Phreak on Champion Base Stats

ModCaptainMårvelous·Jan 20, 2019·41 votes·17,045 views

The TL;DW of this video, although it's a good vid and highly recommend watching:

There's no real way to tell "how" tanky someone is because all you see is an HP bar (A 5k HP Ashe is less tanky than a 3k HP Rammus, for example)
Base Stats wildly fluctuate and don't always make sense. (Supports have the worst magic damage defense like Rakan and Braum)
Base Stats only had work put into them in the start of the game's life. (2009 or so)
Base Stats can help push champions towards intended roles. (Ekko with low defense stats prevents tank Ekko)
In his ideal design, there are a handful of "Templates" for stats (Tank, Bruiser, ADC, etc)
HP, HP/lvl and HP regen are the main fine-tuning area.

Don't have much to say. Just thought the video was pretty neat.

69 Comments

Death by GlamourJan 20, 201951 votes

sometimes I wonder why he is wasted casting LCS games and not on the live balance team.

Fízz v2Jan 20, 20197 votes

dont need more adc players that hate assassins on live design team imo xd

Hexs FortuneJan 20, 201910 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fízz v2,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Uolabw45,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2019-01-20T20:51:17.420+0000)

dont need more adc players that hate assassins on live design team imo xd

I'm ok with Assassins killing squishies, I just don't like how they start also killing juggernauts when fed early.

Assassins generally come online too early. Juggernauts, Marksmen, Tanks and most Mages often need a few items to build into their role, where as assassins can do their job much earlier and with fewer items.

Death by GlamourJan 20, 20193 votes

Assassins generally come online too early

my issue with them is that they have soooooooooo much overkill damage

wildfox9TJan 21, 20192 votes

the problem is that if they wouln't be able to overkill a squishy with no defensive items any defensive item and/or any support would make them non-existent

Death by GlamourJan 21, 20191 votes

no its when they can all (with one rotation) in a 3.5k hp with a tonne of armour/mr tank as was seen with the recent eve killing orn video, that shows you how much overkill damage eve has.

killing an adc is fine but they should not be able to do this to a tank lategame

wildfox9TJan 21, 20193 votes

a tonne of armour/mr

this ornn had mostly high armor/low hp items like item 3075 + a item 3065 as only MR item vs a 15 kills full build + item 2139 evelynn

so from evelynn's perspective this guy was squishy

and anyway we're talking about evelynn,she is really good at killing tanks for being an assassin thanks to her % MR pen stacked with item 3020 / item 3165 / item 3135 ,other assassins would never kill a tank properly itemized unless really fed

if anything the snowball it's too high,or some champions/runes individual damage,or maybe armor/magic pen and true damage being too strong,but i don't think that the damage itself it's overall too high compared to the past seasons

Death by GlamourJan 21, 20191 votes

forgetting he also had a item 3083 ….

yeh low hp dude

RhaiJan 21, 20192 votes

{quoted}

this ornn had mostly high armor/low hp items like + a as only MR item vs a 15 kills full build + evelynn

so from evelynn's perspective this guy was squishy

and anyway we're talking about evelynn,she is really good at killing tanks for being an assassin thanks to her % MR pen stacked with / / ,other assassins would never kill a tank properly itemized unless really fed

if anything the snowball it's too high,or some champions/runes individual damage,or maybe armor/magic pen and true damage being too strong,but i don't think that the damage itself it's overall too high compared to the past seasons

Just wanted to chime in and say that the Ornn in question was sitting at 4670 hp or so, which is far from low

wildfox9TJan 21, 20191 votes

4600hp are not much when and his already low MR went close to 0 after getting charmed,eve was really fed and ornn didn't invest almost any item to counter her,that was my point

if he had let's say item 3193 instead of item 3075 he would have survived to that pretty easily (just using a random item as example,idk what exactly ornn builds),and again keep in your mind that eve had 15 kills,pretty much everyone oneshots everything with this score it doesn't matter at which season we look

edit : i also want to remind that she had dark harvest,which given her score i suppose it was really stacked if you watch the video on 0.25 you notice that this DH got almost half of his HP,not a surprise since usually this rune doesn't get stacked this much (it's like complaining for Nasus Q damage after letting him free farm for 40 minutes)

