Doom Bots: Impressions So Far
tl;dr: Bots seem weaker than before.
From what I have seen of various YouTuber's streaming Doom Bots on the PBE, my impression is that they seem quite weak, and in fact, have less powers than the previous version of Doom Bots. As with the previous versions, these bots seem to lack any real sense when engaging, but unlike the previous versions, their harass has seemed to have been diminished a bit.
What made the older bots cooler was that each one sort of had their own buffs, just to them. If I'm laning bot and both bots have Singed poison trail and I'm ranged AP caster.. that really doesn't pressure me much. If, however, one bot has Singed poison and the other has a Morgana stun ring as a passive.. or Viktor laser Illuminati triangle or Eve passive... then that gets a bit more exciting.
In the older versions for example, Annie bot would get Eve's stealth passive, and Viktor lasers around her, random Garens would spin wildly out of the brush and Hecarim's ult would sweep in unexpectedly for the bots. Morgana would have her stuns swirl around her in her passive and Malz would open like 6 void pools on the ground.
Of course, this is only PBE right now, but from what has been posted on the PBE boards by Riot about the "curses" that the bots get, seems quite weak. The bots don't really take advantage of Bard's ult, nor does it seem like Ryze ult is all that bad, in fact it helps players escape danger a lot of the time. The brush being on fire is also more of an annoyance than an actual thing that can kill you and having Singe's poison trail does pretty much nothing when most players, from what I have been seeing, play ranged casters or ADC champions because wave clear is so much more important in this type of "survival mode." Team fighting is where these bots really do lack, from what I have been seeing. It is way to easy to land stuns as they group so close together and when I'm in lane, they don't pressure me at all unless a minion wave is at my turret, and even then, they usually back off until I extend out into a lane.
Of course, I will reiterate, this is only on the PBE now, so perhaps things will change wildly before it goes live, and I do hope it does. I play Doom Bots, sincerely, to be crushed in magnificent death. To me anyways, it is always great fun to see so much over-poweredness, that I don't care what my KDA is. I would rather fight a team of nearly unbeatable bots with crazy powers with my friends, regardless of actually winning, than play against bots I can beat more easily. So Riot, I really hope you have some things up your sleeves to make this mode nigh unbeatable. Perhaps bots get 200MR/Armor? Or all bots get built in Warmogs health? Hopefully it is way too OP.
