The game will never be balanced to accomodate you

Lost R··10 votes·1,140 views

"I'm a Yasuo main. I only play Yasuo. I only play Yasuo mid. I refuse to be anything else. I throw every game that I can't be Yasuo mid."

Well hello there, subhuman. While we wait for the poison dart to kill you, consider this:

There will never be game balance, at least not with the way you play right now. One tactic, one style, one champion, one game mechanic does NOT rule them all. Yasuo doesn't counter everyone; you know this already, but when you get demolished by the enemy, you quickly shirk the blame onto someone else, like top lane intentionally feeding Renekton (even though all his kills were from you) or the support not warding (even though he did, even when he should have been bot lane, but you wouldn't shut up about him not warding YOUR bushes, and you just ignored it anyways). You use the exact same champion, item build, and tactic for every scenario. Not only is that stupid, completely nonviable and counterproductive, but you aren't the only person that does that. Most people main assassins in this game, and this overspecialization means that there is absolutely no diversity in most teams, which means it just takes ONE enemy player with the slightest bit of awareness and adaptability, ONE champion, or even ONE spell to completely destroy an entire homogenized team.

For anyone who knows anything about agriculture or virology, a lack of genetic diversity is what leads to massive crop failure in real life, and has already led to the near extinction of one breed of bananas decades before most players in this community were even born, including myself. Bananas are completely sterile; part of the stem of a banana tree has to be transplanted elsewhere for another tree to grow, which basically means every banana on the market everywhere is the exact same banana on a genetic level. For most species on this planet, including humans, there are subtle variations in genetic codes as a result of reproduction and exposure to different environments, which long story short is what causes resistances and allergies. If we didn't have those variations, the entire species could get brought down by a single strain of virus (granting that we didn't have the medical advances we do now).

Likewise, a species that overspecializes or is entirely dependent on a string of factors to thrive will go extinct first the very instant the environment changes even slightly, apex predators being the prime example. The saber-tooth tiger is one such example. After mastodons and mammoths died out after the end of the Ice Age and the saber-tooth depending solely on large prey and suddenly facing competition from another emerging species that was much more adaptable than them, they quickly followed the mammoth to extinction.

League is a microcosm of the natural order at work. Homogeneity is anathema to nature, and anything that can't adapt or change is quickly snuffed out of existence, and even though scientific advancements have some what controlled the natural order in our favor, it hasn't completely stopped it. Remember the bananas? The breed of banana we have today have the exact same flaws of their cousin from 50+ years ago, as in they are sterile, genetically identical, and currently being demolished by a new strain of bacteria that brought the previous banana to the front door to extinction.

So yeah, you can overspecialize all you want and focus on only one role, one champion, and one tactic, but it's not going to do you any good. Anyone who adapts even slightly will find a way to destroy you each and every time, and you'll never advance any further than where you are right now. And if you think you can just refuse to compromise and expect (or force) the person next to you to adapt for you, think again. He has the exact same thought process you do, same with the person next to him, and the next one, and so on. The uncompromising, non-adapting attitude is the norm in the League community, where most will absolutely refuse at all costs to even try anything that isn't what they decided to focus exclusively on, which happens to be assassins and ADCs. The game has basically moved on without you; overspecializing is a BAD idea, and there will be no concessions made for you if you continue down this path.

But don't worry; your corpse will be recycled to feed the next lifeform that comes along. Hopefully they prove to be more promising in life than you.

24 Comments

PiVoRx3 votes

I prefer to be otp than fotm reroller (Riot's retardness abuser).

I dont know if you noticed but this game isnt about countering (maybe a little), but about playing what is overpowered.

If LoL was about countering, we would see MasterYi to deal wtih double/triple adc teams, but we never did.

Lost R1 votes

I didn't say to counter all the time, but to not overspecialize not just as an individual, but especially as a team. If we face against an entire team of ADCs and assassins, we're on easy street, because such overspecialization is laughably easy to counter.

Only an idiot would engage with a Yi in a direct fight. I would either seek to outnumber him, stun him so he can't fight back as I have my way with him, or pelt him from range before closing in for the kill. A direct melee engagement is exactly what he wants.

The worst possible thing you could do is try to engage in an arms race with the enemy, namely with and against assassins and ADCs since they are very mechanically identical to each other. If the sole tactic for the entire team is to try and build a bigger damage stick than the enemy and kill them in a direct engagement before they can kill you, then you are already setting yourself up for colossal failure. The instant that doesn't work, you have nothing else to fall back on.

