"counterplay" and bitchy champs...

Bârd·May 24, 2015·70 votes·4,847 views

*disclaimer I am salty all got nerfed because they "lacked counterplay"

got reworked because she was "boring to play against"

meanwhile.... chilling out

99 Comments

Serenity NowMay 24, 201529 votes

The hit-box on Morg's bind is stupidly large, and it lasts freaking forever. She was never designed as a support, but her CC is so good that she's better in that role than as a mid-laner. Annie is just as bad. Wish they'd raise the CD on Tibbers. By the time you get back to lane, it's up again.

DomainSpecificMay 24, 201556 votes

What Annie needs is a delay from when she throws the ult and when it lands. Maybe they can even add a cute animation of how she throws Tibbers and then it becomes huge.

You know because instant stuns are OP, right? Veigar

ButthurtMay 24, 20151 votes

What's funny is that the dota 2 hero Warlock, who has basically the exact same ultimate has a delay (A short 0.5 seconds though, but it's stil something). Though the AoE is probably twice as large...

In a game where Riot loves to point out the "anti fun" and "Lack of counterplay" it's funny seeing something like that actually have counterplay. Not to mention his ultimates CD is 165 seconds long at all ranks. I understand they're different characters but the abilities are very similar, yet Warlocks is pretty balanced in comparison. I mean Annie also can get a stun on all of her abilities besides E, which gives her and Tibbers insane tankiness (and adds a charge to her passive).

RatbertMay 24, 20153 votes

You can't really compare warlock's ult to annie, because you can technically get up to 4 golems with massive health regen up at once with aghs refreshers. Add in his q and slow and he can possibly 5v1. Annie has one.

ButthurtMay 24, 20152 votes

Like I said, different characters with different kits but the two spells are extremely similar, you can't deny that. Itemization in Dota 2 allows his spell to be different, but at the core both Tibbers and Warlocks R are almost the same.

I'd argue an Annie with just as much items in League could possibly 1v5 too, though in a different way. But Aghs + Refresher is a shit ton of gold (I think it's like 7k+?), not to mention gold is much harder to come by and keep in dota. To be at that stage as a character thats generally a pos 5 support means the game is either basically over or an hour+ long. Meanwhile Annie can easily get core items within 40ish minutes even as a support.

I didn't mean to compare the kits of Annie and Warlock at all, just the two ults by themselves, not refresher or aghs.

AnidanMay 25, 20151 votes

Aghs+Refresher would tally closer to 9500 gold.

And Annie's ult was probably based off of Warlock's in the first place, so I've seen worse comparisons. Besides, nobody can say some of the early champs didn't take inspiration from DotA heroes without lying to their own self (after all, a lot of the old Rioters were involved in W3 DotA in some way, even if it was hilariously imbalanced when Guinsoo was running it). Old Evelynn used to be more like Rikimaru in that she stealthed up to you and wanted to continually be in your face to kill you (hence her old ult having MSpeed and Attack Speed), Twitch was akin to Clinkz, Warwick was loosely based on Bloodseeker with Pudge's ult, Old Kassadin was basically a weaker Anti-Mage, Ashe -> Drow Ranger, and so on.

ButthurtMay 25, 20151 votes

I'm actually quite amazed at how different Dota 2 heroes and League heroes are. Even the ones that are slightly similar have huge differences. It's interesting how two games with over a 100 characters each have no copies of eachother.

Arcane AzmadiMay 26, 20151 votes

You shouldn't be surprised. Dota 2 and LoL are superficially similar, but when you look beyond the surface the two games have almost NOTHING in common beyond the basic outline of the game (kill minions, get gold, buy items, destroy tower, kill base).

KING ATTILAMay 24, 20151 votes

Come on reds, lets read that logic you always use :P

PartholonianMay 24, 20153 votes

Not a red, but I'll try some logic anyway.