RhaiJan 23, 20191 votes

{quoted}

4600hp are not much when and his already low MR went close to 0 after getting charmed,eve was really fed and ornn didn't invest almost any item to counter her,that was my point

if he had let's say instead of he would have survived to that pretty easily (just using a random item as example,idk what exactly ornn builds),and again keep in your mind that eve had 15 kills,pretty much everyone oneshots everything with this score it doesn't matter at which season we look

edit : i also want to remind that she had dark harvest,which given her score i suppose it was really stacked if you watch the video on 0.25 you notice that this DH got almost half of his HP,not a surprise since usually this rune doesn't get stacked this much (it's like complaining for Q damage after letting him free farm for 40 minutes)

4600 is not a low amount of hp, that was my point Never said Eve shouldn't be able to do what she did, she had around 1100 AP Dark harvest (60+5 per stack+ 15% AP) would need 46 stacks to even match Electrocute (180+25% AP) with the amount of AP she had. The burst that was done to his HP was from Eves Empowered E dealing 30% max HP, which procs Lich bane, the onhit from Eves Q AND Dark Harvest.

Even without lichbane and dark harvest, she could have killed ornn anyway due to ult

ŚhunpoJan 21, 20191 votes

You also forget that all of those roles outperform assassins the moment assassins lose momentum, it's not like the whole matchup dynamic is entirely skewed towards assassins in the early stages of the game.

Lil Homie bustaJan 21, 20192 votes

Though I understand that assassins need to come online earlier than other classes, I still don't agree with the intesity of their strength at this point of the game.

Is the same thing with ADC's: I agree that they should kill tanks fast, but killing a tank in 5 seconds is really fine?

ŚhunpoJan 21, 20192 votes

That's not the fault of assassins, it's the fault of the overall game's balance. There's too much damage, and when you get a class that's all about damage and give them more damage....they tend to come online faster and they tend to blow people up.

Fix damage first, then if assassins still need a fix look at the penetration stats.

Minimac2000Jan 21, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lil Homie busta,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Uolabw45,comment-id=00000000000000010000,timestamp=2019-01-21T01:17:46.617+0000)

Though I understand that assassins need to come online earlier than other classes, I still don't agree with the intesity of their strength at this point of the game.

Is the same thing with ADC's: I agree that they should kill tanks fast, but killing a tank in 5 seconds is really fine?

You lasted 5s as a tank against an adc any time after season 6??? What were you playing/building? I never last more than 2, 2.5 building full tank if I'm lucky and they don't crit

wildfox9TJan 21, 20192 votes

item 3157 + item 3026 -> 2.5 + 2.5 = 5 [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Minimac2000Jan 21, 20192 votes

{quoted}

+ -> 2.5 + 2.5 = 5 [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

^Underrated comment + underrated tank build lol

ModCaptainMårvelousJan 21, 201911 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hexs Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Uolabw45,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2019-01-20T20:59:25.007+0000)

Assassins generally come online too early. Juggernauts, Marksmen, Tanks and most Mages often need a few items to build into their role, where as assassins can do their job much earlier and with fewer items.

They have to by design.

An assassin's strongest time (at ALL points in league history, not just this meta) is the early-mid game period. This is because Assassins can do their job, the team usually isn't grouped up at this point and most other champs don't really have the defensive itemization to allow this. The longer the game goes on, the harder it is for an assassin to do their job culminating in the late game where a full-build carry has not only defensive itemization (in some cases) but also that they usually have an entire team behind them to block it.

If you make an assassin come online later than intended, they're going to be a dead class as by the time they can do their job, their job can't really be done. While this might be nice for Boards, I've been repeatedly told that "isolating an entire class of players isn't wise to do".

The Bad TouchJan 21, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hexs Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Uolabw45,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2019-01-20T20:59:25.007+0000)

I'm ok with Assassins killing squishies, I just don't like how they start also killing juggernauts when fed early.

