Riot when will you address immobile melees properly?

IsIsGankedParis··50 votes·4,212 views

We were promised a fighter rework in 2013 and since then we haven't had anything happen besides nerfs to bruiser/tank items, nerfs to Renekton, buffs to J4, Rumble, and a few others, the release of Gnar who is a ranged champ who has more CC than some tanks, and armor pen being more broken than ever before.

Bruisers as a whole are hard to balance when they have a ton of mobility and can just jump on squishy champions without care(Jax, Irelia, etc.) but why do the immobile ones have to suffer so horribly as a result?

Darius, Garen, Olaf, Gangplank, Volibear, etc. need to be buffed to be viable in todays game of tons of mobility with tons of damage(no pun intended)

The Randuins nerf was the biggest hit to the immobile bruisers/tanks, and a nerf required to the bruisers with mobility.

Darius's main issue is kiting, Randuins was a Band-Aid to that.

Olaf misses 1 axe and he can't do anything about it.

Garen just tanks the damage like there is no tomorrow but won't reach you without insane speed or dumb mistakes.

Gangplank's current issue is he has a power spike at level 1 then it's done.

Volibear can't reach a ranged because they either have a red, some escape of their own, their own CC, or all of the above.

These bruisers NEED attention desperately, the fact that you made a bruiser that is also ranged and has more CC and damage than some IMMOBILE bruisers is insane.

The overloading of kits is another issue, but we can save that for later.

Please address bruisers/tanks who don't have insane mobility, they have had the short end of the stick for too long now.

49 Comments

agbudar12 votes

give voli his 45% move speed at lvl 1 back and he will be viable again he is all about snowballing early and he falls of later on.

garen honestly doesn't need much he simply needs better items to do what he does best.

darius.... buff to movement speed for his passive stacks? idk olaf make him the way he was before you reworked him before you nerfed him into oblivion because voyboy managed to outplay a 1v2 situation.

zed does 1v5's on a daily basis and you call him "healthy" gankplank need his passive removed make his Raise Morale his passive and whenever he crits he raises the morale of his allies (with a 20 second cooldown) then give him a meaningful E to use something like throw a bottle rum that makes enemies intoxicated aka slowing them down both attack speed and movement speed.

Ariel the Cruel1 votes

The perma-slow is actually quite strong on a champ with as much move speed as he can achieve.

Though and type of dash, blink, or gap-closer pretty much nullifies that (eg, nearly all the champs released these days).

agbudar1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ariel the Cruel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j5LMbTLY,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-01-29T03:02:16.309+0000)

The perma-slow is actually quite strong on a champ with as much move speed as he can achieve.

Though and type of dash, blink, or gap-closer pretty much nullifies that (eg, nearly all the champs released these days).

which is why he is gated as OP and unhealthy same boat as ashe

cZair2 votes

{quoted}

give voli his 45% move speed at lvl 1 back and he will be viable again he is all about snowballing early and he falls of later on.

garen honestly doesn't need much he simply needs better items to do what he does best.

darius.... buff to movement speed for his passive stacks? idk olaf make him the way he was before you reworked him before you nerfed him into oblivion because voyboy managed to outplay a 1v2 situation.

zed does 1v5's on a daily basis and you call him "healthy" gankplank need his passive removed make his Raise Morale his passive and whenever he crits he raises the morale of his allies (with a 20 second cooldown) then give him a meaningful E to use something like throw a bottle rum that makes enemies intoxicated aka slowing them down both attack speed and movement speed.

I agree with moving his Q back to 45% all the way. Also taking some damage on his Q and adding some AP with the damage. Like having it as 120 and have a 25% to 45% AP. Q still acts the same it's just has the AP% on it.

OyddAWqJ5r2 votes

Woah woah woah. GP's passive is extremely strong but underrated because noone utilizes it. It's his Q critting that needs removal honestly. Should just have higher base damage instead. Cuz right now leveling Q is pointless when you have W and E.

