Riot balance team continues to unnecessarily nerf supports while letting actual problems run free.

Uiru·Jan 6, 2015·75 votes·2,966 views

You are not going to fix the jungle by continually fucking over supports.

"We don't continually fuck over supports." ~Riot

Well, if you want us to believe that, you might want to consider not continually fucking over supports.

And deal with an actual problem. Just one time, Riot, I would like to see your patch notes address an actual problem. (And not the Lucian or Nidalee kind of problem whereby you try to fix it and only make it a LOT WORSE.)

The jungle's a mess, the dumpster is beginning to get really cramped, mobility creep continues to dominate the game, AND YOU NERF SONA INSTEAD.

** WHAT THE HELL, RIOT.** ~Uiru

40 Comments

SmokingPuffinJan 6, 201516 votes

"We don't continually fuck over supports." ~Riot

Well, if you want us to believe that, you might want to consider not continually fucking over supports.

Much lols. Very enjoy.

10/10 would read again.

TalamareJan 6, 201511 votes

I am quite sad they skipped Thresh

ByrnesJan 6, 201510 votes

Hello I am a support main. Sona needs to be nerfed more than just her MS at this point. If positioned correctly, she literally out-trades even her own adc until mid to late game. She can literally win a lane on her own, especially in soloQ.

Thank you for your time.

Also, only 5ms.

UiruJan 6, 201522 votes

{quoted}

Hello I am a support main. Sona needs to be nerfed more than just her MS at this point. If positioned correctly, she literally out-trades even her own adc until mid to late game. She can literally win a lane on her own, especially in soloQ.

Thank you for your time.

Also, only 5ms.

Hello, I am a support/mid/jungle main. Sona's q powerchord poke is fantastic. Until someone decides to shoot her once and she dies. Additionally, assuming a world where Sona is crowding out all other supports (she isn't) and is singlehandedly carrying games (she isn't), she still isn't even on the top twenty list of things that needed to be fixed yesterday. There may be issues in support, but the issues in every other position are warping the game far harder than any support could even dream of doing.

Sona does a ton of damage because Riot fucked her over to the point where building AP is her only option, and she can't go anywhere else because of another set of fuckings-over preventing her from taking any damage without evaporating. You can't force a champ into a weird build and then punish them for building that way... oh wait, I play Eve, they totally can and will likely continue doing it. ;_;

In conclusion, terrible balance team is terrible. LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin ~Uiru

ByrnesJan 6, 20155 votes

{quoted}

Hello, I am a support/mid/jungle main. Sona's q powerchord poke is fantastic. Until someone decides to shoot her once and she dies. Additionally, assuming a world where Sona is crowding out all other supports (she isn't) and is singlehandedly carrying games (she isn't), she still isn't even on the top twenty list of things that needed to be fixed yesterday. There may be issues in support, but the issues in every other position are warping the game far harder than any support could even dream of doing.

Sona does a ton of damage because Riot fucked her over to the point where building AP is her only option, and she can't go anywhere else because of another set of fuckings-over preventing her from taking any damage without evaporating. You can't force a champ into a weird build and then punish them for building that way... oh wait, I play Eve, they totally can and will likely continue doing it. ;_;

In conclusion, terrible balance team is terrible. ~Uiru

I'm quoting you because I can't stop looking at all the Lee Sins. So now there are double of them. Ooooo.

Anyway, I don't disagree. At all. But the fact remains in the right hands, in the right situation, she does a sh*t done of damage. imo, the problem with her is that her best is better than most other support's best, even though her worst is a lot worst than every other support. This, coupled with the fact she is decently safe for 75% of the bot lane combinations.

As for Riot's balancing team - total joke. Half of their reasoning they give us are contradictory even to the points they are making, and they never take care of what needs to be taken care of first. I've said it a million times and I'll say it once more because I can, something needs to change in the way we handle this stuff. My main example is, and will always be, the Lucian thing. They remove him from pro tournaments. They admit in patch notes he is broken but they have no fixes. Meanwhile he remains a choice in ranked queues, instead of being disabled. Is this entire game a joke to their balance team? Is it funny to watch the top 5 champions faceroll for a month before they even acknowledge there is a problem?

