changes made about a year ago, etc etc etc. The thing is this didn't really solve the problem, it just changed the scale. Early game is dominated by poke champs, late game is dominated by hard-to-kill skirmishers. These changes were not a solution, these changes just gave a win condition later that feels bad to play against. By extent, all you've really done is make everyone feel bad at different stages.

In addition, Warmogs doesn't need to exist. It just doesn't. I know you're putting it out that Warmogs is utterly necessarily for dives to happen, but it just isn't. The biggest flaw is that you assume that the only way to win a dive is to come out at low hp, then regen back to full. Rather, the way we should look at it from ARAM's original design is how we can have divers either get out with more health or have them deal more damage. I could argue for a bunch of designs specific to aram where your deal more damage the further you travel to hit your target (to work with snowball) or have something where melee units get more defenses for being in large groups of enemies but those are moot points.

Your other argument is also a moot point because Ascension and Poro King aren't permanent modes. They're also played differently due to being non-random. I could see your point if we had Ascension all the time (Side note: We should) but we don't. Your argument in that case is "Don't like ARAM? Just wait every few weeks for two days when you can play what you like".

Sadly, the one point where you hold the most power is that you'd have to fundamentally change ARAM to make these things work. While it would overall be better for game health and better fit with the original idea of what ARAM was, Riot is for sure not going to do it. Even something as simple as enabling all champions, which could go a long way to the original idea of ARAM, has been ignored. The proposed changes can't happen because it's devoting dev time to a side-mode. As better as ARAM could and should be, the dev resources just don't allow it.

Damn it now I'm sad.

cocacolalipsMay 8, 20183 votes

Early game is dominated by poke champs, late game is dominated by hard-to-kill skirmishers

Late game is dominated by ADCs... those same ADCs who kill fighters/tanks and everything else... Exhaust shuts down divers really hard and as long as you have Knight Vow / Locket an ADC is always going to come out on top.

we can have divers either get out with more health or have them deal more damage

Triumph and Dark Harvest do exactly that, that's why the introduction of these 2 runes was a god send, but that still was nowhere near enough and the recent mages changes with Presence of mind & co kind of nullify those anyway.

Sadly, the one point where you hold the most power is that you'd have to fundamentally change ARAM to make these things work

everything is possible if you change everything lol, removing warmogs for the sake of it is still stupid and should be considered after those changes are made.

for what it's worth, Riot said they were going to look at the dichotomy between ranged and melee champions and how they match against each other in the laning phase on SR at some point, so it should be possible to have melee champions lane against ranged champions bottom lane possibly. that includes looking at the turrets mechanics, aggro range and stuff and if those changes ever happen, they should be carried over to ARAM.

laning and teamifghting is just very melee unfriendly in LoL, and those pain points go beyond the scope of ARAM.

ModCaptainMårvelousMay 8, 20182 votes

{quoted} for what it's worth, Riot said they were going to look at the dichotomy between ranged and melee champions and how they match against each other in the laning phase on SR at some point, so it should be possible to have melee champions lane against ranged champions bottom lane possibly. that includes looking at the turrets mechanics, aggro range and stuff and if those changes ever happen, they should be carried over to ARAM.

laning and teamifghting is just very melee unfriendly in LoL, and those pain points go beyond the scope of ARAM.

Aye, that I'll agree 100% on with you. I'm pretty excited to see RIot make these changes!

SaezioMay 8, 20182 votes

{quoted}

So replace it with something else? Fighters/Tanks also won't be made trash tier just because of this, nor would removing dark harvest be all that bad.

Warmogs disrupts the very idea of ARAM in it being a "fight until you die" mode. Beyond certain champs who have the benefit of built-in regen, warmogs turns any 3k+ having champ into a machine that can step away for a handful of seconds to restore HP. Add in clarity and you have a restore that's pretty stupid to deal with. It also sucks when they get something like Warmogsraka who will just be a healbot that you can't really deal with because they'll back off.

