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Offense & Defense Should Cancel Out IMO

Tiniest Turtle·12/11/2018, 5:59:37 PM·6 votes·3,147 views

As a tank player, I might be biased, but I think being able to win a 1v1 as a tank vs a damage character is alright. I don't really know how many people complain about it when it happens, but I'm here to voice my opinion none the less. Fights between two squishy carry champions revolve around who does more damage and who plays better. With tanks it's a bit different. The idea is that instead of building more damage to win, they build to survive more. Ideally, if a tank and a carry are evenly fed, the fight should come down to who played better, since theoretically they'd be hurting eachother about the same amount. I'm not saying this is always the case or that this ideal is a reality at the moment, just that I don't think tanks should always lose to carries or vice versa. I think their items and defensive / offensive steroids should cancel eachother out so that it's mostly a base damage battle where whoever outplays the other should win. A fed tank that has built more defense than the carry has offense to counter it should have the advantage, and the same goes the other way around. I'm also bringing this up due to hearing from another boards post that Riot's philosophy is apparently that offense should outscale defense, and I think this isn't a healthy philosophy. If building defensively simply isn't equal in power to offense, then it just encourages everyone to build damage, since theoretically your defense would eventually get outclassed, meaning that you probably would've been more useful just going for the oneshot. I believe it's essential for these two combat styles to level out. I also believe that mechanics where damage/offense scale with defensive stats, or defensive stats/abilities scale with offensive stats skew this balance, and should be implemented conservatively.

TL:DR - Damage and defense should cancel each other out evenly, creating fights where the better player is the one who ideally comes out on top. When either style outclasses and outscales the other, it invalidates it, and makes you simply less useful than if you built for the dominant stat, and this isn't good for the game.

Am I wrong?

20 Comments

Pika Fox12/11/2018, 7:47:22 PM3 votes

No. Defense is inherently superior to offense, given you deal 0 damage while dead and base damage exists. If they "cancelled each other out" then building offense would do nothing, especially with CC and other utility existing.

ZephyrDrake12/12/2018, 12:50:46 AM3 votes

Ok... so why should we pick damage dealers then? Just go tank and invalidate damage dealers. That is all it will happen when offense and defense are equal. Tanks win due to their kit

Rock MD12/11/2018, 9:37:08 PM2 votes

You're wrong for a number of reasons.

  1. the tank will always win a 1v1 scenario against a high damage squishy unless the squishy is built to duel (Tryndamere and Yasuo are the only two that really come to mind). The ideal scenario you speak of doesn't exist because tanks have enough innate CC to get enough free hits to kill their opponent almost every single time. Think about Maokai. If you're a squishy there is no outplay. He just roots onto you and beats your head into the dirt because he has next to no outplay potential in the midgame in an adc vs. tank 1v1.

  2. Making defense equal to offense just makes utility champions stronger. It doesn't just magically, "oh I guess everything is viable now" lmao. It simply means that there will be a different metric by which you judge champion strengths.

  3. Offense needs to outscale defense so games end. That's how it always has been. Inversely, defense needs to start stronger so that melees aren't trapped as supports and junglers only. You know that Quinn that can get a ton of free hits on you and there's nothing you can do about it? You need defense to be stronger early so that after your first mid-game item you can actually survive against her.

  4. Offensive stats that scale with defenses or vice versa are so that the champion can get some survivability or damage so that certain builds are viable. Do they sometimes go overboard? Sure. I'm not sure why Malphite needs that much damage. Riven's shield is also pretty overwhelming post-9 with the CD it's on.

KFCeytron12/11/2018, 9:19:39 PM1 votes

{quoted}

the better player is the one who ideally comes out on top

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