Champion Balance Grievances
EDIT: To clarify once more, this is not a "QQ" thread where I complain and whine about Nunu (the first champion posted about); this is a thread where people can share their opinions of perceived imbalance in a champion's kit, giving a place to vent about what they see as a problem and offer suggestions on how to balance a champion. You are free to disagree or debate, but please be respectful and constructive
Just to clarify, this discussion thread isn't just for me (and anyone else who's interested) to vent their frustrations about champions they find overpowered, underpowered, bugged, or just broken mechanically/kitwise. While that is a primary aspect of this thread, the other part is to offer solutions to fix the perceived problem(s) with the champion, how to make them healthier and more balanced in their performance.
"Why bother commenting when there's the entire Gameplay & Balance section to create our own threads?" Well, if we put all of our frustrations into one thread then it's not only much more noticeable, but also a lot easier to Riot staff to potentially respond to. With that out of the way, I'm gonna start this thread off with my own frustrations and ideas:
Nunu, the Yeti Rider
Nunu is a "starter champion" so of course his kit needs to be simple and easy to use, but in my opinion his kit is just downright abusive. His E, "Ice Blast" is an auto-target spell that scales 100% off of his AP and has a very powerful slow and attack speed debuff tacked on as well. And then there's his W, "Blood Boil", which gives Attack Speed AND Movement Speed to both Nunu and one other ally (similar to Warwick and Gangplank, which Riot has described as carrying a lot of invisible power they want to remove). And finally, Nunu's R, "Absolute Zero", has a 2.5 AP Ratio.
The problem with Nunu's kit is that with his E and R Nunu can unload an insane amount of hurt while still building into a heavily fortified tank. On top of this is Nunu's Q, "Consume", which is an incredibly strong heal so long as a Minion or Monster is nearby. I'm sure plenty of us have seen pure AP Nunu, in which just his Ice Blast chunks off 50% of your HP and slows you to a crawl while his Blood Boil allows him and another ally to chase you down and murderize you. And if he uses it in a bush you won't have the slightest idea what's happening because the projectile doesn't show! Banshee's Veil doesn't even qualify as a counter to him anymore, even in a duel; if a Nunu builds relatively tanky then you won't be able to burst him down in the cooldown period between Ice Blasts, and if it turns against him he can just use Blood Boil to run away and slow you with Ice Blast.
Nunu should not be able to build large amounts of tank while dealing large amounts of damage AND buffing his entire team with Attack Speed and Movement Speed. Even if Nunu only has two skills that directly damage enemy champions (and one that increases his damaging capabilities). If Nunu is going to be a tanky jungler/support, his kit needs adjustments to make him less bursty with less invisible power.
- Ice Blast needs to have either its damage scaling straight-nerfed, or it needs to allow more counterplay. I personally am more in favor of counterplay, my personal suggestion being that Ice Blast be turned into a free target AoE spell ala Bouncing Bombs, minus the bounce plus the CC. This allows people to actually react against Ice Blast, making its damage and CC much more tolerable. The projectile should also be shown when it leaves the brush, just out of common sense- it's not fun when you get chunked and can't even tell what caused it.
- Blood Boil needs to be either reworked or removed entirely. My thought is that first of all Blood Boil be either a single-target (either himself or another champion) spell, or a self-target spell alone. As for actual effect, I do think Blood Boil should keep its Movement Speed boost, but should more coincide with his tanky role, granting something like health regen or increased tenacity for the duration of the spell.
- Consume doesn't really need any serious changes, but combined with Spellvamp and Spirit Visage it can heal ludicrous amounts of health. To make it less abusive in lane I think it should have an increased cooldown by default, but have its cooldown reduced while used in the jungle.
- Changes to these spells would in my opinion mean Absolute Zero can afford to be left alone, because of its channel requirements to reach its full power and reliance on coordination or timing to make the most of it.
With these changes I think Nunu could fill a more appropriate role as a tanky jungler/support with CC and utility.
