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So, mobility creep. What to do.

Worgslarg·11/21/2014, 9:43:40 PM·5 votes·651 views

I'm not writing this as a nerf thread, or because I'm on a crusade against riot. I just want to see some counterplay, to mobility.

Kalista is a fine example of a high mobility champion. Her passive dash is a great idea, and it creates interesting gameplay. However, for any melee or highly skillshot dependant champion, she is untouchable. Just as yasuo, kassadin, lee sin, lucian, and anyone else with a dash were called op, so has kalista. The fact of the matter is, if Riot intends to allow mobility creep to continue(evidenced by the recent champion releases), they either need to rework almost every champion without included dashes, or they need to add counterplay to mobile champions.

I have seen a suggestion for kalista: her passive has stacks and once out, she cannot dash. This would alleviate the suffering of melees, and make kalista choose when to dash. However, in my opinion, it is not the right solution.

Riot's theme for the preseason is "Strategic Diversity." I interpret this as the need for an evolving playstyle based upon the matchup. They have added lots of new items, with the goal that teams could use items to complement their differences, rather than a X teamcomp will beat Y approach. We have item 3800 , that complements teams without good initiation. Yet still, we have no items that allow counterplay to dashes/jumps/blinks.

What league needs, in my opinion, are items that give immobile champions a chance. I'd love to hear peoples ideas, but here are a few of my own.

  • A tank/support item that debuffs a target, rooting them after their next dash while debuffed)

  • An aoe aura item that slows the speed of all dashes within a certain area.

These are just some rough ideas; I'd love to hear comments/ other ideas.

13 Comments

SmokingPuffin11/21/2014, 11:29:31 PM3 votes

What league needs, in my opinion, are items that give immobile champions a chance. I'd love to hear peoples ideas, but here are a few of my own.

This is going to be very hard to implement, because items that do stuff with mobility tend to be stronger on mobile champions than immobile ones.

For example, many Darius players complained that item 3143 lost its passive slow, so they could no longer use it to close to melee. The thing is, that item was much better on Shyvana than it was on Darius, because she was reliably able to jump into the middle of the fight and force people to shoot her.

  • A tank/support item that debuffs a target, rooting them after their next dash while debuffed)
  • An aoe aura item that slows the speed of all dashes within a certain area.

Both of these items are significantly better on mobile carriers than immobile ones. Especially the aura item really benefits from having the ability to magically appear in the middle of their team. In general, I don't think making items that solve mobility is going to result in immobile champs getting played more; it'll just make it easy for one group of mobile champs to beat another group of mobile champs.

Personally, I think the fix for mobility creep is twofold:

  1. Mobile champions need to pay more budget for that mobility than they do. Immobile champions should come with game-altering potential in other areas. Champions currently doing that well include Anivia Janna KogMaw Karthus Twitch Nasus. Also, immobile champions should get better stuff in the other areas -- more reliable CC, superior durability, shorter cooldowns -- there are all kinds of knobs you can turn to make it feel like mobile champions are paying a fair price for that mobility.
  2. Immobile champions need to fill different roles than mobile ones. Generally speaking, mobile champions are either about diving the enemy MVP or kiting the enemy team. Immobile champions will never be able to do those things as well as the mobile ones. Instead, we should refocus immobile champions as zone control kings, and mobile champions should really not want to stand and trade with the immobile ones.
Incognonymous11/22/2014, 3:10:43 AM2 votes

The problem with "just CC/slow them" is that it applies to everyone, and tends to work much, much better against melees. Honestly, I think Kalista marks the end of my time playing League. I'm not happy with where the jungle has gone, and it just isn't fun, as a melee player, to have to put up with this widening gap between ranged-melee/mobile-static. It is 100% unnecessary, but Riot is figuratively force feeding this creep to us. It's no longer a caution when designing a champ, but an inspiration. I can't abide by that. Think I'm done.

Togekiss2411/21/2014, 10:06:07 PM1 votes

Riot intends to allow mobility creep to continue(evidenced by the recent champion releases), they either need to rework almost every champion without included dashes, or they need to add counterplay to mobile champions.

There actually is "counterplay" to mobile champions in a sense: CC. That's pretty much the reason why it's so valued on team comps to this day, because even the most godly among players can't do anything about having their movement/attacks disabled. A lot of high mobility champions, including Graves graves and Vayne Vayne, also have shortcomings that include a lack of attack range or relatively low durablity. The addition of mobility gives players a chance to overcome these flaws, and skill is actually involved to use it effectively.

It does kind of pigeon-hole the metagame a little, but I don't see it as a huge issue.

ProfDrDeath11/21/2014, 11:14:22 PM1 votes

Slows in general now apply to dashes - meaning, it slows down the dash speed.

Hayaishi11/22/2014, 1:03:50 AM1 votes

Slows should counter mobility.