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The 8.1 Resolve tree changes ruined Supports (and other champs too).

mSticky·1/10/2018, 3:59:16 PM·4 votes·2,447 views

The 8.1 Resolve tree changes now cause selecting the Resolve tree to grant 65 HP and half of the stats of the other category you selected.

If you're not a top lane or jungling bruiser, these changes are absolutely awful. ** TL;DR. The new Resolve tree changes suck. Rito should just tag on extra health to the Resolve secondary tree and stop messing around with stat distributions. **

Consider shield/heal supports like Lulu Nami Soraka Janna , all of whom traditionally run an Aery Sorcery page and Font of Life and Revitalize in Resolve for maximum healing/shielding potential. In order to have the most amount of laning impact, enchanters traditionally try to maximize their AP in the laning phase. However, instead of an optimal "pure AP" start (Sorcery stats + item 3303 ), enchanters running resolve must now start with a random 65 HP that doesn't help them pressure their opponents early.

Tank supports have it even worse. Consider an Alistar page running an Aftershock Resolve page with Triumph and Legend: Tenacity in Precision. What was once a respectable 130 HP rune bonus is now 65 HP and 9% attack speed. 9% attack speed? That's nothing compared to 65 extra hp level 1. Another example: consider a Taric running a Guardian Resolve tree page and Manaflow Band and Transcendence in Sorcery. This Taric now loses 65 HP for... 10 AP? Again, an awful trade.

"Dude, -vapes- it's like, only 65 hp. Stop overreacting and just -inhales- play league.

There are several reasons why this bothers me.

  1. Absolutely no one was complaining about the Resolve tree or its role in the preseason meta, but Rito threw this hybrid stat garbage at us anyway.
  2. These changes were made because Riot wants ressurect the "good ol' days" back when we all ran 21/0/9 and 0/21/9 masteries. We have FIVE pages to choose from now. Resolve can be a niche secondary pick and that's perfectly fine. It's 2018 lol.

But here's the big one: **These changes hurt build diversity when speccing into the Resolve tree. **One of the greatest things about these new S8 runes is that we can mix and match runes with much more freedom than we could previously. Most champs have a primary tree and keystone that's their "default" pick (Aftershock Rammus , Electrocute LeeSin , Arcane Comet Lux , etc.), but there is generally an accepted amount of player freedom when picking a secondary tree because you know that you'll get the full stat bonuses of your primary tree regardless of what you pick. **Because the HP + other core stat split happens regardless of whether Resolve is the primary or secondary tree, players speccing into Resolve will have to think long and hard about whether their jumbled stats can compete against more optimized opponents. **"Well, my Karma mid doesn't want to trade 10 starting AP for 65 HP, so I'm just gonna run a Precision secondary instead of Resolve." Or, "So my Sion top really needs to be as tanky as possible, so I have to take Resolve and Inspiration so I get my full HP bonus and not some stats I won't use past 5 minutes." These changes make it harder to spec into Resolve, not easier, and that's just terrible design. ** Here are some solutions I would like to see instead of this hybrid stat change. **

  1. **Grant an additional 30 - 40 hp bonus to champs who run Resolve as a secondary tree. ** Nothing gamebreaking, something in line with the old Veteran's Scars. A QoL health buff that says "we get it, these secondary runes kind of suck. Here, take some health along with those." This would be in addition to the FULL benefits of whatever primary tree they chose.

OR

  1. BUFF THE SECONDARY TALENTS IN RESOLVE. Make Unflinching something that would appeal to a wider variety of champs. Make Second Wind something that has a noticeable impact on laning. If Riot wants more people to use the Resolve secondary tree, they should make the secondary talents better and rebalance Resolve primary tree users accordingly.

Comments and feedback welcome. Really hoping we can get a Rioter to look at this before we get too deep into S8.

