which update was worse; assassin or tank?

Big Lincoln · 2017-08-15T04:56:40.906Z

assassin update much more failed reworks, rito now has to backpedal and re-do at least 1 of them even the minor updates managed to fuck up in some way that left mains bitter lethality dumb stat that riot can't decide when it should actually be good ADC mains hated it more than anybody better players were rewarded with fast kills talon is pretty cool tank update only did 3 big updates which were all 3 big failures, leaving at least one of them proven to be impossible to ever balance again item changes trashed most bruisers and broke the small handful who could abuse just like a tank; sets a terrible precedent for the future of the game riot's memetalk about making them 'more niche' shown to be bullshit when you give them 95% of the exact same strengths; now their viability is even more determined by who is just numerically better large # of mains of all 3 updates pre-rework dissatisfied, goes to show they only get played so much now because they're blatantly overpowered has put us in a hypercarry meta where the most faceroll fuck-awful ADCs are dominating games just because it lasts a certain amount of time; punishes good players tanks will hopefully be trashed across the board like they deserve, soon discuss, I voted for tanks

Big Lincoln·Aug 15, 2017·32 votes·2,164 views

assassin update

much more failed reworks, rito now has to backpedal and re-do at least 1 of them
even the minor updates managed to fuck up in some way that left mains bitter
lethality dumb stat that riot can't decide when it should actually be good

ADC mains hated it more than anybody
better players were rewarded with fast kills
talon is pretty cool

tank update

only did 3 big updates which were all 3 big failures, leaving at least one of them proven to be impossible to ever balance again
item changes trashed most bruisers and broke the small handful who could abuse just like a tank; sets a terrible precedent for the future of the game
riot's memetalk about making them 'more niche' shown to be bullshit when you give them 95% of the exact same strengths; now their viability is even more determined by who is just numerically better
large # of mains of all 3 updates pre-rework dissatisfied, goes to show they only get played so much now because they're blatantly overpowered
has put us in a hypercarry meta where the most faceroll fuck-awful ADCs are dominating games just because it lasts a certain amount of time; punishes good players

tanks will hopefully be trashed across the board like they deserve, soon

discuss, I voted for tanks

105 Comments

Edge of DaybreakAug 15, 201723 votes

Well I don't even touch tanks but I have some pretty fine salt over the failure that was the assassin rework. Not even just how they nerfed some and buffed others but almost every positive aspect that riot proposed they were going to do for assasssins in the Road to Pre Season article was a complete lie. Gonna go ahead and just drop the link because i'm gonna be pulling quotes from it. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/road-pre-season-assassin-update

They didnt even change all of the assassins so now we have champions with instant burst who are great and delayed burst that can never be good unless their numbers are insane.

The claim of giving assassins a way to stay relevant while behind and not just be about damage. Where the hell was this changed on any of them because outside of dealing damage they offer nothing else to the team that they didn't already. All you did was make their way of applying damage shittier in some cases. If you are behind now you may as well afk because in no way are you getting through locket and exhaust on top of any shields and cc that all happen instantly.

I don't play zed mostly because he isn't bullshit enough for me to use but they literally just nerfed him and that was it. Like lol what he was already the fairest one why the hell did he just get shafted?

Fizz. "Fizz has a pretty unique role: he’s one of the few assassins who can initiate on his own, and we wanted to accentuate that. We’re also giving him more room to play around his slippery mobility, so that - above all assassins - Fizz is the hardest to pin down and peel."

Literally no change to his mobility options at all they just made his ult bullshit and without hitting ult he is basically not a threat.

Does anyone actually fall for leblanc's clone? That cooldown needs to be a hell of a lot shorter for how bad it is.

Talon: "Rather than run straight at you, we want Talon to use the terrain to his advantage." Yeah he jumps walls then runs straight at you or he ults and runs straight at you. Hell his mobility spell is him literally jumping straight at you. Fucking lol.

Now onto the lv 2 cheeses. Talon and kat being able to all in you that early is just funny and really cements my fear that riot barely tested the changes because that is shit that came to light way too fast for them to not have known that.

I don't play rengar but that playerbase... well rengar used to be an assassin so they should be used to the treatment by now.

Lethality items

First it wasn't over tuned so they weren't good. Then boom buffed and they just rocket up in winrate. Repeat process till duskblade and wow duskblade. Riot realized you can't make delayed damage work when everything else is instant so they gave them huge instant damage again. Now just like before everyone else came to the party and you see duskblade on things that it doesn't even make sense on just because of how strong it had to be to justify those 2 champions. Just make their kits good riot and stop trying convoluted ways to buff them that we know aren't going to work in a healthy way. I know you literally cannot buff an assassin in even the smallest way without a shitstorm but you have to just do it if you wanna get anywhere.

Oh before I forget some assassins still have 0 ways out that aren't flash or walking away and praying.