You're also assuming there has to be a tank to absorb poke and push the wave. Like...most poke in ARAM is ranged. You could always...dodge it? You're also assuming tanks are necessary to push the wave, which is absolutely not true at all. Even a modest mage these days on ARAM can burst through the wave so that point is moot. Plus, this does nothing against the many good tank options still on ARAM.

Remove warmogs, replace it with something more conducive to the mode. Maybe something where you get a shield for each spell you're hit when you attack someone. Something that syncs with ARAM and still follows the rules.

Having played close to 6k ARAMs i have to tell you Warmogs is the only item that makes the mode viable late game against a comp like Ziggs xerath velkoz galio cait. Or about a million other comps that include a sona or a nami or a soraka or a janna that builds support items. For me what needs removing is ALL the support items or atleast a +25% gold value. They are unhealthy because it is one eternal teamfight where you always have a 5v5 thus full value with gold efficient items. And I abuse this because it is there. Guess what beats a trundle+ADC when the trundle has KV solari redemption guardians horn resolve tree with all the healling amps and the font of life thingy->nothing Watch some aram tournaments and the amount of warmogs is not that high and always really really late in the game. Guess who is most banned, sona soraka janna nami and trist/twitch. The only time warmogs feels strong is when the enemy has 0 cc and no adc.

grarrrgMay 8, 20183 votes

{quoted}

If you have no tank to absorb the poke and push the minion wave, you have no teamfight, with no teamfight, assassins and adcs never get to fight and thus also become trash tier and now everyone sucks but mages/supports.

I've had many a game where one team has no suitable tank, and done fine. There are wide enough variations in play skill and champion abilities that "no tank" is far from a deal breaker.

cocacolalipsMay 8, 20184 votes

When you have no suitable tank, someone else takes the role, be it a fighter or a support or even a mage or carry, because having a frontline is more important than having a 4 or 5th damage dealer.

Same reason, when you have no ADC, it's recommended to have a mage or a support take over the role and build AD, because an actual ADC is more valuable than a 4th or 5th mage.

Each role has strengths and weaknesses that complement each other within a team and a job to do to ensure a victory, an ADC's job is to kill tanky enemies and take objectives down, a mage's job is to clear minions wave and poke, a tank job is to absorb the pressure and engage/disengage, a support's job is to poke/waveclear protect priority targets, an assasin's job is to take down those priority targets etc.. If you lack any of those roles, you have weaknesses that can be exploited and you'll lose to more well-rounded teams or teams that counterpick yours.

grarrrgMay 8, 20182 votes

{quoted}

When you have no suitable tank, someone else takes the role, be it a fighter or a support or even a mage or carry, because having a frontline is more important than having a 4 or 5th damage dealer.

Same reason, when you have no ADC, it's recommended to have a mage or a support take over the role and build AD, because an actual ADC is more valuable than a 4th or 5th mage.

I was going to have a rebuttal with "I agree in general, but not specific", and anecdotes and such, but then I read:

If you lack any of those roles, you have weaknesses that can be exploited and you'll lose to more well-rounded teams or teams that counterpick yours.

Counterpick? I thought we were discussing ARAM.

cocacolalipsMay 8, 20183 votes

yes and if you are unlucky and you roll 5 mages/supports against a couple tanks/fighters + ADC, you are likely to lose because tanks counter mages and your team lacks dps, same if you roll a bunch of mages against a bunch of supports, or a bunch of adcs against a bunch of divers/assassins etc..

it's aram, but you are still at the mercy of the draw, hence counterpicks, 'unlucky' counterpicks I guess if that makes more sense.

grarrrgMay 8, 20182 votes

{quoted}

yes and if you are unlucky and you roll 5 mages/supports against a couple tanks/fighters + ADC, you are likely to lose because tanks counter mages and your team lacks dps