A Slime AppearsJan 6, 201522 votes

"But the fact remains in the right hands, in the right situation, she does a sh*t done of damage. "

That applies to every fucking champ. Why does Sona get singled out?

cshakesJan 6, 20156 votes

Currently, she's a strong earlygame support. She has strong non-skillshot damage and pokes a lot. She works well enough with any ADC (unlike, eg Leona) and counters Janna.

Of course, by the time the opposing laners hit 3, she'll have to be much more careful, since she's quite squishy. And nerfing Sona while Thresh exists is just idiocy.

Remlap1223Jan 7, 20154 votes

What the fuck are you smoking? She's the weakest early game champion in the game, which is twice as shit considering the fact that she's a support, who's laning phases are supposed to be the strongest part of the game for them. She has no defense whatsoever, and her mana cost to ability power ratio is ridiculous. Literally every support does her job better. She's supposed to be the jack of all trades teamfight utility support, but Nami does her job a million times better.

cshakesJan 7, 20151 votes

Sona has a strong level 1, and just dumps on any champions that aren't as strong level 1 (Leona, Janna). I've found that playing Sona, the lane is an auto-win unless I get counterpicked (Leona etc). Sona generally does well against squishy supports, I find. She's good against Janna, can win against Soraka provided she and her ADC have any capability in dodging, and can make Lulu OOM. I don't know how she fares against Nami, though - haven't played that matchup.

VDc0zCqe0wJan 7, 20152 votes

Sona wins vs Leona and basically anyone tbh (maybe she doesn't vs Nami? they are both pretty broken as hell during lane phase do i don't know who wins, never tried the matchup)

fact is she doesn't scale that well, so winning lane vs Sona is not needed in any way

anyways, any patch that does include a nerf to a random support without having a Thresh nerf at the same time, it's just bad

cshakesJan 7, 20151 votes

Thing is, winning lane can cause the ADC to snowball, which is the #1 purpose of supports like Leona.

VDc0zCqe0wJan 7, 20153 votes

yeah but that Leona's problem, shitty as hell scaling (useless lategame, basically a walking stun), not Sona's

pick Nami into Sona and you scale better while not losing

Pika310Jan 7, 20152 votes

I've played the Nami vs Sona matchup countless times. It's a one-sided auto-win for Nami. Ebb and Flow single handedly outclasses Sona's **combined **Q+W. Use Tidecaller's Blessing to punish her for moving closer to utilize her poorly designed new on-hit damage.

If you do by chance happen to land a bubble at any point, Sona is almost guaranteed free-farm.

5301Jan 7, 20152 votes

She does do damage, but shes very squishy. If Blitzcrank can land one Q then you may get a flash.

SammystormJan 6, 20153 votes

a lot of the bigger problems probably have larger solutions.

PokladnicaZlaJan 6, 20158 votes

I´m really mad that they took the time to nerf Sona,while other champs that are even in a worse place than her (almost the whole assassin class,Lee..). You should add how the screwed all mana users with the mana regen nerf.....

SammystormJan 6, 20153 votes

mana users are just back to season 2 levels. it really sucks but it is something that has happened before and at the time mana users were dominating everything.

PokladnicaZlaJan 7, 20151 votes

When did mana users dominate everything?Im sry but joined somewhere around VI´s release date,so I dont really know how it was before that.

SammystormJan 7, 20151 votes

We saw it as pretty dominant in season 3 when ziggs and crew were stomping everything. We also saw a similar situation in season 2.

GotRektGGJan 6, 20156 votes

Jungle? You mean Cancer Yi?

ZirzonJan 6, 201520 votes

Cancer Yi? That phrase better applies to his old incarnation, AP Mid Yi.

NinjaToad99Jan 6, 20156 votes

I remember those days.

