Why we won't see a damage nerf

FreshAsFebreze·Oct 17, 2016·37 votes·2,736 views

Riot made a big statement about making games shorter, and how did they go about that? Increasing damage across the board and potentially making snowballing easier. Why they decided this is beyond me but I highly doubt they come out and say "Oh our bad, we shortened games the wrong way.". I am 100% a supporter of a damage nerf, in which games would need more team play and tactical decisions instead of team fights lasting 8 seconds or getting insta-deleted in a warded bush. However, Riots going to let their decisions settle for at least a couple seasons.

45 Comments

NodaYame127Oct 17, 201611 votes

The problems we have with the whole damage thing is harder to fix than just lowering every champion and items damage a notch. What needs to be fixed is a bit more complicated but who knows preseason is coming and it's the best time to give them GOOD feedback on the pbe content to make season 7 better than all of them.

I know some of you might not listen or say I sound dumb but that's how things operate when communicating with your game devs, Look at how much feedback we gave for skins and they changed them and they will change many things they're still on pbe.[slayer-pantheon-rainbows]

EndlessSorcererOct 17, 201610 votes

Honestly, masteries are probably the main cause of the damage issue. They contain many methods of damage amplification such as:

Sorcery
Flat/Percentage Armor/MR Penetration
Executioner
Bounty Hunter/Oppressor
Fervor of Battle
Thunderlord's Decree
Deathfire Touch
Grasp of the Undying

In comparison, most of the useful defensive masteries have been removed. The only decent ones left are pretty much Strength of the Ages, Bond of Stone, Windspeaker's Blessing (situational) and Legendary Guardian (often forgone for Tenacious).

If there were more useful defensive masteries, then damage creep would be a bit less of an issue.

NodaYame127Oct 18, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, masteries are probably the main cause of the damage issue. They contain many methods of damage amplification such as:

Sorcery

Flat/Percentage Armor/MR Penetration

Executioner

Bounty Hunter/Oppressor

Fervor of Battle

Thunderlord's Decree

Deathfire Touch

Grasp of the Undying

In comparison, most of the useful defensive masteries have been removed. The only decent ones left are pretty much Strength of the Ages, Bond of Stone, Windspeaker's Blessing (situational) and Legendary Guardian (often forgone for Tenacious).

If there were more useful defensive masteries, then damage creep would be a bit less of an issue. Personally i think DFT is not doing that badly in terms of balanced damage since it usually gets regened in a few seconds

LankPantsOct 17, 20167 votes

The problems we have with the whole damage thing is harder to fix than just lowering every champion and items damage a notch.

It's actually not as hard as you'd expect. If you want to nerf damage on particular problem champs what you do is nerf armour pen and buff up armour a little. Most of the problems with damage do come from the AD side of things, there may be a few cases of AP champs but they're so few and far between that it's better just to handle them with focused changes.

What people actually mean when they say damage is to high is that it's impossible to tank for shit. What you'll find is that when tanks are in a solid state the damage in the game 'goes down'. This is because tanks exert control, when there's a tank in the game it's harder for an assassin to slip onto a carry or for a burst mage to land a combo.

Right now however it's very hard to play tanks. When you pick a tank you have to deal with an absurd amount of armour pen and super high damage based ADCs. It's actually borderline impossible to tank damage from many of the played champs right now, you can't tank champs like Yasou, Jhin, Vayne or Lucian. They do too much damage and have too many ways of trivialising your armour.

Keystones are also a pretty huge problem. Fevour especially is just disgusting. I don't understand why Riot thinks it's OK for ranged champs to get full damage off of this keystone, they should only get 50% of the value and the base value should probably also take a small hit.

6SfoolOct 17, 20167 votes

I remember when I could tank an entire team's projectiles (including mf's entire ult) as Braum, and still be able to stay in the teamfight. Now whenever I see Jhin set up for ult and I'm anything less than full health I'm like "you're on your own." Armor pen is ridiculous now. Any item that negates 50% of bonus armor just ruins the purpose of tanks, especially when paired with % health damage. I know Riot brought this in to end the era of supertanks, but this is just unhealthy. Supertanks were a problem because some tanks innately had too much damage and could kill squishies before they could get focused down, so Riot could have fixed this problem the same way they recently changed Ekko. Make it so that champs sacrifice damage for tankiness when building items or using masteries.

