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Nerfing/buffing champs when it's not a champion issue

The Ecdysiast··134 votes·5,375 views

Sejuani item 3709 - Cut her damage because Cinderhulk was too strong. Warwick item 3714 - Lowered ultimate damage, doubled W cooldown with a halved duration, because it was doing Pure damage and applying how it used to. XinZhao item 3930 - Lowered heal AP ratio because activating more often is broken on a lot of champions with a lot of itemsUdyr Shyvana item 3153 item 3074 Elise Vi - Increased healing and shield because item 1039 doesn't give nearly enough sustain for the fact it's absolutely necessary to purchase. MordekaiserVeigar - Damage lowered because an item that was essential to their kits and increased burst damage was removed. Pantheon - Damage lowered and global presence removed because he could block Dragon's autos.

The biggest issue with these changes is that for most cases, they nerf the champion and then delete/nerf the item or game mechanic (Dragon's attacks aren't counted as auto attacks any more) that was making the champ too strong,

THEN FORGET TO REVERT THE CHANGES.

EDIT: Also included (courtesy of Dr Poro): item 3707 nerfed, then the other items which were trash were changed to be better. Kassadin Lost his killing ability to keep his mobility, then lost his mobility and didn't get his damage or E back, and he still doesn't have his silence.

And who can forget Pentakill Taric?

84 Comments

Dr Poro56 votes

THEN FORGET TO REVERT THE CHANGES.

Agreed. Same happens with Kassadin. They nerfed everything except his mobility, turns out they had to nerf his mobility. Forgot to give back his scaling Mres and some dmg. Also, Warrior was nerfed because ti was THE best jungle item (in other words, the rest was trash) but the other 3 items got buffed/reworked and now warrior is by far the worst.

Serevas19 votes

Warrior does need it's original state returned.

Don't forget JarvanIV was nerfed because his early game was too strong between his kit and the Warrior enchant. Immediately afterwards he dropped into the trash can for win rates, to the point he needed buffed later on, but never got changes reverted either.

YumaS2Astral11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dr Poro,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bbkYPE4J,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-09-02T16:15:30.146+0000)

THEN FORGET TO REVERT THE CHANGES.

Agreed. Same happens with Kassadin. They nerfed everything except his mobility, turns out they had to nerf his mobility. Forgot to give back his scaling Mres and some dmg. Also, Warrior was nerfed because ti was THE best jungle item (in other words, the rest was trash) but the other 3 items got buffed/reworked and now warrior is by far the worst.

The same thing happened with Khazix.

They kept nerfing everything about him when one of the biggest problems with him was his W (which was used as a poke instead of being part of his assassination tools) and his damage reduction ult (which made him extremely difficult to kill and encouraged tanky builds). Riot nerfed both; but they didn't reverted the nerfs to his Q. The result now is that we have a very mediocre assassin, as he is completely reliant on isolation, which is very hard to achieve since they nerfed both the isolation radius and now there is the fact that towers count as allies to negate the isolation. They also removed the execute, which now means that it is very hard to actually burst down targets during the late game, even when they are isolated.

Gorgannan3 votes

Honestly, they should just make his upgraded E go to 2 seconds left CD after a kill or assist. It's already the best upgrade, and the reason they always end up herfing him.

Do that and they can give some god damned damage back.

Mongoose1 votes

but what about the korean double juimps?

slipstreem4 votes

And even when he gets isolation he still doesn't win 1v1s sometimes.. I was 2 kills and a lvl down on a jungle khazix with roughly same farm on a jungle xin zhao and I wrecked him 1v1 with me being isolated twice in a row to even out our kills.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

{quoted}

And even when he gets isolation he still doesn't win 1v1s sometimes.. I was 2 kills and a lvl down on a jungle khazix with roughly same farm on a jungle xin zhao and I wrecked him 1v1 with me being isolated twice in a row to even out our kills.

