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The problem in League isn't damage creep and has never been damage creep.

Rins Thigh Socks·4/10/2018, 10:39:40 PM·31 votes·10,572 views

If anything, it's been sustain.

Think about it this way, if damage just kept getting higher and higher, why would we play tanks at all? We'd just be picking assassins and running from place to place with little to no thought whatsoever because if everything has damage the most effective champions are the ones that gapclose you the most easily. On top of that, there'd be significant changes in DPS.

There hasn't really been. Another high elo poster posted DPS charts over the seasons and ADCs have been dealing roughly the same damage consistently for seasons.

So what happened? Sustain has been buffed and buffed. Enchanters got Windspeaker's, +%shield/heal power, redemption, locket got buffed, etc. ADC items and masteries have received a good chunk of sustain or received new items that add to this as well. Death's Dance was added, Bloodthirster went from 12% lifesteal -> 18% after 30 stacks to straight 20% with an overheal, Fleet Footwork was added, and Mercurial Scimitar gives lifesteal.

This hurts burst the most, since especially very early on burst is almost capable of killing you. Add in a couple of these sustain options, especially with the new delays on burst combos, and it makes burst have significantly fewer opportunities to kill you. Especially against bruisers who itemize to be barely able to 100-0 you, it makes them downright difficult to use in most scenarios in which the ADC is next to his support.

And while this does make it harder for DPS champions to kill you in theory, what's gonna happen? Vayne needs another auto to kill you? Stop the presses. This is also why mid meta is particularly fucked in pro play. You have to play as Taliyah, Cassio, Ryze, Azir, Galio, or Swain. 1 of those champions is a roaming tank (Galio) and the rest are DPS champs. 2 are tanky frontline DPS (Swain/Ryze), one is a playmaker DPS (Azir), one is lane kingdom DPS (Cassio), and the last is a roaming DPS (Taliyah).

tl;dr stop making healthbars do the WoW thing where they go up and down a slider like an indecisive person trying to adjust their facial features on Skyrim.

EDIT: I posted the dps chart in a later reply but I don't think people wanna dig through responses so here it is.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/5WZ9NrKz-a-statistical-comparison-between-adcs-now-and-in-s2

68 Comments

Death by Glamour4/11/2018, 1:28:50 AM18 votes

Well i guess im going to be the one playing devils advocate, not that i disagree with the overall theme of the thread, sustain is a problem and slapping gw on random items isnt the solution to it.

You say damage creep isnt a problem and has never been a problem with in the game.

What evidence are you providing, the fact that tanks are played and assasins are not? Tanks are largely played not just because there durability but because they bring engage and cc, most assasins can still instagib people just look at kha right now for an example of it.

People upvoting this thread must have forgotten how life was like prior to duskblade or how adcs took more than a zeal and a bf sword to become relevant damage dealers.

While on adcs, it used to take alot of time for then to scale, gold wasnt as easy to come by back then while mages generally scaled with levels. Gold is easy to come by now, items are cheaper and thus adcs easyily outscale midlaners.

Massive nerfs to base mr and armour could also be argued as a form of damage creep but im not going further into it. Sustain is a major problem and one i jave brought up several times but to deny damage creep is juat silly

Terozu4/11/2018, 12:25:40 AM14 votes

up and down a slider like an indecisive person trying to adjust their facial features on Skyrim.

I do not approve you talking about me in your post.

Raiyza4/11/2018, 1:47:07 AM9 votes

No, damage is high.

Tanks can combo down ADCs. That should not happen.

Another huge problem with the game is matchmaking. Just played a ranked game where my Brand mid is in provisionals. He literally asked "How do I play against Galio? Q is the hurricane, right?"

Watched him lane. Did not dodge any Galio Qs.

Fuck that.

princeblumpkin4/11/2018, 1:22:17 AM8 votes

The biggest power creep adcs ever received was being able to get sustain without building it. item 3087 item 3031 item 3094 is only viable because adcs get enough sustain from fleet footwork and ardent censer. Tack on the insane regeneration from red buff later in the game and many adcs opt out of lifesteal altogether in favor of crit, significantly increasing their overall damage and reliability.

