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Reminder that toxic gameplay =/= unbalanced + Zoe Discussion

Slythion··4 votes·1,018 views

A popular current example would be Zoe. I recognize this is probably an unpopular opinion, but imma go against the mob mentality of the boards and explain myself:

Zoe is an absolutely terrible champion design that, imo, provides the stress of a bullet hell game except you lose 90% of your health if you actually get hit. It's not fun. Keeping CT blame out of this as much as I can, she is simply an extremely fun champion to play as with very little enjoyment for players to play against. This is an effect of her toxic gameplay that, depending on who you ask, revolves around:

  • multiple inconsistencies in her kit: see here
  • Her sleep and it's general uncounterable-ility (?)
  • Her standard brofesco-style "crazy 1-shot full ap cross-map Q!!!" 1 trick wonder playstyle.

Again, it's ok to disagree with me on the specifics as to why she's considered to have toxic gameplay. All I'm saying is that I've noticed a lot of people agree that Zoe has a generally toxic and unfun kit.

That doesn't mean she's broken

Toxic gameplay is not 1:1 with being broken. Being broken or op is a measure of her statistics and how her kit effects the outcome of the game, not how it effects player experience.

According to champion.gg she is 35th out of 45 midlaners. She's rocking a whopping 49.3% win-rate with a 5.19% play rate. She has a slightly higher ban rate at 7.36%.

op.gg has very similar statistics

So: unless you can make a post as to why these statistics may be misrepresented due to certain interactions or relationships in league (which can happen), Zoe is not blatantly op. She needs changes, but straight up nerfs would dumpster her.

Sincerely. A Zoe hater that understands toxic gameplay =/= broken gameplay

6 Comments

Ahristocats2 votes

zoe is absolutly unbalanced right now, she holds a 52% win rate in diamond+ and has 100% pick/ban in pro

well deserved nerf that has nothing to do with frustration

Slythion1 votes

would you mind citing those statistics please?

The only site that I know of where you can view win rate + the rest of the stats by rank tier would be leagueofgraphs.com, a site I generally avoid because I often see it disagreeing with champ.gg and op.gg but I'll use it here due to lack of options.

You can see here that Zoe (Diamond) is only shown to have a 50.2% play rate, with a huge ban rate of 79.9%. I'm not sure if that takes into account double-bans in champ select or not but it's safe to say that this site believes Zoe to have a huge ban rate regardless. Idk if that's enough to just say she's op, as many many many champs with toxic kits sport a high ban rate. So I'll refer you to a quote from my original post:

unless you can make a post as to why these statistics may be misrepresented due to certain interactions or relationships in league (which can happen), Zoe is not blatantly op.

As for LCS (which is often not a good indicator as to which champions are strong or weak in solo queue), you would be correct. She is rocking a 54% win ratio and a 235.1% ban rate (lmfao)

This definitely does indicate she is incredibly strong in competitive play and maybe master/challenger elo, soooooo what do we do?

We have a slightly underwhelming champion with an incredibly unfun kit for 97% of the playerbase, and a potentially oppressive champion with an equally unfun kit for the remaining 3% of the playerbase...what would you suggest?

Ahristocats1 votes

{quoted}

This definitely does indicate she is incredibly strong in competitive play and maybe master/challenger elo, soooooo what do we do?

uh? nerf?

i don't care about diamond players, last time i saw her win rate in diamond+ it was 50% and she didn't have 70% ban rate the high ban rate deflated her win rate

but it doesn't matter, because i don't care about diamond players i play in master tier/challenger, and zoe is gamebreaking

so that nerf is well deserved like i said because if a champ is gamebreaking in high elo it always ends up nerfed

ie: azir, ryze, leblanc, kalista

Slythion1 votes

If we want to discuss a champion, you have to remain objective. The game isn't, and has never been balanced around master/challenger elo. How would you address Zoe as a champion from a league of legends perspective or you know, what's best for the game? Balancing around the top 0.5% of the playerbase is divisive and unhealthy for League as a game.

The only exceptions to high-elo balance decision are, as you stated, when it's absolute game breaking. But they aren't just nerfs, they're guttings. All three, Azir, Ryze, Leblanc, and Kalista were all gutted until Riot could figure out how to balance them relatively well among all elos. If you want Zoe temporarily gutted than that's 100% alright, and my own personal opinion would be to agree with that, but that's a temporary solution.

How would you address Zoe as a champion for the entirety of league? We're acting as the balance team here and handling league as a whole, we don't have the privilege to pick and choose elos because it suites us as individual players.

That whole argument of "I don't care about other elos" is identical to the idiotic "balance the game around bronze" argument. It's just as divisive, it's just as entitled, and it's just as ineffective. Those aren't personal insults though, please understand I do respect you, but I have 0 respect for that reasoning.

I treat bronze players complaining about Yasuo or Garen the same as I'll treat you talking about Zoe. Both of your personal opinions only make up a small percent of what actually matters about the champion, and I refuse to balance the game around either extreme.

DuskDaUmbreon1 votes

Agreed 100%. There are plenty of balanced (and even unviable), yet extremely unhealthy/toxic champions. The two are far from synonymous.

You can even be broken and untoxic. Toxicity has to do entirely with kit. Brokenness has to do with numbers and interactions. You can be broken and untoxic, and you can be completely unviable but have the most toxic kit ever.

That relates to how they're fixed: Toxic kits generally have to be reworked, or are kept unviable until they can be reworked (or are no longer toxic). Or, at the very least, the toxic mechanics have to be discouraged (Either by making it highly undesirable to continue with said toxic play, or making it outright impossible to).

Broken champions generally can be fixed with number shifts.

undercover90001 votes

Fun fact it's the same designer who created Zoe Darius and Yasuo ... Only one question remains now, is that dude working for dota ? or for fortnite ?

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