Remember when Champions were simple?

Kaisa is Hot·Dec 25, 2016·15 votes·1,282 views

Had simple kits, simple numbers, were easy to balance by ratios and not mechanics or kit design? Back in the day we had champions like Ezreal, Cho'Gath, Garen. Now you have champions like Yasuo, Azir, Kalista, etc that all have in my opinion overloaded kits that make them very hard to balance because of said kit.

So back in the day you could nerf a champions base damages or ratios and it probably wouldn't hurt them too bad. But now you have to take into account all these different possibilities or outcomes of said nerfs. Like Azir's W damage. They nerfed it and it completely threw him into the gutter because of how it interacts with the rest of his kit.

TL;DR Just my two cents

18 Comments

Mira Arya EntheDec 25, 20168 votes

Back then we also had champions like Riven LeeSin Leblanc XinZhao Vayne as well

Now we have champions like Jinx Yorick Velkoz

Point?

Darkslayer85Dec 25, 20164 votes

XinZhao ?

GrReaper96Dec 25, 20169 votes

Hey XZ is like super hard to use you have to decide whether to yolo 1v5 or not

GULAG 4 UDec 25, 20162 votes

Ahhhh, the Yi syndrome.

Mira Arya EntheDec 25, 20164 votes

Xin has a very bloated kit. He has a shit ton of passives. He is just very binary

ModCaptainMårvelousDec 25, 20166 votes

You -do- realize part of the reason there's so much stuff on new champs is because it's easier to balance, right?

Garen has like 5 levers you can pull to buff/nerf him in the old days. Which also meant that if you pulled the wrong level he'd be broken or garbage. Meanwhile a guy like Azir has 30 levers where you can pull any number until you get the right combination. Ever wonder why they add new effects and tools to champs? It's not to break them, it's to make balancing a little easier.

Also your argument is invalid because we still get champs like Taric Ivern Yorick TahmKench . Sure, they might be difficult to play correctly (Like old champs such as Shaco Draven Vayne ) but at their core their kits are fairly simple and straight-forward. Hit people with the start. Use your AoE right. 3 stacks to eat, etc.

Your lamenting is showing a lot of rose-tinted goggles.

EtherealMageDec 25, 20162 votes

{quoted} Ever wonder why they add new effects and tools to champs? It's not to break them, it's to make balancing a little easier.

Ekko . Was OP because he has so many tools in his kit. It took them basically an entire season to bring him down to a reasonable level.

MelledoneusDec 25, 20161 votes

Time travel is a broken ability.

ModCaptainMårvelousDec 25, 20161 votes

True, Ekko is the odd man out at least when it comes to the tools he had. However, note that there were whole parts of his kit they could remove and still keep Ekko at a strong level. The slow on his passive, as an example.

This sort of balance allows you to tweak and modify parts of a kit without gutting it. Sure, he can't slow on passive anymore, but he has other tools. (Personally, I think Ekko's problem is that he's not much of an assassin so much as an AP Bruiser but Riot seems to want to force it but hey whatever yo. )

EtherealMageDec 26, 20161 votes

Yes, outright removing some of his extras was what finally toned him down. That's the thing, though; having so many different capabilities on one champion seems to lead to problems. Many people are complaining about Yasuo right now. Doing something like removing the double crit portion of his passive might go a long way towards making him more fun to play against.

My Fiddlesticks only has a few tricks, but he hasn't been difficult to get into a good spot since I've been playing so far as I know. He probably just needs his AP ratios buffed a little to compensate for the item changes, I think.

And I think you're right about Ekko

MLDzXnRRRDec 25, 20164 votes

They have to make new champions or new maps to continue their business? Guess which one is easier to code...

ModAcademy KaynDec 25, 20163 votes

Yes, because Ezreal has never, ever done anything to ever upset balance.

/Sarcasm

OverloadroadDec 25, 20163 votes

were easy to balance cho gath

Boy, you can not balance cho'gath by just adjusting numbers. Cho'gath has a very problematic and a really clunky kit, it's one of these kits, where he is either too strong and you can not stop him at all (when he's meta and a bit fed), or he is just trash. Stonewall008 explains it really good. Hell, look at the original 40 champions. You see sh't like Heimerdinger, Sion, Ryze, who all got reworked, simply because their old kit was too hard to balance. Remember Kassadin?! Just because a kit is simple, doesn't mean you can balance it by adjusting numbers.

HazyCloud7Dec 25, 20161 votes

I think riot is doing a pretty fantastic job with their new champion releases. Taliyah, Jhin & Aurelion Sol have pretty simple kits conceptually. Utilizing them effectively is another story, but their abilities (save for Jhin's passive the first time you read it) are pretty simple conceptually.