Armor pen is most of the cause of the current problem, since it really has no counters. Black Cleaver is fine, since it takes a while to build up the reduction and it just makes it easier to keep the frontliners in check. There is way too much flat armor pen in the game. It should be a neat little bonus stat that helps squishies kill squishies, not something you build to deal true damage to every champ in the game. The worst of it all is Last Whisper and its full items. They do some serious damage to tanks, but I'd say that mortal reminder hurts Aatrox more than Mundo, and GIant Slayer is just toxic. An ADC's have some of the lowest health values in the game, so every fighter feels the full effect of the giant slayer passive. If an adc takes out the fighters in 2 sec, a team's frontline damage is just gone, and then the adc just has to kill the other adc before their own tanks are gone.

Last season, teamfights were more dynamic, and I could read what was going down and understand why we won or lost it. Now every teamfight is over in 5 sec and tends to go to whatever team hits first and follows up fastest.

ZT XperimentorOct 26, 20161 votes

Such a painful truth; back when positioning mattered and teamfights were like a chess board. Now it's like a mob of paparazzi racing to get the face of a celebrity; no tactics, nothing interesting; just a bunch of special effects for the sake of being obvious.

NodaYame127Oct 18, 20162 votes

{quoted}

It's actually not as hard as you'd expect. If you want to nerf damage on particular problem champs what you do is nerf armour pen and buff up armour a little. Most of the problems with damage do come from the AD side of things, there may be a few cases of AP champs but they're so few and far between that it's better just to handle them with focused changes.

What people actually mean when they say damage is to high is that it's impossible to tank for shit. What you'll find is that when tanks are in a solid state the damage in the game 'goes down'. This is because tanks exert control, when there's a tank in the game it's harder for an assassin to slip onto a carry or for a burst mage to land a combo.

Right now however it's very hard to play tanks. When you pick a tank you have to deal with an absurd amount of armour pen and super high damage based ADCs. It's actually borderline impossible to tank damage from many of the played champs right now, you can't tank champs like Yasou, Jhin, Vayne or Lucian. They do too much damage and have too many ways of trivialising your armour.

Keystones are also a pretty huge problem. Fevour especially is just disgusting. I don't understand why Riot thinks it's OK for ranged champs to get full damage off of this keystone, they should only get 50% of the value and the base value should probably also take a small hit.

Yeah I agree there but you have to admit this is more than jusr lowering all damage which is what people like to say and it doesn't give enough feedback for it to be a good suggestion. Your comment is a better example of good and constructive feedback

Commit SudokuOct 17, 20165 votes

riot has decreased the upper end of games not an overall shift down for shorter games instead over average game length being 30-50 minutes its more like 30-45 minutes

MunchCrunchLunchOct 17, 20162 votes

most of my games are around 25-35 minutes long. idk what elo you play in but am gold

Commit SudokuOct 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

most of my games are around 25-35 minutes long. idk what elo you play in but am gold

i was saying that as an example of what i meant by lowering the upper limit of game times

venomous frostOct 17, 20164 votes

season 6 was the least snowbally season, except for cinderhulk meta and preseason clown fiestas.

there hasn't been an increase in damage, why don't you show some stats and facts instead of shouting that there is too much damage.

Very Hard EngageOct 17, 20164 votes

theres less snowballing because towers were made stronger earlier and given better targeting. this leads to less towerdives, gone are the days where a rammus, maokai, seju with just a chainvest would towerdive gank you at level 4~5. even lee sin master towerdiver does it less and less these days.

so when behind its easier to towerfarm.

by no means was snowballing made more difficult in a 1v1 setting, we have thunderlords and extra % damage increases now than before. its so imperative not to die once in any lane without coming back gimped.

so thats what has shifted, instead of dueling it out and you being 7/8 after lane from constantly brawling and killing eachother you now get 2-0 were screwed now moments. any gold lead has much more of an impact now than it did in previous seasons.

back in the old days if you had a lead and bought a large rod, had 2 items you had a great big lead and huge dominance, but as soon as your enemy laner got their first item too they had kill pressure now as well, even though you had a whole item advantage you could still die in a 1v1 against him. so that meant skillful players won.

now we have item nerfs across the board and you need more items to successfully duel, so having an item advantage is more impactul.

people are more hesitant to go in and duke it out knowing if it isn't assured its not worth it.

look at LCS games, 0-0 24mins in. gone are the days of level 1 invades and 5v5.

riots been favoring laning phase and making solid leads at assuring who comes out ahead will have a strong impact on the rest of the game.