I got wrecked as Kha'Zix against a Vladimir, even though we were isolated, due to Vlad's ult, sustain, and his pool which allowed him to "dodge" most of my damage.

maikokk2 votes

L2p

YumaS2Astral1 votes

{quoted}

L2p

Kha'Zix is not invincible.

maikokk1 votes

nobody said he was.

if you are dueling Vladimir long enough for him to benefit from a pool, you dont know how to play kha.

reminder that vlad loses 20% of his current health as a cost of pooling.... so if he negated most of your damage with it you did something wrong. the only time vlad pooling will negate damage is when he is low.... once he pools, he either helped your cause by pooling with too much health, or he is low enough to all in (unless he flashes during pool and b's)

OyddAWqJ5r2 votes

Have you tried playing Kass tho? Still pretty damn strong imo.

I panic-picked him on accident and was pretty surprised with how strong he is.

Ofcourse, in this meta though, he probly sucks since he ain't exactly a tank buster. Good as a counterpick though.

Stiv123411 votes

To be fair, they reverted the Xin nerf instantly.

Justcallmejim321 votes

Cough Cough Victor Cough Cough

Blue Moon Wolf6 votes

Let's not forget the champs they are leaving alone, but then nerf Items that more OP champs also use and eventually getting indirectly nerfed into the ground.

Salron5 votes

Sejuani was blatantly overpowered before Cinderhulk came out

Linthe22 votes

[{quoted}](name=Face The Win,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bbkYPE4J,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-09-02T16:33:14.623+0000)

Sejuani was blatantly overpowered before Cinderhulk came out

And now she is NEVER played... Thus the call for balance from the BALANCE team...

RekSai is now in the same dingy that Sej is stuck in.

Guy Fox Teemo5 votes

She is played, I see her quite often, she's perfectly fine where she is right now, people think if they're not blatantly OP, then they're shit lol

Hayaishi22 votes

{quoted}

She is played, I see her quite often, she's perfectly fine where she is right now, people think if they're not blatantly OP, then they're shit lol

I don't main jungle, but from what i've noticed it's hard to carry when you don't snowball, and relatively speaking, tanks have hard time snowballing, give Yi some kills early game and he is hard carrying by mid game, same with Xin, and pretty much all devourer junglers.

That's kinda the problem devourer, giving Lee 5 or any other warrior JG kills doesn't necessarily mean he'll hard carry, assassinate your carrys like most devourers jungler do.

This is just me talking from my experience which might be wrong.

ahferroin71 votes

WHich is why I play Sej support. She has better CC than leona before lvl 6, and is way harder to kill.

Nidalee SO NYAAA5 votes

People wanting Kassadin to have silence back are fucking crazy.

WutsKraken2 votes

Meanwhile Chogath has a big ass AoE silence that silenced longer and deals a ton more damage than Kass' old silence

Gaddafi2 votes

But Cho is another champion, different champion and perfectly fine too. People who complain about Cho just don't know how to play against him and they let him feast as much as he like.

Cl0udgarden2 votes

they let him feast as much as he like

What are you supposed to do? Keep Chogath players from pressing R?

Gaddafi1 votes

{quoted}

What are you supposed to do? Keep Chogath players from pressing R?

Wow, so you mostly manage to get eaten by skill which is almost only melee range. He has to successfully poke you down to be able to finish with feast. But you know what, let's nerf Cho its easier then to learn how to play vs him. His R is part of his essence, change that and there will be no Cho anymore. He is not fine he is perfectly fine champion.

WutsKraken1 votes

It was an example

Gaddafi1 votes

{quoted}

It was an example

I know i just pointed out that it wasn't best example because diversity is important part of this game. Shall we make just one ability set which is same for all champs? That would make many people satisfied but also many would leave the game :)

The Ecdysiast1 votes

Where Kassadin had mobility, Cho is a tank. They took away Kass's mobility and damage and haven't touched Cho.

Linthe4 votes

Agreeing 1000%.. It's almost like Riot doesn't understand the player/item interactions...

WarlockLaw3 votes

Most of these changes were made because the champions nerfed were abusing the item MORE efficient with LESS room for counterplay than other similar champs. The only part that is actually a mistake is them not partially reverting the nerfs afterwards.

Also if we are going to give any assassin their silence back talon should get his before kass or leblanc. At least his silence was also his primary mobility skill

ahferroin71 votes

Which is exactly why he shouldn't get it back. Having a silence on a point and click gap closer makes it impossible for most champs to escape after they've been initiated on.