The kits being fun is subjective but I do enjoy some of them. Just wish riot would actually do what they were saying for both tanks and assassins

PennsAug 15, 20179 votes

They said a lot of things about Fizz before his rework, they even said that he doesnt need one but they did it anyway just to change something lul

Guess the only thing they wanted to do was make his initiation "better" with his ult, which doesnt work with supports and tanks rn xd

Evil YasuoAug 15, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Stabby Dude,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VQpV5EaA,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-08-15T05:38:42.263+0000)

Well I don't even touch tanks but I have some pretty fine salt over the failure that was the assassin rework. Not even just how they nerfed some and buffed others but almost every positive aspect that riot proposed they were going to do for assasssins in the Road to Pre Season article was a complete lie. Gonna go ahead and just drop the link because i'm gonna be pulling quotes from it. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/road-pre-season-assassin-update

They didnt even change all of the assassins so now we have champions with instant burst who are great and delayed burst that can never be good unless their numbers are insane.

The claim of giving assassins a way to stay relevant while behind and not just be about damage. Where the hell was this changed on any of them because outside of dealing damage they offer nothing else team that they didn't already All you did was make their way of applying damage shittier in some cases. If you are behind now you may as well afk because in no way are you getting through locket and exhaust on top of any shields and cc that all happen instantly.

I don't play zed mostly because he isn't bullshit enough for me to use but they literally just nerfed him and that was it. Like lol what he was already the fairest one why the hell did he just get shafted?

Fizz. "Fizz has a pretty unique role: he’s one of the few assassins who can initiate on his own, and we wanted to accentuate that. We’re also giving him more room to play around his slippery mobility, so that - above all assassins - Fizz is the hardest to pin down and peel."

Literally no change to his mobility options at all they just made his ult bullshit and without hitting ult he is basically not a threat.

Does anyone actually fall for leblanc's clone? That cooldown needs to be a hell of a lot shorter for how bad it is.

Talon: "Rather than run straight at you, we want Talon to use the terrain to his advantage." Yeah he jumps walls then runs straight at you or he utls and runs straight at you. Hell his mobility spell is him literally jumping straight at you. Fucking lol.

Now onto the lv 2 cheeses. Talon and kat being able to all in you that early is just funny and really cements my fear that riot barely tested the changes because that is shit that came to light way too fast for them to not have known that.

I don't play rengar but that playerbase... well rengar used to be an assassin so they should be used to the treatment by now.

First it wasn't over tuned so they weren't good. Then boom buffed and they just rocket up in winrate. Repeat process till duskblade and wow duskblade. Riot realized you can't make delayed damage work when everything else is instant so they gave them huge instant damage again. Now just like before everyone else came to the party and you see duskblade on things that it doesn't even make sense on just because of how strong it had to be to justify those 2 champions. Just make their kits good riot and stop trying convoluted ways to buff them that we know aren't going to work in a healthy way. I know you literally cannot buff an assassin in even the smallest way without a shitstorm but you have to just do it if you wanna get anywhere.

Oh before I forget some assassins still have 0 ways out that aren't flash or walking away and praying.

The kits being fun is subjective but I do enjoy some of them. Just wish riot would actually do what they were saying for both tanks and assassins

I've been a Talon main since he had his silence and I agree about his bullshit lvl 2 cheese. Instead of giving him a killing tool for a new passive, they just gave him a free early kill card. His abilities don't do shit for damage in exchange for a cheesy as fuck passive that's just unfun to lane against. They also keep overusing the 'roam through terrain' ability too. Aurelion sol, kayn and soon to evelynn.

Teridax68Aug 15, 201717 votes

Thoughts on the two updates:

The Assassin Update, imo, had mixed success: Riot went in with good intentions for the assassin class (they wanted to give them more counterplay and skill expression), but at the same time did not seem to fully grasp the implications of stealth, burst or mobility on their redesigns, and so the updated champions were pretty hit-or-miss. Some, like Katarina or Talon, were quite successful, whereas others, like the LeBlanc or Rengar updates, were disastrous. The addition of Lethality as a dedicated assassin stat was a step forward in giving AD assassins their own itemization, but then the stat got immediately appropriated by some marksmen, a move that Riot enabled by balancing the stat around them and refusing to make Lethality items melee-only. Additionally, because assassins got their burst delayed in an environment where melee champions can suffer huge amounts of CC and damage without them being able to do much about it, the class is still not able to operate properly because of the game's current state, and therefore became unpopular. The class is healthier overall, but has a long way to go before it'll be truly successful.

The Tank Update is, I think, the only roster update that I'd consider a failure. Whereas every other update at least nudged the class they were addressing in the right direction, the Tank Update I think approached tanks in completely the wrong way. Part of this is because Riot promised one set of improvements (less spammy PBAoE damage, more skill expression, more unique contributions), and did something completely different in the end (we have more tanks with spammy PBAoE than before, several of them feel overly simplistic, and many blend into each other due to having more similar contributions). Many tanks feel like more durable divers now, and as a whole the class is less diverse and even easier to confuse with fighters than before. Despite this being advertized as a "high-quality" update, neither the reworks nor the itemization changes felt exceptionally well thought-out, so in the end it feels like we got a smaller update that still managed to mess up a lot of what it was trying to fix.

