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How did it take Rito like 9/6 months to figure out

Theorex··71 votes·16,237 views

How to nerf akali, irelia, and the other broken champions?

Its almost like they didn't intend to balance them at all last season or something. But riot would never throw out game balance for views on the pro scene!

9 months to figure out that Disarm was dumb.

6 months to figure out that being able to freely harass under enemy towers with no repercussion was broken.

Then the nerfs all happen within a two week period of each other. But rito would never fuck would game balance ever. They want the integrity of their game to good. Not for money or for skin sales.

Seriously, Riot. This thing of nerfing/buffing because you want it to be in a scene has got to go. Reworking as well.

You can't just strip people of the champions they love, and say. "Look now its better!" Then within the same year completely gut those champions. Ever since season 6 you've been doing this exact thing.

Ryze Taliyah Azir Irelia Akali (Surprisingly I don't think many from season 7 got hit) This list can go on.

I am not saying this because I am salty. I am saying this because, it is unfun.

Its unfun for the people who like those themes. Its unfun for people who want to climb. Its unfun for people who want to play casually. Its unfun for people who played those champions before the reworks.

Theme: Because they spend time learning this champion, poor sweat and soul into it. Only for it to not matter months later.

Climb: Because they either have to learn these new champions or get dumpstered because they aren't playing them.

Casually: Because these champions literally ruin a for fun feel, seeing any of them in a game just brings out frustration. There isn't enough "Counter-Play" to these champions before the nerfs.

Reworks: Because the years, spent learning and mastering said champions are now down the drain. You'll never see the fruit of your labor. You are given a mutated seed with nothing but a hoe and watering can. And have to start all over.

This is part of the reason why higher rated players just stop caring to climb. This is a major part of the reason why NA is still Ass.

But this will fall on deaf ears. All gaming companies no longer give a shit about the players once they make it big. Its about milking the cow for all of its money before the players go onto another game.

49 Comments

Oleandervine12 votes

Riot has a distinct problem with their game design in that they don't believe they make mistakes until they're forced to face it at the most basic level.

They will nerf the shit out of the items, base stats, everyone around the problem before they actually look at the problem people are complaining about. It's happened REPEATEDLY for many years, and it's at the point now where Riot is literally trolling us when they do it, because they've made the mistake enough times to realize how to avoid it. They're like doctors in that sense - you tell a doctor you have a sinus infection, but they scoff and then examine every other part of you before conceding that you do, indeed, have a sinus infection. Like, Riot, you need to listen to the players. We actually USE the game, so we know what problems are long before you even acknowledge it. Sure, we may not be perfect, but the players are probably the biggest litmus test to game health, and are pretty damn good at pinpointing what the issues are.

dnsup1 votes

{quoted}

Riot has a distinct problem with their game design in that they don't believe they make mistakes until they're forced to face it at the most basic level.

They're like doctors in that sense - you tell a doctor you have a sinus infection, but they scoff and then examine every other part of you before conceding that you do, indeed, have a sinus infection.

You've got this wrong; it's much more commonly the other way around. Patient says "I have <specific self-diagnosis>", doctor asks questions related to <stuff usually affected by that diagnosis>, and doctor rules out an array of things--quite possibly including the patient's idea of what they have.

Jamaree9 votes

Some reworks have to happen as with the game updating they just don't work anymore. Old Irelia didn't work, old Sion, didn't work, Old Poppy, Yorick, Warwick, didn't work. Old Akali was the only one that worked and that was just poor game design.

TheShinx1 votes

{quoted}

Some reworks have to happen as with the game updating they just don't work anymore. Old Irelia didn't work, old Sion, didn't work, Old Poppy, Yorick, Warwick, didn't work. Old Akali was the only one that worked and that was just poor game design.

Old Kat worked but again, they couldn't figure out how to actually balance her and have her not be shit or incredibly OP. Which could have taken 2 seconds if they sat down and looked at what caused the issues with her being OP. Her Passive. The Instant CD on skills per takedown/Assist. that was it. Change that and it brings her in-line with other assassin champions like her. NO other champion had this ability as a passive, and no other champion with a like ability could abuse it as much as she could. (Which is still relevant now considering Riot is in the same fucking boat as they were pre-rework)

Jamaree2 votes

{quoted}

Old Kat worked but again, they couldn't figure out how to actually balance her and have her not be shit or incredibly OP. Which could have taken 2 seconds if they sat down and looked at what caused the issues with her being OP. Her Passive. The Instant CD on skills per takedown/Assist. that was it. Change that and it brings her in-line with other assassin champions like her. NO other champion had this ability as a passive, and no other champion with a like ability could abuse it as much as she could. (Which is still relevant now considering Riot is in the same fucking boat as they were pre-rework)

Exactly why I said some.

