Ryze's pbe nerfs is hitting the wrong places.

Miudmon·Oct 11, 2014·61 votes·7,812 views

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2014/10/1010-pbe-update.html

Rune Prison (W) .45% of max mana scaling removed. Spell Flux (E) .1% of max mana scaling removed.

With these nerfs, they're removing something thematic to ryze, scaling with anohter source of power. it also almost exclusively hits his lategame. his lategame being strong is NOT the problem in my opinion - What is, however, is that he's able to be a lane bully toplane on top of it. i propose that you nerf his bases instead, while still letting him scale into lategame as he is now.

thoughts?

80 Comments

ProfDrDeathOct 11, 201424 votes

Maybe shift some of his base damages to the AP ratios? That way, he wouldn't get immediate gratification out of building mana for his lane bullying, but retain his late-game scaling after Archangel's? And possibly even warrants thinking about a slightly squishier build?

Acolyte of SteelOct 11, 20147 votes

Maybe shift some of his base damages to the AP ratios? That way, he wouldn't get immediate gratification out of building mana for his lane bullying, but retain his late-game scaling after Archangel's? And possibly even warrants thinking about a slightly squishier build?

This is what I was thinking too. Totally removing Ryze's mana scaling goes against his lore, his personality, and makes him potentially worthless as of right now. He won't survive his late game now without the bonus 45% damage scaling; it's just not in his stats to even survive late game. He needs rebalancing and reworking - not nerfed!

"Ryze is no longer just a mage - he has become a creature of magic itself." ― High Councilor Heywan Relivash

This too, in case anyone forgot about the lore... Again...

Ulquiorra995Oct 11, 20147 votes

Maybe shift some of his base damages to the AP ratios? That way, he wouldn't get immediate gratification out of building mana for his lane bullying, but retain his late-game scaling after Archangel's? And possibly even warrants thinking about a slightly squishier build?

This is what I was thinking too. Totally removing Ryze's mana scaling goes against his lore, his personality, and makes him potentially worthless as of right now. He won't survive his late game now without the bonus 45% damage scaling; it's just not in his stats to even survive late game. He needs rebalancing and reworking - not nerfed!

"Ryze is no longer just a mage - he has become a creature of magic itself." ― High Councilor Heywan Relivash

This too, in case anyone forgot about the lore... Again...

This, and a hundred times this. Wreck his bases or manacosts, lower his range - the things that allow him to be a lane bully. DON'T remove one thing iconic to him. He was a generic AP mage once, don't turn him into one again.

johneejamboniOct 11, 20146 votes

[deleted]

Acolyte of SteelOct 12, 20144 votes

Theres no point in being iconic if the champion cant be balanced.

He can easily be balanced. As long as True Damage exists, so can mana damage.

It does add gameplay for the same reason that Zilean's passive adds gameplay, and Darius' bleed adds gameplay. It's part of the champion; thus part of the game - and there's no excuse for it to be removed.

Sailor MintOct 12, 20141 votes

Ryze's identity is a sustained damage single target mage, the mana scalings were added after his rework.

He used to have a weak early and mid-game then transitioned into a tanky short range sustained damage dealer. Right now he has a strong early, slightly weaker midgame and strong lategame.

Removing the mana scaling on his W and E nerfed his early game damage and removed a lot of the free damage he got from his base stats. It also forces his to choose between tank stats and damage.

His AP ratios are already disgustingly high, so swapping a tanky item for a Deathcap is a viable option.

MacbethAndCheeseOct 11, 20141 votes

What about possibly removing base damages entirely (or almost so) and making everything scale with mana/ability power, it would add lore and make him more interesting

TsunBakaOct 12, 20144 votes

Hijacking - another way to keep Ryze being Ryze is make his mana ratios scale up with rank of skill.

So instead of having (eg. 0.5 - I don't play him I don't know ratios) have him scale up his mana scaling per rank of his skill.

That way he keeps his late, but his early becomes much weaker (which we all want)

Kowe The EwokOct 11, 20147 votes

They should touch his lategame surviveability instead of damage. Decrease armor / lvl and leave the damage as it is.

BlazingSalvoOct 11, 20142 votes

That simply pidgeonholes him into the tanky build only, while simultaneously making him weaker overall anyway.

The current change simply means he gets less damage from Frozen Heart, but the same damage from Zhonya's hourglass. Basically it's incentivising an AP build over a tank build for damage which is how it should be.