So yeah, I'm voting on the Tank Update. I don't think any of the roster updates were a complete success, as all of the affected classes need much more follow-up work, but with tanks specifically I think we've taken a step back, and with so many homogeneous designs (including bigger ones like Galio and even Ornn to some extent) it's going to be even more difficult to orient the class in a new, better direction in the future.

LankPantsAug 15, 20173 votes

less spammy PBAoE damage

Is this even a good goal for a tank rework? The spammy PBAoE damage felt like a fair way for tanks to deal damage, it's a damage type that only works if a tank can stay on top of you for an extended period of time.

The Sejuani rework is a perfect example of why the PBAoE damage was better than what it was replaced with. Old Sejuani had to stay on you to deal damage, if she charged on you, hit her spells but then swiftly got knocked back she dealt minimal damage. If new Sej gets a combo on you she's done her damage, it's all a burst, you can CC her, get her off of you and it doesn't fucking matter. Sej has less counter play now because you effectively have a cutoff point which says "if you haven't dealt with her by X then you're fucked", it's not like X is a long time either, if she's alone it's about 1.5 seconds, with a melee ally it can be <0.5 sec. With old Sej you were rewarded for dealing with her quicker, you took less damage but there was no 'you're totally fucked' point before she DPSed you down.

Big LincolnAug 15, 20173 votes

but dude, you can dodge her 2nd W and delay the 2 second stun (that also guarantees her next W anyway because its on a tiny cooldown) by a whole 1 second! healthy!!

LankPantsAug 15, 20173 votes

That's great, but how do I dodge her Irelia?

Big LincolnAug 15, 20173 votes

with Jax hehe

Teridax68Aug 15, 20173 votes

I think the original goal was good as it was declared: Riot's criticism of spammy PBAoE on tanks was that it was a form of power that was difficult to appreciate, despite being strong (e.g. Sunfire Cape's burn aura), and didn't punish proximity to the tank in the most interesting manner. What they suggested they were going to do was take an approach closer to Sion's, i.e. make tank abilities more delayed or telegraphed, but much more impactful if they connect, so that keeping enemies close to you for a period of time rewards you with a nice chunk of damage and/or CC, rather than a weaker version of either dealt over time.

In practice, though, as you and several other players mentioned, all of that basically flew out the window in implementation. The one instance of an updated tank potentially having more telegraphed damage is Sejuani on her second W hit, and even then her first W is the same kind of old design, and her E counterplay is compromised by its aura. Meanwhile, Zac kept his spammy PBAoE W, Maokai kept his basic abilities and gained an ult that punishes enemies near him harder than his previous one, Galio had spammy PBAoE damage added to his kit, and champions like Amumu and Rammus received no major gameplay changes to their own versions. Effectively, we still have the same point-blank damage spam as before, perhaps even more of it, except some key sources (namely Sunfire) had their numbers nerfed.

LankPantsAug 15, 20173 votes

I think the original goal was good as it was declared: Riot's criticism of spammy PBAoE on tanks was that it was a form of power that was difficult to appreciate, despite being strong (e.g. Sunfire Cape's burn aura), and didn't punish proximity to the tank in the most interesting manner.

To be honest I always disagreed with this even when Riot first said it.

I always argued that PBAoE is actually the ideal damage pattern for tanks, it just makes sense. You have a class that's meant to only be effective in melee range, needs some damage to function and feels garbage to play against when they deal burst. There's only really two patterns that fit well into this, a DoT pattern and an AA pattern.

The AA pattern has the problem of making a tank really want to invest in non-tank stats to boost up their damage, as seen with Shen often wanting items like Titanic Hydra and in earlier seasons Wit's End. Regardless of this there are certainly tanks who use this pattern such as Shen and to some extent Nautilus.

Most tanks instead opt for the DoT method of dealing damage, obviously there's more than one way to give a tank DoT, you could give them Malefic Visions or Spirit Fire type spells, but these don't really feed back into the idea that you want to keep your distance from a tank. So the logical forms of DoT left are spamable short ranged abilities and self centred true DoTs.

The problem I have with the 3 big tank reworks is that Riot actively moved away from what makes a damage based tank healthy. They moved in the direction of unavoidable burst damage, they gave tanks more heavy single target damage rather than them being AoE threats and they removed ways to play around both tanks damage and CC.

What they suggested they were going to do was take an approach closer to Sion's, i.e. make tank abilities more delayed or telegraphed, but much more impactful if they connect, so that keeping enemies close to you for a period of time rewards you with a nice chunk of damage and/or CC, rather than a weaker version of either dealt over time.

Now I'm going to drop unpopular opinion time that will likely get me downvoted, I don't like Sion's design as much as everyone else seems to. I will never hold Sion up as a pinnacle of design and I certainly don't think he is the best designed tank. Is he better than the abominations the tank rework created, undeniably but there's just a few things about his design which I'm not at all a fan of. He's actually the poster child for a tank with too much burst and too much CC, this is kind of OK because they're at least easy to dodge but the simple fact that they're even there spoils his kit. He has the whole 'once he hits you get fucked' thing that Sejuani has going on TBH.

