Riot, please explain to us what you honestly want for Lee

InsaneSamurai·Feb 18, 2015·18 votes·1,468 views

This will make things alot easier. If someone with power in the company refuses to allow him to be anything but top tier, just tell us, so we know what's going on. If you honestly know he's a problem and just have no idea what to do about it, tell us(or read the countless nerf suggestions from the forums). Seeing massively upvoted Lee threads for weeks with no acknowledgement whatsoever from Riot makes us feel like posting on the forums is completely worthless aside from random amusement such as "what was my noob mistake" :P

28 Comments

SmokingPuffinFeb 18, 20159 votes

Riot is well known to play favorites with champions. If a champion is fun to play, fun to watch, and has opportunities for the opponent to outplay them, that champion gets a long leash on balance. If a champion has a non-interactive or low counterplay pattern, they're going to be kept on a tight leash.

As far as Lee goes, Riot is loathe to nerf him because he's super popular despite kind of sucking for 99% of the player base. He's also great for their LCS product.

Personal opinion: Lee is too general a champion, and needs a power shift more than an outright nerf. Need to make him not so good at everything, probably focus him more on dueling and ganking, less on being good at clearing or sustaining. I don't think Lee nerfs are urgent though, lots of bigger problems in the game today.

GummyBearWookieeFeb 18, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Riot is well known to play favorites with champions. If a champion is fun to play, fun to watch, and has opportunities for the opponent to outplay them, that champion gets a long leash on balance. If a champion has a non-interactive or low counterplay pattern, they're going to be kept on a tight leash.

As far as Lee goes, Riot is loathe to nerf him because he's super popular despite kind of sucking for 99% of the player base. He's also great for their LCS product.

Personal opinion: Lee is too general a champion, and needs a power shift more than an outright nerf. Need to make him not so good at everything, probably focus him more on dueling and ganking, less on being good at clearing or sustaining. I don't think Lee nerfs are urgent though, lots of bigger problems in the game today.

You mean like make him not good in the late game and easily countered by several popular junglers? Oh wait...that's already true. Riot nerfs based on how champs play in the hands of the qualified...not the 50% of the players that don't have a clue.

SEKAIFeb 18, 20154 votes

If that's the case, a champion being the instant pick/ban choice for 3 years, you would certainly think that they would find this champ being probably too oppressive for any other champs who are doing a similar job as his?

You don't counter Lee, nobody does, that's why there is not a time where first picking Lee would be a bad idea (I actually get his no direct counter part and I understand it as a trade for having higher skill cap however,).

Some junglers got to the top place by having off-the-chart damage or defense, Lee has more than just that the only difference is, he takes some skill to play but that still does not excuse his absurd flexibility, maneuverability, versatility on top of his early damage spike and natural sustain and epic scalings.

GummyBearWookieeFeb 18, 20151 votes

{quoted}

If that's the case, a champion being the instant pick/ban choice for 3 years, you would certainly think that they would find this champ being probably too oppressive for any other champs who are doing a similar job as his?

You don't counter Lee, nobody does, that's why there is not a time where first picking Lee would be a bad idea (I actually get his no direct counter part and I understand it as a trade for having higher skill cap however,).

Some junglers got to the top place by having off-the-chart damage or defense, Lee has more than just that the only difference is, he takes some skill to play but that still does not excuse his absurd flexibility, maneuverability, versatility on top of his early damage spike and natural sustain and epic scalings.

Epic scalings? What are you talking about. Lee Sin's scaling is garbage...that's why in an extended game he's nothing but a tank whose only role to to Insec an ADC/AP out and die for it.

SEKAIFeb 18, 20154 votes

I meant his skill scaling, which is the main reason why he is unstoppable when he is fed.

SmokingPuffinFeb 18, 20152 votes

Riot nerfs based on how champs play in the hands of the qualified...not the 50% of the players that don't have a clue.

I don't know that is the case. GC explicitly indicated that their team isn't sure what level of play they are balancing for. A number of their staff give the cop-out answer "for all levels of play", which is hopelessly naive.