Ęsdeath1 votes

{quoted}

Old Kat worked but again, they couldn't figure out how to actually balance her and have her not be shit or incredibly OP. Which could have taken 2 seconds if they sat down and looked at what caused the issues with her being OP. Her Passive. The Instant CD on skills per takedown/Assist. that was it. Change that and it brings her in-line with other assassin champions like her. NO other champion had this ability as a passive, and no other champion with a like ability could abuse it as much as she could. (Which is still relevant now considering Riot is in the same fucking boat as they were pre-rework)

"The Instant CD on skills per takedown/Assist" is what brings her in-line with other assassin champions, remove that part from her kit and you will kill a champion.

Kazekiba1 votes

what caused the issues with her being OP. Her Passive.

Or her lack of a mana bar but what do I know

rayzo1 votes

{quoted}

NO other champion had this ability as a passive

MasterYi

haaaaaaalp8 votes

{quoted}

Some reworks have to happen as with the game updating they just don't work anymore. Old Irelia didn't work, old Sion, didn't work, Old Poppy, Yorick, Warwick, didn't work. Old Akali was the only one that worked and that was just poor game design.

Old Sion was fine. He was a meta dependent pick/ban who had presence at times during pro play without being as much of a pubstomper as stuff like yi or trynd. He was only reworked as a misguided attempt to remove point and click cc and his rework was only considered successful because his new kit is amazing. The old Sion is much healthier for the game than half of the recent new or reworked champions. Old akali and irelia weren’t that bad either, people just didn’t realize “stat check” champions arent actually inherently unhealthy for the game.

Jamaree12 votes

{quoted}

Old Sion was fine. He was a meta dependent pick/ban who had presence at times during pro play without being as much of a pubstomper as stuff like yi or trynd. He was only reworked as a misguided attempt to remove point and click cc and his rework was only considered successful because his new kit is amazing. The old Sion is much healthier for the game than half of the recent new or reworked champions. Old akali and irelia weren’t that bad either, people just didn’t realize “stat check” champions arent actually inherently unhealthy for the game.

A champion who didn't have half a kit depending on if he went AP or AD wasn't fine. He might have been "more balanced" to play against, but you shouldn't play a champion and have abilities that are basically useless depending on which side of the coin you play on. If you went AD Sion, your Q and W did shit all and cost so much mana and did so little that you couldn't actively use them, and if you built AP Sion, you weren't in fights and duels long enough to actually use your R, and your E only helped you sometimes secure a kill early on. That isn't healthy.

haaaaaaalp5 votes

{quoted}

A champion who didn't have half a kit depending on if he went AP or AD wasn't fine. He might have been "more balanced" to play against, but you shouldn't play a champion and have abilities that are basically useless depending on which side of the coin you play on. If you went AD Sion, your Q and W did shit all and cost so much mana and did so little that you couldn't actively use them, and if you built AP Sion, you weren't in fights and duels long enough to actually use your R, and your E only helped you sometimes secure a kill early on. That isn't healthy.

Just because they weren’t a focal point doesn’t mean the kit suddenly doesn’t exist. Stun was useful no matter what build you went and the ability to damage towers from the physical side early was very useful facet of ap Sion back when ap did almost no damage to towers. You don’t need 4 game-changing spells, that is the specific mindset which makes so many of the new champions so unhealthy.

Jamaree4 votes

{quoted}

Just because they weren’t a focal point doesn’t mean the kit suddenly doesn’t exist.

Sure, they did exist, but with how his kit worked, it didn't function well enough to continue to work past a point and didn't have any real correlation to one another.

Stun was useful no matter what build you went

Indeed it is, too bad after you stunned, the enemy just continued to walk away from you, especially since it only lasted 1.5 seconds. If you were in melee range, you maybe got 2 AAs off, but against ranged match ups, that was one possibly. Let's also not forget that AD Sion didn't have the ability to build mana so with a mana cost of 100, he could cast it twice before going oom.

and the ability to damage towers from the physical side early was very useful facet of ap Sion back when ap did almost no damage to towers.