Morgana, Fallen Angel
Morgana, Morgana, Morgana. I'm pretty sure we all know Morgana, and most of us hate dealing with her. An exceptionally powerful mage and support, Morgana is known for her extremely powerful CC and her ability to completely negate it as well. This is all well and good, but there's a reason she's a top priority in bans and/or picks. Her Q, "Dark Binding" is a wide skillshot and hurts like hell while being a very long-lasting root, tenacity or not. Her E, "Black Shield", negates all CC for its duration and absorbs Magic Damage. Her ultimate, "Soul Shackles", is a tether that can't be stopped short of killing her with a rather long tether range and a slow on top of it. While I can personally respect what Morgana brings to the table, there are a few things I feel need to be worked on.
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Dark Binding. I'm sure I could leave it at that, but I won't. 90% AP, 11 second cooldown at all ranks (for reference, that's 6.6 seconds at 40% CDR), wide projectile, 3 second snare. To put it simply I think the flat damage needs to be reduced quite a bit while maintaining its current AP Ratio, to keep its utility for support!Morgana while allowing mage!Morgana to build AP and still make it hurt. The missile width could also stand to be reduced slightly, so as to make the 3 second root a bit more reasonable; being able to still cast spells and auto-attack doesn't mean crap when the whole enemy team can wail on you freely.
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Believe it or not, I actually don't have a problem with Black Shield. It's a unique spell, has great team-saving utility, and the cooldown is reasonable. If you disagree with any of this, feel free to say so.
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Now Soul Shackles. This I have a bit of a problem with, primarily because of its slow. The 20% slow isn't all that grand I must admit, but it's more than enough to be utterly binary depending on the targets. If they have instant mobility like a leap, blink, or dash then the 20% slow doesn't mean anything. But if they DON'T have anything like that then so long as Morgana doesn't use Zhonya's prematurely (and we all know Morgana WILL build that Hourglass) then there is no means of escaping her. And with Zhonya's the slow puts you in a "Morton's Fork" situation; try and run and she can follow to keep the tether on. Close in to try and kill her and she'll Zhonya's, leaving you with no opportunity to escape. The slow feels both useless and overbearing at the same time, and honestly I think that Morgana would be able to live just fine without it.
Sion, the Undead Juggernaut
"Oh come on! Why the hell would you want to see Sion nerfed-" Nope. Nope, this is not about NERFING Sion. As I said in the first paragraph of this thread, this post is about champion balance problems in general, be they overpowered or undertuned.
Now I'll say this outright, I LOVE the new Sion. His kit is fun. I never played the old Sion, and I'm glad I never did. He is a rewarding tank who can set up for his team and if necessary dish out the hurt himself. HOWEVER, the one problem I have with him is one I'm sure plenty of other people do as well; his passive. Sion's passive is currently seriously undertuned, and honestly just feels really bad to use. I've played Sion quite a few times now, and I can say for sure that I just really don't feel good using it. "Glory In Death" feels more like "Flail Around For a Few Seconds Until You Die Again". Sion's naturally lumbering gait means that he can't rely on his own Movement Speed to chase someone down, and the %HP drain is so fast and so severe that it doesn't matter how much tank you have; you WILL go down quickly. Without any skills besides a 50% MS bonus that decays over 1.5 seconds (and feels absolutely invisible, BTW) on an 80sec Cooldown you're forced to rely solely on auto-attacks. 100% Lifesteal doesn't negate the health drain, and your enemies can either just run away, kite you, or kill you with their own spells. You don't feel like some undead abomination crushing those who dared to think they could kill him without consequence; you feel like a lumbering flesh bag and an absolute idiot every time you try and fail to chase down your enemies.
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Death Rush needs to be semi-reworked to be much more spammable. I would personally suggest a stronger or longer lasting MS steroid with a much lower cooldown, which could be further reduced by successful auto attacks on enemies.
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The Attack Speed steroid needs to be multiplicative/additive, not static. You get attack speed per level and in some cases people will build Attack Speed on Sion, and that shouldn't be punished with a 1.75 AS no matter what you build or use.
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The HP decay percentage or rate needs to be reduced; it's incredibly frustrating when enemy champions can duel you in the middle of this passive as your own health works again you.
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Failing any and all of this, I feel that at the very least Sion's new passive needs to grant either increased or total CC immunity. An undead berserker trying to use his last moments to take his enemy with him shouldn't be so easy to stop with a single spell.
If you agree or disagree feel free to comment, and if you have a champion you'd like to call out as abusive, overpowered, underpowered, or just has general issues with its kit. Please be constructive though!