Kingsgrave10 votes

{quoted}

give voli his 45% move speed at lvl 1 back and he will be viable again he is all about snowballing early and he falls of later on.

garen honestly doesn't need much he simply needs better items to do what he does best.

darius.... buff to movement speed for his passive stacks? idk olaf make him the way he was before you reworked him before you nerfed him into oblivion because voyboy managed to outplay a 1v2 situation.

zed does 1v5's on a daily basis and you call him "healthy" gankplank need his passive removed make his Raise Morale his passive and whenever he crits he raises the morale of his allies (with a 20 second cooldown) then give him a meaningful E to use something like throw a bottle rum that makes enemies intoxicated aka slowing them down both attack speed and movement speed.

Honestly Volibear is cancer when even remotely ahead.

He is the epitome of what is wrong with most Melee champions. He has so much frontloaded power to the point of being a raid boss and just running forward and destroying anyone with less stats than him. If he ever becomes popular again I can bet you he will be insta nerfed like he was before.

agbudar1 votes

{quoted}

Honestly Volibear is cancer when even remotely ahead.

He is the epitome of what is wrong with most Melee champions. He has so much frontloaded power to the point of being a raid boss and just running forward and destroying anyone with less stats than him. If he ever becomes popular again I can bet you he will be insta nerfed like he was before.

yea so remove the retarded bonus damage on his Q there problem solved.

Jungle Lux God1 votes

In regards to Voyboy "outplaying" a 1v2 situation, it was less outplaying his opponents and running into them and using his abilities as fast as possible.

Not to mention Voyboy wasn't the only player who did some crazy Olaf stuff. Who can forget Spontexx winning a 1v3 in the early game against Mousesports?

ThePlasticSpork8 votes

Last time Olaf and Darius were strong everyone was crying for nerfs, lol.

I'd rather not go back to the days of getting thwacked by Olaf's true damage every time I tried to CS and then eating a few axes as you attempt to back off.

lojician2 votes

Darius is an idiotic design "Durr let's make a champion that's completely worthless if you can kite and autowins pure 1v1 dps races. WHAT COULD GO WRONG" but there was counterplay there. If you rushed sunfire on renekton or (before he got chain nerfed) played the matchup correctly with xin you could win lane.

Olaf is like a healthier version of darius. Despite being a lane bully there were still fighters who could last through the early lane and outscale him.

Having those two be good was absolutely better than lissandra, gnar, and company laughing at you if you were ever stupid enough to pick a fighter not named irelia.

Akali is SO HOT5 votes

I found a picture of the fighter rework team at work.

OyddAWqJ5r4 votes

Olaf is arguably okay honestly. He's a pubstomper atm when built full AD (it's quite ridiculous). And while balancing around lower elo's is generally not the priority, Olaf can easily become a low elo pubstomper champ given buffs (if he isn't already). Unstoppability + high DPS AND mobility is a hard thing to balance.

Darius I can agree with. Without Randuins the guy is just dead. Haven't tried Righteous Glory yet though but it could be the answer already, though unpopular. Bracer definitely works. Catalyst... maybe. He still needs damage to do damage though unlike other high mobility bruisers LeeSin.

GP is actually more like powerspike at Shyv and Trinity and then die out quickly over time. His level 1 is nonexistant to most top laners. He just relies far too much on Parrrley to do anything. Perhaps let Parrrley apply more stacks of his passive at levels 6/11/16 (2/3/4)? I still think critting with it should be removed and replaced with higher base damage. Or just have Crit increase the damage dealt by Q by a percent like 0.5% per 1% crit (aka remove chance, Crits with Shyv are pretty silly and an RNG-based forced back for the enemy).

Volibear needs Tenacity or slow immunity during his Q. That or using Q during ult grant CC immunity/slow immunity/Tenacity. That way he has a reliable initiate lategame.

Suibun1 votes

"Olaf is arguably okay honestly." "Unstoppability + high DPS AND mobility is a hard thing to balance." "...AND mobility..."

Uhm.... let me stop you right there....

