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I've complained a lot about balance, Yet I'm playing whatever I want in Plat I

Secretlolz··38 votes·5,276 views

I (And maybe a lot of people) might be letting myself to get carried away by the comments on the forum.

Word is, atleast on the boards, that balance is currently atrocious. I've posted as much bullcrap as others. Mostly out of frustration, I think. Yet after a couple of games tonight, I realize my most played champions are things with less than 48% Win ratio in the page that almost every single thread complaining about balance quotes. Champion.gg Either that or they are regarded as bad, underpowered, overnerfed, gutted or Sejuani'd

People do pick the current FOTM, the recently buffed, the overpowered. Yes, yes. Yet you ocasionally come across that very rare Fiddlesticks Sejuani Zac Kennen Main that outperforms the fuck out of anyone abusing the FOTM. Or atleast they perform incredibly well for how "Bad" the champion is seen as in the current metagame. I keep talking crap on the forums about how unplayable everything is, how champions are sitting at -31% Wrate, yet hovering over my most played champions in ranked I see

Illaoi Skarner Orianna Ashe in my top 5. All regarded as bad, gutted, reworked into trash, underpowered, second class, mediocre, etc.

Yet I continue to play them, and win. Against the OP picks. Why? How?

If you check that page, there is a small chart alongside other 3 in the top right corner of every champion page showing the win rate based on the average games played per champion. Things like Gragas, who is often portrayed in the boards as masively underpowered is well over 50% win ratio after 50 games. And it only goes up.

Maybe the balance is not that bad. Maybe, just maybe, we are exaggerating a little bit

My 2 Cents

60 Comments

Tohob37 votes

whoa now, let's not get carried away with silly things like logic and realistic thought, this isn't the place for that. this is the place for incomprehensible screaming, unwarranted outrage, and immediate backlash against any and all changes.

Ralanr21 votes

BURN THE WITCH!!!!

Secretlolz4 votes

Dont hurt me pls i never wanted this logic in my head [zombie-nunu-tears]

Melledoneus4 votes

...I see.

Starts rallying village folk

Troiann6 votes

To be honest I put Ori as tier 1 mid laner, especially in team environment.

Hell just look at LCS. I think she was picked in like 80% of worlds too. Her and fucking lulu.

RiotRiot Sotere5 votes

When I'm not at work to look at our internal stats I go to gameosflegends.com frequently. Link should be to the World Championship stats. Orianna wasn't quite as popular as you remember but going into the tournament I thought she was going to be a premium tier pick.

YCitizenSnipsY2 votes

She would still be the most picked mid laner in Worlds History right now. She has to have at least 70-80 picks since season 2.

qetzel1 votes

I don't think it is fair to use pick statistics from over three years ago to comment on the state of the game now.

Troiann1 votes

Well I was right about lulu.

I hate lulu so much.

Vanjie1 votes

Which is a clear indicator that you cater more balance wise to stat percentages in LCS. Why don't you give the same attention to champions that could be in those spots? Update your champions and balance them so they can be used in LCS.

Mayor Stubbs4 votes

hey, as a fellow plat player I agree. I think the "BIG" balance issues come into play more at an extremely high or low level of play. (talking Diamond 1 or higher)

Personally I think majority of champs are viable and competitive right now for the main playerbase. While there are a few FOTM like you said, none of them are an auto win

Athenes Lulu3 votes

With all those complaint threads, I sometimes wonder if people are actually just refuse to think on their own and bandwagon certain playstyles and opinions because pros/high elo players "all do it".

Is a champion OP simply because his numbers are "too high", even in an even matchup? Or are people just refusing to actually try outplaying them, or even picking unpopular stuff and realize that they work?

Is a champ fotm because of how people lose against or win as them due to mentality, or are they actually OP in numbers and the like?

Just some things to think about. I could be wrong. Though almost every time I see a fotm champ being picked on my team, that's a free loss. Is it because I dwell in gold/silver where people aren't the smartest, or does this apply to all elos because of plain ol' mentality of "picking to win"? It could be just me, but people who pick and play things that they are comfortable with, though may be considered "weak" and "off-meta", are the ones that win more often.

FooDang3 votes

Skill>FOTM until Master through challenger where mechanics has been mastered by that player base, the only difference is champion kit.

Naramiel3 votes

{quoted}

Yet I continue to play them, and win. Against the OP picks. Why? How?

Both these things can be true: balance can be terrible, and yet often not determine the outcome of the game.