Funny you mention this as an example. Last night had a 4v5 Akali, 2 mages and Janna vs. 3 tank/fighters and 2 ADCs We managed more total kills > 35 / 30 despite them being able to ignore armor and buy MR. Even aced and took a tower at one point. (And Akali didn't just go after their ADCs, the low deaths on Kog prove that) I have little doubt we could have won if our fifth had connected. (It was Tahm, but anyone would have helped)

So while I agree in general that "balanced comp>good", there are plenty more variables at work. General skill level, familiarity with champion given, ability to teamwork with random players, etc...

cocacolalipsMay 8, 20183 votes

counterpicks give you an advantage, that's what a counterpick means, you are arguing for the sake of arguing, you increase your chances of winning by playing optimally, and playing optimally means having a proper team composition.

grarrrgMay 9, 20182 votes

{quoted}

counterpicks give you an advantage, that's what a counterpick means,

Since this is ARAM, the term you want is "counter". Plain simple "counter". It gives you everything you want, without the pesky baggage that comes with "pick".

you are arguing for the sake of arguing,

You refuse to even consider anything other than "proper comp = good". When there are MANY other variables at play.

you increase your chances of winning by playing optimally, and playing optimally means having a proper team composition.

Yes, your chances do increase IF you can manage a "proper" comp. But this is ARAM. You don't get to choose.

Certain teams will NOT have a "tank" and to attempt to force one anyway will be a sub-par option. Certain teams will NOT have a "mage", and to attempt to force one anyway will be a sub-par option. etc...

Even if you do manage a proper comp, you still need players suited to that champ/role. An ADC main stuck with a Tank is not ideal. A Tank main stuck with an Assassin is not ideal. etc...

ModAcademy KaynMay 8, 20183 votes

You know why both those ideas are terrible?

Because there are some champions I don't want to play at all. I buy the champions who I want to play, and I have no qualms about not having the entire roster. Even original Aram wasn't truly random, people choosing from their own pool of bought champions. I doubt I'm alone with this.

Some people I don't like how they play. Some I don't like their theme. My enjoyment comes much more from the champions I play than from winning. So is it worth it? "Fairer" games, at the expense that people will hate the champion they'll play (or just dodge) and not actually have any fun?

And get out of here with the "It's called 'all random', cause original ARAM wasn't.

MinardeMay 8, 20181 votes

My enjoyment comes much more from the champions I play than from winning. So is it worth it? "Fairer" games, at the expense that people will hate the champion they'll play (or just dodge) and not actually have any fun?

That's the thing though; fairer games would be more fun for some people. It comes down to what you value in ARAM. Some players, such as yourself, value their personal play experience. For others though, it's more about the overall experience, like competition, champ variety, and so on.

Unfortunately, these two conflicting perspectives are forced into the same ARAM queue. While current conditions appeal to the former group, it's terrible for people in the latter group, such as OP. Conversely, expanding the champ pool would be great for OP, yet terrible for you.

Personally, I think adding a new, incentivized (e.g. ranked) queue would be a better solution. Two separate queues would allow for more fine-tuned adjustments to appeal to the two different perspectives. The "expanded pool" queue would have incentives to reward the increased skill requirement from playing more champs and to mitigate the Blind Pick/Draft issue where one queue just dominates its mostly-identical sibling.

ModAcademy KaynMay 9, 20181 votes

That runs the possibility of either:

Both ques increase in que time
One has a significantly less que time than the other, resulting in a longer for the other, so in an effort for trying to find a game, those players flock to the other que for shorter game finding times, causing a snowballing effect until the longer que is dead. Then we're back where we started.

MinardeMay 10, 20181 votes

For your second point, I fully expect the "current" queue to be more popular than the "new" queue for the same reason that Normal Blind Pick SR is more popular than Ranked Draft SR: it's simpler. Hence the same need for incentives to entice players into playing the more complicated queue.

Which means queue times are the main concern. I'm hopeful that increased features/support/advertisement will bring enough additional interest in ARAM for the mode to sustain two queues without significantly worse queue times. I could easily be wrong though. Nevertheless, I feel that it'd be better to try something rather than letting ARAM continue to languish in its current state.

