My though is,how can damage apparently be so high,when all Riot did since the release of the game was to nerf the champions damage to balance them ? Instead of buffing weaker champs Even though the masteries can give some more dmg
theyve been nerfing damage and defense over the years. what are you talking about?
frozen heart used to grant 120 armor, and a larger attack speed debuff in a bigger radius. warmogs granted almost 1500 health, and randuins had 99 armor instead of 60.
not to mention, the game used to have a defensive mastery tree. like an actual defensive tree with % damage reduction masteries and not some health regeneration and utility.
Honestly, the problem lies in the champions. Not the masteries, not the items... Champions like syndra shouldn't be able to press R and do over 1000 damage to an ADC and kill them.
She could potentially miss everything and just R and get a kill.
Itemization, champion design, and masteries are really the main culprits.
In terms of itemization, you mostly need to look at the ways in which offensive items vs defensive items, and the disparity between unique offensive passives/actives and defensive ones.
Now i'm not going to list all the items with unique offensive passives and such, but i think you get the point. Now let's look at the items which have defensive unique passives.
Do you see the problem? Offensively stats are massively over represented on average in both offensive and defensive effects.
As far as champion design goes, it's more about how they make the champions scale and how much premium stats have been normalized. Things like CDR, armor pen, crit... all of these result in more damage output, and a higher standard which other champions are forced to compete with, which often results in adjustments to other items and/or champion scaling buffs.