Likewise, trying to double down on an all in melee tactic when the enemy is composed of champions that prevent and shut down exactly that is a fool's errand. If that is your team's ONLY tactic, you basically have no offense, nor do you have defense because your team's champions aren't equipped for that. No matter what you build, Yasuo is not going to have any real ranged attacks, and constantly needs to put himself in harm's way to be of any use.

Honestly, I try to have some proficiency with ALL champions, not just one or two or ten or even twenty; and not the best, but good enough.

sheldonbunny1 votes

Problem with your logic is all the mains of a specific role that climb to challenger every season. Will it work for the majority? Who knows, but you made the error to speak in absolutes.

Lost R1 votes

Exceptions to the rule don't make the rule. Every game last season, I encountered at least THREE Yasuo mid only or feed guys PER GAME, and they would follow through with that threat. Last year was a HORRID year for me for League because of these fuckers.

The norm for me is finding players who want to be the pentakills forever guy and not do... literally anything else. I get told to join up with a premade team, but believe it or not, literally ALL of the premades I've been in have been a million times WORSE. All of them disintegrate the very instant more than one of them want to be only one champion in one role exclusively, and there is ALWAYS overlap of two or more players. The premades disintegrate pretty much instantly.

L Psy Kongroo1 votes

Speaking as a Shaco OTP, I kinda have to agree. While I never play ranked, there are times in normal draft games where Shaco just happens to get banned. And while I never go so far as to intentionally throw the game just because they banned Shaco, the game becomes infinitely harder for me because I don't know how to play any other champion. There are a few I enjoy playing besides Shaco, but I don't perform nearly as well as I do on Shaco.

Assuming I WERE to go play ranked, if the same thing were to happen, I'd probably have to dodge, and we all know that only works a few times per day. In lower ranks this isn't much of an issue, but it becomes a lot more frustrating the higher you go.

Since master/challenger tiers rarely change (i.e. it's the same group of players for pretty much the whole season) people can easily identify the OTPs through 3rd party apps and ban said OTP's champion to gain a massive advantage. Even if it's not banned, the enemy can simply say "oh, I'm against this guy again; I've seen him play, I know his M.O, I know how to counter him".

Then you have the other cases where someone on YOUR team, for some reason, doesn't like you personally. Or maybe they don't like your champion, or the fact that you're an OTP. They will proceed to ban your champion themselves or, failing that, throw the game all because something about you and/or how you play offends them.

I know that Shaclone for example regularly has this problem; whenever I watch his stream there are always a few games where someone on his team intentionally bans Shaco because they hate Shaclone and want to do whatever it takes to make him lose. And of course, being a Shaco OTP, he does significantly worse in those games.

All this isn't even considering the fact that in high elo people know the ins and outs of every champion in the game. They've played it all and played against it all. So when an OTP gets matched against them, sure the OTP might know their champion well. But so does his opponent. Thus, the advantage of the OTP is lessened due to the fact that simple knowledge of your champion is not as important as general game knowledge at that elo.

That said, the human species is unquestionably the most adaptive species to ever walk the Earth. We've shown that by becoming the dominant life forms on this planet. The way you talk about OTPs it's like you're imagining them as some kind of robot that can't divert from its prime directive without self-destructing.

Yes, OTPs are more vulnerable to getting "out-adapted" to death. But there are people behind the screen, people who are just as flexible and strategically capable as their opposition (usually; I'm still talking about high elo here). If you're playing a champion who has multiple viable build paths, is strong at more than one stage of the game, outright counter's their lane opponent, or is piloted by a player who is simply more competent than the enemy, there's a high probability that the OTP will win.

Shaco for example can be built full AD assassin, AD bruiser, full AP assassin, offtank, or even full tank. Some of these builds are more viable than others, but a good OTP will know when to build what items and how best to utilize the kit of their champion to fit the situation. Using your example of Yasuo, the first time people started playing him it was Shiv rush into IE then full damage. Triforce was popular for a while after that, and nowadays it's Phantom Dancer into Frozen Mallet into bruiser items (with maybe an IE thrown in there if you're ahead).

There will be times when an OTP will find themselves at a disadvantage because they're an OTP; it happens all the time to me, and it sucks. But you know what? Facing down adversity is what helps you improve. It's how you find out if you're the real deal; if you can hack it with the best of them, or if you're just another poser. OTPs adapt all the time to the changing meta of the game by altering builds, trying new strategies, etc. An OTP that doesn't is too stubborn for their own good.

And while they may not change their champion of choice, there are far more important variables to consider when playing this game. Your champion is just one of them, and frankly one of the least important, especially if you're a casual like me.