LankPantsOct 17, 20161 votes

look at LCS games, 0-0 24mins in. gone are the days of level 1 invades and 5v5.

Yeh, this is more due to players actually being far better at the game today than they were back in the older seasons. If you went and dumped current Liquid into a game against CLG EU in their prime Liquid would dominate them. The knowledge and theory in the pro scene has come a long way since lv 1 invades actually worked.

Very Hard EngageOct 17, 20164 votes

ok lets look at SKT vs C9

game one, C9 won lane they won game against SKT. cheesed with zyra support caught em off guard lots of times.

rest of the matches SKT won lane and won the game regardless of powerplays made by C9. continued to rack up kill after kill even though C9 held favorable positions and often picked a support before the fight started.

LankPantsOct 17, 20161 votes

rest of the matches SKT won lane and won the game regardless of powerplays made by C9. continued to rack up kill after kill even though C9 held favorable positions and often picked a support before the fight started.

Yes, SKT is a far better team than C9 so C9s plays tend to be lower impact because SKT does things to mitigate even their best plays. I don't understand exactly what you're arguing here.

Very Hard EngageOct 17, 20163 votes

win lane win game.

C9 an inferior team managed to beat SKT because of it.

LankPantsOct 17, 20161 votes

Win lane win game is a legit strategy that some of the teams at worlds use, in fact half of the teams left at worlds use it.

It's still different to lv 1 cheeses which are generally a bad idea in pro play because they tend to backfire more often than they work, especially any cheese involving going for a hard kill.

Advantages in pro play tend to be incremental, since the only way to really gain a large advantage is off of a mistake and it's unreasonable to expect a pro team to make that many mistakes.

Teams who play win lane win game tend to play around pressure and objectives because the chance of a pro team giving you enough kills to snowball the game is slim.

Basically this is where knowledge has evolved. Teams in S2 and 3 tended to try to force things too hard, be it ganks or objectives and that opened up kills. They played around less vision and took more risks. Part of getting better was not doing that.

Very Hard EngageOct 17, 20163 votes

which goes back to my original statement, its easier to win lane and stay ahead now than it was before.

so rather than chance it and assure victory, they play passively and the situation never occurs, not that it wouldn't be highly desirable and favorable.

in the old days everyone could kill everyone if they built damage and the enemy player was also building just damage.

that doesn't happen anymore. because items are weaker overall; the lead generated is more impactful and hes going to have a much easier time killing you than you are him. its no longer about dodging important skill shots or initiating first, its more important to possess a gold lead.

Sagan ForeverOct 18, 20161 votes

When did c9 beat skt?

Very Hard EngageOct 18, 20161 votes

i want to say saturday night..... it was the semi finals..... they were still in groups and in the best of 5 C9 beat skt in the first round, then STK won 3 in a row.

RivuoOct 18, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sagan Forever,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Tiew4uNB,comment-id=000000000000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2016-10-18T02:29:47.659+0000)

When did c9 beat skt?

They didnt... they won only like 1 gamea out of 5.. SKT sweeped em hard after

Sagan ForeverOct 19, 20161 votes

Wasn't that RNG?

LankPantsOct 17, 201611 votes

Season Two was the least snowbally season. There's not even a debate about this. The meta was literally Tank Junglers, Control and Carry Mages, Hypercarries, Defensive supports and Bruisers who could fall back on farm. Games in season two were normally decided at around 30-40 minutes.

venomous frostOct 17, 20163 votes

LOL if you died once in s2 you would be behind 2 levels and get towerdove again and again.

level snowballing was a thing in s2

LankPantsOct 17, 20169 votes

You could also turtle a game for an hour if you wanted. Snowballing in S2 really didn't mean that much, a champ like Anivia or Orianna could just take the game to 6 items if they felt like it.

You had to get snowballed on super hard in S2 before it mattered and the champs who were played were generally not well equipped for snowballing.

