Ramp-up dmg: A replacement for crit

WacingTheFind··27 votes·1,195 views

Critical damage is, after the dodge stat removal, the only RNG based stat in the game, sometimes changing the course of a fight, or even a match, because someone dealt 200%, 250% with item 3031, of their AD on an attack. Also it gives marksmen and other crit users, like Yasuo, what people sometimes call "sustained burst".

Is this alright?

I don't think the current situation with crit is ok, we have marksman outbursting assassins, while maintaining superior DPS, turning them into the premier damage dealing class in the game.

Marksman, with a few exceptions, shouldn't burst squishies, their job is to kill the enemy frontlines and get objectives with good consistent dmg.

However, ADCs currently can deal bursts of dmg, consistently, hence the expression "sustained burst"

That's why I believe crit should be replaced with a fervor of battle-type stat (I will call it ramp-up for now on):

As you've probably guessed, the concept is similar to fervor's, the more you attack, the more dmg you deal. All items that currently possess crit, would have this stat instead, that would increase the following autos dmg against champions, monsters and turrets for a % of their AD, for X seconds.

An example:

An ADC has 200AD and 5% ramp-up, and he starts to attack the aforementioned targets, his second attack against them would deal an extra 5% of his AD, in this case 5 extra dmg for a total 210 dmg, his third attack would deal 5% of 210, for a total of 220.5 AD, and so on.*

  • Note: this values are just for explanation purposes, DO NOT take them seriously.

Important changes that this new stat would require:

Champions:

Ashe: Her passive is one of few that has a special interaction with crit, maybe applying the ramp-up effect to her slow, with the ramp-up strenght of the slow scaling with her dmg ramp-up.

Jhin: Make ramp-up give him bonus AD, with his MS on crit becoming a ramp-up effect as well (none on his 1st shot, and increasing until a cap on his 4th shot)

Tryndamere: Give him ramp-up based on the amount of fury he has, also his E CD reduction on crit could be removed and the base CD of the ability buffed to compensate.

Yasuo: Double his ramp-up, but nerf his "starting dmg"(only 90% of his AD being dealt as dmg, for example).

Items:

item 3031: Extra ramp-up, based on the amount of ramp-up the buyer already has.

item 3085item 3087item 3046item 3094: crit removed, replaced with ramp-up.

Special cases: Champions that have Garenteed crits, like Fiora could keep them. Abilities that can crit, like Gangplank's Q, MissFortune's Ult, etc could have a ramp-up scaling instead.

I believe this would solve the "sustained burst" issue, and removing unnecessary RNG from the game, making it more centered about skill, also because ADC's would have lower dmg beforing ramping it up, it would also solve the draintanking issue that comes with the mix of crit and lifesteal.

TL;DR: I suggested replacing crit with a non RNG stat, that would work similarly to fervor of battle, for more details read above.

If some of the information, grammar or math is wrong or incomplete, please correct me in the comments below.

42 Comments

AirKingNeo2 votes

I love how I post an idea, no one notices, but then someone else posts almost the same shit and it gets upvotes because popular topic. Sigh...

Ramp up damage is a terrible idea because it promotes high attack speed, high range ADCs who can attack a lot and at a safe range: Caitlyn, Tristana, Varus. If you want to stop ADCs from having Burst Per Second against assassins (and henceforth, mages and other adcs), you'd have to change their damage to work like Lethality, where is scales based on the enemy (their tankiness in this case).

Lethality is great design because it's armor pen that scales with opposing, making it equally effective at all points in the game, instead of stupidly strong early game.

If you want to fix ADCs from being burst per second (and being super ineffective at 1-2 items unless their items are overpowered) while still making damage outscale defense in same way: replace crit with %HP physical damage that increases with the opponent's health. Target has 2k max HP? You get 1.5% max HP damage per level of the stat. Target has 4k HP? You get 3% max HP damage per level of the stat. It's not counted as an onhit for the use of Rageblade or Hurricane (instead hurricane would deal 40% of the damage the effect would do on it's bolts), and the new IE would boost it, but not onhits.

Only downside of change ADC dps is it would force the late game of ADCs to be nerfed, their early games buffed, but also make burst champions a lot stronger. Then again, we are in a meta where the better ADC makes you win the late game.

EDIT: I have no idea what to name this mechanic. Please offer names.