NorthernRedStar4/11/2018, 2:09:02 AM5 votes

You're right about ADCs. The role has traditionally been one where the lack of sustain (unless you opted to go Bloodthirster at the expense of crit) would expose you in fights whenever you made a mistake. Alas, you were required to have a good spacial awareness and solid mechanics to pass at the role.

Nowadays, lifesteal has been added to almost every item and there's multiple keystones providing you with sustain. On top of this, Aery's just busted on Lulu, Janna and Nami.

Now the added issue is; instead of toning down and/or changing these keystones and ADC itemization, Riot has opted to beef out the damage across the board, especially so for the AD assassins. Which in turn creates a dire need to abuse the enchanter support class. Which leaves no other option but to pick mid laners like Anivia, Swain and Galio, who are either tanky enough to survive the ADC and assassin onslaught, while pushing out waves from a safe distance away.

It's not just one thing. It's all of it, piled up.

Elohaven4/11/2018, 12:57:21 AM4 votes

And sustain through the forms of not just shields/heals but damage reduction with PD, DD, BT, Overheal, Triumph, etc.

Linna Excel4/11/2018, 12:37:54 AM3 votes

Sustain is only good if you live long enough to get it. It exists to mitigate mainly poke damage and recover from short trades. Considering item 3123 and item 3165 exist, I think the biggest problem is people who refuse to buy them on champs that don't have a lot of burst.

Death by Glamour4/11/2018, 1:09:24 AM3 votes

Perhaps a link to those graphs

T4underbolt4/11/2018, 5:31:45 AM3 votes

You have a flaw in your logic. We have DMG creep and that is why most assassins are garbage and useless. Tanks are picked instead because they have so much DMG that squishy assassin that doesn't have sustained DMG is nothing compared to beefy tank that will just run it 1v5 and kill opponent. DMG creep is so dumb that in laning phase Cho with 0 DMG items outtrade me with 3 autos empowered with his E(I lose like half hp) while he lost 1/7 oh his hp after all my basic abilities and autos in between. Nothing works against him. Conqueror is actually sht. Cho naturally gets hp and tanks build hp anyway. The only way to fight him is to not fight him pick up grasp on any champion and hoping you can survive laning phase and thanks to some hp stacked be usefully later. Every tank match up is like that. Winning by default by point and clicking and autoattacking. This is DMG creep. DMG creep means that everyone or many champs/classes who shouldn't deal DMG are dealing it. Even supports. Janna taking away nearly half hp of your ADC with w and 2 autos. So many classes and champs deal more DMG than actual DMG dealers. Champs like tanks supposed to scaling to late are free win early for a laning phase.

Elkington VI4/12/2018, 2:13:02 AM2 votes

I disagree. As Riot has steadily nerfed defensive scaling with nearly each new season, barring S5 when it was at its brief peak.

I started playing this game during S2, when there were dedicated masteries to reducing damage by percentages. For example, reduced aoe dmg, reduced crit dmg, and general %dmg reduction all used to be in the same tree. In addition to runes, that was a lot of defensive power before items, which scaled decently into late game alongside damage.

Compared to then, defensive scaling is now near non-existent. Unless a champion has innate %dmg reduction, shields, or sustain (the latter which is easily countered by itemization), all of their mitigation has to come from defensive itemization, which hasn't been decent for years.

In essence, damage has been pretty consistent over the years, it's the absence of decent defensive options that is the bigger issue.

Sire Hippington4/11/2018, 2:54:58 PM2 votes

There just is so much wrong with this, First off, the things you labeled as sustain are mostly burst protection which is why they hurt assasins so much, if it was sustain, burst would be strong against it. Sustain is sureivabillity over time, burst aims to end things as quickly as possible and denies sustain the time it needs to be effective. Also, BT wasn't 12%->18%. it was 12+18%, so 30% total at full stacks, so it gave more sustain in the past, but it didn't have the overheal shield so unlike now there was no burst protection. Burst protection for squishys has improved alot, either through thier own items like BT and DD, or through more powerfull shields from supports and their items. Sustain **only got increased for adc **thx to warlords/fleetfoodwork, which certainly is part of the issue and an indirect contribution to damagecreep(they can go full crit and bypass lifesteal while in the past, Bt or BotrK in the first 3 items was the norm)