Annie : Can't cast any other spells while her passive is ready or she'll use it up. AOE stun is an ult (well, you COULD do it with W, but that's not really what this comparison is about, and often not practical due to really short range). 120 sec CD at level 6 (before then you can't do it at all), 1.5 sec initial duration (max 80 / 1.75). 600 range, 290 AOE (total maximum distance from Annie 890).

Veigar : Can cast whatever else he wants without affecting the availability of his stun. 18 sec CD, 1.5 sec duration at rank 1 (max 12 / 2.5). 700 range, 375 AOE (total max distance 1075). Only stuns at the edge, but leaves a wall for 3 sec that will stun anyone who wasn't stunned already if they try to move through it (by most means). In theory available from level 1, but more likely 2 or 3.

I think the 6 times longer CD (for less maximum duration) is probably the main factor in why Riot doesn't think Annie's stun is as much of a problem. But there's also a reason you see Annie rely more on flash to set up her stun -- it actually is noticeably shorter ranged.

SmokinSickStyleMay 24, 201516 votes

You forgot that the binding does 300 +90% AP damage too, so not only its utility and hitbox are very high, the base dmg and scaling are retarded too.

Tibbers needs a cast animation or something like Heimer's bomb, look at Annie in the cinematic they made long ago, she throws tibbers and it transforms there after.

Right now she just instantly stun\nuke anything that comes close to her without being able to react.

Increasing the CD won't be enough.

AnidanMay 25, 20153 votes

You're right - let's make Annie as close to her cinematic as possible.

"Annie - By popular request, we've changed Annie to be more like her cinematic counterpart in the "Twist of Fate" video. To accomplish this, we made 2 changes to help this request go through.

R - Summon: Tibbers: We added a delay to the landing of Tibbers to sync up with a new animation being put in place wherein she lobs her ensorcelled teddy bear at the opponents in an arc. Q - Disintegrate: In addition, we added a knockback to her Disintegrate as seen in the cinematic, wherein she launches a fireball at Tryndamere and pushes him away."

I feel like people continually complaining about champions doing things they don't like is why many people are able to consider anything they don't like "toxic," which is, by now, a meaningless word. But y'know, let's nerf the ULTIMATE ability of a champion because it happens to have a good amount of strength. Like an ULTIMATE should. "Increasing the cooldown isn't enough" no, but maybe Banshee's and zoning is. Also, a rank 1 Annie ult already has a cooldown of two flippin' minutes. That's a pretty good window of opportunity against a support. Rank 2 is 100 seconds, both of which are still good windows of opportunity against both Mid and Support Annie, and Rank 3 is 80 seconds. Pretty much par for the course for teamfight ultimates.

Annie doesn't have mobility. She doesn't have great range on abilities. She doesn't have sustain. As a support, she doesn't have durablity. AoE CC and damage are ALL SHE HAS, so by all means, let's just rip it from her. So, if you give her R a delay, what's her compensation? Because a ridiculous amount of her power budget goes straight to her ult, with a lot of that allotted budget being put in the "instant" category. You can't just give her no compensation whatsoever for a huge nerf to her ult with such an enormous power budget, so don't think you can say "nothing, she doesn't need it" and get away with it.

The Boards are looking like a group of people staring at a bunch of toys, and shouting "BROKEN! FIX IT!" at the top of their lungs any time they find something they don't like on one of the toys. And the worst part? The circlejerk only gets worse the longer the boards go because then people will just start echoing popular complaints to fish for upvotes like it's some sort of competition.

SmokinSickStyleMay 25, 20151 votes

I never said copy paste annie from cinematic to the game, jesus christ i hate those people like you that love to put words in someone's mouth.

Your "let's nerf the ULTIMATE ability of a champion because it happens to have a good amount of strength. Like an ULTIMATE should" is not a good argument, otherwise Zed's ult wouldn't be repeatedly nerfed\changed seeing how it's his weakest ability (Heavily reliant on his others, at least early, and almost worthless late if the enemy builds smart.).

