Rito, why do you hate base damage?

Mira Arya Enthe·Jan 22, 2015·2 votes·895 views

Simple and concise question.

Base damage fights snowballing, as it means even without absurd items you are still useful. It makes farming less strenuous. It also means more item diversity as you don't have to build straight up damage 100%

Where as scaling encourages snowballing, and mean a small advantage is now huge.

Yet every time the "Nerf hammer" comes it smashes base damages, where as you love buffing scaling.

Not complaining, just looking for explanations. Since you admit you want to reduce snowball, lower the impact of long farming sessions and open up item diversity.

5 Comments

BigSocksJan 22, 20152 votes

Just going to take a stab...

The idea is generally to make sure that teams and players that get ahead, stay ahead, or at least have an advantage. Lower base damages mean that players are more gold and item dependant, and scale up throughout the game. Base damage and champion health have to be balanced, and lower damage at early levels means longer fights. It also means that the game is not likely to be won in the first five minutes.

The trick is not to make base damage values so low that a comeback is not possible. Or that a champion just feels 'weak' or 'useless'.

Keira HelshJan 22, 20151 votes

An increase of base damages on many champions which lack them, and a hit to all items would do so much for the health of this game, the fun, and the strategy. Especially in season 5's 'strategic diversity' that they are trying to accomplish.

OhWOWsoTrendyJan 22, 20151 votes

They want to 'reduce' snowballing, not entirely eliminate it. The game we play after all is a moba based off of the original dota where snowballing was the point of the game. If you went 0/2 and the guy who you were fighting still hurt you just as much as you hurt him then where is the advantage of getting ahead? There has to be a significant lead to show you earned the lead, because otherwise we may as well make everyone invincible take out items and just have fun shooting each other and accomplishing nothing. Or perhaps it could become a race to the inhibitors champs with the best and highest ATK SPD can rush down towers and see which team destroys which nexus first! See my point? We need snowballing to a degree to show where advantage is at that current moment. If one player is snowballed it can be ended and snowball the enemy team due to the gold amount that player is now worth. If base damage was increased and you had a bigger selection of items per champs then some champs would be obviously more powerful than others. Lets take Darius for example... he has relatively high base damage... now.. give him base damage scaling on what it already is and he can demolish teams. He is already a prime example of balanced high base damage because of the way his kit works. however lets look at someone like Rengar who has insane burst but builds 50/50 tanky/damage he is the spotlight on what a good fighter should be. If he had scaling base damage he would not build any damage item just like Darius but then he would also outshine Darius's role as the tanky base damage fight by having a more superior assassination kit. Imagine a tank leaping into a fight from stealth 1 shotting your carry and then tanking the enemy team while their adc cleaned you up. Thats exactly why Kha'zix was nerfed because of the leap -> kill -> stealth for damage reduction -> leap out. It would be too much for some champs.

X8ViEhkPS0Jan 22, 20151 votes

I thought it was because high base damage champions get shoehorned into the support role.

Like Velkoz

Kuroi86Jan 22, 20151 votes

Riot has reduced snowballing, significantly. Reducing base damage while buffing scaling reduces the likelihood of snowballing, while making it more rewarding for the player that gets ahead enough to actually be snowballing. High scaling, low base also makes them more reliant on items for high damage, meaning that continuing their snowball brings a natural risk with it. You have to build glass cannon, you have no tankiness, if you make a mistake, you get shut down.

Risk/reward.
That is why base damages take hits more than scalings.