WacingTheFind1 votes

Cait and tristana abusing their range has a simple solution, remove their extra range, or increase the other carries range, to make it similar.

About your suggestion of replacing crit with %hp physical dmg, I have to disagree, it would make ADCS destroy tanks so laughably easy, matches would turn into a splitpush fest, because no one could have a frontline. On the other side of the coin though, ADCs would be absolutely useless against non-tanks, making them super binary in general (OP vs tanky targets, useless vs everyone else).

DeathBurst1 votes

You don't want to make all ADCs uniform...

WacingTheFind1 votes

Range is a simple detail, they will still have different kits and different strenghts.

DeathBurst1 votes

Ranged is a KEY point of differentiation between ADC and often the single reason one has the upper hand against the other during laning phase. It's not by chance that most late-game hyper carry are also the shortest range in laning phase, sometimes with a way to "unlock" their range during the late game, like Kog'maw or Jinx.

WacingTheFind1 votes

I was talking about Base AA range, not AA range steroids like Jinx's and Kog's. Base AA range is a number differentiation, something that Riot doesn't condone at all, you should pick a champion because his KIT offers advantages, not because his base stats are superior.

DeathBurst1 votes

Even base AA range, it's not just a number like any other. For starter, you can SEE it, whereas you can't see when a champ just has 5 more AD or 3 more Armor.

And different ranges between champions create completely different dynamics. You do NOT want all champs with the same base AA range, that would be a step backward, champs need this diversity.

And again: Cait and MF and Draven have long ranges. Vayne and Sivir and Kog'maw have short (base) ranges. That's an important point of balance. If Vayne suddenly gets the range of Cait (or vice-versa), what weakness does she have left?

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

Remove Cait's extra range? They gave her the extra ranged headshots and the extra base range to make her feel more like a sniper.

What you are suggesting here is basically to remove Caitlyns sniper identity.

WacingTheFind1 votes

I would only support her extra range removal on her basic attacks if she became to strong with ramp-up effects, increasing her net CD or mana costs, or nerfing her base MS to be less safe could also be an option. But sometimes, if forced to choose, game balance should come ahead of champion identity, at least that's what I believe.

Also, she could keep her sniper identity with her 1300 range headshots and ult, I don't think her extra AA range contributes that much, think Jhin for example, he has normal AA range, but his W and Ult still give him the sniper fantasy.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

There is a core difference in design between Caitlyn and Jhin. Jhin uses a pistol for his AA, a special weapon which he is able to enhance to a sniper rifle with his ult.

Caitlyn on the other hand uses a sniper rifle all the time. And they try to make the fantasy implied by it come true. Hence why she has a high range, but compared to other ADCs a pretty low AS (they even nerfed it recently) and she scales less well with AS items.

Nerfing her base movement speed.... she already has the lowest base movement speed given to champions (just unmounted Kled running away from enemies is lower and that is a really special case).

AirKingNeo1 votes

Then you remove Tristana and Caitlyn's niche. You can't just try to balance them game around ramp up damage when you have ADCs like Lucian and Draven who are supposed to hurt squishies/

That argument makes no sense. If they had % HP damage, how fast tanks melt is based on how well the number is balanced. That was exactly my problem: ADCs being too useless vs non-tanks. Also you have to consider the fact that some ADCs wouldn't buy into this new mechanic, and buy other items (like Lethality, BoRK) to have less tank damage and more squishy breaking.

WacingTheFind1 votes

Caster ADCs like lucian could have new scalings tied to their abilities in order to maintain their bursty playstyle.

Sorry but number tweaks wouldn't be enough in this case, if the number was too low, tanks wouldn't melt at all and ADCs would be beyond useless, if the number was too high, tanks would get shredded to pieces before being able to do anything at all. And even if adjusting percentages would be enough to balance this stat, they would still be useless agaisnt non-tanks. And making them building squishy-killing items like lethality items in order to fight non-tanks is ridiculous, because they would then become weak vs tanks, and strong vs non-tanks, which is the opposite of their intended purpose.

AirKingNeo1 votes

Like, maybe make Essence Reaver have something like +10% ability damage? That could work.

Why wouldn't numbers work? Your argument makes absolutely no sense. If 5 is too high, and 3 is too low, then 4 might be just right.

No, Casters like Lucian and MR build Lethality (and Cleaver maybe) instead of buying a lot into this new mechanic. On the topic of Lucian, his passive would apply the %HP damage effect at half power (because it's counted as PART of an attack, not an "onhit").