Let's say a given champ had a winrate of 62%. That would be a horribly unbalanced champ. However, it would also mean that the outcome of the game was usually not being determined by that champ. There are so many other factors that affect the outcome of a game (9 other players, AFKs, you name it), that unless a champ can automatically 1v5 from level 1, they can't guarantee a win by themselves every time. That doesn't mean that all champs are automatically balanced, though.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

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Slamurai Jack5 votes

Pick and Ban rate are merely a reflection of what the community as a whole thinks is good and enjoyable to play. They may or may not be accurate in their assesment. The idea that pick/banrate has historically correlated with champion strength is merely a feedback loop: Popular champs are OP and OP champs are popular. How do we know? Well, they keep picking X champ, so it must be good.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

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Slamurai Jack3 votes

Literally every player that has ever picked Lee Sin in a ranked game proves this to be untrue. Or anyone that picks a brand new champion. Or anyone that picks a champ they don't know how to play. Or anyone who doesn't pick a tank when you really need one. Or anyone who picks an all AD team. People are too tryhard in ranked? Bitch pls. I've just played 4 Leona top games and I didn't get raged at for any of them.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Slamurai Jack2 votes

The funny part is that you actually think Lee Sin is strong now.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Slamurai Jack2 votes

Not at all. Because you see, I actually play Lee Sin on occasion and have a perspective on his power level that is grounded in something other than salt. And in Solo Q, he's bad. Like really bad. You are literally handicapping yourself by picking him over an easier, more effective, more reliable jungler even if you're a good Lee Sin player. All the stats support the idea that Lee is terrible in Solo Q. You on the other hand literally never play Lee and your entire opinion of him has absolutely no personal experience backing it whatsoever. Funny how that works; a bunch of people who literally never play Lee, even in normals, think he's OP. Weird. I bet you think Riven, Yasuo, Zed, and Thresh are also all super OP while never playing them either.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Slamurai Jack1 votes

Lee Sin's with 125+ games still only win 49% of the time, which is among the lowest of all champions at that level of experience. That's the only stat you need to know Lee is garbage in Solo Q.

And to answer your question, almost none of them. I remember at the beginning of Season 5 when Jinx had a 55% winrate and around a 10% pickrate. Then she became FOTM due to LCS and her pickrate shot all the way up to 40%. Her winrate? Didn't fucking budge. Stayed at around 55% regardless of her pickrate. She's not the only example of this either. Vayne saw a similar trend in mid season 5 where her playrate spiked massively and her winrate didn't move at all. The idea that high pickrates massively drive down winrates and that low pickrates massively push up winrates makes sense in theory, but only when other variables are unknown and even when it does have an effect, it's impossible to tell exactly how much. The idea that a balanced champion would have their winrate drop to the lowest in the game were they to suddenly become very popular is completely ridiculous and not supported at all by the many times champions have seen sudden spikes in popularity with a negligible impact on their winrate.

Out of curiosity, how do you explain champions with both very high winrates and pick rates? At this point, Janna has a 54% winrate and a 22% pickrate. And yet, I'm willing to bet you don't think Janna is super OP, even though according to your theory, she would easily have a winrate well over 60% if she were picked less. Hell, you used that exact argument for Zed and Janna's pickrate and winrate are both far higher than his. Is she broken?

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Slamurai Jack2 votes

You couldn't even win half your Lee games if your life depended on it. Extremely strong compared to the average league champion my ass. He's bottom tier in Solo Q and has been for over a year now and your blatant, statistically unjustifiable biases don't change that.

ChargeItDownMid3 votes

[deleted]

Slamurai Jack1 votes

Funny, I was thinking the same thing.

How many balanced champions would be pulling 40's (or hell even 30's) in winrate with that high of a pick/ban rate?

How terrible do you think the average player is that a champ suddenly becoming super popular drops their winrate that hard?

Anidan2 votes

Isn't the case of Lee's ban rate one of hating to play against a competent Lee Sin? A competent Lee, despite the win rate, can still be absolutely atrocious to play against.

I'm not pitching in on the topic of balance, I don't play Lee, so don't start that one on me.

LegitBusinessman2 votes

Yeah, people still mention about how Ashe is the weakest adc right now and I'm still holding like a 62% winrate with her. I don't get it.

Fanny Forecast2 votes

The big deal with these picks is that they're team-based picks. Ashe, Ori, Sejuani, even Illaoi are all team oriented picks. They work extremely well in high plat+ because of this, and while FOTM picks will still work that high, unless you played them before they were FOTM, they won't work even relatively close to as well as if you come across a Kennen main.