But mostly, you are wrong on what high damage does to the game, atleast in high elo. High damage doesn't favour assasins. Why need the burst of an assasin if other champs deal enough damage to burst down priority targets aswell while either haveing dps to take down other targets right after or burn through tanks instead of sitting on high CDs after the burst like assasins? Also, strong gapcloseing is fine, but not nearly as good as not haveing to gapclose at all because of superior range. Range is the best defensive stat and it's value is independent of the raw damage, as it allows you to simply not take damage at all. Befor the assasin rework, some assasins like talon with his instant gapcloseing and very fast and reliable burst would have liked the damage creep, but now their burst pattern is to telegraphed and they either die duering the gapcloseing atempt or easily get cockblocked by a tank or support that either interuppt their combo with CC or bring enough shields for the squishy to survive, and after that the assasin is dead as the squishy they aimed for deals nearly the same amount of burst as they do, just with less downtime. Getting melee is just o much of a downside in a high damage envioroment. Damagecreep also is very bad for bruisers, they never were designed to 100-0 anyone, but instead they can stick to a target and have the dps to finish them off after the first burst while beeing tanky enough, usually with emphasis on sustain, to life long enough for that aswell. But with overall high damage, they no longer life long enough and can't make use of either sustain nor dps. Last but not least, tanks are always relevant and even profit from high damage. Even though it's a common missconception, they just don't rely on tankiness that much. Their true value is not surveivabillity, it's CC. Especially since the tank rework, tanks just have shit tons of CC which is usually rather reliable and often can be applied from a high range. If damage is overall high, CC becomes more powerfull as a single lockdown can lead to death and nothing helps surveiving more than preventing the opposing dps from doing any damage at all.

All in all, the main tmain issue i have is that you deny damagecreep while it is one of the biggest issues of league, along with CC creep. The over is that the term Sustain is very missleading for what you mean. You mostly complain about shields and other anti burst mechanics that mostly get applied to adc. I totally agree that the over protection of the squishy backline is an issue, but the term 'sustain creep' just doesn't fit. Sustain would be something like mundo, who is nearly non existent these days, Aatrox, who's more a meme than a champ for quite some time, and so on. The only class that has high sustain is adc, and they always had high sustain. The difference is that they now also have good burst protection paired with it.

Verxint4/11/2018, 4:35:41 PM2 votes

Morello was right

Mizaya4/11/2018, 7:21:09 PM1 votes

I believe you are referring to the comparison I did between S2 and S8 ADC itemizations.

What I honestly believe is that the damage theoretically available to ADCs was higher back then, as in, if you had 20k gold how much damage output could you amass? But in reality game pace has probably accelerated... in that ADCs are expected to start contributing to their team earlier in the game, but they also have more gold income available to get to that point faster.

The other thing is that supports have sort of distorted damage numbers--what I mean is that, in earlier days, ADC was expected to build a banshees or GA most games since the support didn't have a fuckton of shields to throw onto them if needed. Now that they usually do have those, along with other things like Knight's Vow, ADCs can build pure damage. This, combined with items like Ardent, allow supports to essentially inflate ADC damage numbers. So I don't really think ADC damage has changed, but supports powercreep has indirectly translated into higher damage numbers from the carries. On the other end, supports do have a lot more defensive tools to mitigate damage as well, so they've crept in on both sides, you might say. Supports being stronger hurts burst and helps DPS.

I would agree with your post otherwise but game pacing being so much faster just makes it seem like damage is higher (since damage outscales defense). Also yes, you get 8% free lifesteal pretty much as an ADC if you take the rune, but don't forget vamp used to give you pure 10% lifesteal for 450 gold.

Draehl4/11/2018, 8:46:33 PM1 votes

I agree with you on the health bars moving up and down so much. IMO this is a symptom of a broader power creep where everything has been buffed too much. Damage is too high. Tanks are innately so tanky they just build damage. Heals/Shields are way too strong. Would be nice to see Riot back off on everything a little bit and just let things chill and see where it goes.

RunninInThe90s4/11/2018, 6:10:07 PM1 votes

I haven't seen this chart you're talking about.

However, I can't help but think that if Damage Dealt is staying relatively the same across seasons, but matches are shorter than ever, then the same amount of damage is being dealt in a shorter frame of time. Thus, damage is actually going up?