LeeDarkOct 11, 20145 votes

No, his Q is still his bread and butter. Zhonya's is still going to be a poor choice. It isn't like his AP ratios are buffed. Right now, the nerf simply eliminates the mana scaling.

The current change makes him nothing more than an early game lane bully, and that is not what Ryze was ever supposed to be. His identity is as a late game tanky mage carry. If he is too strong, which I don't think he is, nerf his early game.

BlazingSalvoOct 12, 20141 votes

Hourglass is actually better than Frozen Heart. FH gives 26 damage to Ryze's Q and only 12 AP to Archangel's Staff (less than 5 additional damage to Q), while building a 120 AP item like Zhonya's gives 48 to a Q and a massive amount of damage to his W and E, especially with Desperate Power on, churning out substantial AOE.

A full AP build (ROA/Zhonya's/Abyssal/Rabadon's/Void/Lucidity) still caps out CDR with blue buff and is still fairly beefy and deals substantially more damage (like over 400% of the damage) than what people are building on him now. And removing his W and E mana ratios doesn't affect an AP build at all.

If you're worried about mana, you can still build Athene's over Abyssal and replace Lucidity with Sorcs. Heck, you could run Rylai's over ROA if you wanted and be inescapable. Ryze's ratios are not bad when you consider the frequency of his spellcasts. "Oh most champs get .6-.8 nukes, why is Ryze's .4?" Because it's a 3.5 second base cooldown, 0-2 second considering his passive and CDR. His overall DPS is higher than most mages. He deals a fuckload of damage with AP. Just because Mana Ryze is degenerate doesn't mean AP Ryze is bad.

The champion would be fine. It would even justify increasing his ranges again. We could see him balanced as a DPS mage like Cassiopeia or a kitey fast AOE mage like Viktor and he could fill a very solid DPS mage niche.

Or you can complain because you miss the status quo.

336KMlmYm9Oct 13, 20141 votes

FH is better not because it's a mana item. But because it's a mana/CDR item and has the side benefit of making him tanky. CDR and Ryze's passive have incredible synergy together.

BlazingSalvoOct 16, 20141 votes

Yeah, except there's plenty of other ways to cap CDR. Lucidity, Athene's, DFG, CDR blues, or even just relying on blue pot/blue buff, who knows. And you arguably don't even need to cap CDR on Ryze. He did fine in early season 3 when Muramana build was optimal and he could build Manamune/ROA/Sorcs/ heck I don't even remember seeing a single CDR item until 4th or 5th. Sometimes it was better to go Archangel's and not build a single CDR item on him. And if we're talking Live Ryze right now, you often see Tear/ROA/Banshees - in LCS and worlds you only see Frozen Heart on the Ryze when he's against an AD specifically.

Fried ChopsticksOct 11, 20147 votes

Ryze got many small buffs but he wasn't that good in season 3 top lane...why? The Q range increase helped, Frozen Heart is slightly cheaper but he wasn't affected by major item changes. The entire melee top lane cast has basically been nerfed and you can't snowball off of an early all-in due to the exp range increase and first blood nerfs.

I played Ryze a lot in season 3 because I thought it was unique that he actually scaled off of mana instead of only on AP like other mages. I also liked that he had a tough early game mid and you had to pick him into an okay matchup or else it would be hell the rest of the game. Lower his base armor early so it's riskier to try and bully a melee ad, while not making him significantly weaker midlane.

I don't remember anybody ever complaining about his late game. What they complain about is since top lane has been taken over by ranged overlords, he doesn't have to suffer or play smartly in a midlane matchup in order to scale. He just has to go close to even, which most of the ranged top nowadays can do. Ryze is one of those champions that should never be pick or ban in competitive play, or else they'll just ruin his identity. Imagine Mordekaiser being strong in the early game and top-tier for some reason. "Just gank him, he has 0 cc, no sustain in lane until revolver" are all valid points but instead of doing something about that early game, Riot'll say "Who came up with a ghost for his ultimate? All he has to do is kill the ADC and they win the fight, as well as getting an asset to push down towers more."

We all know that a lot of the dumb things on the PBE are the ones that are more likely to reach live. Feral Flare was probably the most prominent. I didn't have a problem with the Gragas rework but "We wanted him to be a tanky brawler because that's how he seems in terms of visual design" (but we game him about 2.0 ap scaling combined from his ult and spammable barrels)....come on man.

