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The game is way too snowbally now.

n0ob·11/26/2014, 5:24:43 PM·47 votes·5,916 views

I've been playing since a few weeks before S1 patch, and I've never seen the game be so snowbally.

Several of the changes in the recent patch contributed to this:

Towers go down much earlier. I've never seen inner turrets go down so fast, let alone outer turrets. I've been in games where the top laner gets FB vs his opponent, then gets the tower 20 seconds later. Inner turrets are far too squishy as well. Riot was talking about needing "good rotations" to push down towers, but this isn't the case at all. Inhib towers are also too weak mid/late game, though the lazer beam does help early game and vs split pushers.
Increased jungle spawn timers. The smart thing to do after winning a teamfight or killing your opponent in lane is to get a little extra gold by killing a camp or two in the enemies jungle before recalling. With the increased jungle gold and exp, and increased timers, this helps snowball much more than it did before. With the previous respawn timers, the team that just got crushed could go back into their jungle and farm up the camps for a little gold before having to respond to the winning teams pressure. Now, they're not there anymore, and by the time they are up again, the winning team has already recalled, healed, bought items, picked their noses, and came back to lane to pressure some more.
Dragon. This has been said a lot so I'll keep it short. Rework the buff order or something.

Another thought: Nerf barons damage. Riot was talking about "strategic diversity" and trade offs between objectives. I've been in several matches where one team goes for drag and the other team responds by going for baron. By the time the baron team kills it, the team that got drag has gotten it and is at baron to mop up the baron team who are all really low hp. Give baron more HP if you must, but the damage needs to be toned down. Its also frustrating when you know you cant baron when you've killed the entire enemy team except one assassin who will wreck your entire team if you try.

39 Comments

themachamp211/27/2014, 12:19:14 AM12 votes

Its more like an avalanche than a snowball atm :( The inner and outer turrets are way too weak. If the enemy gets a jungler that can gank level 2-4, it can very easily be gg for your lane. Reminds me of s1-s2 where the junglers influence was a bit too strong.

Top lane feels less important than every before because of how important the new dragon is. Since it tends to be the biggest focal point of early/mid....and sometimes even late game. It also forces alot of top laners to pick teleport or screw over their teams.

Baron is too strong atm. 1 of 2 things usually happens. 1.... My team is so strong we don't need baron to win or 2........its a death(throw)trap with as much damage as it does. 1 player on the enemy team can bully 5 people out of it. Very rarely have i seen it be that seige breaker that riot has been touting. I mean....why risk baron when dragon stack number 5 can get the job done and there very little risk compared to baron.

Also the longer spawn timer on the jungle screw over the team that's behind even more.

I mean with as snowbally as it feels to me there are only 2 ways to come back. Your opponents mess up big time and go ham way too much or the enemy has a d/c giving you a chance....the 5v4 vs the snowball lol.

aperson111/26/2014, 8:40:38 PM9 votes

I think they should go the opposite way of nerfing baron damage, and make drag a lot tougher. Currently, a reasonably farmed ADC in the mid-late game can take down drag solo in about 8-10 secs with about 2/3 HP, with their team pushing mid and bot to cover them. Meanwhile an entire team might take around 12 seconds to take baron, while risking getting collapsed upon. Considering how much both objectives give in that stage of the game, Drag should definitely be a lot stronger.

2pudge1cup11/27/2014, 1:50:25 PM5 votes

Riot states that their season goal is to make the game less snowbally.

The game becomes more snowbally than it's ever been.

Only Riot can accomplish such a feat.

R33LNAUTI11/27/2014, 5:46:21 AM3 votes

Turrets are really weak and all of them are buggy now imo. I mean seriously, by the time you get to an inner turret the beam is a joke and i can't tell you how many times I've seen outer turrets either fail to target an enemy champ (no ohmwrekers) or they will still shoot you way out of range after a dive. I honestly think a big part of why games seem so snowbally now is that turrets offer very little defense compared to what they used to once mid game hits.

As for the jungle, first off buffs need to last longer imo, even with the utility mastery you get maybe 2 camps worth out of a smite buff. I mean it helps, but if you have to recall after getting one you're lucky if its still there by the time you get back to your next camp. Also the health regen on monsters early game seems a bit ridiculous imo.

Alëk11/27/2014, 5:54:54 AM3 votes

There have already been quite a few discussions saying that dragon needs some serious buffs in health and damage for the early game. Or some mechanical buff that makes it impossible for some champions to 1v1 it early game. I think that all around, objectives have really changed.