WarlockLaw1 votes

I'm not saying that he should get it back as much as I'm saying his was the least toxic between him lb and kass

The Ecdysiast1 votes

Kass's was only toxic because his E didn't have the nerfs to damage, cooldown, and use condition it now does.

WarlockLaw2 votes

Kass was toxic because he could blink in, silence you so you couldn't respond, kill you, then blink out in about 2 seconds then wait 5 seconds and do it again

Silents4292 votes

Sejuani got a bunch of buffs before Cinderhulk. They said as Cinderhulk came out that Sej was probably going to be a problem.

Her problem was that she had a shit ton of damage and you couldn't kill her or escape her. Do you even remember how she was banned in every game? She needed the nerfs. And the "nerfs" to Cinderhulk haven't made her any weaker.

XinZhao Got his nerf reverted the next patch.

Warwick I was one of the biggest Warwick mains of S4 and S3 for context. But Warwick is a broken champion that needs a rework and any changes to him really shouldn't be used in discussions like this, he is a problematic champion to balance. It's like trying to justify something with Poppy

Pantheon Pantheon just got his attack speed nerf reverted THIS patch. 5.17

Veigar Mordekaiser Mordekaiser is Mordekaiser. And his new rework had nothing to do with deathfire grasp. Veigar needed changes, and is getting more buffs next patch.

Not to mention the majority of Junglers that got buffs with all the changes to the jungle, but I suppose it's easier to garner upvotes when you focus only on the nerfs.

You can debate this all you want, but you are taking all the changes for those champions stupidly out of context as well as failing to pay attention to any changes made to them prior or after.

It's amazing how broken you can make anything seem if you stretch the truth and only share tibbits of information.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

->Nerfed to accomadate an item ->Okay. ->Even if he needs a rework, he was still nerfed because of jungle items ->The itty-bitty attack speed nerf was not the only thing nerfed about him ->I'm not talking about NOW, I'm talking about WHE DFG was removed.

It's amazing how little you can show you understand when you read to argue instead of to understand.

Silents4296 votes

->Nerfed to accomadate an item

Warwick Warwick is outdated in regards to that he needs to be in a purposely weaken state or be a problematic champion, we can't balance items around him so the next best thing is to balance him around the item, it sucks but that's the nature of an old ass champion. It's like trying to balance items around poppy.

->Even if he needs a rework, he was still nerfed because of jungle items

Sejuani Curious but what can't she do now that she could before? She has all her CC, tankiness, and moderate damage, just like before.

->The itty-bitty attack speed nerf was not the only thing nerfed about him

Pantheon http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Pantheon/Background I don't know what the hell you are talking about but his attack speed has been the only nerf to him in years.

->I'm not talking about NOW, I'm talking about WHE DFG was removed.

If you are talking about Mordekaiser you don't seem to know why he was a broken.

If you are talking about Veigar who is currently fine, and receiving further buffs, well why the hell are you talking about him when he is getting buffs?

It's amazing how little you can show you understand when you read to argue instead of to understand.

Try a little harder for your information next time.

My Waifu Vanilla2 votes

Sejuani has not received any sort of compensation buff after all of her nerfs and is one of the worst tanks currently since there is absolutely no reason to pick her over someone like Malphite or Gragas in the jungle. Her first clear is god awful and will never match the tankiness of the above two and does mediocre damage to compensate. That and her ult is very unreliable compared to a Malphite ult (no longer has a reasonable slow on a miss) makes her very suboptimal.

Silents4292 votes

She out damages Malphite and Gragas

Malphite might have a better ult, but he doesn't have any other hard CC. To followup, he is only useful against basic attack reliant teams while Sej is more useful overall.

Gragas has an ult that doesn't lock down it seperates, it isn't even in the same field as the other two, and has vastly more chance of screwing something up then Sej does.

She heavily out tanks both of them with her passive, Her Q works as a mini Malphite ult. Her W having %HP damage on top of a 1.0 AP ratio is incredibly strong as well. She also has a slow, that can be easily AOE thanks to her W, and with her E she is able to stick to targets better then even Nautilus.

