Are We Really Going To Start Another Season Without Addressing Damage Creep?

Sanguine Blade existing and being abused by everyone from support Sion to Twitch to Zed. Twice the lethality in the game as last season. Ender Dragon one-shots for 20% hp champs. "Note that the 20% threshold looks higher than it is in practice: You'll rarely bring an enemy to exactly 19.9% before they go boom" OH. OH REALLY. Yeah, it's not like we have champs whose entire kits are centric around the concept of being low on HP. No HP Sustain/damage from being low on HP/resurrection champs in the game. None at all. And there are also no healers that could heal a 19.9% target up to where it could survive. Not a single one.

Like, yay, you finally (after an entire season of it being overpowered) nerfed the true damage off conqueror (though you made it viable on ranged champs and upped its healing making it just as strong before, just not as auto-win versus tanks), only to add so much more lethality to the game as well as a %HP execute so that tanks are in an even worse spot then they were before.

Jungle XP has been reworked again to make ganking punishing and drags are more important than ever, so damage focused junglers will reign supreme. Why would you ever play Sej when she can't contest early drakes and her early ganks are very hit or miss? So what if you burn a flash, you're now a level and a half behind and being behind as a tank means you die a fraction of a second slower than your AD carry.

Neat, Mountain drakes grant bonus resistances. Too bad the added damage creep in the game means that even a four stacked mountain drake tank champ is going to be melted within three or four seconds. You don't get to be tanky.

I know, Riot, that high damage is better for pro play. When everyone pops like a balloon upon impact it makes the splashy bright colors that make the big brains buy tickets to your eSport. It just also happens to make for some of the most strategically bankrupt, macro inept, and unsatisfying gameplay to have ever hit the rift since AP Master Yi was allowed to be a thing.

I won't stand for this for another season. I can't. I'm a support main first, and a tank main second. You guys have spent every single individual patch since early season 7 removing supports and tanks from the game. Damage and mobility keep going higher, and higher, and higher, and higher. Utility and defense keep going lower, and lower, and lower, and lower. It isn't a coincidence that two of the newest "supports" are carries (Pyke, Senna) and the one "support" that has also been successful is because of the damage they grant their carry while they remain untargetable. Ivern's been removed from the game. Healers are practically useless. Tanks end up being squishier than Bruisers, fighters, and even some assassins with a sustain item and Conq, no more. Traditional supports get nerfed out of oblivion for defense and utility and get their damage buffed up so high it's actually braindead (tahm kench) or just quietly get nerfed out of playability (Karma).

Like, neat, I'm so glad you now have AD support items. Pyke really needed the buff, thanks.

Look, I'm not advocating for the tank meta to come back. But if we could make playstyles that aren't locking in a mobile carry and building full damage viable again I'd be happy. But if this damage keeps up, I'm not going to play.

I won't be able to bring myself to do so. I finally climbed to plat last season. Yet despite climbing higher than I ever have, I have never felt like I had less control over my elo during a season than that one. I don't play fighters, carry's, juggernauts, or assassins. I don't play hyper-carry mages. I don't want to, it's not what I find enjoyable. But every year that goes by where this mess isn't addressed I feel like I'm punished for the supportive playstyle.

I'm punished for focusing on team-wide macro play. I'm punished for playing a CC or utility-focused champ. I'm punished for itemizing for my allies rather than myself. I'm punished for building defensive when behind and not feeding, rather than continuing to build damage.

So let's fix it this preseason shall we?