And yes, level snowballing was a thing, but you couldn't towerdive in the same way you can now for two reasons. Firstly the meta champs weren't great at it, you can't dive a tower with an Ezreal a Janna and a Nautilus, they just don't have the right ways to properly deal with tower agro like a Lee Sin or Elise would now. Secondly Season 2 towers hit like a ton of bricks. Two towershots in S2 were about the same as 3 towershots today. Champs also had less HP at lower levels, so towers were way more threatening than they are now.

If you go back and watch competitive games from S2 you'll understand what I mean when I say it wasn't snowbally. 50 minutes was around the mean game time for competitive games at that point. The reason it would have felt more snowbally overall is because you were newer to the game. Snowballs were easy to start in season 2, but they were also easy to mitigate. If you're newer to the game that's not always the case though as you may not know how to mitigate the snowball properly and may just fall victim to it even when you had the tools to deal with it.

AlüeOct 17, 20163 votes

it also gave meaning to late game champions like Karthus

Bladerunner7777Oct 17, 20161 votes

That sounds fun to you?

LankPantsOct 17, 20161 votes

It was incredibly fun.

yoshi2790Oct 17, 20162 votes

season 6 was the least snowbally season, except for cinderhulk meta

Pretty sure CinderHulk Meta was Season 5.

venomous frostOct 17, 20161 votes

yes i said this season was the least snowbally season, implying every season was less snowbally than the other 1, except for the cinderhulk meta in s5

EndlessSorcererOct 17, 20168 votes

Keystone masteries have greatly increased damage across the board.

Combined with the removal of most defensive masteries, damage has been amplified and defenses have been reduced.

You can't really deny that Fervor of Battle, Deathfire Touch, Thunderlord's Decree and Grasp of the Undying have all done quite a bit to cause this issue.

Heck, it is part of the reason we have seen so many assassins building tank this seasons; they don't need as many offensive items to kill their targets and they need more defensive items to survive in fights.

LovelleOct 17, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=venomous frost,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Tiew4uNB,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2016-10-17T13:11:23.342+0000)

season 6 was the least snowbally season, except for cinderhulk meta and preseason clown fiestas.

there hasn't been an increase in damage, why don't you show some stats and facts instead of shouting that there is too much damage.

Season 2 was one of the least snowbally that I've played, back when HoG, Philo Stone, Kage's, and Rice blade were still a thing. Now only supports get real access to passive gold gain.

FreshAsFebrezeOct 17, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=venomous frost,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Tiew4uNB,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2016-10-17T13:11:23.342+0000)

season 6 was the least snowbally season, except for cinderhulk meta and preseason clown fiestas.

there hasn't been an increase in damage, why don't you show some stats and facts instead of shouting that there is too much damage.

What about the massive increase in cooldown reduction on items? What's one way to get mages to output more damage? Make it a lot easier to achieve maximum cooldown reduction to, therefore, spam your spells a lot more. And 45% bonus armor reduction? Why even buy armor when almost half of it is gone from one item?

Earl EulrichOct 18, 20163 votes

and unfortunatly that doesn´t even achieve shortening games, as now that they got rid of strategy most teams just have no clue how to close out games and many games end in throws, counterthrows and clown fiestas...

it´s just sad compared to it´s previous s1-4glory.

DengedenOct 17, 20162 votes

There's also no evidence that it exists. You talk of how short teamfights are but fail to cite any examples.

Riot made it so everyone does damage, always, yes because it's dumb to play any champion and be forced to afk farm for 10-15 min to accomplish anything. This might've increased early game damage a little, left the rest as is, maybe even nerfed it, since there's less %increased damage in masteries.

FreshAsFebrezeOct 17, 20165 votes

{quoted}

There's also no evidence that it exists. You talk of how short teamfights are but fail to cite any examples.

Riot made it so everyone does damage, always, yes because it's dumb to play any champion and be forced to afk farm for 10-15 min to accomplish anything. This might've increased early game damage a little, left the rest as is, maybe even nerfed it, since there's less %increased damage in masteries.

I would just play garen in past seasons just to be in the way and cause shifts of the enemies. Seasons ago, you could build a full tank garen and not get annihilated in a matter of seconds due to crit strikes and armor pen. I loved playing tanks, just because of CC and annoyance. Could give two shits about kills. Now, garen's top win build via champion.gg says to go black cleaver and duskblade. I've said this multiple times and it may just be me, but this season I have seen the largest crits in my play time which started in S2. A jhin criting for 2302 shouldnt be allowed.

