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Most broken mechanic in the game.

ButtemilkBiscuit··2 votes·1,211 views

I've been playing this game since season one. This doesn't make me an expert, in fact I'm an awful player, but even I can recognize that flash is easily the most unbalanced mechanic in the game. I'm not crying for riot to remove it, but there is obviously a problem if it is the best summoner spell in the game on EVERY champion in every game in almost every situation.

I understand that the balancing team probably has it's reasons for not removing flash, but I have NO IDEA why they haven't continued to adjust it since they acknowledged that it's a problem.

Why on earth does it have a lower cooldown then revive when it's clearly a very safe bet that it will prevent deaths and deny enemy gold while relaxing the penalty of making a mistake for the user while revive only does ONE of those things? Flash has a risk of failure unlike revive, but it's risks of failure is very very low. It risks don't even come close to justifying the benefits flash has over revive. Even if flash had a 10 minute cooldown it would be better then revive.

Why can it clear walls when it's already a very potent escape tool that can be used to dodge skillshots. reposition and juke to great effect? Why not add the ability to clear walls with flash on to boots as a upgrade?

You could give champions with flash up a buff so the enemy team knows when it's up.

There are so many clever ways to chip away at this league of flash phenomenon without doing something radical like removing the spell completely.

You've had years to fix this problem riot. I'd like a comment from the dev team on why you guys seem to have given up on balancing flash. If flash was an item (everyone at every level of play took this item every game) you guys would be all over this. It would be hotfixed or disabled immedietly until you fixed it.

15 Comments

Mayor Stubbs1 votes

It is ridiculous, they should have made it a permanent ability and the option for one other summoner with the way things are now. That being said, they've dug the hole so deep it'll be tough to fix. I believe a lot of things are currently balanced around the assumption the champ will have flash.

ButtemilkBiscuit1 votes

I don't really buy the argument that flash is too ingrained into the game. This is like saying that death fire grasp shouldn't have been removed because many casters where reliant on it to burst.

Many champions rely on abusing flash to be mobile, but they where not champions meant to be mobile in the first place. Just like Ahri was not meant to just be another burst caster.

I argee with your first statement though. Why give the player a choice if every other choice is wrong?

Rivini1 votes

Most broken mechanic in the game

That goes to being pulled alone into the middle of an enemy team (and of course immediately followed up by a near-unavoidable knock-up because reasons), where having the means beyond Flash is required to escape.

ButtemilkBiscuit1 votes

The skill shot is avoidable. Getting flashed is not.

Blitz and Thresh are kill lane champions. They are intended to exploit bad positioning. The fact that flash can totally undo that is proof that the spell is extremely powerful.

I also am not advocating removal, please read my post, not just the first phrase.

Rivini1 votes

{quoted}

The skill shot is avoidable. Getting flashed is not.

Blitz and Thresh are kill lane champions. They are intended to exploit bad positioning. The fact that flash can totally undo that is proof that the spell is extremely powerful.

I also am not advocating removal, please read my post, not just the first phrase.

Just yesterday, an enemy team with Blitzcrank invaded my team's jungle and pulled me into all of them. I used Flash, yet still couldn't escape them and died. Fun, right? I wasted my 5 minute cooldown spell.

You need a Kassadin-level blink to escape that kind of situation. Flash's distance isn't enough when you're surrounded by the enemy team. If you can get out alive with only Flash, you're lucky.

Besides, I'm sure you've seen plenty of times when Blitzcrank knocked someone up immediately after they flashed away. Even something like Malzahar's ult (ult the instant they use Flash so it still connects after they blink) or Darius's pull will negate Flash if it's timed right. I recently did that as Darius against an Ezreal who tried to E'd away, only to be brought all the way back to me after the blink. So no, Flash (or any blink) isn't a guaranteed escape. Blitzcrank is guaranteed anti-fun to play against.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

Riot has tried nerfing Flash. It makes the game worse. Simple as that.

The relevant comparison with summoner 4 is not DFG. It's item 3035. Yeah, it's OP. Remove it and the game becomes worse.

ButtemilkBiscuit1 votes

[deleted]

SmokingPuffin1 votes

I didn't suggest you would need to remove flash. Nerfing flash makes the game worse. They've tried it several different ways. Longer cooldown is bad. Shorter range is bad. Cast time is bad.

summoner 4 can be used to undo mistakes, but that's not efficient play. If you look at pro games, flash is what allows players to be aggressive and try to make plays.

The reason why Flash isn't like DFG is that Flash was an assumed thing when champions were designed. Designs like Galio and Annie make zero sense without Flash.

ButtemilkBiscuit1 votes

I'm sorry, I deleted my first response because after re-reading your post I wasn't sure if you where trolling or being genuine. It's obvious now you weren't trolling.

I'd counter by saying that designs like Galio and Annie are more hurt then helped by flash. I've played both those champions extensively, and I can't tell you how many times someone has flashed out of an ult or a Q that would have finished them off.

The reasons their kits seem lacking without is because of how easy it is to flash out of their range. If no one had flash, escaping from an Annie ult would be much much harder. Champions like Annie are immediately useless after an enemy flash because they have no gap closer. With someone like fizz you can bait their escapes, but flash is always the plan B everyone uses to fix their mistake, and not an essential part of a combo. It's just a get out of jail free card. If fizz saves his escape he has sacrificed potential damage. The same cannot be said for flash.