Assassins generally come online too early. Juggernauts, Marksmen, Tanks and most Mages often need a few items to build into their role, where as assassins can do their job much earlier and with fewer items.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pebEONk7TSY

How about them bursting tanks? lol.

DragonSheaJan 21, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Bad Touch,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Uolabw45,comment-id=0000000000000003,timestamp=2019-01-21T14:33:31.354+0000)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pebEONk7TSY

How about them bursting tanks? lol.

92 MR, and she raped him like he had -25.

The Bad TouchJan 21, 20191 votes

{quoted}

92 MR, and she raped him like he had -25.

No 141 MR and 4647 hp. it was 92 AFTER she landed her W. Because of course that shit shreds 35% MR.

Then another 40% from item 3135 , 18 from item 3020 , 15 from item 3165

So that 3250g I spent on MR items? Reduced to a total MR of.... 22.

wildfox9TJan 21, 20191 votes

then the "problem" it's evelynn having both MR shred and %damage,also her dark harvest was really stacked since she was really fed (it did alone like 35% of your HP)

wildfox9TJan 21, 20191 votes

how about being an overfed AP assassin vs a tank that went almost full armor?

KadexeJan 21, 20191 votes

I want to know how fed that Evelynn was.

wildfox9TJan 21, 20191 votes

15 kills,i don't remember how many assists (anyway full build + item 2139 )

ornn build should be item 3047 item 3075 item 3068 item 3083 item 3065 (i saw the game summary a while ago so i may be wrong)

edit : she also had dark harvest which did most of the damage if you slow down the video since it was insanely stacked (you can tell it just by looking at the kills)

GelsominoKillerJan 21, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hexs Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Uolabw45,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2019-01-20T20:59:25.007+0000)

I'm ok with Assassins killing squishies, I just don't like how they start also killing juggernauts when fed early.

Assassins generally come online too early. Juggernauts, Marksmen, Tanks and most Mages often need a few items to build into their role, where as assassins can do their job much earlier and with fewer items.

To be fair, they also tend to fall off pretty hard later in the game, but this is often not perceived because they're fed from early.

ModKnightsKemplarJan 20, 201919 votes

Phreak is really good at communication. His talents aren't being wasted here. I imagine it's his decision to be a caster/analyst and not a game dev, anyway.

If you watch the beginning of this video, he admits that issues like this often boil down to a matter of where they put their dev time. I'm sure the live balance team would agree with his points. It's just a matter of how much work it would be to rework the stats for all champions (and the ensuing balance issues that would need to be addressed).

Death by GlamourJan 20, 20193 votes

Don't get me wrong he is as good as Montecristo(when he doing it for lol) as an analyst but the live balance team are well known for saying one thing and yet doing the complete opposite. Case and point riot maple is well known for saying damage is too high for quite a while now but we continuously see damage buffs as opposed to nerfs coming from them.

LordGeovanniJan 21, 20191 votes

so why cant he be the jeff kapalyn of the design and balance teams?

Poop JohnsonJan 21, 20191 votes

{quoted}

so why cant he be the jeff kapalyn of the design and balance teams?

He kinda already is, he usually does the champion spotlights along with the patch notes when they still did those videos. He does have good ideas on balancing but his talents is being a recognizable face/voice for LOL so he is better at being a shoutcaster then a balancer.

ModCaptainMårvelousJan 21, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=Brumbo Tungus,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Uolabw45,comment-id=0000000100010000,timestamp=2019-01-21T03:10:52.034+0000)

He kinda already is, he usually does the champion spotlights along with the patch notes when they still did those videos. He does have good ideas on balancing but his talents is being a recognizable face/voice for LOL so he is better at being a shoutcaster then a balancer.

Also Phreak might not be able to do things like code, edit data or otherwise. Lotta people forget that balance/design team isn't just "I make a word doc and the champ pops into existence."

Minimac2000Jan 21, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Also Phreak might not be able to do things like code, edit data or otherwise. Lotta people forget that balance/design team isn't just "I make a word doc and the champ pops into existence."