TóxicoChicoGuapo2 votes

i dont think crit is as bad as people say it is in terms of the reasoning. marksman/auto based hyper carry melees like yasuo/yi should absolutely be the premier damage dealing class late game. adcs do not out burst an assassin until around 5 or 6 items. and even then they dont out burst they can just melt an assassin pretty quickly if the assassin fails to get them with their intial burst.

marksman should be the highest dps class because thats pretty much all they bring to the table outside of the outliers like varus/ashe/jhin. jhin has significantly less sustained dps though and varus/ ashe are super immobile so i think thats ok.

but yes, its an exaggeration to say adcs out burst assassins. even in the late game. vayne with crit Q maybe. twitch coming out of stealth with ult popped can melt you pretty quick. lucian with a full combo and 70% crit will do it. beyond that you can make a case for other adcs like tristana but her combo takes a copule seconds or more to do.

adcs just do metric fuck tons of damage in the late game. they are gods at this time in exchange for not being so good in the mid game.

if they wanna replace crit, they have to replace it with something that does just as much damage, but isn't so RNG based. and thats hard to do. ramp up damage is an idea thats ok to start with, but due to limited windows for an adc to go in making their damage ramp up would significantly hurt their playstyle.

you would have to make them tankier in some form to make up for that so they can pretty much always go in and I don't think anyone wants that.

WacingTheFind1 votes

There would be no need to give them extra tankiness, we could increase their AA range in general, and buff their safety nets in general (buffing their MS for example, to make them more slippery in general).

Also, it is not really an exaggeration to say that ADCs outburst assassins currently, because of this simple thing: assassins current burst is delayed and less reliable than an ADC's burst, an ADC's just right clicks on you a few items and you are dead, assassins can't do this, especially since their update, that give many of them conditions to their dmg (hitting a particular ability, or attacking them X times with abilities).

By giving them this ramp-up mechanic, it would give ADCs dmg more counterplay, because you would be able, based on how ramped-up their dmg is, to estimate how badly are they gonna hurt, not just pray they won't crit you for 1000 dmg.

TóxicoChicoGuapo1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Victorious Yasuo,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aaXNo5W5,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2017-06-13T14:05:46.120+0000)

There would be no need to give them extra tankiness, we could increase their AA range in general, and buff their safety nets in general (buffing their MS for example, to make them more slippery in general).

Also, it is not really an exaggeration to say that ADCs outburst assassins currently, because of this simple thing: assassins current burst is delayed and less reliable than an ADC's burst, an ADC's just right clicks on you a few items and you are dead, assassins can't do this, especially since their update, that give many of them conditions to their dmg (hitting a particular ability, or attacking them X times with abilities).

By giving them this ramp-up mechanic, it would give ADCs dmg more counterplay, because you would be able, based on how ramped-up their dmg is, to estimate how badly are they gonna hurt, not just pray they won't crit you for 1000 dmg.

two things. assassin's only do this in the late game. which is where they should shine in exchange for being shitty early. if you dont want them to be that beast late game then you have to buff their early and mid significantly which no one wants.

giving them huge range and slipperiness makes even more problems. adcs are already safe by nature of their range and/or if they have built in mobility and self peel.

I think ADCs are just fine as is, they either do less damage overall, but still do good steady damage and are tankier or you leave them as is.

DunkinNoobs2 votes

This ramp-up would have to be insanely powerful if you're giving up burst for it.

WacingTheFind1 votes

Obviously, notice that I didn't say that the ramp-up would have a limit, so the dmg would eventually surpass current ADC dmg, however, it would force ADCs to work harder for it, instead of getting it instantly the moment they buy a few items, making it more manageable (also RNG-free).

KuroCaliber1 votes

You know, this actually seems pretty cool. It sounds similar to that one mid range mastery, the one next to bounty Hunter and double edged sword

WacingTheFind3 votes

It's name is battle trance if I'm not mistaken and it has some similarities yes.

BananaSlayerAMO1 votes

There's always a question of how much RNG is 'too much'. Obviously, it would be less fun to play in a fixed environment that always stays the exact same. IMO, I think crit is an interesting and important RNG factor, and it's classic in this genre for a reason.

To get a better idea of this, I'm trying to think of what RNG already exists on the map (apart from drakes).

