Undoing the Sunfire Cape Nerf will only revive the Sunfire first meta

ProfDrDeath·Nov 27, 2017·9 votes·1,042 views

From the patch 7.9 notes:

Sunfire Cape has been the top lane first-buy for quite some time, and it’s not hard to see why. With waveclear, durability, and champion combat power, it has everything a growing top laner needs. We’re sharpening its identity as the “pushing” item by pushing (sorry) more strength into damage against non-champions - at the expense of dueling potency.

BURN DAMAGE 26-43 (at levels 1-18) ⇒ 12-29 (at levels 1-18)

[...]

Today's PBE:

Unique Passive - Immolate damage increased from 20 to 25 (total damage back to 26-43)

Because Sunfire Cape first, forever and always, was such a good state for toplane. If this (abomination of a) buff goes live, it will be even worse than before to boot - nowadays, everyone has 12-27 less MR when facing a Sunfire tank.

Joy.

25 Comments

ModKnightsKemplarNov 27, 20178 votes

Sunfire is pretty useless now. I think with the new runes and new meta, it's worth looking into a buff. I haven't noticed it being strong since Preseason started.

AirKingNeoNov 28, 20173 votes

Yeah, but the issue is that many tanks are overtunned and the extremely overtunned tank items haven't been nerfed yet to allow such an adjustment to occur.

Basically, the fix the core issue before making compensation, or the issue just gets multiplied.

KaìjuNov 28, 20173 votes

I thought tanks were bad because games are ending in five minutes? How are tanks over tuned if tank items are bad and people are playing nearly full damage snowball comps,

AirKingNeoNov 28, 20171 votes

Because people aren't running full damage teams and tanks items are very strong?

KaìjuNov 28, 20171 votes

I haven't had a tank on my team that was not me in days. I have seen maybe one tank on the enemy team every three games. So tell me how popular tanks are?

AirKingNeoNov 28, 20171 votes

Never did I say tanks are popular. I said full damage wasn't popular.

Nice misdirection.

KaìjuNov 29, 20171 votes

What other options are there in League besides damage and tank? Pure utility is even more rare, most utility picks falling on the damage side because mages have roots or snares. So if full damage isn't popular and tanks are not popular, what is being played?

AirKingNeoNov 29, 20171 votes

Lane bullies who do both.

KaìjuNov 29, 20171 votes

Name champions. Because lane bullies fall under damage more than tank normally.

AirKingNeoNov 29, 20171 votes

Tank Teemo. Kennen. Pantheon. Gnar.

KaìjuNov 29, 20171 votes

Gnar is the only tank. If you build the other three as tank you won't do enough to be useful unless you snowball. Panth and Kennen are damage and capable of being and usually are played as damage carries.

PennsNov 28, 20172 votes

The best tank in the game still goes sunfire tho

ModKnightsKemplarNov 28, 20173 votes

Sion has the most incentive to build Sunfire of any champ in the game, imo. If he were the only one building it, that argument would fall flat with me.

As I replied to OP, though, I think he may be right. I took a look at the most recent stats and he's not the only one doing well with it. This seems like a change that's a kneejerk reaction to people thinking that Tanks are underperforming, when in reality, they aren't.

I'd like to hear Riot's thoughts on why this is necessary.

ProfDrDeathNov 28, 20172 votes

Is it really?

I linked a few tanks of top lane, and Sunfire is a good enough item on all of them. Most of those commonly get it as first or second item, and it is generally not bad on them, either - evident in the fact that the winrate with Sunfire as first item does not fall below their average winrate.

Now, I wouldn't argue that Sunfire Cape sometimes feels crap to build. But, objectively, it is not that bad - or certainly not bad enough to warrant that strong a buff.

Rand0mH3r0XNov 28, 20171 votes

Those are all tanks. I stopped getting sunfire on bruisers because it was so bad.

Furthermore, Sunfire is a tanky armor item. If sunfire did no damage at all, people would just build it after Randuins.

ModKnightsKemplarNov 28, 20172 votes

Decent argument. After looking at stats, I think you have a point.

If they want to buff champs like Renekton and Darius, who are very much underperforming, this is not the way to do it. There are plenty of counter-arguments that Riot could supply here, but I think I'd like to hear them. This now seems like a questionable idea to me.

TèrminusNov 28, 20172 votes

I thought tank Ekko died due to number nerfs/AP ratio buffs and the fact that he no longer glued himself to you with his passive.

Sire HippingtonNov 28, 20171 votes

I think it really needs a buff to it's damage vs champs later on, but it should not be buffed to much as a rush item, so maybe change the damage to scale non lineary to lvl 18, something like 5/6/7/8/9/10/12/14/16/18/20/23/26/29/32/38/44/50