State of Mid lane

New season, new meta, new compositions.

Its the annual change to League.

Season 8 brought us the Runes Reforged update, which in a way, was a step in the right direction, mostly to new players that eventually try out League, and no longer have to worry about stacking large amount of IP(Now Blue Essence) to actually be in the same stats as other more advance players. The fact you can now also change your rune page to your liking in Champion Select also solidified in making League a good novice experience game and the change itself to the runes and the birth of Keystones was all around, not bad (I miss Deathfire Touch, sadface).

However not everything was all good changes, and Im mainly going to talk about how some changes affected Mid Lane. NOTE: This will be a long post, I will try to structure it in a rather easy way so you may access the main points of my reasoning fairly straightforward.

I will start on by:

1- Identify the state of Mid lane 2- Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each class 3-Possible and healthy changes that can be made and conclusion 4-TL;DR

**Note: All of this reasoning will be made by facts, experience and I will try to be as neutral as possible, however this is a lane where I dedicated a lot of my time into just like the game, and all I want is to everyone have a fair chance to win their games despite the changes that occur each year and during it. After all, we all want a balanced game that rewards those who give their hardest to master it and its champions. **

So lets begin.

1: To first identify the State of Season 8 Mid lane we need to see how was it formed in the previous Season(7). I couldnt find pick rates, win rates or such of the previous season anywhere, however I did find a few tier lists, which can be subjective however give a vague image of how mid lane was back in Season 7: http://i.imgur.com/AehmeIH.jpg

1.a: We can see at the top tier(S to A) consist mostly of mages. Being the only consistent assassins throughout the ranks, , ,. Even though this tier list does not offer complementary data to back it up, if people had to say a word that would characterize Mid Lane in Season 7, most would say "Wave-Clear" being that one of mages strongest point. And why was wave-clear so important? Wave-Clear gave mages the option to control the pace of Mid Lane. By controlling the wave, they could shove the wave under the enemy tower while they looked for opportunities to roam or apply vision near objectives , leaving the enemy mid laner busy clearing the wave or risking loisng experience and gold if he tried to follow and even risking a 1vs2 in a no vision territory. Assassins, being one their traits lack of wave-clear power, suffered from this, thus making them not strong since they could not roam unless they either kill/force their back to is lane opponent, or sacrifice some experience and gold to gain elsewhere in the map by killing other laners.

Some people considered this not interactive and even "boring" in the first minutes of the match to see especially in the LCS. Thus change was promised to remove that power that mages had in the first minutes of the game.

1.b: Runes Reforged was introduced and shortly after Patch 8.4 was brought to us to play. In it Mage itemization was completely changed "...to give mages more options, so we're creating new mage items (and reshaping old ones) to provide more unique and focused outputs and let mages adapt their itemization to game states, matchups, and personal style." https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-84-notes#patch-ability-power-items.

Lets start out by the good changes:

1- Finally Mages had a item that actually made their spells do damage to high health champions, finally filling that spot that was missing for several seasons and that in a way came late, but still a good change, despite the low 1% max health which still needs work. 2- Came back with a new face and actually made it a viable item for the first time in ages. 3- Its price lowered and its passive increased by 5%. 4- Even though hard to pull off, Spellbinder did aim to innovate.

Now the bad changes:

1. First off all, Morellonomicon was completely revamped and turned into a anti healing item. Which in theory seems like a good idea, the problem is that what we got in return to substitute Morellonomicon as a first item was , a higher priced item by 400 Gold compared to the old Morellonomicon and they removed the UNIQUE PASSIVE Enemy champion takedowns restore 20% of your maximum mana which was in old Morellonomicon, and why is that passive important? Because it allowed mages to not run out of mana in fights if they do commit everything to kill someone, which will also create worse mana problems to mages that I will mention once we talk about patch 8.9. 2- Continues to be a item that is pretty much never picked or not often enough to make it viable. Before, Aurelion Sol was a big user of the item, but with the health removed, it is now pretty much pointless to pick and outclassed by and . 3- Price was increased from 900 to 1100 and then in patch 8.9 to 1300 gold. This is probably the most harmful change to mages, taking the fact that it was the item that allowed mages after the first or second back to buy it and be consistent in their wave-clear and have enough tools to play agressive in lane. With its cost increased, mages no longer with the changes brought to by patch 8.9 patch, have consistent wave clear and have no choice but to either buy Tear, which btw, got its cost also increased to 850 gold or just give the lane control to his opponent and painfully play passive and be dominated in lane till they get enough gold.

You may now wonder, what did patch 8.9 change exactly that even more influenced and created chaos in mages early power and ultimately shifted the meta of Mid Lane.