Olaf is sadly very very weak in most cases. His mana cost of Q is horrific early levels and keep in mind he has to trade his unstoppable ultimate by becoming incredibly squishy. As many folks have stated, time and time again, on Olaf if you miss a Q in a chase, it's over because he has no way to catch up to you again barring he's ghosted and ulting. Can he pubstomp against people who underestimate him? Sure! But it's the same as every champion if you disrespect their power. Olaf has no good, reliable way to gapclose without omnomnomming through his relatively tiny mana pool (or clear without a Tiamat item for that matter) and it comes down to careful trades with his E to bop people with true damage, then sustain yourself with W's lifesteal/spellvamp. Anyone who has a dash, jump, or other sort of disengage can easily out-run Olaf (again, sans Ghost).

On your other points, that would certainly be an interesting change, though.

Arkna3 votes

{quoted} His mana cost of Q is horrific early levels

60 mana for your poke really isn't that bad, especially when you factor in that E has no mana, and W costs 30 and you won't be using it on cooldown.

The problem with immobile fighters is that, generally, you can't fix it with number tweaks, and item bandaids are going to be better on mobile fighters since engaging a ranged target as melee generally has a binary outcome. Either you have the tools to reach your target and stay there, or you don't. It's more effective to make a hard to peel target even harder to peel than trying to make an easy to peel target hard to peel.

Suibun1 votes

60 mana that he has to cast every 2-3 seconds to stay "stuck" to his target. Also factor in, Olaf isn't exactly the type to build either A: mana regen nor B: flat mana (maybe a Trinity Force at best, but even that's a little iffy). His beginning mana pool is 266 mana, so that's, what, 4 Q's and change? His E technically is free, but only if you last-hit, else it deals a decent bit of the health back to him. E is what allows him to even be a consideration in a duel against almost all the other bruisers/fighters/whatever you want to call them, and even then it's a pretty wimpy "nuke" unless you build straight AD, which (again) is pretty inadvisable considering how squishy Olaf is, especially with his Ultimate on.

Arkna1 votes

{quoted}

60 mana that he has to cast every 2-3 seconds to stay "stuck" to his target. Also factor in, Olaf isn't exactly the type to build either A: mana regen nor B: flat mana (maybe a Trinity Force at best, but even that's a little iffy). His beginning mana pool is 266 mana, so that's, what, 4 Q's and change? His E technically is free, but only if you last-hit, else it deals a decent bit of the health back to him. E is what allows him to even be a consideration in a duel against almost all the other bruisers/fighters/whatever you want to call them, and even then it's a pretty wimpy "nuke" unless you build straight AD, which (again) is pretty inadvisable considering how squishy Olaf is, especially with his Ultimate on.

The only reason to start Q at level one is a hard matchup and you need it to farm, or you want to push and cheese a level two all in against a strong pusher. In lane, sticking power isn't as big of a deal as it is in teamfights. Can the enemy laner disengage from a trade? Sure, but if they want to come get farm I'll still be there. He gets the shaft in a ranged matchup, but so do most tops, and when compared to the other immobile melee tops, he's probably the one in the best spot.

OyddAWqJ5r2 votes

I can play Olaf and post the match history if you want. I'm pretty decent at it. It's seriously cheesy. Slightly matchup dependent in the sense that he has a few hard counters but he goes even or beats alot of the cast. The Q mana cost is alot more negligible than you think. If you are using it for poke then ur doing it wrong. U don't poke with axes. U chase with them. You land an axe u go full ham on that shit xD

You'll go oom sure, but they'll be dead by the time you do.

pleep2 votes

{quoted}

"Olaf is arguably okay honestly." "Unstoppability + high DPS AND mobility is a hard thing to balance." "...AND mobility..."

Uhm.... let me stop you right there....

Olaf is sadly very very weak in most cases. His mana cost of Q is horrific early levels and keep in mind he has to trade his unstoppable ultimate by becoming incredibly squishy. As many folks have stated, time and time again, on Olaf if you miss a Q in a chase, it's over because he has no way to catch up to you again barring he's ghosted and ulting. Can he pubstomp against people who underestimate him? Sure! But it's the same as every champion if you disrespect their power. Olaf has no good, reliable way to gapclose without omnomnomming through his relatively tiny mana pool (or clear without a Tiamat item for that matter) and it comes down to careful trades with his E to bop people with true damage, then sustain yourself with W's lifesteal/spellvamp. Anyone who has a dash, jump, or other sort of disengage can easily out-run Olaf (again, sans Ghost).