I actually think the best designed tank in the game at current is Amumu. To me he just feels like a more fair character than Sion. He has far less of a 1 man CC chain going on which is the thing I despise most about modern tank designs and he has the 'get rewarded based on when you deal with him' thing that old Sej had going on.

This isn't saying that I have a problem with Sion, I still think he's a top 20 champ design wise, he's honestly a top 2-3 out of tanks at current. I just personally feel like old Sej and both iterations of Amumu are better designs than him. Funnily enough I hold the opposite view of what makes a tank good to Riot at least before the tank rework. This is why I've been so heavily against the tank rework since it was first announced, I could see with crystal clarity that their goals were wrong. I never had a doubt from the moment I saw the Sejuani rework thread that this was going to be a disaster.

Teridax68Aug 15, 20171 votes

{quoted}

To be honest I always disagreed with this even when Riot first said it.

I always argued that PBAoE is actually the ideal damage pattern for tanks, it just makes sense. You have a class that's meant to only be effective in melee range, needs some damage to function and feels garbage to play against when they deal burst. There's only really two patterns that fit well into this, a DoT pattern and an AA pattern.

I agree with this reasoning, even if personally I'm more in favor of an AA pattern (it completely takes damage away from ability comboes and allows for consistent baseline damage outside of them). However, I do think it's okay to have burst on tanks or tanky enemies, as long as it's heavily telegraphed: if, for example, you deal 300 instant damage to enemies who have been around you for 3 consecutive seconds, that would be the same overall damage as dealing 100 damage per second to nearby enemies for the same duration, only it would feel more impactful and would be more outplayable. The added unreliability also means you can add more power to the effect, e.g. with increased damage or some more CC, or shift it elsewhere on their kit.

{quoted}

Now I'm going to drop unpopular opinion time that will likely get me downvoted, I don't like Sion's design as much as everyone else seems to. I will never hold Sion up as a pinnacle of design and I certainly don't think he is the best designed tank. Is he better than the abominations the tank rework created, undeniably but there's just a few things about his design which I'm not at all a fan of. He's actually the poster child for a tank with too much burst and too much CC, this is kind of OK because they're at least easy to dodge but the simple fact that they're even there spoils his kit. He has the whole 'once he hits you get fucked' thing that Sejuani has going on TBH.

I agree that his basic abilities all become super-easy to land on an enemy you just ulted, though I think that reliability is okay on a champion who's otherwise very unreliable. If I had to change anything, I'd probably lower the total damage of that combo from point-blank range. I also agree that having that kind of combo pattern on tanks is generally unhealthy when they can deal a lot of burst on top of reliable initiation, which I think is the core issue with Sejuani and Zac's kits as they currently stand.

{quoted}

I actually think the best designed tank in the game at current is Amumu. To me he just feels like a more fair character than Sion. He has far less of a 1 man CC chain going on which is the thing I despise most about modern tank designs and he has the 'get rewarded based on when you deal with him' thing that old Sej had going on.

Personally, I actually find Amumu to be one of my least favorite designs. His W, E and R are all basically the same ability, and the end result is that you get punished three times as hard for making the same mistake, which is why he stomps lower elos and struggles upwards. He doesn't have as much CC as most recent tanks, but he has a lot of upfront burst that you can't avoid if you get comboed, and if it weren't for his E cooldown reducing upon taking damage, I'd argue he'd be closer to a burst juggernaut than a proper tank.

LankPantsAug 15, 20172 votes

I agree with this reasoning, even if personally I'm more in favor of an AA pattern (it completely takes damage away from ability comboes and allows for consistent baseline damage outside of them).

The problem with this is that it almost inherently favours a bruiser design. Let's say we have a champ who deals damage on AA based off a % of their HP, they can double their damage either by buying 4 HP items, 2 AS items or 2 HP items and an AS item. The last case works out to almost always be optimal.

However, I do think it's okay to have burst on tanks or tanky enemies, as long as it's heavily telegraphed: if, for example, you deal 300 instant damage to enemies who have been around you for 3 consecutive seconds, that would be the same overall damage as dealing 100 damage per second to nearby enemies for the same duration, only it would feel more impactful and would be more outplayable.

It's not the same. The instant 300 damage has two states, either you take the 300 damage or you don't. The 300 damage as 100 damage ticks has 4 states, 0, 100, 200 and 300. You can get out at any time and the game effectively gradiates reward based on when you get out. It rewards the tank based on how long they can stick close to you and rewards the other player based on how quickly they can get away without creating an arbitrary time they must escape by.

The added unreliability also means you can add more power to the effect, e.g. with increased damage or some more CC, or shift it elsewhere on their kit.