The new jungle is too rewarding to champions with a lot of sustain and defense steroids, while champions with weak wave clear, and conditional damage are completely useless in the early game. (Sejuani, Nautilus) But because the new jungle items and paths are now so versatile, it is incredibly hard to decide which item to buff and which item to nerf. If they buff the sustain items to help the junglers who struggle with sustain problems early, there is the risk of champions like Warwick, Kha'Zix etc. to receive an even stronger buff due to the fact that that sustain allows them to stay in the jungle indefinitely just farming and counter jungling. There are numerous ways to look at this but the point remains the same. If Rito nerfs something, they will probably be buffing something beside the initial cause and vice versa.

Counter jungling can now effectively shut down an enemy jungler, because the buffs are just too valuable. When I say shut down I mean well and truly negate almost any effect they can have on the early game because of how important those jungle buffs are. Unless you're playing Lee Sin of course. Then you just ignore jungle and nonstop gank to snowball. (Tangent, sorry). Anyway, objectives, might not need to be rearranged, but the advantages those early game objectives give need to be toned down. Something needs to be done with the jungle. Because they've reduced the amount of sustain you can have in the jungle early game--except for a select few champions-- champions are forced to back asap to upgrade to a stalker's blade. This gives an obscene advantage to champions who DON'T have to back.

In conclusion, game-play in the new SR is very rough right now. The first 20 minutes almost completely determine the game's route and offer very little room for outplay. Sadly, the only reason why those 20 minutes don't completely dictate the game is because of the snowballing champions we have currently. This presents an entirely new set of problems. To make a long story short, if Rito balances the game-play in the new SR, the unbalanced champions will rise to a big ugly head. Nevertheless, dealing with the game-play is much more important than the champions. With a map that is unbalanced, skilled game-play cannot be endorsed because the map gives advantages to champions that were already strong. My rant is complete.

Kuroi8611/26/2014, 8:14:25 PM2 votes

Riot is looking in on the towers to see if tweaking is needed. I don't think the other three are issues.

xGvPx11/27/2014, 8:12:30 AM2 votes

With Dragon being much more important than Baron now as an objective, I have to join the crowd that asks why Dragon's global team gold was changed at all...I guess they wanted Baron to be an end game solution only, but I don't know...as you say, why even bother with Baron when Dragon is faster and gives permanent change? What a mess.

Dedrius11/26/2014, 10:21:13 PM2 votes

I don't mind games being Snowbally, especially after being through late the season 3 farmfest of Ziggs, Syndra, Ori making the games 45 minutes and boring but I do agree that Dragon has began to overshadow Baron. If it is late in the game and the gold is even there isn't that much of a reward for the risk of throwing at baron, it makes much more sense to quickly take the drake and move on. I also don't like the tower changes, it seems easier for a fed carry to dive me now than it used to be at inhibitor towers.

Axtor11/26/2014, 11:58:23 PM2 votes

I have been saying this to all my friends, and I thought that I was the only one who noticed! Teams just seem to snowball so hard now, with little opportunity to come back. I think that you make valid points, but there is more to it I think- I just can't put my finger on what it is. Perhaps the garbage towers in base, or the jungle changes making champs I'm not used to viable again. But it's already shaping up to be a painful preseason.

Rikari11/27/2014, 1:14:35 AM2 votes

If the opponent has an ad jungler and they gank top you pretty much lost your tower

Its also frustrating when you know you cant baron when you've killed the entire enemy team except one assassin who will wreck your entire team if you try. dem no mana resets

Sloppy Ninja11/27/2014, 3:37:15 AM2 votes

Yeah, I've started to notice a trend that I either stomp or get stomped on. I think something that could help this is making dragon a lot tougher, you're right. Getting an 8% ad/AP buff for what is essentially no harder than clearing 3 large camps at the same time is kinda unfair, and if the enemy team is ahead of you now there is almost no chance that your team is going to be able to take dragon. Specifically, I think the dragon needs to start off stronger, and scale its damage vs. the team that has already slayed it a lot harder because right now for the team that is ahead, the only question about taking dragon is "is it up?"

And I love the idea of a team-wide buff, but I also kinda feel like it kinda breaks something in top lane because riot has specifically said "While our stance on global passives is fairly well known (hidden power, impacting lanes outside of an opponent's control, etc)" (4.19 patch notes in regards to Zilean's passive). Mid lane and bot lane can affect dragon, but the chances of top lane having any effect on the first dragon is very low because it is so far away, so a random spike of 8% AD/AP on one side of top lane is kinda unfair and I wonder what riot is going to do about this.

CaRTeLKiLLa11/28/2014, 10:51:28 AM1 votes

In my experience since 420blaze it I can safely say that if your bot and mid lose then you automatically lose the game. Had a game where I killed Udyr top for First Blood as Jax which is pretty much GG top since Jax gets a significant power spike post 6 while Udyr has no ult at all. Proceeded to continue killing him and his turrets, then lose since 9-2 Warwick killed every dragon as 16-5 Jinx can just solo our bot lane by herself.