On your other points, that would certainly be an interesting change, though.

Nope Olaf is extremely powerful, any sort of change would probably be a nerf. As the first guy stated AD olaf is unstoppable, and its because of his W.

His W is one of the most powerful spells in the entire game, and i have achieved up to 97% lifesteal with it. Healing up to 500-700 per auto-attack.

Fadedpf3 votes

Nope riot wont like you unless you are JarvanIV

OyddAWqJ5r4 votes

LeeSin actually. I bet you they are gonna nerf JarvanIV for being as good as Lee. Noone can be Lee tier.

Kingsgrave2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sleeper Cell,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j5LMbTLY,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-01-29T06:07:03.145+0000)

LeeSin actually. I bet you they are gonna nerf JarvanIV for being as good as Lee. Noone can be Lee tier.

He isn't Lee tier. He is above that.

OyddAWqJ5r1 votes

That's some Riot thinking right there. Oh wait! Are you secretly a Rioter?!

Ariel the Cruel3 votes

Do you really want Riot to "fix" bruisers?

Remember when they "fixed" supports.

  • Their cc/buffs got gutted so they could scale. Generally requiring around 300+ AP to achieve their old value (good luck on a support's budget).
  • Their role started getting dominated by mages that got nerfed out of mid lane. NERFED!
  • They started trying to branch out into other lanes - which lead to knee-jerk insta-nerfs (and not wrist-slaps either like a certain other group always seems to get).
  • The only support to survive was Janna (who was also heavily nerfed). And that's just because her kit inherently has a crap-ton of power. (oh, and Thresh who is almost immune to nerfs.)

How about they "fix" something else. Like ADC's or assassins.

Jungle Lux God2 votes

I regards to branching out into other lanes, keep in mind that Lulu still exists, and was practically balanced for her non-support roles. Unfortunately, Riot toned down Lulu to keep her solo laning 'viable', which came at the expense of her intended role, as a support.

Ariel the Cruel1 votes

Not quite.

She was balanced around being a support. More than that, she was balanced around being a mid-game support. She has hard mana-gating and above average cooldowns early game and a passive that can push lane if used improperly. The problem is, mana/mana regen and CDR can be bought. And can be bought very quickly in a solo lane compared to support role. Once her gating diminished, she got to use all those buffs and CC freely. The part where it gets worse, is there's no way to nerf her solo lane power without hurting her support power. Because solo lane Lulu thrives on being very safe and having a kit designed to react to nearly anything - not damage, tankiness or kill potential. Riot tried. And tried. And tried. Every time they gave her solo laneing a small nerf, it hit support twice as hard. It's to the point that Riot has stated they're giving up on Lulu and putting her on the rework list. Where? Nobody knows.

agbudar1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ariel the Cruel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j5LMbTLY,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-01-29T03:13:54.634+0000)

Do you really want Riot to "fix" bruisers?

Remember when they "fixed" supports.

  • Their cc/buffs got gutted so they could scale. Generally requiring around 300+ AP to achieve their old value (good luck on a support's budget).
  • Their role started getting dominated by mages that got nerfed out of mid lane. NERFED!
  • They started trying to branch out into other lanes - which lead to knee-jerk insta-nerfs (and not wrist-slaps either like a certain other group always seems to get).
  • The only support to survive was Janna (who was also heavily nerfed). And that's just because her kit inherently has a crap-ton of power. (oh, and Thresh who is almost immune to nerfs.)

How about they "fix" something else. Like ADC's or assassins.

when bruisers reigned supreme top lane actually meant something. now i forget it exists

Celeste Benal3 votes

Sweet Baby Jesus! Darius does not need a buff! Just getting into a scuffle with him is a guarantee of losing 50% HP.

