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There's too much damage in the game and I hate it.

hi im bannned·4/3/2017, 8:26:34 PM·32 votes·2,359 views

Disclaimer: I'm Wukong otp on this account however, I play on multiple accounts though. Just needed to get that out of the way.

Disclaimer 2: I'm also not saying that adc's are broken

I haven't been playing a whole lot recently. I remember when I played hours on hours of this game per day trying to win and when I do I get really happy, when I lose I get angry and determined to win the next game.

Now when I win or lose a game I feel nothing, and for a while others have been agreeing with me. But we all have our own dislikes and likes of the game and its current state. But a common dislike that I talked to a few others about and agreed with me was the damage in this game.

I personally don't like a game where I'm just one shotted in a couple of seconds unable to even counter attack the enemy. Wheres the strategy or skill in that. If this is where the direction of the game is headed then you should really take a turn riot.

Now yes, there was always too much damage in the game. I can't say I have done throughly research to prove a lot of what I'm saying in this post but agree with me on one thing. There was always too much damage in this game however at some points it felt okay that there was too much damage and we were able to have something called "strategy" during the time.

Season 3-4 I heard there was lot's of damage back then however it felt different then the way it's distributed now. But I only speak from experience, heres a list of problems involving damage that should be looked at:

  • Lifesteal

  • Critical Strikes: item 3046 (Primarily Yasuo in this case)

  • Sheen Items

  • %Health Damage

  • item 3036

  • a few AP/AD champions like Ahri (a bit biased since i lose whenever I face her) and Yasuo or Graves

  • Resist (Armour and Magic) Lethality isn't perfectly balanced but I believe it has been fixed to more fair, but it deserves to be also looked at if needed.

  • I wont complain about item 3153 but it's slightly annoying but better then lethality builds.

These are just problems to myself personally. I won't explain them because it'll be pointless in my opinion. I doubt this post will receive much upvotes but riot hear me out here. Damage is a problem that I know you're trying to fix, but when you do it fucks up another section of damage. I recommend for season 8 you just try to rework damage and its math as well because personally I believe it's way to complicated and can be way more simpler than it is.

29 Comments

Asayake 5150glow4/3/2017, 8:32:49 PM5 votes

You say damage is too high, yet fail to put burst mages in your list of things needing looking at [zombie-brand-clap]

Kilanost4/3/2017, 10:13:32 PM5 votes

33% reduction in damage across the board! Lets do it!

Frightning4/4/2017, 1:28:18 PM4 votes

The trend I've seen that I've not liked, is how much Riot seems to be overly kind to popular champions and archetypes when deciding what to change in this game. Mages have been eating nerfbat for several seasons (not without some just cause, as powerful burst champions are anti-fun), but yet, AD has gotten a ton of love in the last several seasons (not on it's own, bad I might add). ADCs finally got a good selection of well designed items to choose from (which shot up their average damage output over a game by about 30% btw). AD assassins got their good items in seasons 3 and 4. Meanwhile, tanks have had their items and certain champions nerfed more often than not (same for AP). I used to really enjoy mages and even tanks, and mages at least are still pretty fun, though it is frustrating to land everything and still get killed because they survived the burst and then dumpster you within the timespan of your cooldowns because they have AD and continue to do good damage even when all their shit's on CD. (pure) Tanks feel awful to play as, especially if you're not in a group with competent people playing damage dealers to take advantage of your CC.

I am pleased to see that the next class update appears to be Tanks, so maybe riot has been working behind the scenes on what to do about the problems with mages and tanks (and that includes most supports, btw).

Teridax684/4/2017, 9:37:34 AM3 votes

I agree with both the assessment and the conclusion: despite the recent nerfs to damage masteries, fights are often too short, and many champions die far too quickly to perform their function adequately. I also think a lot of this comes from a damage system that has become fundamentally inappropriate for the game's new pacing: with the rate champions accrue armor, AD, etc., it's very difficult to find a happy medium between noodle fights and MOBA Call of Duty. Additionally, the many types of damage, counter-damage and counter-counter-damage mechanics in the game makes damage opaque and difficult to sort out properly, while also forcing certain design choices that shouldn't have to happen so often. So many champions are released with target-agnostic damage in their kit now simply because that's their only way of dealing consistent baseline damage, but as a result it has also devalued tank itemization even further.

