My thoughts about the general balance of the game

Hi everyone! In my opinion this game is more or less balance despite it has quite a few champions to play, however there are also some core design 'flaws', which make balancing certain aspects of the game problematic. I wanted to list these thoughts of mine to see what the community thinks about them and I hope the team of Riot will see this thread as well.

Mechanics over Strategy attitude This has been discussed a lot of times that there are champions, whose kit allow them to make multiple mistakes and/or allow them to outplay the opponent to point, where the player doesn't even have to think about the consequences. I don't want to list those champions, because there are a few of them, but everyone probably knows those champions. While I agree that mechanically intensive gameplay should be rewarding, however they never should be that mechanically overloaded, that it allows the player to completely disregard the strategical and decision making aspects of the game. It is satisfying to watch one champion deleting five others, however in the player's point of view this isn't really fun (well maybe for the one, who is deleting the others), especially when it is done in a situation, where most champions would end up dying.

Balance decisions revolve around either low-elo play or high-elo play This one is tricky and I think the best example would be the current state of . It is understandable that at high-elo this champion is close to non-viable, however the current version of it is just disgusting at low-elo and as I watched high-elo plays the same problem can occur there, if he is allowed to run amuck, on the other hand it didn't fix his core gameplay issues at high-elo. Whenever such decisions are made, I can see that the balancing team listened to one 'side' of the players and never the other. Low-elo can show the true, overfed potential of certain champions, while high-elo can show their limits. I would take both opinions into consideration, because I can only consider something truly balanced, when the champion gameplay is similar at all elos, which means that no champion is utter useless at any elos, but they are not absurdly powerful at low-elos, where they can get some lead.

Abilities/Passives with no or few limits My prime examples for this issue would be again and . These two have something in their kit, which isn't limited at all or its limits are just few. Nasus' Q shouldn't be stacked infinitely, which allows Nasus to completely disregard damage dealing items and build tanky and still pump out absurd amount of damage. Of course he needs to stack it, but in long matches it is nearly impossible to deny every stack from him and by 40 minutes he can delete the enemy all by himself. As for Yasuo, I meant his dash more precisesly. While there is some short cooldown on it and of course he can't cast twice on the same minion for a while, but it allows him to dash through a lane and then back. The problem isn't that he can do this, the problem is that he can do this without limits and others can feel really oppressed if they play against a good Yasuo. These examples can simply fixed by setting a limit to their stacks and adding charges to their abilities, so they can't do the same thing infinite times.

Obsolete items, way too situational items There are some items in the game, which are kept mostly for a single champion on which that item is core, and which are just way too situational to get, because they are effective in specific situations, which might occur or not, but they aren't practical at all outside that niche. is only built on at the moment, because the item doesn't give too many useful stats and bonuses, but his kit revolves around that specific item. It could use some updates, so that it would become a viable choice for others as well. sounds nice on paper, but in a real match it is a really risky item to get, because it is only good when you tower dive, and even in that case other item might be just more useful.

Buffs/Nerfs without trades In this point I would like to reflect my opinion about the current state of . Sylas was mostly played on top and mid lane, however like me, found him really good to play in Jungle, despite he doesn't really shine at clears, his ganks are really powerful and hit hard. Many players picked him up in Jungle, with a rather significant 30-40% playrate in Jungle the last time I checked the statistics about him. Like many new champs, he has undergone quite a few balance changes, but most of those changes focused on his gameplay on lane. Currently he was hit by some nerfs, which were meant to curb down his laning potential, however those nerfs already made his weak early clear in jungle even weaker, almost close to non-viable. I understand that his primary role isn't in the jungle, but the team should have considered that many players do play him in jungle and those nerfs just made him there even weaker. I wanted to point out that certain balance decisions, let it be nerf or buff, doesn't come with power trades, which can make multipurpose champions really weak at certain areas. In other cases that buff will make a specific champion from weak to overpowered, and the nerf doing the same vice versa.

Lack of viable AP junglers, AP/AD issue in general This was also discussed through and through, that AD itemisation is more forgiving than AP itemisation, however the recent jungle balance decisions kind of forced out most AP champions out of the jungle, while AD champions can still gank as early as Lvl2 without. The core of issue of this XP nerf is, that AP champions need all abilities to clear as efficient as an AD champion. One problem with this decision is, that if you get in a team, where literally everyone picks AD champions, then you either risk taking an AP champion in Jungle or simply take AD and pray that the enemy won't build armor that much. I abandoned playing jungle and returned to play on botlane, because champion choices are really limited in the jungle currently in my opinion. This issue is enhanced by the AD and AP itemisation difference. AD champions can still use their AA to lane and clear, but AP completely relies on abilities, which of course cost mana. A lot of AP champions have just really unfavourable mana issues, that quite many players pick mages in support role, where they don't need to lane at all and they can focus on hitting the enemy as much as possible. Because for AP champions laning cost mana, they usually don't have enough to trade, or if they do, they don't have enough to lane, so it is easy to force them out of the lane. There could be new runes, items which would alleviate this aspect of the classic AP champions (the ones with mana).