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Snowballing Is a HUGE Problem

Bubblinepower··3 votes·660 views

I just got through a 20 minute ranked game. The game crashed and made me get to game 5 minutes late. The enemy top laner got free-farm for 5 minutes. There was no possible way to stop him. He destroyed us because knowledge and skill wasn't powerful enough to stop him. When i sat back and thought to myself "how the heck is that fair?! He was playing so brain-dead that if i had gotten to lane on time, I would be the fed one!" but then i thought, is being fed fair? At first i was thinking, yeah! they outplayed their opponent and got and advantage! Then it hit me, the advantage doesn't go away. It is impossible to stop the snowball unless you outplay super hard or get super lucky early on. Nearly every game i see is one-sided. Every team blames one person for feeding and making the game one sided. You could comeback if you were faker, but none of us are faker. It is ridiculously hard to comeback. Is snowballing a problem? Is there a way for riot to remove snowballing?

9 Comments

Jamaree4 votes

So you should be able to fight someone while down levels, gold, and items? What? Snowballing will never stop being a thing unless we somehow reward not playing or doing poorly, which would be dumb.

BluePolarizer1 votes

snowballing isn't a problem in DOTA where mistakes are punished way harder. this is because DOTA has mechanisms that can snowball a team that's ahead while severely punishing teams that are ahead but then start playing stupidly instead of actually ending the game.

  1. shutdown bounties take gold away from the enemy. that means ganking a fed enemy actually shuts them down rather than gives them a time out.

  2. only carries really scale while being less scary than a melee minion early game. most early game heroes really do fall off hard late game so it doesn't matter too much if they get fed. there are a few lane bully carries who can solo, jungle or 1v2, but those are the exception, not the rule.

  3. offensive items get more slot efficient but less gold efficient as you upgrade them, meaning if you are behind it's more worth it to go full tank and be useful.

  4. Arpen is a key aspect of carry itemization that has to be specifically purchased rather than just slapped into any carry build (as an arpen/AS/armor item which favors melee carries over ranged carries).

  5. %HP damage is rare and a key consideration in picking carries, rather than just picking a carry with high numbers and giving them a %HP item.

LOL can easily fix snowballing by increasing the cost of top tier offensive items while not nerfing defensive items, changing arpen itemization and lowering scaling of non-carries.

TeCoolMage1 votes

Having only carries scale well is really unfun, trust me.

Anyway, it'd only solve the few lucky supports like Morgana from snowballing, why should carries snowball only?

Lugg2 votes

I have no problem with someone snowballing off of three kills. However, there are a LOT of champs who snowball off of one or two kills and there is literally nothing you can do at that point.

360D3GR3SS2 votes

Nunu OP

HaIlMonitor2 votes

Why is snowballing a problem? Honestly if someone kills you 3 or 4 times in lane then yes they should have a large impact on the game.

MilfHuntUnitXJ91 votes

5 minutes of solo farm is easily enough for level 4, and you expect to 1v1 a level 4 who has 3 abilities vs. you, a level 1 with 1 ability? this is why it isn't ever good to not have an early game.

YambrinZ1 votes

Wtf? Honestly, they should have never gotten rid of the snowball mechanics of old. If you are going to die 1v1 before your jungler has even cleared his 2nd buff, YOU DESERVE TO LOSE.

TeCoolMage1 votes

DCing is feeding the enemy laner farm. It's as justified as leavebuster, and there's no practical way to solve either.

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