Uhhhhh, design team you're absolutely right. But a good majority of balance would be literally opening a file somewhere ctrl-f to find the right number, change the number, job done. I get ability changes are not, but any number balancing, what phreak really excels (puns) at explaining really is THAT easy to "code" if you can call it that as long as riots code isn't significantly worse spaghetti than I can even imagine lol

LordGeovanniJan 21, 20191 votes

I don't can't believe the same people who theories game stats are the same people who input those stats into the game.

AirKingNeoJan 21, 20191 votes

Cause Phreak's balance opinions aren't good.

Death by GlamourJan 21, 20191 votes

are the current balance teams opinions good?

AirKingNeoJan 21, 20191 votes

Nope. Neither are good.

GallJan 20, 201915 votes

He's really good at what he does when he has enough mana

KuboxJan 20, 201911 votes

To give a bit more detail as to how base stats wildly fluctuate :

Rakan 's armor stat essentially scales as hard as any other melee bruiser or tank. His MR, on the other hand, is given the ranged champion treatment and so scales likes absolute crap. There's no design reason for Rakan to be better vs AD than AP, but for some reason he would have an easier time eating Talon's burst over Diana's.

While this melee/ranged issue is more unique to Rakan, this armor/MR discrepancy does plague a lot of supports, with a lot of them having moderate to high armor but poor MR scaling, which may very be why the likes of Brand/Zyra/etc are so overbearing at times. Then you have champions like Anivia who have abysmal HP but surprising armor growth, which again, has no real reason but means AP assassins can kill her faster than AD because of .... well, no one knows.

This isn't to say that Rakan/Braum/etc shouldn't be susceptible to poke, but that there is no thematic reason for them to be good vs either type of poke. Rakan shouldn't take significantly less poke damage from a Caitlyn Q than a Veig W, scalings and base damage aside.

Phreak essentially argues that their levels of armor and MR (for all champs, really) should be more balanced with each other, outside of obvious exceptions, and that HP and HP regen are much better tools at levering a champion's tankiness and/or ability to sustain poke.

Wild GeeseJan 20, 20194 votes

Phreak is wrong, by putting champions in boxes (catagories), you actually just make the same mistake Riot has in the last year.

When they changed the HP/hp regen/armor of "marksmen". When they changed the Mana/mana regen of "mages".

Did that crap make the game better? No. Because champions were not designed to be put into catagories. Catagories should never be goddamed guiderules. Champions are supposed to make sense into themselves and fulfill their own roles /by design/ - NOT following the meta, following arbitrary roles.

ModCaptainMårvelousJan 21, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=Wild Geese,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Uolabw45,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2019-01-20T23:39:26.111+0000)

Phreak is wrong, by putting champions in boxes (catagories), you actually just make the same mistake Riot has in the last year.

When they changed the HP/hp regen/armor of "marksmen". When they changed the Mana/mana regen of "mages".

Did that crap make the game better? No. Because champions were not designed to be put into catagories. Catagories should never be goddamed guiderules. Champions are supposed to make sense into themselves and fulfill their own roles /by design/ - NOT following the meta, following arbitrary roles.

The main difference, however, is that only one class of champion got updated (in each case) and even then, their armor/mr/etc. values vary greatly depending on the champion.

In Phreak's case, the idea would be that each champion's class has specific stats. So regardless of if you're playing Caitlyn, Ashe, Vayne, (maybe) Graves or Lucian? All of them have the same stat spread save for HP-stats. Not saying this will be better or worse, mind you, but pointing out it would likely lead to more differences than the example you listed which isn't really applicable to Phreak's example/idea.

Wild GeeseJan 21, 20192 votes

{quoted}

The main difference, however, is that only one class of champion got updated (in each case) and even then, their armor/mr/etc. values vary greatly depending on the champion.

In Phreak's case, the idea would be that each champion's class has specific stats. So regardless of if you're playing Caitlyn, Ashe, Vayne, (maybe) Graves or Lucian? All of them have the same stat spread save for HP-stats. Not saying this will be better or worse, mind you, but pointing out it would likely lead to more differences than the example you listed which isn't really applicable to Phreak's example/idea.