That just means you're powercreeping the hell out of the game. It creates a scenario where you just bring a reliable CC to lead into the masses of unreliable CC that the other guy brings, you use a Braum to set up for a Sejuani or an Ashe to set up for a Sion. Once you have this initial setup that champ's just better than other champions.

Personally, I actually find Amumu to be one of my least favorite designs. His W, E and R are all basically the same ability

His W and E are similar, arguing his R is the same seems completely absurd though. His R is completely unique in its use case and outputs from both E and W.

and the end result is that you get punished three times as hard for making the same mistake

I prefer designs that punish mistakes hard rather than punishing nothing like tanks at current seem to. Sejuani for example just punishes letting the enemy team pick Sejuani+1 other synergistic champion. Much better that champs punish mistakes than this arbitrary bullshit.

which is why he stomps lower elos and struggles upwards

His rework did a lot to fix this actually, he went from around 55/50 to 53/51. A simpler champ like Amumu is always going to have some discrepancy here, I don't think this is actually to bad though.

He doesn't have as much CC as most recent tanks

That can only be a positive. 3 hard CCs per tank is utter bullshit.

but he has a lot of upfront burst that you can't avoid if you get comboed

Amumu's burst damage is meh. 1 rotation of Q/E/R and a few ticks from W aren't going to do that much unless he's itemising super heavy damage. He needs more ticks of W and multiple Es to really start threatening with his tank builds. His AP builds have a lot of other problems, so it's not really like they're bullshit just because they can burst either.

Teridax68Aug 15, 20172 votes

{quoted}

The problem with this is that it almost inherently favours a bruiser design. Let's say we have a champ who deals damage on AA based off a % of their HP, they can double their damage either by buying 4 HP items, 2 AS items or 2 HP items and an AS item. The last case works out to almost always be optimal.

Okay, but that assumes you want the champion's damage to scale with tankiness, which definitely is juggernaut design. Simply giving a tank more AD would allow them to deal damage when they need to, i.e. during the laning phase and when pushing, without having them deal too much damage elsewhere. In fact, this could be the answer to giving tanks good base damage with poor scaling, as an increase to base AD would only lead to more scaling if tanks went for AD-scaling items, which would come at a cost to their tanky builds.

{quoted}

It's not the same. The instant 300 damage has two states, either you take the 300 damage or you don't. The 300 damage as 100 damage ticks has 4 states, 0, 100, 200 and 300. You can get out at any time and the game effectively gradiates reward based on when you get out. It rewards the tank based on how long they can stick close to you and rewards the other player based on how quickly they can get away without creating an arbitrary time they must escape by.

This assumes you are free to leave anytime, which is absolutely not the case for the average tank, who generally has a gapcloser and multiple instances of CC, so having that constant damage means you're forced to take some of it no matter what, which contributes to tanks dealing too much damage during their comboes. By contrast, having that lead-up means the tank has to put in some extra work in order to deal that damage, and leads to clearer success and failure cases for both sides. The result may be more binary, i.e. you either take all the damage or none of it, but the gameplay it fosters is not, as it rewards both players for doing many more things to either secure or escape that telegraphed damage. This is the difference between Sion's Q and Mordekaiser's E (Morde's not a tank, btw, just picking him as an example here), and I think most of us can agree that the former feels both more impactful and more fair than the latter.

{quoted}

That just means you're powercreeping the hell out of the game. It creates a scenario where you just bring a reliable CC to lead into the masses of unreliable CC that the other guy brings, you use a Braum to set up for a Sejuani or an Ashe to set up for a Sion. Once you have this initial setup that champ's just better than other champions.

Not at all, because reliability itself is a form of power. To pick Sion again, if you removed the charge-up on his Q and instead let him instantly knock enemies up and deal the full damage, he'd be strictly more powerful, whereas if you doubled the charge-up time for the same reward, he'd be flat-out weaker. Bringing reliable CC to facilitate unreliable CC is not much different from any wombo combo where one champion supplies hard CC and the other supplies damage, so I don't think it would change things by that much, particularly since CC is ultimately ineffective in combat when not backed up by damage.

{quoted}

His W and E are similar, arguing his R is the same seems completely absurd though. His R is completely unique in its use case and outputs from both E and W.

His R has a disable and a longer cooldown, but ultimately it's still a PBAoE damage source, just like his W and E. It has different effects, but is generally used in very similar situations, if perhaps at a lower frequency, which is why Amumu always follows up on his R with W and E for his hand grenade burst.

{quoted}

I prefer designs that punish mistakes hard rather than punishing nothing like tanks at current seem to.

Perhaps Sejuani is not a good example of a tank who punishes mistakes, but punishing one thing too hard and ignoring the rest is not good design either. Darius punishes poor positioning, for example, but ultimately his Q, W and E are clearly different from each other, and all have different use cases, even if they can overlap in the case of a combo. By contrast, if you go through the checklist for Amumu, the one question you ask yourself is "am I near someone I want to focus on?", and if the answer is yes you let loose with W, E and possibly R, without much more differentiation beyond that. It's not the most interesting gameplay for Amumu, and isn't exceptionally thrilling for his opponents either.