I think one of the biggest issues with damage right now isn't simply how it's tuned, but how opaque it is: Riot holds clarity as one of its design tenets, but there are so many aspects to damage that aren't easy to fully assess at a glance, whether it's the percentage your incoming damage is being reduced (i.e. from resists), the percentage that damage reduction is itself being reduced (i.e. from pen and reduction), or all the hidden modifiers from masteries and some items that affect the total number. One of the reasons damage feels excessive is because it still comes as a surprise for certain champions to deal the damage they do, and it's difficult to pinpoint where all of it is coming from (the death recap obviously doesn't help either). The game's power progression has been compressed over time to fit a 30-minute average duration rather than the previous 40-50 minutes, and so far most of the changes to its core damage systems have been number tweaks. It might be better to eventually overhaul the way damage works in-game, as the huge effort that might take would still likely be smaller than the eternity of band-aids the alternative would entail.

Vekkna4/5/2017, 3:40:09 PM2 votes

I don't really feel like damage itself is the problem. The problem, as others have suggested, is that there seems to be no real trade-offs between damage (burst or dps) and survivability (durability, avoidance, mobility).

That system of trade-offs officially died with the Juggernaut update, which created a new breed of "tank" carries that upended a pretty fundamental aspect of game balance. The trade-off was that the "tank" carry strictly lacked backline diving or dash abilities.

Since then, even that trade-off has become non-existent. We had tank-build assassins and divers able to soak way too much damage: Akali Ekko Fiora Fizz MasterYi Shaco Yasuo XinZhao

Then we had tanky divers doing way too much damage: Vi Hecarim LeeSin

Then we had actual full tanks doing way too much damage and/or being able to dive: Nautilus TahmKench Zac Poppy Maokai

You could chalk those problems up to itemization and item balance if you're feeling generous. But then you look at Riot's recent design decisions and realize that the "no trade-off" philosophy is an actual design choice, not a balance issue. For example:

Camille Graves Galio Gangplank Warwick Rengar

All loaded down with heals, shields, mobility, utility/cc/cc breaks, and damage that ranged from high to wtf absurd. Despite being painfully obvious to basically anyone, it took Riot a year and a half to consider that 3000+ gold of free resists on Graves might be unfair on a mobile dps drain-tank carry with high enough burst to assassinate squishies.

Riot doesn't even recognize the lack of trade-off as being a problem. If they did, they wouldn't keep designing new champs and reworks that exist outside the most basic rules of balance.

TeCoolMage4/4/2017, 3:01:14 PM1 votes

I think it's no longer the raw damage numbers but the lack of tankiness everyone has

Give tanks a bit more numbers and add armour/mr to more damage items

Scary Door4/4/2017, 4:57:34 PM1 votes

When tanks can out deal damage dealing champs 1v1, you knew the problem was out of hand.

Every role needs damage tuning in this game, and badly.

Tanks should be the most able to absorb/mitigate damage, have higher base stats, moderate base damage but poor to below average scaling into the late game.

Fighters/Bruisers should generally have average base stats, low base damage, but moderate to above average scaling.

Supports should generally have below average to average base stats, moderate base damage or mitigation methods (utility) with below average to average scaling into the late game.

ADCs need below average base stats, low base damage but high or very high scaling into the late game with below average utility or means of escape and only on a lengthy windowed cooldown.

Mages should have below average to average base stats, below average base damage but high scaling into the late game with abilities on a moderate cooldown to provide only windows of opportunity. Mages should have some utility but it should never be more than supports or tanks and should, again, be mitigated sharply by cooldowns.

THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE...

How it actually is:

All classes have insane damage (support being the lowest but people just play mages as supports and build full damage anyway because there's no incentive not to), most of it burst with cooldown reduction so easy to get that you can't help but go well beyond the cap because virtually every item has it and most of those items are good choices. Mana is too easy of a resource to come by and the costs are too low (in most cases except for a few of the older champions that haven't been touched in years) and build paths are generally linear.