So Design Question about Defense...

GigglesO·Mar 1, 2018·3 votes·378 views

So if offence is supposed to always win trades.

"Adc's need to kill tanks late game" blah blah blah reasons reasons reasons.

Why do you (riot) expect anyone to build defense, or play tanks unless they are blatantly over powered in the offense category? Especially when all of the popular damage dealers are ranged, with CC, and self peel...

What does that allow us tanky guys to do at all? When we get half healthed before we even touch them, and then since we build defense and "offence always needs to be more powerful" what does that give us? What are we supposed to do?

Last season I didn't see near the issue with this, because you were just tanky enough that if the adc fucked up that you killed them. Now I'm not even sure why I should build a defense item? It just doesn't work anymore.

6 Comments

CrettMar 1, 20183 votes

not that i don't want a tankier tank (maybe less damage overall), the argument here feels a bit too simplistic. if defense could outright defeat offense on it's own, it would simply be the superior option.

of course, even with all the cool tank options coming out, rampant %health damage, true damage etc makes playing tanks feel kinda bad. you have an immutable weakness that can get really crazy late game, and it can lead to the enemy team not having to respect the presence you've spent all game trying to build. they are quite powerful and may always be in a number of areas, but...

at least on a game feel level, tanks don't feel fun sometimes because of the nature of the current offense-defense dynamic.

GigglesOMar 1, 20181 votes

{quoted}

the argument here feels a bit too simplistic.

Its more of a design question than an actual argument. I'm actually a little confused about when defense should be the better choice. Riot has already stated that their design intent of adc's is to melt late game tanks, and that other champs need similar damage to be able to handle the adc's. So I'm just confused how defense fits in that paradigm.

rampant %health damage, true damage etc makes playing tanks feel kinda bad. at least on a game feel level, tanks don't feel fun sometimes because of the nature of the current offense-defense dynamic.

This last point is kinda a side topic. I used to understand tanks were supposed to kinda be that braindead teammate that went in first, and if he died that was ok. Now it just seems like if I block an ez q or something else for my team I'm already 1/4 hp. Heaven forbid the adc hits me. Through 200 armor they still do about 300-400 a hit soo...

I'm actually confused when to build defense now, it just doesn't seem like a very viable choice.

TehNACHOMar 1, 20181 votes

Because defense is a supplement for other attributes to a character's kit. It's a vehicle for a win condition, but isn't a win condition in and of itself.

No champion or class or wherever you want to draw the line builds Tank for the sake of being Tanky, they do it to achieve a given goal. Divers don't need full damage to pop a squishy so might as well build some defense along the way too so you can survive long enough to do the job. The purpose of Tanks is their Utility, and more than often Tanks are equipped with ways to prolong a fight or cause more havoc for the enemy team and utility for yours as long as they're alive, so you build defense to keep them alive. Juggernauts need the bulk to survive long enough to do their damage. You're right in how if we make the discussion a binary offense vs defense, of course offense should win and of course it makes it sounds like defense is pointless, but League's so much more complicated than that binary argument can possibly explain.

Right now there's a lot of friction between the classes, and a lot of champions aren't allowed to do their jobs properly. If champions aren't able to do their jobs, and Tankiness is a vehicle for doing these jobs, AND offense generally outscales defense, you can see why building defense right now feels pretty pointless. In this way, I believe the Offense vs Defense argument is entirely false, and the real problem is that the game needs to return more power to other classes and let them do the jobs they were designed to do.

GigglesOMar 1, 20181 votes

{quoted}

You're right in how if we make the discussion a binary offense vs defense, of course offense should win and of course it makes it sounds like defense is pointless, but League's so much more complicated than that binary argument can possibly explain.

Except Right now we have it as a binary argument. Damage is always winning, and mostly because the rate at which it is dealt. The slower champions don't have the opportunity to do anything before they die.

TehNACHOMar 1, 20181 votes

Oh my god you missed the entire last paragraph.

If you're just here to argue though, funny enough, right now, some of the highest performing champions fight slowly.

GigglesOMar 1, 20181 votes

No I just agreed with your last paragraph so I didn't want to take anything out of it XD.

I would say those guys fall under "play tanks unless they are blatantly over powered in the offense category" Camille nukes you pretty fast, sion comes at you and does alot of upfront cc and damage. Actually alot of those guys on the list have pretty high base damage.