Flippy bear is pretty good as well. I've seen him played as an excellent support or jungler.

Olaf could use some attention. I never see him played at all.

Gangplank seems to lack identity. But at least he gets some play time.

Garen is a beastly tank. That is his job. He is very good at it. There is nothing wrong with that.

1999 01 173 votes

garen can't catch anyone, but no one can catch garen. balance

TotalJerk2 votes

Righteous Glory was part of their response to immobile melees.

Critkeeper1 votes

{quoted}

Righteous Glory was part of their response to immobile melees.

Too bad there isn't anything keeping mobile ranged champions like janna from taking it and gleefully keeping you just out of arms reach right before popping the slow.

Unfortunately the only real way to help these immobile melees is to buff their innate move speed by about 25.

Knight SoIaire 2 votes

meanwhile udyr outruns any dash while being tankier and having bettter dmg that prolly anyone else because its a compensation for his lack of mobility

Stonington2 votes

They kinda are reworking fighters. Since 2013 the item changes are dramatic and there have been quite a few kit changes. If you expect them to change all the kits overnight. You're nuts.

JC DarkOmen2 votes

stopped reading after you said darius needs a buff

hate it when jax jumps on you? pick darius and hope he does jump on you! worried about low mobility during ganks? pick darius and kill your opponent and their jungler! hate it when they get away with 12 health? wait for it, waaaaaait for it....! want to kill the entire enemy team? now you have 20 seconds to ks everything possible with your ult! hate it when people dash/jump/flash to get away? your pull actually has WAY more range than is visible to the enemy thus making it nearly impossible to dodge, and if you do the pull before they move they'll just come right back, no matter how they got away or how far away they got!

also voliebear is really fast and has tons of damage without any damage item and is tanky as balls. he needs no buffs. garen has a speed buff that, if used after he takes cc cancels it. gangplank also cancels cc. olaf is immune to cc during his ult. none of the people you listed are in dire need of a buff due to immobility

Migrañaboy2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Darius Only,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j5LMbTLY,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-01-29T01:08:47.378+0000)

Darius, Garen, Olaf, Gangplank, Volibear, etc. need to be buffed to be viable in todays game of tons of mobility with tons of damage(no pun intended)

Now that DFG is gone, tons of damage maybe too, which means that now you have to wait some time before demanding Riot a bruiser rework/buffs.

Jamnon1 votes

They wont bc LCS / esports brings them big money. Far better buisness wise to leave the meta-golems in their thrones so there can be big, flashy plays which sell better.

KING OF MASKS1 votes

I play a lot of Garen ("boo hiss"), in my opinion he's not in too bad a spot right now. The buff to his passive was one of the best changes rito has made in quite a while.

I barely ever play Darius anymore, though.

CoolKnightST1 votes

The mobility issue for fighters is kinda easy to example:

  • item 3153 item 3137 item 3139 item 3046 item 3087 item 3078 item 3142 item 3172

Their are only a fell of them that provide raw movementspeed. The problem is that most of them are verry asp oriënted and not all fighters equaly benefit from this. Also most of these options are verry glass cannon oriënted and besides item 3078 none of them actualy provide health. And than whe didn't even mention armor if whe don't take item 3025 into account.

Whe need a lot of changes. I think a rework to item 3022 could be a nice start. Fighters need more diversity in their buids:

item 3137 : Now is build out item 3140 + item 3086 (price reduced to 150 combine cost => 2500 gold) item 3139 : Combine cost reduced with 100 gold => 3600 gold item 3022 : Back builds into item 3044 + item 1011 (now steals movementspeed) NEW ITEM : item 1029 + item 1036. item 3025 : NEW ITEM + item 3057 NEW ITEM2: item 3024 + NEW ITEM

With more defensive option it will be easyer for fighters to handle out their build without having to go glass cannon. I also see options to go into more supportive items like item 3800 & item 3050 now that can finaly have armor options into their core.

6PFjoFgfQ51 votes

The problem is not the immobile melees...