People wouldn't complain at someone's ultimate if the rest of their kit wasn't so strong already, I bet that 95% of people wouldn't be so pissed at annie if she couldn't proc the stun with her ult anymore.

Mine was an attempt to not aim at her passive as right now with the instant bigass AoE cast of her ultimate plus her passive IS THE ONLY broken thing people hate, she's immobile so she MUST have MUCH higher damage than other mages, (Much like a Brand and Malz do) but the instant 1.75s AoE CC nuke lategame is just literally a free win in teamfights, by the time your ADC builds banshee and still be ADCarrying she has finished the game.

Don't forget that her ult's range is deceiving, the cast is 600 range but D bear's initial AoE burst has 290 range around it, potentially increasing it to almost 900.

And no Annie isn't broken, she's just overpowered, which are 2 different things.

I'm not fishing for upvotes at all, this is a discussion board, i comment the post i want to, saying my opinion, upvotes are meaningless to me, they are the most useless thing ever invented, what benefit could i get from upvotes?

Because if there's something i can do with it, i might even consider doing that.

Sassmast3rMay 24, 20151 votes

I'd have to disagree on the Morgana part. I mean, she has her Q, which I completely agree, is absolute bullshit and makes me cry ;-;. HOWEVER, why do you think THIS is what makes her better in the support lane? She can't do much with her W, especially since she's not even intended to farm w/ spellthief's edge, and I mean, yes, her E can be cast on allies, but it's relatively hard to react to a Blitzcrank pull on someone else (Or is that just me?). I think all she has to offer in support lane is her Q, and partially her ult , but all in all, she seems like a very... "passive" support to say the least.

dr lichdeathMay 24, 20151 votes

just you in 90% of the cases

It Hertz When IPMay 24, 20152 votes

Have to agree, the duration on Black Shield practically screams "throw me on your initiator". W lets you zone the enemy ADC and screw with their ability to CS, and Q +W can soften up any target for your ADC.

Sassmast3rMay 24, 20152 votes

I see thank you for your opinion :)

SquishyArchonMay 25, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Serenity Now,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cRoYEWVc,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-05-24T05:14:28.680+0000)

The hit-box on Morg's bind is stupidly large, and it lasts freaking forever. She was never designed as a support, but her CC is so good that she's better in that role than as a mid-laner. Annie is just as bad. Wish they'd raise the CD on Tibbers. By the time you get back to lane, it's up again.

Someone mention short ult cooldowns? Riven

qetzelMay 24, 201523 votes

Some problems with this post.

Soraka got nerfed because she lacked counterplay as well as being uninteractive.

Morgana actually has counterplay.

They are looking at nerfing Annie - they just lowered her AA range to something vaguely sensible - but it will take a bit more work. You can't just shove a delay on Tibbers because Flash-W has almost exactly the same effect, just with a sightly shorter range.

LeBlanc has a similar problem - you can't just flat out lower her burst, because then she will be useless. Riot are considering giving her a delay on her W return time, which could work, but want to see how it affects Zed first. It is a bigger deal for LeBlanc given that it would happen far more often.

Other than that though...

DecritMay 24, 20153 votes

ehr, actually Leb got an huge nerf losing her silence and allowing more counterplay.

Probably is not enough, i agree, but saying that nothing was done is an huge lie.

idokiMay 24, 20154 votes

The removal of the silence from Leblanc wasn't for her specifically since other assassins lost it as well ( Talon Kassadin ). It was more of a general role-balancing problem than a champion-specific problem.

DecritMay 24, 20151 votes

And what does make that not a champion-related issue? i mean it is not a generic scope chance, and with generic i mean number- related like they did with scalings and armor change due to runes, and is not even generic among assassins since it hit only those who had similar issues. Is this not enough to make it specific?