AhrisOct 11, 20143 votes

Ryze got many small buffs but he wasn't that good in season 3 top lane...why? The Q range increase helped, Frozen Heart is slightly cheaper but he wasn't affected by major item changes. The entire melee top lane cast has basically been nerfed and you can't snowball off of an early all-in due to the exp range increase and first blood nerfs.

I played Ryze a lot in season 3 because I thought it was unique that he actually scaled off of mana instead of only on AP like other mages. I also liked that he had a tough early game mid and you had to pick him into an okay matchup or else it would be hell the rest of the game. Lower his base armor early so it's riskier to try and bully a melee ad, while not making him significantly weaker midlane.

I don't remember anybody ever complaining about his late game. What they complain about is since top lane has been taken over by ranged overlords, he doesn't have to suffer or play smartly in a midlane matchup in order to scale. He just has to go close to even, which most of the ranged top nowadays can do. Ryze is one of those champions that should never be pick or ban in competitive play, or else they'll just ruin his identity. Imagine Mordekaiser being strong in the early game and top-tier for some reason. "Just gank him, he has 0 cc, no sustain in lane until revolver" are all valid points but instead of doing something about that early game, Riot'll say "Who came up with a ghost for his ultimate? All he has to do is kill the ADC and they win the fight, as well as getting an asset to push down towers more."

We all know that a lot of the dumb things on the PBE are the ones that are more likely to reach live. Feral Flare was probably the most prominent. I didn't have a problem with the Gragas rework but "We wanted him to be a tanky brawler because that's how he seems in terms of visual design" (but we game him about 2.0 ap scaling combined from his ult and spammable barrels)....come on man.

in my opinion ryze's late game was one of the most OP ever. Makes most apc's life miserable with his targetted spells dealing monster damage, in the same time being extremely tanky with extremely strong spell vamp. I believe riot was right to nerf ryze, or even continue to nerf him in many other places. Right now riot knows how to balance champs more than ever. For example, people cried when kha zix was nerfed and claimed it to have gutted the bug, however just like a month or two later hes dominating the competitive scene.

People don't know whats balanced and what isn't .Riot now knows how to balance then ever before. i like this new riot, Ahri Ashe Annie Elise Irelia MissFortune Katarina Leblanc Nami Sona Nidalee Akali Ahri

KezzerdrixxOct 12, 20144 votes

No.. Riot doesn't know how to balance.. This is why Talon got nerfed, Akali got nerfed in the wrong way, Kha'zix lost his identity in his isolation (they nerfed his Q to the ground, but his W was still pretty powerful for utility/poke but they turned around and nerfed that too), Lucian is STILL getting "balanced" (lol, rito, please figure Lucian out, tired of the back and forth), and now this. Ryze isn't even that strong, people just don't know how to fight him or counter him properly. Ryze, compared to most other hypercarries/heavy scalers, scales poorly, can only be "good" because of the fact it's easy to build him, but bad because it's easy to build against him. I have a feeling you're one of those people that always got decimated by Ryze and are happy to see him nerfed, because I for one, have been decimated by ryze's early game, but come late game, when full builds start to come on the board, I have never had an issue with a ryze, even a fed one, and feel that they're going about this completely wrong.

AhrisOct 12, 20141 votes

Talon got nerfed because he was OP. Kha zix is being changed because he is OP. Akali got nerfed for having a bruiser kit when she is an assassin. Lucian was changed as they thought low range will make him bad. And he is actually only good early to mid now.

Riot knows more than you. Stop acting like they don't. When Riot nerfed Kha zix, people here were crying he was gutted. Then what? He dominates world. You're the one who don't know how to balance. You should think about the reason a champ is being nerfed. Riot now nicely explains every buff and nerfed reasons in the patch and most are reasonable so stop crying.

Poorly DressedOct 11, 20144 votes

He is really easy to play and the early Frozen Heart is a pain for any AD laner or teleport engage in bot lane! The range increase on Q made him viable in S4, maybe revert that change

VoidgolemOct 12, 20144 votes

the problem with him being a lane bully is that that's more endemic to melee toplaners being awful these days than any particular problem with Ryze

lojicianOct 20, 20141 votes

Well the thing with ryze is that all his damage is point and press with no potential to outplay it. Couple that with giving him stupid amounts of mobility on his ult to disengage from all ins and you get into 0 lane counterplay territory. So basically ryze's design makes him inherently more abusive against melees.

LGD FrokidOct 11, 20143 votes

I'd understand Nerfing his tankiness, but his mana scaling? Seriously? That is what makes Ryze.

apuigOct 12, 20143 votes

What is it with RIOT, it feels as if some champs have the right to be good while some other don't? just leave the guy alone its not like he's a permaban like Yasuo right?