Also, I don't know if adc's outbursting other squishes is common. I think they'd have to be super fed to do that. If they reach that point, they deserve the ability to 1v1 anybody (it doesn't always have to be assassin > squishy).

WacingTheFind1 votes

I agree with some degree of RNG in the game, in fact when Riot announced the current drakes I believe it would be a positive change (still do) because it makes the player adapt to the circumstances, however you can't really adapt to taking a crit to the face. There's no strategy, no planning like there is with drakes to counter it, the ADC either crits or not, and you have zero agency on that.

About ADCs burst, unfortunately, it is more common than it should be, they don't even need to be ahead, they just need to get their items before the game is lost. Ofc, a fed ADC should be able to burst someone and should have an advantage against a non fed assassin, but if an assassin and an ADC are on equal grounds in terms of gold, exp, items and summs, the assassin should have the advantage in an 1v1 (By advantage I don't mean that the assassin should always win by default, if the assassin missplays, or the ADC outplays the assassin, by dodging key abilities for example the ADC has the right to have the power to turn the tables). However this is not what's happening currently, I see Dravens lifestealing all dmg back and outbursting assassins, I see Twitchs appearing out of nowhere and oneshotting entire teams with minimal to zero counterplay. I see Caitlyns using their traps to deal over 1000 dmg crits with her passive, and those 3 are just the most notable examples, because others also have this "sustained burst" issue.

FurriesAreHot1 votes

This is a bit out of place, but here's some things that would improve league.

  1. Change crit in its current state to something like this: Say you have 20% crit, that means every 5 attacks will be a crit. Obviously this has flaws, but it could be a good base to go off of.

  2. Move Dragon and Baron to the center of the river, rather than one side

  3. Let dragons have a set pattern to remove RNG. Your team got cloud? Cool the enemies just got infernal.

WacingTheFind1 votes

Dragon and baron at the center of river, while removing side advantage, would be a bad idea, I mean imagine ganking a lane and having dragon blocking the path?

Crit having a fixed pattern, while removing RNG, would make ADC's dmg, with multiple crit items, even stronger and more reliable than it is now, henceforth I consider it a bad idea.

Dragon RNG is a positive type of RNG, because you can adapt to it, if you can't afford to let the enemy take infernal, you have 6 minutes to prepare for the moment that dragon spawns to take it for yourselves.

AwesomeGuyDj1 votes

I feel like the problem with that is anyone with high range, or can output a shit ton of auto attacks fast are going to be promoted stronger.

Kyunsei1 votes

Ramp amp is a good idea. But some champ can keep their crit effect, as a similar fashion as Draven Q or Vayne Q. Fiora can keep her crit, Rengar, Xin Zhao. I mean they all crit with 100% chance, so that's not RNG. Like Jhin can still have his 4th bullet crit, only maybe a lesser crit and not called crit anymore if it does annoy you.

WacingTheFind1 votes

I actually defended this exact thing in my thread, and yes, it could still be called crit. :D

ImaSpacePotato1 votes

How would this affect Master Yi? See, there is a decision to be made in the game, to sacrifice survivability for the potential "sustained burst" that crit has, or actually become non bursty, slightly tanky DPS. Right now there is a trade off. If crit becomes a ramp-up effect, why would any people build crit on Yi when they could have the same ramp-up happen with a Guinsoo's on onhit Yi, while at the same time being better able to deal with tanks and be tankier? Why should Riot essentially say, "This is the most optimal build path, crit Yi is now not viable"

WacingTheFind1 votes

We could make Master Yi, and other "melee ADCs" have double ramp-up effects, allowing them to stack it much faster, or we could buff his defensive mechanics, allowing him to stay in a fight longer without having to sacrifice dmg.

50000000000000001 votes

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/kqP0EJE7-can-crit-be-reworked-into-ramping-up-dps I proposed similar idea a while ago, and got some good feedbacks.

Some of the notable ones are non-marksmen using crit (GP, Fiora, Yasuo, Shaco, etc.), which you already partly addressed. There's also the issue of how the ramp-up is handled. If it's every AA, that would make crit Jhin completely unviable. It could be time based (being in combat or autoattacking every X seconds), which would help with high AS issue, but at the same time may have issues with AA based bruisers like Trundle (which might not really be an unhealthy mechanic, but we should still watch out for it). There's also whether being in combat with minions/towers/monsters should proc it. If not, crit carries would be bad at pushing waves, taking towers (well, I guess crit already doesn't affect towers), or taking neutral objective.