Anyway, if Riot were balancing for champions in the hands of the qualified, the case for nerfing Lee is very strong. If Riot were balancing for solo queue, the case for buffing Lee is quite good. Riot doing nothing with Lee for years speaks to ambivalence, not a clear plan of balance action.

MrBuffingtonFeb 19, 20151 votes

There do seem to be some reds that do play favorites, but I've seen a couple that are more open to the idea of reworking Lee Sin as you say: less of master of all trades sort of thing, but also, as you said, perhaps not the most pressing issue.

SEKAIFeb 18, 20154 votes

Riot wants him as a jack of all trades AND a master of All.

They just don't have the guts to come out and clear it up.

Yer this is more like fishing for attention I will be the first to admit but tbh, after all these years anybody would think something along these lines by now.

OleandervineFeb 18, 20154 votes

Just because a champion is difficult to play doesn't make them any less problematic. It just means that champion has a high learning curve. A high learning curvne is by no means indicative of the balance of a character, but it is indicative of lower win rates. As an example, Just because Einstein had the capacity to invent a nuclear bomb while millions of other scientists couldn't doesn't make the bomb any less world ending, it just makes it hard to create.

FHMarshyFeb 18, 20153 votes

http://na.op.gg/statistics/champion/

Lee is ranked #114 out of the 123 champions in win rate across bronze to challenger for the last month(46.00% win rate)

WHY in the world would you want to do ANYTHING to him?? I don't even play Lee lmao

I just checked your match history, Our of the 20 games you played, there was only ONE Lee, ONE. Why are you even complaining?

SEKAIFeb 18, 20155 votes

Win rate isn't the only judging factor, if you want please check his other stats, LB was nerfed when she was sitting on 45% win rate and it was completely justified.

You're in the impression someone has to make a negative post after being rekt?

Lee isn't the end of all the problems in LoL, no, strictly speaking he's the beginning of it all.

FHMarshyFeb 18, 20153 votes

What stats would you be referring to?

My point lies in that why would anyone want to nerf a champ when more than half of the games the champions are in, their team reasult in a loss?

SEKAIFeb 18, 20154 votes

Win rate is the second weakness defense for any champion's power level.

This game isn't 1v1, there are way more factors coming into play than a single champion's win rate. Win rate by itself doesn't mean anything in the context of whether a champion is being too strong or not.

Yi or Udyr one of them (or both) was also below 50% win rate despite receiving a gigantic popularity spike when FF was introduced, does that make him perfectly balanced during that time?

FHMarshyFeb 18, 20151 votes

Exactly, this game isn't 1v1, You can have great kits with Lee and Zed but still unable to win.

Yi and Udyr had to FARM FF almost the WHOLE time before 20 to ACTUALLY do damage, resulting in one or more lane losing out hard due to the opposing jungler ganking while Yi OR Udyr farmed. That was the reason the two of them were below 50%. Like you said, it wasn't a 1v1 game, Yi and Udyr could be godlike but the lack of presence of them due to farming could easily cost the team the game.

Win rate doesn't signify one champion is strong or not, I definitely agree. It 's a pain in the ass to fight Zed in 1v1 or fight Lee. But the fact that the teams that THEY are in are losing more than half of the time, is a fact to put into consideration.

SEKAIFeb 18, 20152 votes

I was testing whether you would actually go as far as to attempt defending FF simply for the sake of covering up the weak argument that is win rates, and apparently you fall right into that.

The reason why they didn't have 50% win rate was simply that, well things happen, everybody was running FF jungler every single game mind you. FF was only somewhat balanced near the very end of its life time.

So what does this mean? Nothing, win rate by itself doesn't tell you anything.

Also, small population can inflate a champion's win rate while large population deflates it.

It's precisely that this ISN'T a 1v1 game hence you SHOULDN'T auto win just because you're good with 1 particular champ. Give it some time to think.

FHMarshyFeb 18, 20151 votes

And what was wrong with FF? And seriously, to me your argument is basing on NO ground. If only a small population of people can inflate a champion's win rate while more people CANT, then to me by definition, that champion is balanced since he/she actually is only good in the hands of those that know how to play them.