Blobby FlayOct 11, 20142 votes

Besides Ryze, Fiddlesticks and Lulu are the only champions in the game with an instant, targetable, cc to harass with. There's absolutely no room for counterplay between when he casts and when you are affected by his snare. I'm not saying this is the worst thing in the world, but given his damage potential, I think it's the main reason why he's considered such an annoying lane bully.

I Main SwainOct 11, 20142 votes

that sounds like a good idea actually, hes incredibly strong at almost every point in the game, and even early game he isn't that weak if you know what youre doing. and btw, it was 4.5% on his w not .45%

Lajinn5Oct 11, 20142 votes

Ryze needs to be reworked, three targeted abilities with the amount of damage and tankiness he gets is a bit insane

CindikleOct 11, 20142 votes

I'd like to see his abilities gain their mana scaling by level. Similar to Lucian's Q.

This would reduce him as an early game bully and a late game power house.

Another option could be to put some of this power into his ult. Currently his ult is not required for him to be at full power. It's mostly a surviability/mobility ability. While it does grant AoE and proc's his passive, I think it would be the best place to transfer some power to. Every time you see him, he is at least 90% power without his ult. Isn't that why Darius got his ult nerfed? Every time you go to lane he has everything he needs to beat you.

That and his E turned into a skill shot. If it hits a target it'll bounce, working like it does now. Perhaps add some mechanics to it so that it can bounce based on where it goes. Kind of like you were playing pool. But that may prove too difficult to program for all I know.

Another idea could be to rework his passive. Change it to grant bonus damage based on max mana for every repeated attack. Meaning just landing a Q wont be quite so powerful. He's gota combo the abilities. Using R could ignore this part of his passive.

I don't partially care either way, I don't play Ryze. But I'd be disappointed if they destroyed what made him who he is in a rework. His most iconic thing is his mana scaling.

In short. Less early game damage since he is a hypercarry. Some power shifted into his ult to make it more important. Some form of skill in his kit beyond using his passive to it's most effectiveness. And even then that can be widely determined by ping.

GorgannanOct 11, 20142 votes

I believe Moobeat said something about those not being the complete changes. We just don't have the full picture yet. I wouldn't worry TOO much.

Acolyte of SteelOct 12, 20144 votes

I'm extremely worried. As his lore said,

"Ryze is no longer just a mage - he has become a creature of magic itself." ― High Councilor Heywan Relivash

Just like Kha'Zix lost his identity with the loss of his isolated damage, so too have they gutted Ryze. They don't care about who their champions are anymore. They just want someone that when you push a button, it does an "okay" thing - which is heavily frowned upon in every genre of gaming ever, EXCEPT in the LoL community apparently.

Sire HippingtonOct 11, 20142 votes

besides that those are probably just some partial change, i agree that takeing the manascaling doesn'T solve the main problem here. I think the big problem with ryze is that all he does is point and click, including a instant snare. There is just no counterplay, it's like dota, either u are in range, or u sre not in range, no further questions asked. For shortranged champions, that means u either do lasthit, therefor get in range and eat all the damage, or u get zoned out and slowly drop in cs and exp.( if u ever faced a toplane annie, it'S the same) Rather than nerfing numbers, rather change his kit to allow more counterplay, evt make Q a skillshot so u can atleast be somewhat save from poke behind minions.

54340481_DELOct 11, 20142 votes

Yeah these changes to Ryze Ryze may or may not have something to do with Gogoing, lol. But in all seriousness these changes are gonna kill Ryze's viability.

M SchumacherOct 12, 20142 votes

I agree deleted him instead.

DaejinTyeOct 12, 20141 votes

I agree deleted him instead.

Like Sion? "Here's a new champion, new character, new EVERYTHING! ... Except the name."

Sire HippingtonOct 12, 20143 votes

reminds me a bit off karma.. but in case off sion, i actually understand why and agree to the full rework, there was klittle worth keeping on old sion, that little did actually stay.

PartyxdayOct 13, 20142 votes

They should nerf his base damages, but keep the scaling and late game base the same. There's no reason for Ryze to not have a great late game, but there is also no reason for him to have a good early game.

LordOfTheLeagueOct 11, 20141 votes

Being a ranged - melee lane bully - is inherent to his kit so you can't really remove that without putting him into unviability.

RaptameiOct 11, 20143 votes

Being a ranged - melee lane bully - is inherent to his kit so you can't really remove that without putting him into unviability.