1.c: Patch 8.9 which aimed mainly to: "This patch, we're looking at mages, mana, and spellcasts. Over time, waveclear champions have slowly edged out all other champions in mid lane, to the detriment of overall playstyle diversity. Basically, it's become too easy to spam your spells on waves, and the items which give you the mana to do so are also just the best choices. We're updating the core mana items mages buy, the base mana/mana regen of mages, and more." https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-89-notes#patch-mages-changes

Again, lets start out with the good changes:

1- ,, had tiny ap base stats increase which werent really needed but still, not every significant. 2- Received small buffs but still is outclassed by and . 3- Quality of life change, which was in fact good. 4-The whole champion mana pools work "Overall, they’ll be up a bit of starting mana and mana regen, but be substantially down on mana per level." was okay, but sadly incomplete since they did not lowered the mana costs of some mages abilities that are too high to be able to manage these changes.

Now the bad things:

1-, Old Dorans Ring forced mages to actually focus on csing especially in the first levels with basic attacks to get the mana to then cast spells to finish clearing the wave or poking the enemy or use a spell to both last hit a minion and hit the enemy champion which made it interactive and mechanical expressive. With the new change, you now get less mana overall and thats even more noticed in champions with high mana costs at the start of the game. 2- Cost was increased to 1300 like I mentioned earlier...Its ability power was also increased but it doesnt matter since once you get it, you are already behind in terms of power compared to the match time. 3- Got nerfed in every way possible...Again pushing mages wave-clear back even more.

Now that we know the changes made in the mid lane, lets see the current Mid Lane meta: https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/middle/all

1. Zed
2. Yasuo
3. Ahri
4. LeBlanc
5. Talon
6. Ekko
7. Lux
8. Fizz
9. Zoe
10. Veigar
11. Katarina
12. Orianna

Orianna which was one of the strongest mid laners in Season 7 fell 10 places. Taliyah doesnt even show up in the top 40 and was pretty much demoted to the jungle. Syndra fell more than double of the places than orinana and the top is dominated by mostly assassins/burst mages champions. And why did the meta in mid lane shifted so much, you ask? First we need to see how Assassins and mages currently state.

2-Comparing classes: Assassins/Burst Mages are meant to do one thing: Eliminate the carries of the enemy team, rapidly and get out.

So lets identify their strong traits:

1-They are currently the class with the cheapest items in the game. AD assassins only need to spend 2700 gold in the first item and often start with a lowering the price of their first item even more. AP assassins/burst mages are more fairly balanced in terms of prices, having: , , as their first item options; 2-Their high base and ratios make them powerful in early, mid and even late game being only stopped by heavy tanks or enormous amount of heals/shields; 3-Their threat to kill you is always present, even when they are behind, thus they are never 'truly' behind especially against squishy targets; 4-They are the most mobile champions, thus the ability to roam and get to high priority targets is always open to them and the ability influence other lanes; 5-At the current state, their wave-clear is mediocre(Not being able to fast shove, but still clear waves in a average speed); 6-They can literally kill you at level 2-3.; 7-They are the class that can more easily gather gold and snowball; 8-Electrocute does too much damage overall;

Now their weak traits:

1-Assassins are normally squishy, not building any resistances or high health items, makes them easy to kill if focused by multiple people; 2-Their success, depends solely on the fact that they do or not kill the high priority targets, thus the "High Risk-High Reward" mindset, however with the current state assassins do too much damage, have low cooldowns and thus the high risk part slowly turned in a low risk one in most of them; 3-They, most of the time depend on having some sort of engage champion on their team to give them the time and opportunity to move to attack. However this is entirely subjective and situational, due to the fact they have high mobility they can easily reach their target; 4-They supposedly should have a hard time wave-clearing; 5-They get outscaled in the late game by carries; 6-They demand good positionining but have a easier time to hit spells;

Now mages. Meant to constantly harasss and poke the enemy and provide some sort of cc and utility to the team.

Strong traits:

1-They normally have above average range in their abilities; 2-They can constantly throw spells and poke, along with cc to pin down enemies; 3-Their wave clear is supposedly the strongest in the game; 4-Their strong phase, is during mid-late time;

Weak points:

1-They are really squishy, making them easy to kill; 2-Their early game, just like with adcs, is weak compared to other classes; 3-Their damage output is low in the early game; 4-Most of them are immobile, making them easy to target or zone out; 5-They demand peel from other members of the team to survive in team fights. However this is also subjective and situational. 6-They require good aim and reflexes to play, since their kit is mostly composed of skillshots. A missed skillshot can represent a death, lost fight or even defeat.

Note: Ignite was buffed in patch 8.6 (Total true damage increased to 80 - 505 (based on level) from 70 - 410 (based on level) and Heal was nerfed (Cooldown increased to 270 seconds from 240), along with teleport that was also nerfed (Cooldown increased to 360 seconds from 300) in patch 8.14.