Even in bronze, this is the case. This season, I got shafted to Bronze 5 (I have horrible luck in placements, every time :( ) and I've steadily climbed after picking my old main back up (Irelia) and, despite her not being meta, she's still a viable pick and I still destroy just about every lane I go into, even against FOTM picks (which is rare, most FOTM picks are mid rn, but I can still roam mid and easily outplay them.)

My OP.GG on my Ire acc: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=EllenTheGenerous (ignore the W/L rate at only 57%. I started a bit too early, am at more of a 70-80% winrate as of the past 3-4 nights, which is my most active time period recently, and you can double check that.)

aperson11 votes

Illaoi is complete trash in any elo above Gold. Honestly I don't even understand how you're supposed to win games with that champ against anyone with a pulse. She's so undertuned it's pathetic. Her only saving grace is Iceborn Gauntlet, and that's going to be nerfed soon enough...

ralsei1 votes

I hate to bring this up but.. you're silver..... I'm sorry but we don't have any right to speak about any elo we're not in/above.

Secretlolz4 votes

[{quoted}](name=sacred wolf,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ampZMA0s,comment-id=0003000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-14T21:20:15.861+0000)

I hate to bring this up but.. you're silver..... I'm sorry but we don't have any right to speak about any elo we're not in/above.

Why do people in silver have this mindset? No. Your opinion is as meaningful as anyone's else, maybe less objetive, but still relevant. The way you percieve the game might be an indicator of fixes and tweaks necesary for the game. After all, Riot not ONLY balances around the highest level of play. Many times things like Katarina MasterYi Evelynn have been nerfed due to their horribly high sucess on lower ratings

aperson13 votes

Uh, I'm diamond 3 right now... whose profile are you looking at?

http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=aperson1

ralsei1 votes

oh RIP I looked at aperson's lol

Secretlolz3 votes

{quoted}

Illaoi is complete trash in any elo above Gold. Honestly I don't even understand how you're supposed to win games with that champ against anyone with a pulse. She's so undertuned it's pathetic. Her only saving grace is Iceborn Gauntlet, and that's going to be nerfed soon enough...

I used to think the same. I had a pretty rough start with her as I started to play her directly in Ranked(First in plat, now I'm in Diamond, won my promos yesterday with Illaoi Fiora Elise Here, because normals won't pop up in draft. After about 20 games I'm performing ridiculously well with her, If i get ganked its usually a double kill for me. She's not undertuned, in fact, I feel she is very overtuned, but she is quite hard to play. Not from a mechanical POV but from strategic one. You have to know exactly when is the best time to use your R and E. Positioning is crucial and you can't spam W mindlessly. Illaoi's tentacles are like Orianna's ball or Heimer's turrets. Your entire kit is based to play around them, and doing so away from them is a secured loss. That's why her ultimate creates a temporal power zone and why It's so hard to get good with her, no other melee champion in the game has a similar pattern.

If you check champion.gg and Illaoi, you'll see after 50 games people have close to 60% win rate with her.

I'm starting to believe the statement "There is no weak champion but bad players" is absolutely true. Some champions required experience to be played well

aperson11 votes

Huh, I guess you're right. Honestly, I'm speaking out of my personal experience trying to play the champ. When I play her I can never figure out how to have success with her. I've just never seen an Illaoi truly run away with a game the way the other Juggernauts can.

AdminAnonymous1 votes

I see it happening all the time with Illaoi.

morris12 votes

Seriously, are people really calling Orianna and Ashe bad in plat elo?

Secretlolz1 votes

Yes, usual complains are Ashe having "no damage" and her slows being "non existant" And Orianna having "too low win rate on champion.gg" and "she can't roam as good as Zed" (Now who can roam better than Zeditem 1326 item 3147 ?)

SH Azykan1 votes

Talon item 3117 item 3142 Katarina item 3117 item 3285 Annie item 3117 item 3285 they can match zed roaming (and in Annie's case can roam way earlier too)

But I do enjoy playing Orianna, and you don't roam, you win late fights as long as your team respected the zed's roams and didnt feed him

Lugg2 votes

Balance does get exaggerated a bit, but when you have Graves with the highest win rate top, jungle, and ADC, something is definitely wrong. When you have Xin able to solo any tower in the game without minions, something is wrong. When Udyr can take one item and start dominating the map, something is wrong. Sad thing is these are just a few examples right now.

As for your comments on lesser played champs dominating the FOTM, I agree. Lots of players have big problems against champs they aren't used to playing against.

