How nerfing problem champions ends up working and why it fails

Riot does this trend where they see a problem and then say they are going to fix it. This was the case with tank ekko and hecarim. To detail the problems, Ekko was doing more base damage than he should have been, so he was able to build tanky items and get away with it. Hecarim has the ability to build trin force as his only source of damage and still one shot squishies while being able to out duel others.

But what did riot really fix. If you're looking at Ekkos recommended tab, it still recommends iceborn and spirit visage (or it did last time I played ekko) When Riot said they were nerfing tank ekko, people generally stopped playing it. But did it really die? The only thing that changed was that he needs maybe one or two damage items to instant kill someone which gives him several item slots to build defensively. For the most part, tank ekko still very much works.

This is the same thing with hecarim. The difference ekko and hecarim is that Hecarims build didn't change. They nerfed his q damage SLIGHTLY and then people stopped playing it for a bit.

What's my point? The point is that when riot creates champions like these, with ridiculous base damage and scaling, small nerfs don't cut it. They come back after a while. People can still get away with tank ekko if they substitute deadmans for protobelt. People can get away with tank yasuo for doing it with IE.

Nothings changed and nothings going to change. If they don't touch the scaling and base damage to a good degree, then there isn't much to stop people from building those items. The only thing stopping people is the lack of understanding that all they need is one more damage item to make up for the small nerfs and they win.