The horror

deborahcliffJan 7, 20151 votes

i much preferred the old alpha strike sound, though. and the old dunk.

skippersdJan 6, 20155 votes

if you did not noticed yet, Zed is the head of Rito's balance team. you can guess the quote ;-)

That said, there is one big misconception about the game, the 'universal' metagame. In reality, there are

pro/high tier 5v5 meta
high tier soloQ meta
low tier soloQ meta

Obviously it's inpossible for a champion to be viable, but not overpowered in each of these (hey Master Yi), but what I'm interested in is, where was Sona overpowered? Did she dominated bronze so badly? Or was a pick or ban in the pro scene?

Yes, she has a rougly 10% pick rate in all tiers, and 53% ish win rate in lower levels, but then the nerf makes no sense, since nerfing the speebuff to curb power in low elo thends to not work...

DJ SiamakJan 6, 20153 votes

The word unnecessarily is incorrect in your title.

FenrirStrikerJan 7, 20153 votes

Its not just sona they toutched support wise, they are slowly turning most support into ap carries and ap carry into potential support

MEMEME670Jan 7, 20152 votes

Did you at all consider the possibility that Riot knows there are multiple problems with their game, but is rolling out changes as soon as they have appropriate ones; and although they are working on it, they don't have an appropriate solution to the problems you bring up?

UiruJan 7, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Did you at all consider the possibility that Riot knows there are multiple problems with their game, but is rolling out changes as soon as they have appropriate ones; and although they are working on it, they don't have an appropriate solution to the problems you bring up?

Most of these problems are years old.

The last time they fixed an actual problem properly was Kassadin. He dominated mid for three seasons and finally got brought under control, and you haven't seen him since because his "fanbase" just went in search of the next stupid thing to flagrantly abuse. I'm pretty sure Kassadin was early 2014; I don't feel like looking it up but it's been a while since anything in the patch notes has been important.

Also, what problem does stomping on already well stomped supports solve? That's right, NOTHING. Fixing problems that don't exist because it's easier than fixing real problems that are huge and caused by years of incompetence IS NOT PROGRESS. ~Uiru

MEMEME670Jan 7, 20152 votes

I would say very few problems last to be years old. I'm probably missing some, but the ones I can remember are Lee Sin, Thresh, Original TF, Kassadin.

I am not sure what you mean by haven't seen him. I see him in Ranked games. I don't see him talked about on the forums, but this is not a bad thing.

Also, villainizing part of the community will get you nowhere. I highly doubt you would appreciate it if people started villainizing those who are upset about the Sona nerf.

That being said, you are also highly exaggerating the nerf. It is 5 ms. This means very little at all stages of the game, especially on a character like Sona who can cast (non-ultimate) spells while moving.

UiruJan 7, 20154 votes

{quoted}

I would say very few problems last to be years old. I'm probably missing some, but the ones I can remember are Lee Sin, Thresh, Original TF, Kassadin.

I am not sure what you mean by haven't seen him. I see him in Ranked games. I don't see him talked about on the forums, but this is not a bad thing.

Also, villainizing part of the community will get you nowhere. I highly doubt you would appreciate it if people started villainizing those who are upset about the Sona nerf.

That being said, you are also highly exaggerating the nerf. It is 5 ms. This means very little at all stages of the game, especially on a character like Sona who can cast (non-ultimate) spells while moving.

The people who are upset about the Sona nerf appears to be a large proportion of this forum (of course, this does not include the invisible people Riot makes up whenever they need to point to community interaction being a basis for their decisions).

Also, a 5 ms nerf on its own is not a real issue. It's so minor one would ask why bother to do it at all. But it's just one more nerf on a long, long, LONG list of pointless nerfs that achieve nothing while actual problems continue unimpeded. Sona has been systematically dismantled and destroyed and people want to know why. Riot will point to an invisible cloud of imaginary players to justify their decisions if they DO respond (they probably won't). And it's been like this for quite some time. Another one for the list.