I think it's a good direction, but it's a huge change and needs a lot of thought. Glad you brought this up!

WacingTheFind1 votes

I don't think AA based bruisers like trundle would abuse this stat, first because this stat would be exclusive to ADC items, second because it scales with AD, third because without multiple ramp-up items, the effect would be weak, forcing them to build multiple offensive items, compromising their survivability, something they cannot afford.

Jhin would have ramp-up increase his AD, like crit does currently.

This stat would only trigger on champions,monsters and turrets. If they were to bad at pushing, items like runnan's and shiv could always be buffed to compensate.

50000000000000001 votes

Something like Phantom Dancer into tank build would be a pretty reliable bruiser build, I think. It provides some durability, and it also provides high DPS. Skipping out on Hydra might be a big enough trade off on its own, though.

WacingTheFind1 votes

In my vision, a single item would provide little ramp-up, forcing the aquisition of multiple ramp-up items(including IE, that would amplify the amount of ramp-up), meaning that someone that wishes to use this stat would have to build mainly offensive items, avoiding abuse cases.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

I don't really feel satisfied with that solution. It influences alot of champions I play in a negative way (in my opinion).

For example: Jhin I understand that the ramp up stat would improve his AD.... that would need to be buffed alot. The actual transition of crit into AD would be too small, because he has fixed AS and therefore can't really make use of the ramp up effect as well as other marksmen. And I wouldn't really like that ramping up movement speed... I enjoy that every attack is giving me alot of speed in the late game.

Gangplank His Q is way less spammable than auto attacks and let's be honest, the majority of his damage in the late game comes from his critting barrels. If that change would get through, he would need alot of compensation buffs, because the ramp up damage is alot less favorable for him than crit.

Graves Right now, crit gives him additional bullets for his AA. How would that work with ramp-up? Would he get get additional bullets after each auto attack? Would he always have the same amount of bullets and just the damage of each bullet is scaling? I think he would be pretty hard to balance around that.

Caitlyn The passive could still scale with ramp up in damage I guess... But Riot stated that they think it is best to focus on a trap focused playstyle with Cait, being able to snipe enemies outside of AA range with trap headshots. The damage on trapped targets late game would go down by alot with that ramp up, since you can't ramp up the damage beforehands.

WacingTheFind1 votes

Most of these champions issues could be solved with number tweaks and extra scalings on his abilities. GP's E could have a ramp-up scaling tied to it, that could be tweaked to match his current dmg, the same for the other 3. On Jhin's MS boost, It's either this, or having him have a permanent, equal MS boost on his autos based on his ramp-up, but that would be quite a buff, because it would make his kiting more reliable. Therefore, I support my original suggestion, not to mention that having his MS boosts scale with the number of shots also resembles his theme.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

only if that shit works on critting abilities aswell, and doesnt just ramp up auto attack damage.

WacingTheFind1 votes

I mentioned it in the original thread, abilities that can crit could have a ramp-up scaling tied to them, as a replacement for the loss of crit.

Emerald Fang1 votes

Radical Idea here: Reduce base crit damage to 150% and IE damage to 200%. Fixed.

WacingTheFind1 votes

Tbh, I don't think straight nerfs is gonna solve it, not to mention the fact that crit is an RNG stat would still continue.

Emerald Fang1 votes

Okay, but at the end, Gangplank would be kind of a ruined champion because his barrels are "super-damage then wait 20 seconds for a recharge" so he would never actually ramp up. MissFortune ult is probably better for this ramp up (increase dmg by 10% per wave) but if you are also talking about her Q, that's a BAD idea for ramp up because it isn't a ramping ability, it's burst. Ramp up should only apply to basic attacks because they are the most (and generally only reliable) constant form of DPS.

WacingTheFind1 votes

No you are misunderstanding, imagine that gangplank has 10% ramp-up and 100% ramp-up scaling on his E, it means that his barrels would do 10% extra dmg ALL THE TIME, not every 20s. MF would be the same.

Emerald Fang1 votes

But isn't that just additional damage... It doesn't make sense. If champions will do more damage based on a crit replacement and his basic attacks will also have this effect, just make it more AD? There isn't a difference between this and AD. Unless I'm missing the point. But IDK.

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