In conclusion: The combination of all these changes made mages early game even weaker, and their wave-clear more expensive and needing more time to come online and consistent, even if you do build Tear which is 850 gold and cheaper than the the old Lost Chapter, you will still need to stack it and your overall damage output will be significally weak even when you get Archangel. All of this and the ignite buff indirectly made assassins and burst mages stronger, and naturally take over the Mid Lane without mages having any way to counter play it since most of Mages counter play against assassins was their wave-clear and shove potential. With it gone, mages are too weak to compete and they have to spend MORE gold to actually reach their core items.

For an example with : I only needed Lost Chapter to wave-clear fairly well in Season 7, and finally Morellonomicon to reach a okayish state in both power and mana pool, and then aim for Luden Echos which would be the big first power spike. Right now in season 8, I need to spend gold for a Tear just to barely survive and then rush to Ludens Echo, making it 4k cost.

3: And with this I propose a change or a fix to mages currently. I want to be able to play the champions I adore and that I spent a large amount of time to train and master. A class shouldnt completely counter another class, and there must exist some sort of healthy counter play and traits to exploit for both sides. I tried several builds, I tried playing passive, agressive, neutral, roaming, not roaming, different rune pages, and all of them made me play in deficit compared to the Assassin class, in every stage of the game and in multiple matchups. I understand that the meta changes but in Season 7 assassins were still viable, they still could do things and comeback despite the mages overall "supremacy". But in this season mages just get completely destroyed in every way possible, and the strongest trait and their only defense both gutted and easily exploited by assassins. Even when Im ahead in cs or 1-2 kills, a assassin will complete his first item first than me, and thus be stronger than me and never be really behind.

Its a bit sad, that mages now get demoted to the support class and not be the ones that actually laned in Mid Lane by landing skillshots, controlling, creating such shocking comebacks and big plays. Theres space for every class as long its all fairly well balanced and the traits of each class strongly put in order.

3: The changes/fixes I suggest are these ones, however, they do not all need to applied, and honestly I would be happy with just mana cost reduction in mages in the early game:

1-Lower the price of Lost Chapter back to 900; 2-Increase the price of lethality items by 200 gold; 3-Lower the mana costs of mages with abilities that cost more than 80 till level 8, while keeping the abilities fair in terms of damage/cd's. (Sort of like the Lux small changes that happened though mostly focused on lowering the mana costs by around 10-20 per level depending on the champion); 4-Lower the base stats of assassins/burst mages abilities but keep their high ratios so they do not naturally are as strong in the early game; 5- Change Dorans Ring mana regen passive depending on the champion; 6-Add the "UNIQUE PASSIVE Enemy champion takedowns restore 20% of your maximum mana" to Luden Echoes; 7-Create a separate itemization tree for AP burst mages, so balancing them does not indirectly affect the other group of mages;

You are free to suggest any other changes that might help in the comments if you wish. These are just some I could think of

4: TL;DR- Mages wave clear needs too much time to come online and is too expensive at the moment, thus making mages hit their power spikes later than the assassins/burst mages class which is also the one that more easily gets gold, and at the moment competes with no counter play from mages, creating the dominance of assassins in mid lane at the moment and the lack of mages. No class should completely destroy the other, and some healthy and fair counter play should exist no matter the time each class is strong or weak.

NOTE: LCS has a different meta and reasoning behind it than the rest of the League playerbase plays in, so any LCS comparisation cannot be made or be considered valid. Also any mentions of "Just build Zhonyas vs assassins as first item" Should not be a viable argument and it only proves my point that mages are too weak. The fact Im forced to buy a Zhonyas or Banshee Veil as a first item just because Im playing against a assassin champion is not healthy to the game at all. Yes Defensive items should be bought but only later in the game during mid game. in the early game, its as silly as buying a GA first item. And no, Stopwatch shouldnt be forced into either in fact, in Season 7 it didnt exist and we were fine without it. Counter play must naturally exist or else the game cant aim to be fairly balanced, even though true balance is impossible despite that, we must aim towards it.

In anyway, thank you for reading and putting some time into it. Im sorry for the whole 9000+ words put into it. Riot did good things despite all of these changes, I just feel they are incomplete or that they missed some aspects of it, which is normal. You can never think of all the perspectives and results no matter how many people you have working on the Balance Team, despite their rank. I mean this whole problem was created by a cocktail of changes that turned into a Storm that no one could have forseen.

P.S: Even though I do love Xerath, Velkoz, Brand, Lux, etc... and that my opinion may seem completely biased, I dont want to completely make assassins vanish too. I play a lot of champions, I really like Zed, Diana and Ekko, Im not asking for big buffs or big nerfs....Im asking for a change that dignifies and actually makes Mages to compete again with assassins in healthy terms and make skill be the one who judges who wins or loses.