TargonMay 8, 201814 votes

One issue that has made me play less ARAM lately is the Dark Harvest rune, which has been need of SERIOUS adjustments in ARAM for MONTHS.

DubshokaMay 8, 20182 votes

{quoted}

One issue that has made me play less ARAM lately is the Dark Harvest rune, which has been need of SERIOUS adjustments in ARAM for MONTHS.

Hey! Don't talk about this or my Viktor "Twitch b Gon" build will be everywhere!

...seriously though, needs toned down. It's going to be really ugly when Stormrazor hits live. DH/Shiv/Razor Thresh.

Subject 5May 8, 201811 votes

I fucking hate ARAM.

But honestly, there seems to be a populated and strong community that supports the game mode. I don't get why it's entertaining and I don't understand why people would want to play something like that, but I can see the zeal in playing the game mode. Considering SR is a highly competitive scene, I think it'd definitely be a good idea to bring a better ARAM experience for people that actually like the game mode.

MinardeMay 8, 20189 votes

It'd be nice if more people were as open-minded as you. It's far too common that someone opposes something just because it doesn't personally appeal to them.

HethaleanMay 8, 20189 votes

There's another issue. ARAM isn't RNG even. I own ALL the champions. I have for a long time. I get the same like 10-20 champions over and over and over including rerolls. I haven't seen some 30 champions in hundreds of games.

JbelsMay 8, 20186 votes

Yeah but, ARAM doesn't pull in that LC$ money

ZaryelleMay 8, 20186 votes

The main problem I have is the ARAM accounts. I have to keep making smurfs after a few hundred games because the ARAM accounts exist a lot less in the lower levels. Once you get to a decent amount of games, 40-50 wins or so i start seeing tons of ARAM accounts. I've had days where there is Ziggs lux zilean varus janna etc and 2 good tanks 5 games in a row. You start seeing a lot less of certain champs that are less optimal, and people also dodging more often when they do get a 'bad' champ. Every game becomes a mix of the top op far ranged ap/ads, heals, and the good tanks.

It's not even just the fact that certain champion combos are OP, but it starts to get boring and predictable to always have the same champs around especially in cases where it's obvious one team comp is far better than the other. The fact that ARAM accounts exist make the less optimal champions even worse and create situations where you can become totally unable to have an effect on the game at all.

One example of 'bad ARAM champ' that comes up a lot by people I play ARAM with is Udyr. Without ARAM accounts, he can be good, even great. With a certain amount of ARAM accounts with lots of poke or ranged cc, he can become nearly useless, even with snowball.

Baka RedMay 8, 20186 votes

Oh, I wasn't aware I was supposed to make a smurf account to keep playing ARAM. My mistake, I only have this one. I guess I should have done that ARAM only account you seem to be suggesting some 4k matches ago? :)

Anyways, I don't think ARAM only accounts are that bad a problem as people think they are. Rerolls and dodges are the thing that make those Superior ARAM champions appear on the bridge more often than not. Bad champions are rerolled into better champions, good champions are kept. Really bad looking teams often dodge. This is why many people imagine seeing ARAM only accounts all the time.

My personal opinion is that the ARAM only accounts are for the weak, I will never... ...oh, but since I only play ARAM, I am actually ARAM only account owner! I guess that is why I own those strong champions like Eve, Ryze, LB, Akali, Kata, Udyr etc. Darn! I am one of the weak ones! :)

Risen29May 8, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Baka Red,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PImLNf7F,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2018-05-08T06:49:39.576+0000)

Anyways, I don't think ARAM only accounts are that bad a problem as people think they are. Rerolls and dodges are the thing that make those Superior ARAM champions appear on the bridge more often than not. Bad champions are rerolled into better champions, good champions are kept. Really bad looking teams often dodge. This is why many people imagine seeing ARAM only accounts all the time.