{quoted}

That can only be a positive. 3 hard CCs per tank is utter bullshit.

While always having 3 hard CCs per tank does get excessive, I think it would be fine if those same tanks didn't have reliable damage, and if the amount of CC in the game were lower overall. I made this graph a few days ago that I should share, but the average amount of CC per champion is around 2, with 1 ability being hard CC. That is bullshit, particularly since that means having 3 separate instances of CC (which is huge) doesn't make your total crowd control all that superior to the average champion. Giving above-average CC to tanks and supports is more or less fine, because it's their job to control and disrupt their opponents, but giving high amounts of crowd control to marksmen, assassins or even fighters... not so much.

{quoted}

Amumu's burst damage is meh. 1 rotation of Q/E/R and a few ticks from W aren't going to do that much unless he's itemising super heavy damage. He needs more ticks of W and multiple Es to really start threatening with his tank builds. His AP builds have a lot of other problems, so it's not really like they're bullshit just because they can burst either.

Amumu's base combo damage exceeds 820 damage and only depends on his Q, and this is ignoring his innate and the Abyssal Mask he habitually builds. It's not as large on its own as, say, Sion's 1200+ ult damage right off the bat if he lands it from a long distance, but it's significantly easier to do and thus much more reliable. For that to happen while you effectively cannot move without cleansing yourself, it really is a typical example of a tank having burst damage on top of a reliable initiation.

SpoofghoulAug 16, 20172 votes

On the Sion point.

After Sunfire got nerfed his winrate took a massive dive and they had to buff him 3 times and it remains to be seen whether that willa actually be enough.

Thing is, his damage is really easy to counter with any sort of resistances, and getting hit by a 2 second charged Q is unlikely. If they really wanted to give proper reward they would have to up the damage by a decent amount, at least at max charge/power

They did so with his ulti and gave it a 33,34% damage buff.

And that is really the direction you would have to go in for almost any tank if you wanted to get rid of spammy aoe damage

The result of which comes down to, in sion's case anyway, the ability to assassinate squishies, if you can land a charged up ultimate followed by E W Q you delete squishies

Now it's fairly easy to outplay, just dodge, but imagine having to deal with 2 or 3 tanks on a team dishing out nuclear damage, telegraphed but nuclear. Getting hit once by each tank will do the trick

I personally do not think this is the right approach to each tank but rather a handfull of them give them the tools to dish out nukes make them hyperscale and make them a unique subclass of tanks a few more like Sion although they would need better late game scaling. i could appreciate that

Evil YasuoAug 15, 201716 votes

Talon's rework: Yeah so we're going to cram all of his damage into a 'every 3rd attack' passive slow his kit down take away his blink for a "i'm going to dive straight at you and take every spell/cc you throw at me" give him a crit like a bruiser take away aoe on his ult and make it where you can't damage people by closing it. Also now, your ult goes straight through you and follows the enemy as if it's sensing their blood

Seriously, do they not know that his blink worked visually for his ult??? It was to put Talon behind the target so the blades converge into the enemy. Now the blades literally fucking go through him and just follow the enemy.

AhristocatsAug 15, 20179 votes

i thought i was the only one that hated talon's rework

people like the new rework because of parkour new rework just took everything and gave it a delay, and then it works because now his damage are beyond broken that he can kill you at lvl 2 now

but it doesn't feel good at all

his BASE MS got reduced from 350 to 330 his blink was removed everything feels so slow, they should just have given a delay to W and R

Big LincolnAug 15, 20178 votes

I consider talon a success only because he fits riots goals and manages to be viable without being overbearing

I don't like delays or the intense focus on micro play with the assassins though

AhristocatsAug 15, 20174 votes

base ms nuked to 330

this is just the worst change to talon they made

Big LincolnAug 15, 201710 votes

had 2 be done parkour is too op

Pierce The VealAug 15, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=i am Rubick Sama,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VQpV5EaA,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2017-08-15T12:18:24.328+0000)

i thought i was the only one that hated talon's rework

people like the new rework because of parkour new rework just took everything and gave it a delay, and then it works because now his damage are beyond broken that he can kill you at lvl 2 now

but it doesn't feel good at all

his BASE MS got reduced from 350 to 330 his blink was removed everything feels so slow, they should just have given a delay to W and R

This.

I used to play talon often back then.

Now I won't even touch him. I refuse to. He's just not fun for me to play anymore.

OyddAWqJ5rAug 15, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Off The Heezy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VQpV5EaA,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2017-08-15T11:42:09.239+0000)

give him a crit like a bruiser

wot

Seriously, do they not know that his blink worked visually for his ult??? It was to put Talon behind the target so the blades converge into the enemy. Now the blades literally fucking go through him and just follow the enemy.

I like to think he somehow attaches the strings to his target when he hits them. Sleight of hand type stuff.

nm1010Aug 15, 201710 votes

Assassin update:

Talon - in a decent spot outside of the new stat check playstyle, still feels much worse than pre rework due to predictability.