If a concept bloomed in Riot' s head and they have to change many champions together it does not mean that the single champion itself had no changes.

and sorry if i express me not clear enough, it' s hard to write down what i mean.

idokiMay 24, 20153 votes

It's a not that it's not champion-related, it's just that slience on assassins just doesn't make sense (basically the target just stands there and waits to its death). All assassins who had silence lost it. It's not about numbers or scaling but about counterplay: actions which one might do/not do to create good gameplay. Being silenced by an assassin doesn't have any counterplay because you can't use abilities to fight him or escape, and unless you're an ADC you can't do anything. To make it simple: Assassins are supposed to: *Deal high burst damage. *Potential damage increases in a certain window of opportunity (think Fizz 's Chum the Waters or Zed 's Death Mark). *A way to escape after dealing damage. *Maximum damage is only dealt to 1 target. These points combined make it illogical to give assassins silence.

DecritMay 24, 20151 votes

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook that' s fine

still, i don't understand why Leb should not be accounted for nerfs if they nerfed the whole assassin category for that reason. simple.

she is part of the problem, hence she is the problem along all other stuff. There is no unique snowflake among the champions, this is true even more for older champions, and there is always something in common: if that something in common is dictated as "not good", to put it simple, then they get all hit.

idokiMay 24, 20151 votes

Yea LeBlanc has more problems than just the silence, her mechanics needs some changing (delay on W blink back) as well as number changes

Kosm1KMay 25, 20151 votes

I don't think Leblanc needs that delay on her w. That'll hurt her way too much. she'd no longer be able to deal with ahri, heim, ori, among others. That ruins her ability to trade. Early on leblanc doesn't have enough damage to kill 100-0 and her cooldowns are too long for sustained fight. If her w does indeed get that delay, I hope riot gives her some compensation for it like an E missile speed increase.

I realize the whole argument of "If zed got it, so should Leblanc" but Leblanc isn't nearly as strong as Zed. Zed's got free waveclear, strong turret push, and a moment of intargetability that can let him dodge a lot of cc. It's only fair that he lose his instant blink back because of that window of intargetability. Leblanc has no such thing and so I don't feel like she deserves the Zed treatment. She isn't that hard to play against either, i don't get what's the big deal

Kosm1KMay 25, 20151 votes

I feel that her silence removal was more specific for Lb than either of those. Sure they have a point and click silence, but leblanc's when used right, could result in a 6 sec silence. I like the removal of the silence from those three, although i feel that talon should have at least gotten an interrupt, kata can blow him up faster than he can simply because of the time it takes for the rake and ult to deal their second wave of damage.

manbearswineMay 24, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Some problems with this post.

Soraka got nerfed because she lacked counterplay as well as being uninteractive.

Morgana actually has counterplay.

They are looking at nerfing Annie - they just lowered her AA range to something vaguely sensible - but it will take a bit more work. You can't just shove a delay on Tibbers because Flash-W has almost exactly the same effect, just with a sightly shorter range.

LeBlanc has a similar problem - you can't just flat out lower her burst, because then she will be useless. Riot are considering giving her a delay on her W return time, which could work, but want to see how it affects Zed first. It is a bigger deal for LeBlanc given that it would happen far more often.

Other than that though...

And then what are we gonna do about shits like kalista and yasuo? The only way these trashes can be dealt with is with pointclick abilities,cause you know,"hurr durr moblititeh".

Annie isn't that bad really,she has issue with her flash combo but that one has a big cooldown(even with that it's frustrating,but it does have a VERY large cd),I would still rather play against annie than kalista(or yasuo when strong).

POINT IS: you want hyper mobility,you're gonna have to have things like annie.

Arcane AzmadiMay 24, 201513 votes

To be fair, "counterplay" was the reason Riot gave for removing LeBlanc's silence, and it's hard to argue with that reasoning.

