what does riot actually gain by making champions trash and leaving them there for years?

Big Lincoln·Nov 5, 2016·2 votes·260 views

I doubt anyone's quit because a champion was too good, but I guarantee plenty have left because their champion was thrown in the dumpster

what does Riot get by actively reducing the available pool of champions?

As far as I can tell, they're only losing money from this; Shaco and Shen aren't even offensive champions.

Even as much as I despise Kalista and Azir as someone who's very fond of melee champions, I would rather see them at least 1% of my games rather than a flurry of Jhin, Lucian, Ezreal, Cait bot and then Viktor and Orianna and Cass mid every single game. For people who preach so about diversity, they sure don't practice it very well.

4 Comments

EedatNov 5, 20162 votes

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/cwfTKBxg-riot-meddler-shen-is-the-worst-top-laner-now-because-of-618-nerfs-when-can-we-expect-the-buffs?comment=0001

Our current plan is to look at Shen buffs in 6.23 or 6.24 (which depends on how much pre-season response work's needed). We'll also be looking at other champions like Azir and Kalista around the same time for possible small changes. They both need bigger work, but we'd like to see what we can do in the meantime until then, given that larger scoped work wouldn't be for a fair while.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/cwfTKBxg-riot-meddler-shen-is-the-worst-top-laner-now-because-of-618-nerfs-when-can-we-expect-the-buffs?comment=000100010000

I suspect we'll have to keep Kalista weak until we can make some significant changes to her. She's got too many strengths which means she crowds out other marksmen pretty hard if at a useful power level. What we're going to look at though is whether she needs to be as extremely weak as she is at present, or whether we've got some room to buff her.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/cwfTKBxg-riot-meddler-shen-is-the-worst-top-laner-now-because-of-618-nerfs-when-can-we-expect-the-buffs?comment=00010001000000000000

Both Kalista and Azir are representative of a period where in hindsight I think we tunnel visioned too much on uniqueness at the expense of some aspects of game health (overloaded kits) and skill floors. That's resulted in some champs who have really cool stuff on their kits, but have been challenges to balance for regular play versus top tier play. My take is that there are solid concepts there, but that the execution on them needs some work (reducing unnecessary strengths primarily, and putting that power into other parts of the kit, giving clearer weaknesses to play around).

-Meddler

dakota saturnNov 5, 20162 votes

Most of the champs you listed are extremely frustrating when they're ahead and lack any meaningful counterplay when the person playing them is decent.

Compare Annie when fed to Azir before the nerfs. For Annie, as long as you don't group together in a teamfight, she can only really blow up 1-2 people at a time and has to get right in their face to do it. Azir could completely wreck teamfights with his soldiers and wall from complete safety, then turn your own turrets against you during pushes.

Compare Kalista to a fed Ashe if you're playing a fed toplaner. Ashe can be outplayed - dodge her stun/volley, catch her out of position, punish her when her support is stunned. Good luck getting near a Kalista with her spirit watchdogs and constant jumping. Oh, and if you manage to catch her support out of position, nope, she'll just grab them and throw them at you.

Shaco ? really? You're going to pretend this dude is ok? Just him simply being in the game means you can't play aggro at all. You have to let your enemy free farm. Enemy Nasus top laner and Cho mid? Too bad, you have to deal with them at 40 minutes freefarmed and fully stacked with 4k hp each because there was a Shaco. If he wasn't unpopular he would absolutely be my #1 ban since 2009. At least with Eve you can pink ward gank paths and ward her jungle - she can only move in straight lines. Shaco can come into your lane from any direction, and its impossible to watch for the smoke from every single angle. Just awful fucking champion to play against and I'm so happy he's being nerfed. His mains are also awful people in general.

Nameless VoiceNov 5, 20161 votes

I'm honestly far more likely to quit because a champion a) has a really badly-designed kit that is no fun to play against, b) is strong or at least viable, and c) is popular, than I would be to quit because my main champion was over-nerfed (she has been for years anyway.)

When a champion is weak, it only really affects the mains of that champion (and often they will still play them anyway.) When a champion is both anti-fun and viable/strong, then it affects everyone in the game who has to play against them.