Rengar - Complete identity was changed, absolute failure.

LeBlanc - I could rant on this for literally hours, but to keep it short she was lane oppressive while having great roaming and better late game after the rework. The only solution for this was a baseline kneecapping because fuck actually using our brains to identify problems with a champion.

Katarina - I have literally only seen her level 2-3 cheese with horrendous dagger hit boxes, if that fails she usually just becomes useless outside of lucky roams.

Fizz - Solved none of his major issues, honestly think they were testing design choices on half of these assassin updates.

Zed - Why focus his AD gaining on his R and then release it with so many bugs? If I had a dollar for every time I didn't get my AD I could buy enough hextech chests to get a gemstone.

Akali - None of her stat checking problems were solved, thanks for the blink on w though.

Kha'Zix - I get isolated takedowns, but why didn't he get delayed damage? Wasn't that the whole point, to not jump on someone and one shot them?

Shaco - I have not met a Shaco player who doesn't hate this update... Not to mention he didn't receive any delayed damage either.

Ekko - This was literally a balance change that was a year overdue disguised as an 'update' by adding on that cute r w interaction.

None of these even came close to what Riot wanted and honestly I think their goals were pretty shit in the first place so in essence they failed at implementing a failed rework.

KloqdqAug 15, 20174 votes

Kat is alright. I like her a lot better after the update but I do miss pre-rework. Zed's AD on ult is better than the AD on W in honestly. The rest I can agree with.

nm1010Aug 15, 20171 votes

Zed's AD on ult is better than the AD on W in honestly.

What is better about it? The only time I even notice a difference is the 10% of the time it doesn't give me AD when it should, other than that it is just a change for the sake of change.

KloqdqAug 15, 20175 votes

It rewards Zed for doing his job. Getting free AD for just playing the game isn't really the greatest design and this one allows Zed to be rewarded for taking out high priority targets and the stacking idea is neat. I do think that problem with not getting AD is pretty annoying though. It needs to be updated to be a lot more consistent but as a design, it's much better.

nm1010Aug 15, 20171 votes

If it worked as intended it is basically just a buff to snowballing since the old w gave ~10 ad or less until level 14. Sure it nerfed his late game slightly if Jhin or rengar aren't in the game, but since when have assassins been known for their late game? And I don't mean to sound like I don't like buffs but it just seems counter intuitive to the goals of the Assassin rework again to increase Zed's snowballing.

KloqdqAug 15, 20174 votes

I mean it doesn't work on APs so it doesn't really snowball him in the same way. There is actual counter play to it in a sense and it actually decreases his snowball nature as before if he ran with a lead he would just get AD and get more AD for free. Now he needs to kill marked targets to get any AD thus lowering his total snowball potential.

Plus you need to use ult. The actual snowball of the ult passive is a lot weaker than you may think.

nm1010Aug 15, 20171 votes

AD gained from the old passive with 100 ad = 4 bonus AD

AD gained from the old passive with 200 ad = 8 bonus AD

AD from new passive ulting Syndra at level 6 = ~8 bonus AD

AD from new passive ulting Syndra at level 11 = ~13 bonus AD

AD from new passive ulting a 200 ad target with rank 2 ult = 25 bonus AD

It is much much better at snowballing than the old passive. Sure you kind of need to target ad builders, but you still get a better reward if you just kill AP than the old w so you can snowball easier since you get more AD quicker now.

KloqdqAug 15, 20171 votes

What was the bonus %? Wasn't it like 10% at level 1? Also pretty sure you stop getting AD from mid laner after level 6 as they aren't the strongest target anymore.

LankPantsAug 15, 20172 votes

Assuming you get a kill it's always going to be better than old passive until very late in the game. The 5 flat AD from a kill is the same you got from 125 AD with the old passive at rank 1.

Cosmic WarperAug 15, 20173 votes

The funniest part about that ekko "update" is that for the past 7-8 months of playing ekko i've only maybe used that RW interaction twice.... what a joke lol

YaskamasandwichAug 15, 20179 votes

Tank rework was the bigger failure. It wasn't even a tank rework, more of buff the Marksmen even more rework. There were more changes and buffs to AD in that rework than arguable the Marksmen rework it self. Basically all AD items got 10 damage increase, DD became broken, GA became an AD item instead of everyone's class item. Health got nerfed all across the board. Sure armor increased but Lord Dominik's Regards got buffed even further.

The entire tank rework was more focused on Marksmen than Vanguards and that is a huge failure in of itself. At least Assassin's rework focused solely on Assassins.

ABlueQuakerAug 15, 20177 votes

My 3 most-played Champions last season were Fizz Sejuani Zac

Riot can get fucked.

Big LincolnAug 15, 20176 votes

tru Sejuani rip

YaskamasandwichAug 15, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VQpV5EaA,comment-id=00050000,timestamp=2017-08-15T14:32:53.718+0000)

tru rip

I miss her so so so much. /sigh R.I.P. girl, R.I.P.

iTaLenTZAug 15, 20176 votes

You forget the juggernaut and mage 'update'.