Shroom JunkieMay 25, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arcane Azmadi,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cRoYEWVc,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2015-05-24T04:54:47.702+0000)

To be fair, "counterplay" was the reason Riot gave for removing LeBlanc's silence, and it's hard to argue with that reasoning.

oh yay so instead of silencing somebody in the half second they're alive you get to just burst them down while they scramble to get off an ability even thought its impossible anyway! YAY! oh yeah and the fact that instead of being 1500 units behind her after W>R>Flash, you get to be 1000 units if you're stupid enough to flash for it! yayx2

NimbaMay 24, 201511 votes

Morg just got nerfed and has a lot of counterplay.

MarthianMay 24, 20153 votes

That W nerf did not address her main issues though. It just nerfed mid lane's clear (reasonable nerf since it was really good) and nerfed support Morgana's W for proccing spellthief.

PartholonianMay 24, 20155 votes

It actually didn't nerf support Morg's spellthief procs. Doing lower damage still procs just the same.

RaptameiMay 24, 201510 votes

B-b-b-but just dodge the binding!

http://i62.tinypic.com/2lucqb4.jpg

LuggMay 24, 20159 votes

That's true if the truck is going 10 mph.

crunchymunchysMay 24, 20152 votes

{quoted}

B-b-b-but just dodge the binding!

http://i62.tinypic.com/2lucqb4.jpg

It only takes one to land, and we all aren't LCS beasts that can dodge everything easily (well if we're scripting we could duh but thats just fucking wrong on so many levels). ive seen morg miss 10 q's and land one and the lane is pretty much snowballin from there. the snare lasts too long and its done so that her w can actually do damage which is again dumb that you are forcing people into immobile states because she needs it to synergize with her own kit. also it hits like a truck but im fine with that. just think its stun shouldn't last as long and have w's damage increased but the time decreased to compensate for it. That and i have no clue why morgs ulti slows you at first. Riot wants counter play lets talk about how counter-intuitive that is.

crunchymunchysMay 24, 20159 votes

I've noticed anything that has an elo gainz champ wanting to get changed or balanced will be down voted to all hell. its almost impossible to address an issue when half the issue is the community looking for easy wins

lB2kGRlc8yMay 24, 201511 votes

I didn't notice the Zed and LB mains hitting the forums until reasonable counterplay was added to Zed, then all the LB mains went up in arms to denounce anything suggesting she receive the same treatment. It's laughable really.

OperationDEEZ1May 24, 20153 votes

Remember that post where some guy though LB would be dumpstered after DFG was removed? Yeah, right, about that...

Mandang0May 24, 20157 votes

Morg has plenty of counterplay, people just suck at it. Seriously one of the easiest skill shots to dodge (slow, blocked by minions). Black shield is countered by not blowing your cooldowns. You can do nothing at all, and you've already reduced their support to 3 spells. Most of the time you can just bull rush the Morgana & they will throw the black shield on their carry anyway.

Everything else I agree with. Soraka's another example of the playerbase refusing to accept counterplay that isn't outplay based. The enemy team committed an entire champ to only soft CC and heals, take advantage of that.

gubigubiMay 24, 20157 votes

#As far as the ones that have been reworked go Soraka got reworked because she kept getting taken into top and mid lane and crushing people 1v1 with unlimited sustain and free poke. Ryze was ether top tier or trash tier kind of like Kassadin but more of a walk into range and play guitar hero until someone dies. Zilean was alright imo his bombs needed to be changed but I don't think how they sit now is any better Veigar this characters ult could 1 shot pretty much any AP character after 25 minutes and it was a point click. Absolutely 0 counter play there. And of these I would say Soraka and Veigar are still pretty fun to play. I haven't played much of the new Ryze yet and the new Zilean feels horrible imo. He isn't unplayable but his Q feels really clunky. Like throwing a brick into a washing machine clunky.