Oh, and btw................you wouldn't happen to be a Kha'zix main would you? [slayer-jinx-wink]

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

So a TL;DR of this post would be, always adapt to the situation?

If so, then great post!

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

(BTW, did you by any chance get this insight from Khazix ?)

Lost R1 votes

Why does everyone keep saying that?

No, it'd be closer to Illaoi than anything else.

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

Well Khazix is a starter champ and his adaptability shtick kinda gets him to come to our minds first when we think "adaptable."

Illaoi is newer so she hasn't quite gotten a word link. For the word "adaptable" at least.

Lost R1 votes

Illaoi's word link is "motion". And Kha'zix doesn't adapt; he evolves.

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

True, but when I read the post, I thought "adapt" not "motion", so Kha came to mind first.

Although Illaoi would also fit the idea of moving to adapt to the battlefield. Moving your build around, moving your strategies, that sort of stuff.

Lost R1 votes

Motion is an abstract interpretation of change. This is evidenced by some of her lines.

"Men live, men die. Change is good."

"You stagnated."

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

Huh, didn't know about those quotes. Makes sense now.

TequilaZombie1 votes

When I think of Illaoi I think of tentacle rape, not motion

Spicy Rice1 votes

Here's what I think when I see Khalid

"Ready to reap (rape)"

And ill app is just

"NAGAKABOROUS"

SwiftKitten881 votes

um... patch 4.17... to 5.1? Nidalee heaven

LankPants1 votes

The saber-tooth tiger is one such example. After mastodons and mammoths died out after the end of the Ice Age and the saber-tooth depending solely on large prey and suddenly facing competition from another emerging species that was much more adaptable than them, they quickly followed the mammoth to extinction.

Interesting point on the Saber-Tooth, one of it's major prey groups were hominids. The Saber-tooth actually preyed heavily on early humans and humanities adoption of long pointy sticks hindered their ability to hunt properly. Obviously this wasn't the only factor that lead to their extinction, but humans weren't just competing with Saber-Tooth's, they were also hunted by them and later hunted them as a form of preemptive self defence.

Only Play Darius1 votes

How do banana trees reproduce in the wild if the stem needs to be transplanted

Lost R2 votes

They're an entirely different species of banana.

https://dokmaidogma.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/musa-forest-banana-72.jpg

They have seeds that will actually reproduce, but they have almost no pulp (the edible part), and the texture and flavor are terrible.

Cultivated bananas that we eat are called the Cavendish. They have seeds, but they are extremely tiny and won't germinate if you plant them. The banana we used to eat was the Gros Michel up until the 1950s, when the Panama Disease basically destroyed them and we had to rework the entire banana industry. Artificial banana flavor is actually based off the Gros Michel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex0URF-hWj4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0dy8fv33M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR1N8yvyP0s

Despite the banana's extreme popularity, though, it's still a cataclysm just waiting to happen.

If you can't tell, I really like bananas. The banana is a MIGHTY fruit.

Soraka MY FAVORITE.

Athenes Lulu1 votes

What if you are playing one champ, one role, but is adapting to different playstyles and builds as the game changes? Just because someone one-tricks that doesnt mean he refuses to adapt.

Otherwise your thread has pretty good points. The game is evolving to prevent things from becoming stale, and that it's either you adapt or leave.

I mean it's as if players refuse to accept change or something, but is this anything new? We people want everything to remain in the "status quo", so of course any change will always lead to some bitching and whining.

Lost R1 votes

There's always a purpose for every champion, but it becomes detrimental if every champion is fulfilling the same role, like an all ADC or assassin team. It's even worse if you all fulfill one purpose, and the enemy can negate it or do it better. And everyone ends up being an assassin or ADC; I rarely see less than four per team these days.

Athenes Lulu1 votes

Oh, that kind of "one tricking".

Don't confuse those with people who are willing to adapt to many different builds, playstyles, and comps on the same champion and role. And people who one trick champs/roles that can be picked into almost anything, like mages with hard CC; the only time he would screw up a comp is when the entire team is AP-centered which happens occasionally.

If anything one tricking Lulu or even Janna fits quite well into and against most comps.

Milodic Mellodi1 votes

Your way of talking reminds me of Marcus from the Borderlands series...which gets me to thinking, if Borderlands has the same problem, yet is still tons of fun, then WHO CARES?

Lost R2 votes

If it took more than one shot, then you weren't using a Jakobs!

Milodic Mellodi1 votes

XD Borderlands quotes ftw

More from Gameplay

More by Lost R