Juggernaut:

Darius oppressive as ever
Garen lost his niche and his completely outclassed by Darius or any other champ for that matter
Mordekaiser. Doesn't need explenation
Juggernaut items mostly abused my tankekko, tankfiora, tank whatever except the juggernauts.
Resulted in every bruiser and juggernaut item to be changed because adc's were abusing them instead of making them melee only

Mage

Malzahar: Complete failure. Reworked twice since then and still in a very unsatisfying spot alienating all his mains,
Zyra and Brand are now supports
Vel Koz changed to 'press skill button to deal shitload of true damage"
Dumbed Syndra down by removing kill setup with orbs into 'press skill button to delete X champ'
Made AP items more expensive across the board compared to AD items

All I know is that these updates are not improving the game at all.

yay nibbersAug 15, 20176 votes

Everbody forgets Skarner. I miss old, non-spire reliant Skarner.

Big LincolnAug 15, 20173 votes

Darius oppressive LOL

PopcornBunniAug 15, 20175 votes

The tank item changes don't even make them better at their "niches"

Old item 3068 : 500 Health, 50 Armor: Effectively 750 Health against physical sources

New item 3068 : 425 Health, 60 Armor: Effectively 680 Health against physical sources

This left the item at 90% of its old effective health value against the source it's meant to be strong against while still being 85% as effective against Magic damage.

Meanwhile old item 3071 reduced the effective health from sunfire cape to 675 while the new reduces it to 618.

The only thing the tank update did was gut tank itemization and obliterate three champions' balance.

LankPantsAug 15, 20178 votes

Old : 500 Health, 50 Armor: Effectively 750 Health against physical sources

New : 425 Health, 60 Armor: Effectively 680 Health against physical sources

More like old Sunfire: did damage, new Sunfire: does not.

FFS even Shen doesn't build new Sunfire, it's a godawful item.

The DeckownerAug 15, 20174 votes

Which is worse, CANCER or AIDS?

TyroneWatermelonAug 15, 20173 votes

lol "adc hated assassin rework the most" excuse me? adc mains are jacking off and abuse lethality to its fullest ever since

FantasySniperAug 15, 20173 votes

The tank update gutted their items and made most of them pretty shit. Then they tried to buff the tanks themselves and left all but 3 or 4 in the dust. It further compounded the issues with the assassin update because their ideal counter got cucked so hard.

Now it's spiraling out of control as the only viable tanks are still getting nerfed, leaving the game a shitfest of AD burst.

AreAug 15, 20173 votes

I'll go with the assassin rework, but I am biased.

Akali - R gutted, survivability/durability lowered considerably, hyper carry potential gone, damage lowered a decent amount. Gained a W that can't be pinked and has a short blink. The fact that they made W stationary removed a lot of skill ceiling and mind tricks on old W. It wasn't that much of a binary skill, people just didn't know how to use it correctly.

BlakiepugAug 15, 20172 votes

Even though I really disliked the tank update, the assassin update took all the fun out of playing Rengar. I just can't play the champion anymore because of his new kit. It simply isn't fun.

BlakiepugAug 15, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Even though I really disliked the tank update, the assassin update took all the fun out of playing Rengar. I just can't play the champion anymore because of his new kit. It simply isn't fun.

Not to mention the absolutely disgusting Lethality meta that the assassin update left us with for a full 4 months.

SalsonAug 15, 20172 votes

Let's just say Rito decided to retire that form of Class updates for a reason. Some champs succeed, while others get destroyed.

Assassins: -Kata - good -Talon -good -LB - bad -Rengar - better bonetooth, overall meh

Tanks: -Zac - bad, CC overload -Mao - good? - better jungler -Sej - meh - better core spells, ally's stacking Frost eats power budget

Miku Hime samaAug 15, 20172 votes

The assassin update hands-down was more toxic and damaging to the game. By nature, assassins are designed to create an unfair and anti-fun scenario. The point of the assassin rework was to exponentiate this problem even further by increasing their uninteractiveness and reduce enemy teams' ability for reaction and outplay. As an added negative, they also reduced assassins' skillfloors and fall-off in the late game.

Tanks on the other hand, are just meant to sit in front and soak damage. If a tank is allowed to do ANYTHING, it's because your team isn't doing their job properly. Tanks suffer from the old dilemma of the impregnable shield vs. the unstoppable sword. When ADCs are strong, tanks are weak. When tanks are strong, ADCs are weak. The sheeple of LoL will complain one way or the other. Meanwhile assassins are designed to intentionally lack counterplay and when they're strong (which they ALWAYS are,) then it doesn't matter where any other classes stand.

DunkinNoobsAug 16, 20172 votes

The tank update easily because they only reworked 3 champs and yet managed to make 2 of them worse than before while Maokai is more of a draw. I still have no idea how either the Zac or Sejuani reworks got approved, let alone how they managed to get onto live servers. The Zac rework was particularly egregious just due to the fact that his new Q makes missing his E not even matter anymore.