20 Comments

Salron1/10/2018, 4:24:15 PM2 votes

Yeah it also sucks for a lot of other people too I ran resolve secondary with Mirror shield and second wind on ADC vs poke lanes, but now I lose 9% AS for that Or if i'm Yasuo I now lose AS which is very important on him for capping Q CD

DODGEORLOSE1/10/2018, 4:31:02 PM1 votes

It did not "ruin" supports. It reduces the power of tank supports.

Whisper871/10/2018, 5:19:25 PM1 votes

I think the change to Resolve secondary is good, and the changes to Resolve primary bad. Here's why:

  1. Enchanters like Soraka and Janna are not supposed to be oppressive in lane. They are defensive supports. The idea behind the new runes was to give people stylized play with a specific goal in mind. So if you want to play ANY support effectively in an aggressive fashion, you will have to choose to take a significant hit to defensive power. It's not an unforeseen side effect, it's an intentional change on Riot's part. They are trying to kill well-rounded "good 90% of the time" builds, in favor of allowing people to play more how they want to. I have been playing Janna at over 50% winrate since like season 2, and I have traditionally build her pure utility and defense. Last season I had 0 AP or AD in my Janna rune page and it worked just fine. Soraka and Janna should be like Tank tops, they just kind of neutralize lane, not actually win it. Soraka in particular is too reliably poking people out of lane right now IMO. Bullies like Nami, Lulu, and Karma already had more damage than the other enchanters to being with, and now Aeri gives more damage, so they don't need the extra 9AP or whatever to do their job.

  2. The change to Resolve primary is mindboggling to me. Why is Riot obsessed with giving damage to non-damage carries? All last season people bitched about tanks doing too much damage, so let's give them some AP/AD?

RIOT HAS TO START MOVING THE GAME AWAY FROM THE IDEA THAT DAMAGE IS THE ONE TRUE GOD AND THE ONLY WAY FOR SOMETHING TO BE VIABLE IS TO DO GOOD DAMAGE.

Seriously, if you want tanks to be better early, make them TANKY early, not damaging. Don't give them a tool to win lane, they aren't designed for that. If anything, buff the HP from Resolve primary so it feels good to take it. I'd say remove Aftershock, and put Courage of Colossus in it's place again. Rather than giving them a tool to win lane and win trades, give them a tool to become that front line meat shield earlier with shitty damage, so they don't win lane, but rather tp bot right at lvl 6 for a team fight where they actually tank for the team. This is their identity and what they are built for, not bursting people.

If utility supports are not strong enough, buff their utility, NOT THEIR DAMAGE. If tank supports are weak, make them tankier and/or maybe buff their utility a touch too. I know I know, the casuals will bitch and moan about how annoying it is to play against really strong utility. But it's better than making the game as one dimensionally focused around damaged and aggression like it is now (which is fun in theory, but becomes boring when every game starts to feel the same).

dunder kill1/10/2018, 5:37:11 PM1 votes

LOLWUT? Where were you for all the threads about tanks shitting on everything with Aftershock? Level 3 Leona does more burst than an assassin. Pretty sure everyone was complaining about how oppressive shit likeLeona Alistar Ornn Maokai is.

The Enchanter complaint is laughable. Gain 65 health in exchange for sorakas heal giving 3 less health you can't be serious. Yeah hard nerfed kek. As we all know Enchanters are "aggressive" supports

LuckyGnom1/19/2018, 7:57:55 AM1 votes

I am sorry, but someone needs to tell you this.

  1. First of all your statements are irrelevant due to you being silver player second season in a row. You have no idea how this game works and especially on a support role. http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=MattUSticky
  2. You don't even know right runes for the champions in todays meta. Almost nobody takes Revitalize on shield supports in KR or CN. Almost nobody takes Resolve on tank supports in KR or CN. This changes has no effect on supports, because this runes aren't used for supports.

Now strike me down with furious anger, because I touched your ego, but it won't change the fact that I am operating with facts while you operate with random silver elo things.