DengedenOct 17, 20161 votes

It's Garen, he's an F tier champion. Don't play him in SR. He offers nothing for his team and gets bullied way too easily.

When I roll him in ARAM, he's pretty unkillable if I play it right, offtank or fulltank.

It's Jhin, he has high AD and no AS. Tanks counter him tbh. Build Randuin's. And don't stand near him with negative health when he has his 4th shot up. It's an execute.

SpoofghoulOct 17, 20162 votes

you know, if they want to fix damage they can just remove armor/magic pen

SasogwaOct 18, 20162 votes

The problem with such a high damage meta is it heavily favours the most despised kind of champions : high mobility, kite and high CC champions. If you just need to CC them a bit and kite them a bit and everyone dies, there's a problem and you either need to nerf damage, or to nerf escape mobility/CC

DukuesOct 17, 20161 votes

Honestly people keep bitching about snowballing but its not that bad. The pros play a lot of 35+ games, half the streamers in challenger I watch play 40+ games like every other game... most the games I have played this season have been 35+. Like wtf honestly do you people want...... silver games are finally like 45 mins instead of always over 50 I am sure bronze games are still always close to 50 half gold games are over 40 and same for low gold - high plat.

So who the f is complaining about game times???? I am not going to even look but assume your rank is like diamond 4-plat 3. Its not the rest of the communities fault that you guys literally want to give up after First blood....

Just play your damn games out and I grantee you will see longer games times and some throws.

Edit: lol damn I was wrong :(. You mid gold honestly not sure what you want. Have not seen a problem with short games unless every lane losses for one team, which lets face it.... if that's the case then yea the game should be over.

TeCoolMageOct 17, 20161 votes

Honestly, it's because of the gap between tanks and damage dealers.

Armour penetration needs to be nerfed a bit

There needs to be more items like Zhonya's, Guardian's Angel, Maw of Malmortius and Banshee's Veil for those who build damage and therefore synergise better with items that also give a bit of damage, or have a passive that is effective regardless of whether you built other tanky items or not (thornmail requires more armour, Sunfire requires you to be in range, while Banshee's veil is always useful)

That way the super tanky juggernauts, those that build titanic hydra, etc and the champions that want to output their damage to some degree even if focused on can all contribute to the teamfight without being completely nullified or deleted

YoureSquiddingMeOct 17, 20161 votes

Damage isn't even increased, it just seems like it because of the lack of good early game mitigation stats in masteries and items.

Full build AP values used to be 1k and 1100 or so with blue pot and baron. A few champions had builds that went over 1200-1600 regularly like Kathus and Veigar. It's difficult to break 700 now. Tanks used to rock 200-300 armor and 150-200MR easily and I hardly see that anymore because noone builds 5 tank items. Bruiser items are a thing now, which also give bruisers enough damage to solo carries. Attack speed and crit were lowered on a ton of items over a couple of preseasons, and you don't have the riven/rengar red pot oneshotting you cheese anymore, nor do you have the sion starting E and walking into lane with 120 damage at level 1.

Thunderlords and fervor are a factor in this as well. Damage is just a little higher early game because of the lack of mitigation in flat AR/MR and the flat reduction from minions and champions, and extra damage added, while late game damage is pretty bad compared to what it used to be.

HazyCloud7Oct 17, 20161 votes

I'd be surprised if the upcoming changes to how armor pen works and armor pen items in general (whatever they may be) don't alleviate this a little bit.

AirKingNeoOct 18, 20161 votes

No it's because Riot doesn't feel like nerfing for whatever reason.

Look at Jax. Irelia, Riven, Kennen, Jayce, Gnar, and Malphite have all gotten buffs. They also got no nerfs. Now that they're all better than they used to be, a Jax with no buffs to match them is outclassed and useless. Hence why Jax is garbage now.

chipndip1Oct 18, 20161 votes

Wait...but they already nerfed damage, and that's part of why we had tank items on assassins and skirmishers for a spell. We also have relatively normal game lengths again. We won't be seeing damage nerfs because there's no point to nerfing damage more at this point.