No, it is as bad as people say. I have done the math. 55% winrate over an infinite number of games. I factored in rerolls already. If you add dodging into that equation then your winrate could be astronomical depending on how often you're willing to take the delay penalty.

If ARAM were ranked, statisically an ARAM only account would probably carry you to master/challenger easily if no one else were using an ARAM only account.

Baka RedMay 9, 20181 votes

Since you have "done the math", please show the math to us and enlighten us.

Risen29May 9, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Baka Red,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PImLNf7F,comment-id=0003000000000000,timestamp=2018-05-09T07:07:56.028+0000)

Since you have "done the math", please show the math to us and enlighten us.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/kkkesEgM-the-math-of-an-aram-only-account

Consider yourself enlightened.

Baka RedMay 9, 20181 votes

Thank you for your work.

Previous you mentioned that your math relied on statistics "Statistically, an ARAM only account is a guaranteed 55% winrate. And that only assumes average skill." You have apparently done some probability math somewhere for your thread, but you aren't showing it there, so the thread is mostly just some more claims without proof like the quote here.

That assumption you made earlier (and I quoted here) looks little weird. So an average skilled player (however that is defined) with ARAM only account has a guaranteed 55% winrate. Surely it can be above the 50% for a while, but with the MMR system the enemies are bound to be so much higher skilled people at some point, that the winrate will go down and the ARAM only account person won't be able to climb in MMR anymore, leaving him at 50% winrate like all the other average people. Yes, he may very well reach higher MMR than he could with an ordinary account with larger pool, but he would be reduced to the regular 50% winrate anyways. That alone imo proves that your claim is wrong and I am afraid that if the linked thread is all the math you have, it doesn't count as much of proof in my books at least; there are numbers there yep, but not math showing how you got those numbers.

Anyways, I appreciate the effort you showed us and it was nice to have a good calm debate about ARAM gamemode we both (any many others) love. We can return to the debate if you have actual math behind your claims. However, I must warn you that I haven't done much math after university, so I am not that sharp with it anymore - my math edge has dulled and I can barely cut butter with it nowadays. sigh

Risen29May 9, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Baka Red,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PImLNf7F,comment-id=000300000000000000000000,timestamp=2018-05-09T19:53:43.250+0000)

Previous you mentioned that your math relied on statistics "Statistically, an ARAM only account is a guaranteed 55% winrate. And that only assumes average skill." You have apparently done some probability math somewhere for your thread, but you aren't showing it there, so the thread is mostly just some more claims without proof like the quote here.

Your conclusions are based on wrong premises. No probability work went into my numbers, nor was required. It is a pure aggregate of winrate statistics, with no guesswork involved.

When I say it assumes average skill, I am making reference to the fact that these winrates are averages of every game played. Meaning, in the hands of an average person, they can expect to have a higher than even chance of winning, but if they are good they can expect to win even more games with the same champions.

The rest of your post is based on a wrong reading of my use of that term. I never said a bronze level player would reach challenger MMR if only they had access to an ARAM account and the challengers players didn't.

All things being equal, the ARAM account wins. But it wins by such a high margin (55% over the entire game average is huge, which is why we always see champions nerfed when they hover around there), that you can climb well beyond your MMR if nobody else had an ARAM account.

That's why people commonly refer to 55%+ winrate champions as freelo.

Baka RedMay 9, 20181 votes

Ah, well, I agree with you on that ARAM only account does give the person playing with one an edge. However, saying that it leads to a specific winrate (other than the 50% winrate) is false. That edge only means that the ARAM only account user will end up fighting higher MMR people than he would with a non-ARAM-only account but he would still have 50% winrate instead of something else (like the 55%). Hopefully that means that he will get bored of his smaller pool of champions soon and stops playing, so we can stop 'enjoying' his presence in the Abyss.

