Why is the issue of ranged vs melee anti-interaction not a priority for Riots balance team?

MrSc0tty··4 votes·606 views

If Soraka gets played once in a pre-level 30 blind pick normals game in Brazil, Riot divides her ratios in half because she's toxic and anti-interactive.

Meanwhile, if you pick ANY top laner who doesn't sport at least two instant targeted gapclosers and at least one hard cc, you get one of these guys:

Kayle Ryze Quinn Jayce Teemo Lissandra Lulu Nidalee Heimerdinger

And you sit there, staring at the loading screen and knowing for sure a few things.

  1. Their ranged autoattack means that they will get to free farm and zone you out of creeps. You can count on at least one free kill worth of CS in their advantage by 10 minutes.

  2. their harass and escape combined cost less than your engage skill. Not that there's a point, because even if you did engage the two free autos they get before and after the trade win it for them.

  3. even with all that aside, it's almost not worth your jungler coming up. You'll be constantly low, and hey have a thousand escapes. And even if they get killed, you still have no advantage because again, they get to free farm.

  4. and most important, the game doesn't get to be fun for you, starting at champ select. You are going into a lane that is A) uninteractive in the EXTREME, B) a hard counter, and C) that requires vastly more skill on your part to even approach even than it does on their part to win. Because just by farming, they win lane. These are three things riot has said time and time again they're against...and yet here's the top meta, yet again, with absolute zero interaction and fun allowed.

So tell us again why we get threads just calling people who maybe enjoy melee champions "oh, you're just a bunch of crybabies hit good" or maybe why you're designing a fricking MANALESS RANGED TOP as your next champ, or why there's zero mention of every single champ that doesn't have a gapcloser being completely bullied out of top?

Chogath Garen Rammus Darius Volibear Singed and Udyr want justice, Riot. This is the most toxic matchup in the game and there's nothing done to address it, and defensive items continue to get nerfs patch after patch. I'm sick of it.

4 Comments

Worgslarg1 votes

I feel that the vast difference of power in a teamfight between a melee fighter ( yasuo/jax/riven) and a marksman at full build deserves mention aswell.

MrSc0tty1 votes

I feel that the vast difference of power in a teamfight between a melee fighter ( yasuo/jax/riven) and a marksman at full build deserves mention aswell.

Especially when that ranged toplaner, whose entire kit is a giant "FU" to people trying to engage and fight in melee, decides to dedicate themself to the hypercarry as a second support.

"It's okay I'll out scale Teemo in the late game! Oh no wait. Hell do the exact same thing that he's doing to me now in a teamfight, 100% of the time because it's a targeted single click, and I'll be just as useless then because the carry can kill me before the blind goes away."

Sneak Dog1 votes

Different issue entirely. This is mainly because the marksmans damage needs to be able to kill a tank yet any attack of theirs will on average deal the same damage, meaning that if they kill a tank in 12 seconds, they'll kill a squishy in 3 because it has only 1/4th the effective health. Give them an inherent rampup mechanic and they will still kill the tank in 12 seconds, but the squishy in 8, basically backloading their damage and creating a true counter to a tank, but not a squishy.

Such a ramp-up mechanic could replace critical chance with a new mechanic: Each time you hit a champion with an autoattack, your next attack will deal X% extra damage, where X is the stat you buy.

However, this thread addresses the lack of cost of being a ranged champion over a melee champion or lack of reward for being melee, something inherently to your range though. This is because currently, if you have a ranged vs melee lane, the melee will get poked with autoattacks if he goes for cs, so he needs to either eat this or try to retaliate. If he has no gapclosers, he can't retaliate, he automatically cannot win lane without external influences just because he is melee without gapcloser. If he does have a gapcloser, he NEEDS to go fight the ranged or he also cannot win lane without external influences, only lose it. Gapclosing has its own risks attached. it's a really warped lane where the burden of initiative lies entirely on the melee champion, if he doesn't do anything, he will not win the lane and most likely lose it due to the free poke he receives.

Cujo1 votes

OP, you're right on the money. Majority of games I see now have almost everyone choosing ranged characters. Definite inbalance and it's getting pretty frustrating. It's got a lot to do with the huge changes they've made this season and the specific character aspects they've chosen to favor. It really is forcing most melee/bruisers to stick to the jungle but still be much less powerful or outmatched by a most of the popular champions without a whole lot of room to counter act disadvantages or turn things around via skill or strategy etc. That being said I'm not trying to say it's 100% screwed for melees it certainly will mean a whole lot more games where things are stacked against them or can be very quickly with increasingly smaller chances of coming back. Those champs you named certainly would like some help and haven't really been touched at all this season.

It's like we're living in the age of teemo. Everyone would rather choose the champs that get to bully in lane, get high potency, and right amount of evasive/healing/disables to nullify any defenses, counterplay, ganking, etc until much later in the game when their enemies are really behind. What's more is using tankiness doesn't mean what it used to. Then you have champs like Moaki and Leona who get to be the kind of tanks that disrupt all play, keep a huge presence in all stages of play and can reach the sort of un-killable status Riot wanted to write of the game while still doing moderate to above average damage. Such large amounts of champs lose viability with every patch now and really none have made it back so far.

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