#Now for the people chilling out Morgana is pretty strong I think if they nerfed her shield a bit and left her damage a lone she would be perfect. Also maybe reduce the hit box on Q. Annie Can global people as a support and honestly has the same pattern that veigar has I have no idea how she hasn't been changed. Leblanc Is really strong early game in lane and has decent roaming but if you play right against her or counter pick she is top tier useless mid-late game. She will completely destroy some match ups though like any other champion. If I absolutely had to nerf anything on her I would move her bonus damage amp from Q to E but she would need a counter buff somewhere or her win rate would be like 35%.

lDontLiftIcarryMay 24, 20151 votes

there is no bonus damage Amp that was removed when her R was reworked. both Q and E have a pop off of being trigged by popping the spell or letting channel of spell finish. So that changes nothing. No one maxes Q or E because they're so nerfed compared to just maxing W for wave clear.

Riot pigeonholed leblanc veterans into only maxing W because of the complaints. Now people want more nerfs. lol Its amusing watching low elos complain but where are the high elos? oph right Playing cho/swian/annie/malz and auto winning against leblanc all day.

I don't even mid lane and I'm so comfortable against leblanc with no silence that I play katarina and just farm until 9 then win any point after because my Q is better lol and znhoyas is stronger on kat than leblanc because kat's rotation takes longer than leblancs therefore the damage is more spread out and znhoyas only works agianst someone who wastes their entire rotation.

gubigubiMay 24, 20151 votes

there is no bonus damage Amp that was removed when her R was reworked. both Q and E have a pop off of being trigged by popping the spell or letting channel of spell finish. So that changes nothing. No one maxes Q or E because they're so nerfed compared to just maxing W for wave clear.

#Sigil of Malice Active: LeBlanc projects an orb towards her target, dealing magic damage and marking the target for 3.5 seconds. If the target takes damage from one of LeBlanc's abilities, the mark will trigger, dealing bonus magic damage.

If the damage amp was moved to her E instead of being on her Q she would have to lane E before getting the bonus mark damage when she lands W. This would make her much weaker against minion waves and front-line champions.

Riot pigeonholed leblanc veterans into only maxing W because of the complaints.

I wouldn't really call that being pigeonholed nearly every single champion has an optimal skill order and you can max Q first and still be very viable on her.

Its amusing watching low elos complain but where are the high elos? oph right Playing cho/swian/annie/malz and auto winning against leblanc all day.

Ya Leblanc definitely has bad match ups and counters. I personally like baiting the enemy team to pick Leblanc then I go Fiora or Morgana mid lane and take the free win.

I don't even mid lane and I'm so comfortable against leblanc with no silence that I play katarina

Leblanc is one of my fav champions and I can indeed confirm that Katarina is terrible to play against as Leblanc . Even if your clone pops AoE doesn't care at all. Not to mention some rush item 1057 against Leblanc

lDontLiftIcarryMay 24, 20152 votes

the initial Q does no fucking damage and just like her E over half the damage is split to be on the second half of the spell.

Whats your point? If anything these are to keep leblanc as a combo assassin like everyone plays her. You combo. They die. Thats how it works.

Problem? None.

BV counters combo assassins. So does GA. since the beginning of time both these items have existed. There wasn't a time when they didn't. infact old BV/GA ghad more defeses than new ones so you had even less chances of dieing to assassins that are combo based in s1/s2 which is when leb was released.

Rinky DinkyMay 24, 20156 votes

Uh, Annie and Morgana are fine lmao

Mistress MadokaMay 24, 201522 votes

I personally agree, but having your name be "Lane Cancer" probably doesn't help sway people to your side.

Rinky DinkyMay 24, 20153 votes

Best RP I ever spent

ScazieMay 24, 20152 votes

Annie needs to get straight gutted, most bullshit champ out atm. Her and Kat, fcking AOE AP champs...

DarksideEricMay 24, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Annie needs to get straight gutted, most bullshit champ out atm. Her and Kat, fcking AOE AP champs...

I need to see a doctor, for my sides, they have split.

Not KatarinaMay 24, 20152 votes

Book me an appointment while you're at it. Although I feel like Annie is strong, she definitely isn't the biggest BS champ out there currently. And Kat? Not close to even Annie.