And I am sorry you can't see the use of an AOE stun, or 1.75 second aoe slow, but it's one of the best initiates in the entire game.

I get it, Sej isn't top banned anymore and fell a long way from where she was before, but she still works fine and is better off then a lot of champions, her popularity died with a nerf that didn't hit her as hard as people want to make it seem.

ahferroin71 votes

Although this ironically means that she is more viable as a support than before the nerfs.

Häßlich2 votes

This bothers me less than the buffs/nerfs because "this champion is seeing too much/too little popularity in LCS" changes. Nothing worse than Riot trying to force the meta into a direction the players didn't establish. The meta should always be derived from the players--not the balance team.

Zixcik2 votes

I have a feeling this probably is originating from a decentralized or slightly fragmented balance team. From what I've seen/heard there are different members who work on items vs champions and between that there are different people focusing on certain champions and all the various items: jungle items vs ap items vs tank items.

Whenever certain balance changes were being discussed, a different rioter would be there to explain. Perhaps the source of these disjointed balances come from a break down in communication between various balance teams.

Or it could very well be that they don't want to make changes to champions when the items those champions are using are being shifted.

I hate to make excuses, especially since of all people/companies Riot really doesn't need it, but the reality is balancing 100+ champions and items isn't easy and honestly a lot of those changes you listed had a myriad of causes. Warwick took over jungle due to the extra damage/health of the jungle monsters and the inadequacy of the first jungle items. Sejuani pretty much always had the most late game damage since the rework and the only thing that brought her in line was a weak early game and then cinderhulk came out and alleviated that weakness a bit. Elise and Vi both fell behind due to nerfs during a time when the jungle was easier and junglers didn't have as much gold income and so their inherent power really pushed them over the top. Both Mord and Veigar are champions that were already on Riot's radar for years due to their one sided nature and lack of counterplay.

I actually really appreaciate Riot for taking a slow approaching to balance. Often times, and this was especially true in SC2, large sweeping balance changes cause too much confusion and power levels are often skewed so heavily that it becomes a nightmare to collect useful data after such changes. I mean a great example is the Juggernaut changes and armor/mr readjustment. After that patch the win/lose ratios and pick rates of several got heavily skewed, and champions are falling and rising so quickly. Champions like Garen, Mord, and Fiora are destroying games and champions like rumble and darius are plummeting in all aspects. So I kinda appreciate that Riot takes a bit of slower approaching during normal balances.

TheShinx1 votes

Sorry what? Darius is failing? 64% win rate in Challenger and 57% in Master. He's sure plummeting in all aspects.

Zixcik1 votes

oh, I was mostly commenting on pre hotfix darius. Haven't been keeping up with all the stats. My bad. Actually, that just proves my point. Champions are rising and dropping all over the place. The last time I checked on Darius' stats he was way down. Now a small hotfix later and he's soaring. Larges simultaneous changes produce very wonky data which is very hard to shift through and immediate responses to those changes often cause wild shifts themselves.

Totalis1 votes

This was all true except for elise, who was actually shit tier. More than one poll on the boards asked who do we think is the weakest champion and more often than not elise was the most voted for.

The Ecdysiast2 votes

Oh I'm not saying she was good. I'm saying she got her heal increased because machete isn't strong enough, which actually stops more people from jungling than just her.

Totalis2 votes

I agree

ahferroin71 votes

Which is funny, because most people I know right now would say it's either Bard, Taric, or Yorick.

Totalis1 votes

Taric. Easily Taric.

ahferroin71 votes

That depends on what you consider weak. Taric is weak because his kit is not all that good. Bard is weak because playing him effectively requires ludicrous amounts of team coordination. Yorick is weak because he scales slower than almost every other champ in the game (although I will point out that I've seen a fully built Yorick solo baron and then proceed to get a pentakill when the enemy team came after him).

Mesterfiz1 votes

"Hey guys, we've been nerfing Azir a lot lately. Maybe we should give him a break"

"WAIT! WHAT THE HELL?! PEOPLE ARE STILL PLAYING HIM? NERF HIM HARDER!!!!"

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