Risen29May 9, 20181 votes

Your argument is based on pointless equivocation. When anyone talks about the relative power of a champion in this game we look at it's overall winrates to draw conclusions about it's power level. Nobody tries to argue "well, sure X champion has a 60% winrate right now, but that doesn't matter because eventually not everyone who uses that champion will be able to maintain that level of winrate".

I also think you underestimate the impact of certain champions regardless of MMR. As long as someone is mechanically sound, you'd be surprised how well they can hold their own against otherwise much higher players. Especially on a map like ARAM, which lowers the skill gaps by it's design. A high silver/gold level player on Ziggs, with a near 70% winrate, will drastically increase the chance of a diamond team winning if the enemy has no good poke to answer it with. You don't necessarily have to play at a diamond level on summoners rift to hold your own in ARAM with the right champion. They just have to play Ziggs competently enough to not feed and hit their shots. If they can do that then their team can likely carry them the rest of the way. Similar situations may exist for champions like Janna or Sona, which don't depend on you being the one to carry, but your mere competent presence grants a winrate advantage to your team as long as they don't completely drop the ball. It doesn't take exceptional skill to use these simple kits effectively to gain your team a major advantage in ARAM.

That's why they have such absurd winrates, like 69% for ziggs. or 66% for Sona. That is an absolutely insane winrate for averaging all ARAM players together.

Baka RedMay 10, 20181 votes

Yes, a competent Ziggs is better than non-competent of course, and the former will help the team of higher MMR people more than the latter, but it will only allow him to climb to a higher MMR and finally his MMR will level at the 50% winrate if there are enough people in the League for him to fight. Ah yes, if the person reaches the top, I can see that the higher than 50% winrate is possible like you say. It might even happen to me, so I use myself as an example below.

If I could play my personal best ARAM champion Karthus in each match (ie: I had ARAM only account that allowed me to play him and him alone), I would most certainly climb to a much higher MMR than my current level of play. That is because at my current MMR level I have 80+% winrate with him, so it would take a while before my winrate would go down to 50% with him. As long as I had higher than 50% winrate, my MMR would go higher and I would risk hitting that 50% winrate wall at some point. If I didn't hit the wall before I reached the very top, would be pretty much like reaching the top of the Pro scene in Rift side; ie: Me the player would be a "Pro ARAM player". At that point the theoretical ARAM only account and theoretical mastery of the champion(s) would allow higher than 50% winrate, since there would not be skilled enough people to challenge me (the winrate might even be the exact 55% you believe). All that is theoretically possible if the player has enough skill with the champions in his pool. For most people that would only be in theory though and I am afraid I am included in those "most people" here. :)

All the above means that your claim has some truth in it, as long as the ARAM only account person can breach the top with the account. If he cannot reach the top, the ARAM only account only allows higher MMR to be reached before the wall of 50% winrate is reached - or do I have too much trust in Riot's MMR system? Maybe I do.

I have to admit that I haven't done research on MMR system other than dabbling a little bit on it years ago. My MMR system 'knowledge' comes mostly from personal experience of hitting that 50% winrate wall and maintaining my level at my current MMR level. I haven't seen ARAM only accounts to be that much of a problem either. I am sure some exist out there, but they haven't stopped me from having fun in the Abyss. I am firm believer in the yahtzee effect bringing the superior champions to Abyss more often than the ARAM only accounts do (ie: rerolls and dodges do that).

PS: Thanks for teaching me a new word "Equivocation". I don't think I had even heard that one before. :) PPS: I am afraid I am one of those Sonas who drop the ball. ;) PPPS: I guess I am just opposed to the exact 55% winrate claim. I just cannot see how you could reach that exact percentage with any math and I would still love to see that math. Since you apparently don't have the math stored anywhere, we are little bit stuck here I am afraid. Without the math you cannot break my belief in the 50% winrate wall that we all meet at some point, and I am apparently not convincing you with that wall. I guess you haven't hit it yet.