Exactly the fact that since it is not a 1v1 game, among a team of 5, if there EXIST a zed or a lee, there is more than half of the chances of losing. How is that not an indicator that the champion is more of a negative impact on the team than positive?

SEKAIFeb 18, 20153 votes

EDIT: Oh wow you shitting me, I spend my time typing all my stuff then it deletes everything, fk I will type a shorter version later.

Well since all my stuff is lost I can't be bothered to remember them back, let's just use your own argument and look up some stats with me.

LoLPortal seems to have stopped working after S3 but it collected all the Lee's previous performance in pro scene which is this:

Banned: 322
Wins: 137
Losses: 113
**Winning Percentage: 54.8% **

In S4 Worlds though, Lee is:

% P&B: 92.31%
% W: 55.81%
% PICK: 55.13%
% BAN: 37.18%

Even you would agree with me by now.

FHMarshyFeb 18, 20151 votes

So you are taking the Elite part of the population and use THEIR stats to fit all in the community.

With someone as logical as you (I mean it sincerely, I've yet to have someone that debates instead of rage with emotion on this forum), I'd say you have to agree with me on the point that those Stats are one of the worst to judge a champion on. It only takes in the elite of the elite and their skills, communication, experience, and mechanics for the stats.

The majority of games are played in ranked Solo Q where half of the population is below silver 3.

And the link i posted at the top top top of this debate ACTUALLY takes in ALL stats across SoloQ and concluded that their win rate is below 50%.

SEKAIFeb 18, 20152 votes

This game was, is and will always not be balanced according to solo queue as it was simply not made that way.

Much like how you wouldn't nerf Yi just because he is rek'ing noobs in B5, it's just not right.

This is a team game at its core, and as such it is balanced around the highest level of play or at least somewhere near there and as it shows, Lee is too strong when teamwork is actually a thing.

FHMarshyFeb 18, 20151 votes

I agree that at the high levels with enough communication and teamwork, Lee provides great asset to the team. However, my whole point of argument from the start is that we should NOT nerf Lee for the fact that he is dominating for only a small population of the community.

In my opinion, if Lee is nerfed to fit the high Elo players, you will never EVER see him get any action anywhere else due the the fact that he will most likely lose.(Given the fact that in more than half of the game he is in, the team loses already)

SmokingPuffinFeb 18, 20152 votes

Lee isn't the end of all the problems in LoL, no, strictly speaking he's the beginning of it all.

The beginning of all the problems in LoL is Ashe. She broke the game long before Lee existed.

SEKAIFeb 18, 20152 votes

At least she didn't spawn a legion of game ruiners following her wake, well not in the same fashion as what Lee created.

Adc's used to take turns to be OP, the Lee follow-ups are just broken together.

SmokingPuffinFeb 18, 20153 votes

Ashe was the reason bruisers were made. They remain the biggest design mistake in League history.

Lee, to the extent he did anything (he was a unique snowflake in League design for a long time), he was the harbinger of hypermobile, high skill cap, generalist champions like Riven, Jayce, and Zed. This legacy is much more comfortable than Ashe's, I think.

cFlameFeb 18, 20152 votes

Can I just get a PM or something from a Rioter explaining why the hell Lee Sin is never toned down at LEAST?

Slamurai JackFeb 19, 20152 votes

The answer to this question is simple. Riot, like me, thinks that Lee is more or less fine, and all the complaining about him is massively overblown. Riot's not going to change Lee anymore because they've already toned him down in the past and thinks he is fine.

eyes wide shutFeb 19, 20151 votes

this. so much this that I can't even.

InsaneSamuraiFeb 19, 20151 votes

Cool, where'd they say this?

Slamurai JackFeb 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Cool, where'd they say this?

The fact that Riot continues to ignore the plethora of qq threads posted about Lee every single day tells you exactly how they feel about him. Riot thinks he's fine, as does the majority of the league community considering he is banned in less than 3% of games.