So that's the option they're going for?

LordOfTheLeagueOct 11, 20144 votes

Not really I don't see how removing those mana ratio will cut his lane bully potential, it will just nerf his late game mostly.

GhostStalkerOct 12, 20141 votes

What if ryze himself came in here and said that all of this was cool. And everythings fine. And you should go about your lives in happiness?

universe withinOct 12, 20141 votes

Remove the MR shred on his Spell Flux so I can build magic resist against him.

Sire HippingtonOct 12, 20143 votes

it's a flat shred, not %, so building mr vs him is just as effective

kDrakariOct 12, 20141 votes

I honestly don't think this will hurt Ryze all that much, they're reducing the damage of... the abilities that already aren't used for damage. It's up to better players than me to determine if that's enough to make Ryze non-viable compared to his un-dodgeable stun and hyper-scaling build path, and I would note that it can be seemingly tiny things that bring a champion from "100% pick-ban" to "0% pick-ban", but if I had to guess there are probably plenty of situations where Ryze would still be a good champion with these changes.

But I agree that this is very counter-thematic, something which Riot doesn't really seem to care as much about as their other goals (see: Sona's songs that last 3 seconds and can only be heard from about 5 feet away, Talon's throat-cutting strike which sort-of trips people a little). Ryze's mana-scaling is the biggest special something that nobody else has much of. I'd prefer they reduce the AP scaling or base damage rather than the mana-scaling. Or they could actually target the issue and change Rune Prison to something other than a "Nobody can get close to me" button, maybe add a more significant channel that could be interrupted or escaped from, or some other possibility to allow the target to actually do something about Ryze other than "hope you brought a champion that outranges him".

336KMlmYm9Oct 13, 20141 votes

They aren't just used for damage. That's not the same thing as them not being damage abilities. Late game this is going to shave several hundred damage off his combo. That makes for quite a big difference.

Malix FarwinOct 12, 20141 votes

Looks like it is forcing him to build more glass cannon which frankly is his biggest problem. He can basically build mp/hp items all day and deal tons of damage while being tanky.

GreenLoreOct 12, 20141 votes

Overall they seem to me to be part of bigger changes that simply haven't made it onto the pbe yet.

GunpointOct 12, 20141 votes

All of his abilities are point and click on low cooldowns and 1 of them is a snare. Both Q and W do large amounts of damage. On top of this his passive lowers the cooldown even further. His ultimate than provides aoe, spellvamp, and MS. Wasn't Riot phasing out point and click CC? Why is Ryze an exception.

Champion SkinOct 13, 20141 votes

Well the thing about snares is that it doesn't prevent you from fighting it only prevents you from moving (though it do prevent melee champions from fighting/dealing damage unless they have ranged abilities)

SmokingPuffinOct 12, 20141 votes

What is, however, is that he's able to be a lane bully toplane on top of it. i propose that you nerf his bases instead, while still letting him scale into lategame as he is now.

I think it will be hard to nerf his bases enough to make him no longer bully melee tops without making him food against ranged tops. This seems likely to lead to an excessive interest in counterpicking in top lane any time that Ryze is competitive play, and certainly this pick pattern would make bruiser mains howl at the moon over how "biased" Riot is against melee top laners.

The other thing to notice is that Ryze is single-handedly destroying mana itemization. You literally can't buy mana for champions that want it because he breaks all the items. This is a big reason why Athene's is stupid good; mana hungry champions need an item to unlock their kit, but the only mana items that are allowed to exist in competitive play are stacking ones because Ryze.

Is Ryze's unique scaling worth the costs in itemization health for the game?

KhristophorosOct 13, 20141 votes

He needs a minor rework. His Q has always been a stupid ability because it's a targeted nuke without utility. This means that there isn't enough variance in use cases. You always get the same result in every situation you use it, damage. That's it. There's no case where you miss or you time it better/worse.

So like with a targeted stun, slow, or root, the timing is important. If the target has minion aggro the use case is better. If there are allies in range to damage the target, the use case is better. If you just stun them at a random time and none of those conditions are met, it's a poor use case and you wasted mana. The uses cases have varying results so you have decision points. Overload doesn't have that because it's just damage.

So anyway what I'm getting at is I think Overload should not be targeted. It should be an AoE you throw at the ground. It should be similar to Corki's Q but smaller AoE due to the low CD. Now melee champions can dodge it and not feel automatically zoned out of 600 range around Ryze while laning against him.