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The focus on bot lane: current problems and proposed solutions (Rioter response requested)

Naut·12/29/2016, 1:48:13 AM·2 votes·744 views

A simple comparison of the sides of the map: Top: -One champion -Rift Herald (generally considered useless, or at the very least weak)

Bot: -Two champions -Dragon -Weakened turret (plus first turret gold)

It is simply more worth focusing on bot lane than top lane. Rift Herald was implemented to force junglers and mid laners to make a decision - whether they focus top or bot - and if it's too late to respond to the enemy's action toward a particular lane, they can still trade objective in the opposite lane. With that said, the "gamestop trade" for whichever team gets Herald is just as the name suggests: not worth it.

Now, I'm one that believes that if one talks problems, they should also talk solutions. For my money, the biggest outlier here is the weakened turret in bot lane. If I'm being entirely honest, I don't really understand why this decision to make bot lane have a weaker turret was made in the first place, especially considering bot has twice the amount of champions to push the turret down, and if any Rioter wants to let me know why, I'd love to hear it. Failing that particular aspect of bot lane, the other major outlier, at least in my opinion, is the lack of value in the Herald buff. It only benefits one person, whereas dragon benefits everyone on the team; it only lasts for 20 minutes, whereas dragon is permanent; it can only be taken once, whereas dragon stacks; and the Herald buff disappears when the person holding it groups up with one or more members of his team whereas the dragon buff is permanent. What I suggest is Herald will give its buff for 2:25 minutes, and will respawn every 2:25 minutes, with the first spawn at 10:00 as usual. The buff will affect the whole team with no other conditions. The first Herald will give a weaker version of the buff, the next will give a stronger version, the next the same power as the current buff, and the final, if the Herald has been killed that many times, will be a stronger version of the current buff for the whole team. It's a high risk going for Rift Herald, especially if it's made so the enemy can steal it away, but it also forces the enemy to focus on something other than bot lane for at least part of the game, and allows a more worthy objective trade than the one we currently have

Of course, I'm not a game designer, and I'd love to hear feedback on my analysis of the situation and my proposed solutions.

Thank you for your time, Vestigial Skill

1 Comments

Iźuku Midoriya12/29/2016, 2:02:22 AM1 votes

having it spawn that many times seems kind of tedious but i like the idea of getting people out of the bot lane so much. I run into the classic 4 man gank bot and it always ends the same where me and my support die, and as you said they get first tower and dragon. Its because grouping up early in this game has a very big advantage and perhaps thats why its a team based game. Ive been in games where we are losing heavy and everyone lost lane except (surprisingly) bot. We all decided to group up and won every fight after because of our team coordination (Malphite Orianna Twitch .
I feel that they should also increase the spawn timer on dragon and maybe lower the shield health of the top turret.

on a side note i can see why they have the shield health as high as it is top lane and its because if the top laner is getting crushed, the opposing laner gets the tower very fast even with all that shield health. My fastest time was J4 top lane and i got the tower in under 8 minutes

Some ideas i feel that could be implemented are: -rework dragons to be not as RNG so that you can see, "this is a cloud drake so the 4 man might happen but it might not" -increase the worth of rift herald, increase gold, perhaps team gold, something that can help a team comp so the buff actually works when around other champions