Derfel2 votes

Maybe it's not the win% of champions and maybe, just maybe, Fiora Zed Lux item 3931 just aren't fun to play against

HandheldBrandon1 votes

Illaoi Is amazing at punishing teams that cluster too tightly (which is a common thing in teamfights) and is definitely not considered bad just rough to play with if people know not to cluster.

Skarner Has never been bad hes just not often Utilized.
He brings an excellent Ultimate with an amazing ganking ability to stun. He literally (after 6) can prevent people from escaping his Ganks.

Orianna As someone else said Ori is good in a team environment and her ulti can completely turn the tide of a fight.

Ashe Is probably the only one i would consider weak and thats only because of the competition she has to put up with and how much mobility they usually have. Her kiting is nice....When it works and the enemy doesn't have any dashes/gap closers to bypass it. The problem is pretty much every champion picked has one now and all the ones you don't want to get to Ashe can easily get to her and there is nothing she can do about it unless her team is laser focused on protecting her and even then its a 50/50 chance she will die.

Secretlolz1 votes

{quoted}

Ashe Is probably the only one i would consider weak and thats only because of the competition she has to put up with and how much mobility they usually have. Her kiting is nice....When it works and the enemy doesn't have any dashes/gap closers to bypass it. The problem is pretty much every champion picked has one now and all the ones you don't want to get to Ashe can easily get to her and there is nothing she can do about it unless her team is laser focused on protecting her and even then its a 50/50 chance she will die.

I need to disagree on Ashe. She's strong. very, very strong. I have the most mastery points with her, at 54.9k points, she's my most played ADC, and I pick her almost blindly, knowing I will perform very well, only and ONLY avoiding to pick her into Malphite as he is the only diver in this game who can bypass skill and good positioning and still kill you, with no major punishment or risks for him.

I don't mind the enemy team having divers. In fact, sometimes they even make things easier killing themselves by trying to dive me and get permenently slowed. If I'm against a heavy mobility composition I usually go item 3508 item 3085 and they just CANT dive me. No amount of dashes on tanky champions is going to make you catch an Ashe with CDR kiting you. In my experience, so far. Notice please that at this rating Zed Fiora DrMundo Trundle are spammed. My only current problem aside Malphite is Udyr but he is being banned every game.

YCitizenSnipsY1 votes

Only thing I disagree with is you considering Orianna bad or second class. That champion is basically the only other one besides Lee Sin to remain competitively viable for as long as she has and in any meta. Ashe also just received buffs. The two juggernauts I agree with though, the both seem second class right now.

How ever your point is right, its solo que and everything is viable as long as the player has enough experience and knowledge of the champion.

Athenes Lulu1 votes

OP was referring on how people around him considered Ori as bad, not OP himself believing that she is bad.

Heck, deciding on whatever is "bad" or "second class" is based on experience and/or opinion. Winrates, in fact, determine how well the general playerbase plays a certain champ, not actual effectiveness when used at full potential.

Sire Hippington1 votes

As far as i know, only Seju is considered sejuanied by most, and illaoi is generally considered to be on the weak side by many, though if also seen some op complaints about her. The rest is just unpopular, but not considered weak by any means.

Also masterie witha champ>power of the champ unless it'S way out of line or unless your opponent is just as skilled with a more powerfull champ. Most fotm players aren't that skilled with the new fotm champ, so a main of a unpopular champ will outperform them. The popularity differnce also has another big impact: you see fotm champs 24/7, so you know what they do and learn how to deal with them. You get experienced in playing vs them. With a rarly played champ like skarner, your opponents usually have not idea on how to deal with him, they go for stupid trades because they underestimated his dps and tankiness, they don't respect the stun into ult into stun cc chain and his high ms. Most unpopular champs have rather well defined weaknesses one can abuse, but most people just forget about them as they never face the champ and play right into their strengths.

I think. Yet after a couple of games tonight, I realize my most played champions are things with less than 48% Win ratio

not sure if you looked correctly. Illaoi 46% generall, but 59.6% on experienced players Skarner 51.7%, and 60% on experienced players Orianna 44.8%-50%, which i find hinestly supprising, no one ever complains about her beeing to weak, and i never got the impression that she's any weak when i play her and she generally does well when i see her in my games. Ashe 53%

I usually play many different champs, but i never felt as constrained at my picks, atleast for toplane. For me, This season is picking a high damage champ or go home, cause either you snowball hard or you get fucked over by a fed opponent.

If the rare occasion happens where i have a bigger premate team and can trust in the otherplayers to do their job, things are different, but so far i have won nearly every game on a fighter, juggernaut or assasin this season, and lost most games on tanks, while i was very effective on tanks last season.

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