Also flash makes champions like Ezreal more obnoxious by giving them a failsafe. No escape vs 1 built in escape is much more fair then a champion with flash vs a champion with a built in escape and flash as a backup escape.

Every other summoner spell in the game is subtle and can tip a fight in your favor, flash on the other hand has the ability to radically alter the outcome in a split second.

It adds a lot of volatility and randomness to a game that should be about skill and strategy.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

I'd counter by saying that designs like Galio and Annie are more hurt then helped by flash. I've played both those champions extensively, and I can't tell you how many times someone has flashed out of an ult or a Q that would have finished them off.

Both champions vastly prefer that flash exists. It is difficult to reliably flash out of either's flash R, and even if you do, they are trading one flash for multiple flashes. I'd go so far as to say that without flash Annie drops out of competitive play, because her threat zone gets so much smaller.

flash is always the plan B everyone uses to fix their mistake, and not an essential part of a combo. It's just a get out of jail free card.

Bad players use flash to fix mistakes. Good players use flash to enable plays that you can't make without it.

Every other summoner spell in the game is subtle and can tip a fight in your favor, flash on the other hand has the ability to radically alter the outcome in a split second.

That's true. Flash is clearly the best summoner spell.

It adds a lot of volatility and randomness to a game that should be about skill and strategy.

Flash is one of the most skill testing mechanics in the game. If you think it's adding randomness, you're doing it wrong.

DXDMordred1 votes

It's 'grandfather'd'. They couldn't remove it from the game if they had the ability to.

ButtemilkBiscuit1 votes

How so? Explain.

I don't necessarily want it to be removed. Just balanced.

DXDMordred1 votes

{quoted}

How so? Explain.

I don't necessarily want it to be removed. Just balanced.

When Pendragon and Guinsoo came to design League of Legends, they wanted the idea of Defense of the Ancients, but on a greater scale. Rather LoL is a dumbed down version of DotA, no offense. They wanted an easier game for people, most of which are younger audiances, or the next generation of gamers, to propel their game so they could generate revenue. See, men are driven by greed.

You don't have to worry about your opponents killing their own lane minions when they drop below 10% health to prevent you from acquiring experience or gold from that minion. You don't have to worry about your opponents destroying their own towers when they're below 10% health, preventing you from accumulating the valuable resources they would grant. You don't have to worry about a team comp compiled of so much cheese that they're able to kill Baron before the minions even spawned. You don't have to worry about losing all of the gold accumulated from farming minions when you die. You don't have to worry about your inhibitor being permanently destroyed. You don't have to worry about an entire team teleporting to towers every 90 seconds. You don't have to worry about being unable to surrender a game. You don't have to worry about your team's captain selecting the heroes they want you to play.

Now Flash. It's been engraved into the game, thus grandfather'd. It's something which differed LoL from DotA, and it's something that appealed to individuals, and it's the drive that they continue playing the game. Once you remove that, the players will complain, an uproar will begin, and people will stop playing the game. If people stop playing the game, they will stop paying for the game. And I said before, men are driven by greed, and Riot won't let this happen.

ButtemilkBiscuit1 votes

This is a total simplification of the way the game is balanced. "Features" like denying are convoluted and actually take away from the game. Instead of out farming your opponent you will now have to choose between farming yourself, or using you next auto attack to deny your opponent. You've just turned a system that makes sense, with clear and concise goals into a convoluted indecipherable mess. Imagine if football you could tackle your own team to avoid a 4th down? Neither side would like that rule.

These rules are counter intuitive and just unsatisfying for both sides. You're wasting opportunity killing your own men when you should be having fun trying to waste your enemies.

I think people forget DotA was a mod made for free by amateurs in their spare time to suit their tastes. I've played DotA, it's not more difficult. It's PvP, regardless of how easy it is to learn, it's about being better at the game then your opponent. Dota adds a learning curve. They've made the game more complicated, but I fail to see how that helps the game at all. It makes the game more exclusive and time consuming to learn, but does it make the game more satisfying? Not to me, and apparently not to you either.

It's convoluted, unfocused, unbalanced (the more complex the game, the harder to balance) and not user friendly. Good for someone who enjoys unnecessary levels of depth, but not so good for someone who wants to play a game, understand it and compete in it without reading and encyclopedia of information.

I don't think any game or sport would be made better with the inclusion of a dozen nuanced rules. The central principle in ALL good design (not just games) is "keep it simple". Don't add complexity where it doesn't need to be. Something that a lot of developers seem to forget in this age of triple A flops.

I've never talked to anyone who was willing to quit the game over flash. It's a total myth people use to justify the spells future existence.

I firmly believe calling other people "too simple" or "too stupid" is just a way to make yourself feel smarter. The community realizes the mechanic is broken, it's just a large group would rather deal stick to the builds and strategies they know instead of risking something new, and being stuck in a meta where their favorite champions may be lack luster. Everyone thinks without flash their favorite champion will break, which goes to show you just how powerful the spell is, and how it's taken over the game. Many people regard it as a central part of their kits when it's not suppose to be.

Riot being driven by greed is a good thing as long as they are not short sighted they will realize a stable well balanced product will do more for them in the long term then any toxic short term strategy.

Demonsolder211 votes

Which DOTA are you talking about the original or the DOTA 2??

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