HexTechBomber12/3/2014, 11:45:35 AM1 votes

It's uber easy as a team to take 3min spawn time dragon right now for that 8% buff to ad and ap.

ProfDrDeath11/26/2014, 5:45:28 PM1 votes

The damage Baron does is necessary with regard to how effing powerful the buff it gives it. FFS, it makes cannon minions outrange the towers!

Wayis12/20/2014, 11:04:05 AM1 votes

Just way too snowbally. Riot needs to fix it, without losing the excitement wow factor.

TheVishual11/26/2014, 8:17:53 PM1 votes

i think towers are a little weak... baron needs to be worth more in my opinion, because as of right now dragon is basically the most important objective on the map.

soulchaos11/26/2014, 9:11:01 PM1 votes

Thats what i said when i saw the dragon buff. they need to nerf the buffs the team that kills the most dragons most always wins the game baron or not.

NeoScout11/27/2014, 5:59:47 AM1 votes

Riot wants strategic diversity, but this will never happen as long games are heavily one sided where the only strategy is to get first blood and first dragon.

SoundChaosDebug11/27/2014, 8:46:01 AM1 votes

About suggestion number 2, I am an avid nose picker and would hate to have to strategically think do I want to play a little or dig for gold.

#chinesegoldfarmers

I will say that the laser turrets are the most abysmal thing I have seen so far on this game since they removed the splash damage auto attack from sivir making it a short term spell. I loved the toggle effect it had and there was strategic choice in using it and when not using it. If you used it 24/7 you literally had no mana for anything else, now when I use the spell it just seems like a waste of a slot.

CoolKnightST11/27/2014, 9:19:45 AM1 votes

DRAGON'S MIGHT: +8% attack damage and ability power

Your support can 1v1 people if you get this early game.

DRAGON'S DOMINANCE: +15% damage to minions and monsters

You can splitpush faster even without items.

DRAGON'S FLIGHT: +5% movement speed

More mobility = Higher pick potentional, better offense, better splitpush.

DRAGON'S WRATH: +15% damage to towers and buildings

This buff basicly replaces baron... (they already solved the siege problem by adjusting the mana)

ASPECT OF THE DRAGON: Doubles all previous bonuses and your attacks burn for 150 true damage over 5 seconds. This stack only lasts 180 seconds.

Your pretty f*cked after they god their hands on this buff.

You also have to time in amount because the jungle timers & vision controle the enemy team can use against u. The chance on getting blue buff for waveclear it's a lot lower. Also during the low mana regen on junglers it's sometimes even more difficult to hand out blue.

Junkο11/27/2014, 3:21:33 PM1 votes

The turrets don't ignore armor correctly atm. So they feel like they are doing no dmg.

kurufal11/27/2014, 8:17:09 PM1 votes

I logged in to comment on this, because I came to these forums to see if anyone felt this way.

Lately with the new jungle changes it's become more of a game you know you're going to lose early on. I feel as if there is no catching up if you are behind. The dragon BUFF strongly favors early game aggression and only snowballs; it is incredibly hard to shut down.

I almost want to recommend changing the surrender timer to 15 minutes because every game I have played has been so one sided it's upsetting.

Even when I win games I don't feel like I accomplished something; I don't feel as if I played better then the other team. There are only a few jungler's that can influence the game early on anymore and if you are not one of those you might as well play the farm jungler's like Udyr.

revliledpembroke11/27/2014, 9:00:34 PM1 votes

I don't know, I had a game the other day where we went 69 minutes, and the other team had gotten baron twice and the fifth dragon buff several times and only took one inhibitor. We got two or three dragon buffs, baron once, we pushed after baron and we won.

themachamp211/27/2014, 10:06:16 PM1 votes

So far, I have found that the early/mid game team comps just shit on the late game team comps really hard. Once you get the death grip on dragon control its a nightmare for the enemy to catch up.

Side note: I main jungle and top and I have to say that when im jungling now....95% of my efforts go into bot lane because you cant win if you dont have dragon control. If your bot lane is shit then you can kiss the dragon goodbye along with your chances of winning. Mid has influence as well but the bot is still the most important atm. Its also quite fun seeing my top laner raging because i literally tell them "it doesnt really matter if you win or lose your lane" so I'm not going up there( the 2 exceptions being if the enemy has a tryn or singed)

Jinte11/27/2014, 11:27:52 PM1 votes

Also, the moment they get an inhib. You can't even leave the wave alone since 2 Super minion alone can take like kill your nexus turret by themselves. ;l