It's completely wrong though. Lucian should move faster than Caitlyn, he should also have more armor. Why? Lucian is a duelist and Caitlyn is a seiger. You can't just say "well they are marksmen", without looking at their finer points.

But then, let's say Lucian vs Vayne? Who should have more armor? Vayne's dueling potential is around conditional strength (impale, final hour, silver bolts), so she should not have as good defenses as Lucian.

Then there's other factors. Perhaps a sieging champion such as Caitlyn should have good Magic Resist - Since the main counter to pushing would be aoe magic damage. Every stat is conditional on champion design.

KuboxJan 21, 20195 votes

I think you're missing the point. First, he actually started the video saying move speed was one of the stat that was fine fluctuating because it's an obvious one : faster champions feel faster, slower champions feel slower.

Second, his point wasn't "Lucian and Vayne should have the same overall tankiness of whatever the decided line for ADC is" but rather that if Lucian is to be more durable than Vayne (which everyone should agree on as he doesn't have stealth and CC), that them having similar armor stats but having a higher difference in HP would make it much cleaner and easier to balance.

I'm not sure about your Caitlyn example though. If anything, she should be weak to Magic Damage as a form of counterplay. But the thing is, as Phreak mentioned, while there's plenty of mages that can waveclear, there's definitely a few AD champions that can do the same now. And in that case, there's no reason why she should be more durable to Oriana's W rather than a Sivir Q. Rather, it'd be a lot simpler to balance if her total HP and regen were on the lower spectrum in order to force her to pay (or slightly higher so she can deal with it, in your example).

Basically, the state of the game has changed to where poke, AoE and single-target focused damage all come in various forms of Physical, Magical, and sometimes, True damage. There's no reason for Sion to be drastically more vulnerable to Magic Damage than Maokai as neither were designed to be particulary better at either. Rather, if Sion is meant to have lower resistances because of his HP stacking, then that should be shown across both stats.

deadlychuckJan 21, 20196 votes

Well there is an important distinguishing factor, that being that this is in regards to base stats rather than itemization.

I completely agree that riot made a massive mistake attempting to homogenize the different itemization based around categories of champions, I think that base stats strike that fine balance of influence that promotes a particular style without completely shutting them out from deviant styles.

When you homogenize items, you remove player's ability to choose the way that their gameplay develops throughout the match. Where as changing that base stats only really influences the initial conditions of a champion entering a match. Which in itself use to have some degree of player control, but riot decided to screw up that system too. Especially considering that Runes only accounted for probably 10-15% of your power, if you went flat runes, when entering a match. And that's not even considering that good portion of your power has mandatory distribution to some degree. E.g. You can't make a champion with base 0 HP, mana, AD, or MS.

Velzard of KozJan 20, 20193 votes

What always bugged me is how one determines how high base stat is based on Builds it versus Doesn't build it.

There is the Help them this way because they aren't supposed to focus on it approach, where a champion has high base on stat they aren't supposed to build, such as Mage who would have high Base AD.

Then there's Allow them to capitalize on this since they are supposed to focus on it approach, where a champion has high base on stat they are supposed to build to capitalize on being good at it, such as Mage who would have high Base AP If that was a thing.

Never could quite figure out which would be better.

ΗuaweiJan 21, 20192 votes

And the most important base stat.

Mana.

Cause then you have no mana.

item 3070

UnknownTerritoryJan 21, 20191 votes

Thresh - poor magic resist scaling

ModAcademy KaynJan 21, 20191 votes

The beginning, where he talks about Mordekaiser's bugs. Ha, that's gotta sting.

GigglesOJan 21, 20191 votes

No, it would be more efficient to recode him from scratch than to bugfix.

ModCaptainMårvelousJan 21, 20193 votes

{quoted}

No, it would be more efficient to recode him from scratch than to bugfix.

This.

Morde has so many bugs and is such an outdated design it's better to just rework than to go through the 200+ backlog of bugs.

GigglesOJan 21, 20191 votes

I’m pretty sure that if Morde was coded today (as if he had never existed) even with his identical kit he wouldn’t have that many bugs. They have gotten way better at coding oddities.