I'd like to ask Riot "what does a 5 ms nerf fix?" I can only imagine that their answer would be "people are still playing Sona and we want them to know that we want them to stop". ~Uiru

MEMEME670Jan 7, 20152 votes

If you want to be listened to (at the VERY LEAST by Riot, although I would say by most reasonable people probably), you need to actually be rational, yo.

Riot doesn't make up invisible people. There are, however, a large portion of people who aren't upset about the Sona nerf who simply won't post on the issue because it doesn't concern them. This effect is called the vocal minority, where a small group of people will be extremely vocal about something and receive little to no resistance because the party that opposes them mostly don't care about what they're saying.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong or in the minority, but it is important to keep in mind.

Your second paragraph suggests to me that you aren't actually interested in a discussion. So I want to ask you, what are you looking for? What could Riot come in and reasonably say in this thread that would make you happy? Because as far as I can tell, the answer to that is nothing, although I hope I'm mistaken.

Also, you need to stop villainizing Riot. They are people who love League, just like me and you. They feel as strongly for the game as we do, and your offhanded insults don't help the chances they post in this thread, to say the least.

SammystormJan 7, 20151 votes

kassadin was only a problem off and on. He never dominated entire seasons. He started gaining a lot of traction in season 3 but that was changed.

Gank in ProgressJan 7, 20152 votes

bump. finally someone who says it. REPLACE RIOT BALANCE TEAM ALREADY PLEASE

AccountaBilabudyJan 7, 20152 votes

You guys saying Sona beats Leona...i dont get it. At level 2 Sona is either dead or has to flash. There is no discussion. Leona E's onto Sona, ADC auto's and procs the passive, Leona Q's, ADC blows everything they got and Sona either HAS to Flash or shes dead. She is THE squishiest champion in the game. Draven/MF/Graves/Corki/Lucian + Leona will kill Sona in lane.

MAZZ1M0Jan 7, 20152 votes

Lulu and Sona item 3070 Janna : "Meanwhile, bruisers in both toplane and jungle are being shoved under the rug! Coming up in RGN Today...."

exiledFromBadmenJan 6, 20151 votes

The only problem is Armor Penetration, and it wil be until Riot fixes it.

Subject 5Jan 6, 20154 votes

item 3001 item 3135 item 3151 item 3128 item 3089 item 3020

15 MR pen 15 MR Pen 20 MR reduction 20% magic damage increase to compensate for any magic resist? 35% MR ignore after MR pen is applied (Riot stated that this is broken, as well as the other 35% cheatcode)

item 3065 item 3102

Most real straight tanks build these two items. After all of this is taken into account with 110 magic resist, you will have a remaining 15 MR to use against the enemy mid laner. Armor pen is not the only problem, there is a mass of problems Riot refuses to speak to us about.

SammystormJan 6, 20155 votes

no one builds that ap build

SexyTaylorSwiftJan 7, 20152 votes

If they mid laner has that many items, the tank will probably also have item 3269 for tenacity and MR, item 3143 for health, item 3083 for health, and item 3022 for more health.

Volibear builds those items. 2,850 plus 2,046 base +36 +3% masteries = 5,080 Health 53 base MR, +135 items, +20 from support's locket, +5 +5% bonus = 221 MR

Your AP build pen: 7.83 runes, 6% masteries, 50 and 35% from items = 58 + 41%.

Voli now has 5,080 health and 67 MR.

Check me on the math lol. As an AP champ, you are probably looking to burst down your opponent. Simple not going to happen. Not to mention, you probably use your combo on a carry, so not much going to be left for the tank. Being an AP champ, you are not going to burst down someone building health and MR. I believe that armor pen is more of a problem since you can do CRAZY CONSTANT damage by right clicking.

Dingding123Jan 7, 20151 votes

Both roles are having problems because they use Health as a utility in some way, shape or form. It's a primary stat for most of them, whether it's involving healing or having bonuses based on maximum health.

Given that 2/3rds of the cast are based around Damage and can how ridiculously quickly they can delete each other, Riot has obviously not been interested in throwing either of these roles a bone. If they can't kill someone else in 3 seconds there's nothing fun about them, right?