Risen29May 10, 20181 votes

The problem is that your point is irrelevant to what you are addressing. The fact that winrate levels out for individuals who are trying to climb is irrelevant to analyzing the power level of champions.

When a champion has a 60% overall winrate on summoners rift ranked, nobody tries to defend that champion by saying "yeah, well, eventually you'll reach a point where you can't climb with that champion because you're not skilled enough". That doesn't change the fact that the champion is overpowered. And you can see that they are when you look at how top players perform with those picks against other top players.

When I say that an ARAM account has a 55% winrate, that's what we're talking about - relative power level. An ARAM only account can be shown to statistically be vastly overpowered compared with someone who owns all the champions. If the later person never rerolls then I suspect they would not even have a statistical 50% winrate, but would have a sub-50 winrate, just because the majority of champions have a sub-50 winrate in ARAM.

SaiannaMay 8, 20185 votes

they would have to spend money to hire dedicated personnel

Funfact, ARAM is treated as gamemode, and thus is under 'latencys' care. The man doesn't give a single fuck about it anyways.

FilDaFunkMay 8, 20183 votes

ARAM games are quite fun without any ADCs present. Had a great mages vs tanks game the other day. On the other hand, too many games have 3+ adcs and these are just boring af.

JaspersMay 8, 20184 votes

This is the truth. I had a game Sunday, it was basically 5 tanks vs my team of 3 tanks plus TF and me Nami. TF went mage. It was fun as it could be. We both got inhibs, fights lasted a good time and were messy. I think the only reason we won in the end is because our TF changed to AD at the end.

If an ADC was in this, they'd just sit at the back, autoing people down real boring like and winning by default. Considering 'ADCs' are only like 20 champs in the game, they come up alot in ARAM.

Jerry SeinfeIdMay 8, 20182 votes

dark harvest is the best thing that's happened to aram idk why you're complaining.

XIII VanitasMay 8, 201810 votes

How is it the best thing that happened to ARAM? It's clearly overpowered, so the champions that aren't able to abuse it are immediately put at a disadvantage.

Handin Out NapsMay 8, 20182 votes

I lol'd at the skill part. Skill has never had anything to do with aram, its always been based on team comp.

SaezioMay 8, 20185 votes

[{quoted}](name=Handin Out Naps,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PImLNf7F,comment-id=0014,timestamp=2018-05-08T22:16:06.193+0000)

I lol'd at the skill part. Skill has never had anything to do with aram, its always been based on team comp.

Well most times the teams are not that unfairly matched, so the skill plays a great part in it. For example whenever i get a Challenger or a couple Masters borders in my team i am 90% sure we will win regardless of composition and only if everything goes wrong there is a chance to lose. One game i have played with 2 masters and 1 challenger and an unranked that afked from minute 3 or 4 in the team. Our comp was shyvana-tahm-xin-aatrox vs Lux ziggs nida vayne and malphite (i still remember the game even if it was like 6 months ago lel) we destroyed them. Sure untill like 10 mins we cleared waves and sustained but after a couple items and good coordination we literaly only lost 1 tower and won by minute 25. The fact they were goldies and a low plat vayne that mained support made all the difference. SO YEAH skill matters

Handin Out NapsMay 9, 20182 votes

You had the ability to all in a poke comp. That's called a better team comp. That's not skill.

SaezioMay 9, 20184 votes

[{quoted}](name=Handin Out Naps,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PImLNf7F,comment-id=001400000000,timestamp=2018-05-09T01:25:06.528+0000)

You had the ability to all in a poke comp. That's called a better team comp. That's not skill.

You either have played very little aram or you have never seen challengers in your games. Dodging every EVERY ziggs bomb nid spear and lux Q is skill not teamcomp + the champs we had are in the lowest aram winrates some bellow 45% in a 4v5 game and vs a malph and a vayne with no adc. If you think skill is irrellevant find a challenger player and play an ARAM 1v1 vs him and you pick the matchup. You will lose 100% of the time. Go ahead try it. Skill matters.