Yes Riot, you hear us...

...but you dont LISTEN.

Recently, ZenontheStoic going over his thoughts about Tahm Kench and where he stands in the game. Typically I stay away from posting on the boards but this article illustrated perfectly my frustrations with Riots habit of having clear bias towards "favorite" champions. I am going to go over specific points of Zenon's commentary but please read for yourself Article found here.

Tahm has been dominating the Fields of Justice since inception; being almost 100% pick or ban in competitive play, boasting a 53% win rate, a 51% ban rate, and is in the top 3 of most banned champions. These are huge numbers for a "support" though Riot has stated they wanted him to access multiple roles (unlike Taric, Raka, Sona, etc. who have been repeatedly nerfed whenever they saw other positions). And while most agree that Tahm is either over-tuned, overpowered, over-budgetted, or any other adjective you want to use, Zenon uses typical girlfriend tactics ("we’re very much aware that a lot of you feel Tahm is very frustrating to play against") to discredit our opinion. He even goes further to specifically state how our "feelings are valid" not our actual opinions on the subject. Notice how this paragraph talks about how Riot "hears us" but subsequently attacks the validity of what they hear by labeling our concerns as something "we feel" not something that is actually occurring. This has been Riots stance for a specific group of champions, The LeeSin Effect, as well as every rework (not one reworked champion has been allowed to stay in, and in some cases even reach, competitive play).

Zenon then successfully identifies the overall problem with Tahm; "There are two more contributing factors to the feeling of frustration I want to talk about real quick. One is that he just seems unkillable, and the other is that he outputs a buttload of damage." However, he immediately discredits that assumption by saying that we cannot look at his abilities in a vacuum. Tahm does not have the tools to get to an enemy and stick to them (lie), nearly every ADC should be able to kite him (possibly true solo, not true when also worrying about positioning from the other ADC in lane), and that anyone with mobility can opt out of fighting him. Followed by this quote "We believe that as long as Tahm’s stickiness and catch potential remain as low as they are, it is okay for him to have the damage he does." Are we even playing the same game?

You should read the actual article linked about because there are more WTF moments and it would take to long to dissect the entire commentary.

Next Zenon is responding to players reactions to this. The first one he tackles is questions about Tahm's ability to stick; why is it so powerful in terms of damage, CC, and CD. Specifically that a 3.6 second CD 1.5 second stun followed by a 3 second suppress on a 6 second CD is oppressive and lacks counterplay. Zenon uses his second GF tactic by talking about other champions instead (Nautilus, Rammus, and Blitz can do the same thing and its easier for them). He completely ignores their lack of damage when building full CDR tank, unlike Tahm, and their inability to deny kills the way Tahm does. And follows it with a cherry picked, anecdotal statement about how hard it is for Tahm to set up his CC. The irony? Neither of the 3 champions he listed are seen in competitive play (much less pick or ban) and when they were they were nerfed because of it which is exactly the argument the community is making.

Lastly Zenon patronizes us for correctly identifying that Tahm is over his power budget. He acknowledges that Tahm is but doesnt care nor think thats a valid reason to nerf Tahm. Instead he creates a new term, "frustration level," that is what we should focus on instead. That power is easy to gauge (though not a reason to nerf when obviously too high) but frustration is really hard to determine. But dont bother telling Riot that Tahm is frustrating to play against either because its really hard to validate those opinions.

Built in free damage is unbalanced. Built in free tankiness is unbalanced. Both on the same champion on low cooldowns is oppressive. Please dont hear us, ACTUALLY LISTEN!