The problem is the hyper mobile melees, Lee sin, J4, vi and zed etc

We dont neeed or want riot buffing balanced champions, we need them kicking broken champs in the junk like they need

Rikari1 votes

IMO gankplank is a melee version of teemo with his ranged AA proc. item 3078 item 3087 poke top all year long

Decaedeus1 votes

Olaf was picked to great success by Fnatic vs H2K, I don't think he needs buffs. Olaf is one of those champions that fills a tiny niche in the game, and is just good enough to be a situational pick. I actually think he's really balanced right now.

Darius is one of those... counterintuitive champions. He has an execute which makes him take all the kills, but he doesn't do much with kills compared to an ADC. No matter how buffed, I doubt he will see play at higher tiers.

Poldy Scarecrow1 votes

'Garen just tanks the damage like there is no tomorrow'

lol 'tis true.

PatMcGroyn1 votes

Darius would be OP as fuck if he had any kind of Dash, and he already gets bonus movespeed for each enemy champ he has Bleed stacks on. I think Garen could use a mobility buff - it'd be cool if they made his Q a targeted gap closer, or even a skillshot dash. I don't think Volibear needs a dash, his movespeed buff is already pretty good, but I wouldn't mind if they gave his kit a rework.

RogueWill1 votes

Problem with darius is that if you buff him it will be back to those days when he could solo 5 man on its own.

As for your champions, rush boots (1 normally get speed boots with darius as my second item) get aclarity enhancement instead of homeguards. Flash+pull. they are immobile because they can nuke pretty much any player if they get in range, thats their concept.

marshal the pyro1 votes

if darius had mobility he would be every laner's worst nightmare(right now he is every melee toplaner's worst nightmare). besides he is supposed to fall of lategame because he is a lane bully with tons of damage who can hurt with just a hydra.

Tough Guy1 votes

You know what the sad part is?....This is only half the list T.T

cocacolalips1 votes

The other way around would be to clean the game from the crowd controls a bit.

I don't know if you have noticed, but 95% of LoL champions have either a slow or a disable or both, half of those being superfluous bonus on top of what the ability already does. It's insane. Talk about crowd control creep.

  • Riot gives champion A crowd control to catch champion B.
  • Riot now gives champion B crowd control to run away from champion A.
  • Riot now gives champions A even more crowd control to catch champion B. Repeat.

The state of teamfights is pretty sad. The gameplay is so cluttered with all those random slows and disables all over the ground, you rarely ever move at full speed, let alone cast your stuff in a fluid fashion. Have you ever watched a movie in slow motion? That's Lol's teamfights in a nutshell.

deadlychuck1 votes

though this doesn't work for every champion, item 3800 is insane if you can get useful stats out of it. It gives great initiation, sustain and decent durability.

The issue is that to give non-mobile melees build options for mobility also gives mobile champions those same options, so the game most likely will be filled easily. I think if anything riot just needs to make them a little bit more naturally tanky and make them stickier than their high mobility alternatives. So like maybe buff GP's passive slow, maybe make garen's Q swing (not the speed boost) grant immunity to slows, olaf could have his ult modify his E to add some type of CC to it. Just ideas off the top of my head.

NoMonku1 votes

I feel the problem, though, is all these champions were INCREDIBLY broken if they snowballed hard. Olaf was broken, it wasn't even funny, which is why he got toned down. All of these guys were hit because they were unhealthy. They had too much power for having little to no actual skill involved. The only one I'm actually sad to see lose his power was Renekton because he was the King of Top lane until he got gutted to the point where he is useless. For Rumble his base values are obnoxious. All he really needs it Sorcs and Haunting Guise and he will still wreck an opposing team. Olaf could basically 1v3. He did it in an LCS match in either S3 or S4, which is honestly why he probably got hit. For GP, I just feel he needs work in general.

Ayame Isaki1 votes

Garen is actually a really solid champion. I always build item 3009 on him to help the fact he is easily kited, but he does real well with item 3071 item 3065 item 3068 as a core item set. The last two item slots once I have these 4 are situational for me depending on if I need more defense or I'm fed enough to pick up IE or LW.

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