That lasted for about ten minutes into the game, then you were stuck with useless abilities that did nothing for you.

You don’t need 4 game-changing spells, that is the specific mindset which makes so many of the new champions so unhealthy.

Sure, you don't, but you do need abilities that flow properly with the rest of your kit.

haaaaaaalp3 votes

{quoted}

Sure, they did exist, but with how his kit worked, it didn't function well enough to continue to work past a point and didn't have any real correlation to one another.

Indeed it is, too bad after you stunned, the enemy just continued to walk away from you, especially since it only lasted 1.5 seconds. If you were in melee range, you maybe got 2 AAs off, but against ranged match ups, that was one possibly. Let's also not forget that AD Sion didn't have the ability to build mana so with a mana cost of 100, he could cast it twice before going oom.

It is still a hard cc and one of the strongest at the time. That itself makes it more useful than half of the spells in the game at the time. You can never downplay just how strong cc is.

That lasted for about ten minutes into the game, then you were stuck with useless abilities that did nothing for you.

You were playing an earlygame champion and it helped stretch the lead you needed in lane. They rounded out ap sion's kit without taking the focal point away.

Sure, you don't, but you do need abilities that flow properly with the rest of your kit.

Which they did fairly well. They provided much needed support in areas the builds otherwise lack without taking over the essence of what the build was attempting to do.

Jamaree1 votes

{quoted}

It is still a hard cc and one of the strongest at the time. That itself makes it more useful than half of the spells in the game at the time. You can never downplay just how strong cc is.

I'm not downplaying it, I'm saying that with how the rest of his kit functioned, you were given tools that were subpar depending on if you went AD or AP. A shield is amazing, a stun is amazing, 100% life steal is amazing, and constant massive increases to damage are all amazing. The problem is that it didn't meld together. A stun is amazing CC, but because Sion didn't have any mobility while AD, he had no tools to capitalize on it meaning a massive amount of the time, you were spending a third of your mana to get a SINGLE AA off.

You were playing an earlygame champion and it helped stretch the lead you needed in lane. They rounded out ap sion's kit without taking the focal point away.

Which they did fairly well. They provided much needed support in areas the builds otherwise lack without taking over the essence of what the build was attempting to do.

Good for AP Sion, what about AD Sion, or what, no one played AD Sion because it was trash.

haaaaaaalp3 votes

{quoted}

I'm not downplaying it, I'm saying that with how the rest of his kit functioned, you were given tools that were subpar depending on if you went AD or AP. A shield is amazing, a stun is amazing, 100% life steal is amazing, and constant massive increases to damage are all amazing. The problem is that it didn't meld together. A stun is amazing CC, but because Sion didn't have any mobility while AD, he had no tools to capitalize on it meaning a massive amount of the time, you were spending a third of your mana to get a SINGLE AA off.

They were tools that were subpar for sion in a 1v1 but league isn't a 1v1. The spell is still extreme useful in a moba which is 5v5. it provided support for the kit without taking focus away from the ad. The kit doesn't have to meld together in a vacumn, it just has to be healthy in the setting on a moba.

It is fine to have a few subpar tools. If you have a champion win 4 above average spells which all syneragize togehte, the entire kit becomes a monstrosity. The proper way to balance a champion with 4 very strong spells in isolation is to make sure they aren't all active at peak efficiency at once.

Good for AP Sion, what about AD Sion, or what, no one played AD Sion because it was trash.

And how many champions actually get two different builds viable in pro play? 99% of off builds are just as bad or worse than his ad build. Ap was his primary build which was healthier than half of the new champions and reworks the past 2 years. The ad was a cool bonus which did better than the majority of other off builds.

Dönald J Trump1 votes

Uh... old Sion was not fine. He had two builds. Full lifesteal or full AP. Every three minutes you had one option depending on your build. One shot someone and turn into a squishy and useless minion, or be a big, squishy minion with some sustain.

hhaavviikk5 votes

{quoted}

Some reworks have to happen as with the game updating they just don't work anymore. Old Irelia didn't work, old Sion, didn't work, Old Poppy, Yorick, Warwick, didn't work. Old Akali was the only one that worked and that was just poor game design.

old irelia did work she was just difficult to balance and clearly that didn't change as she's still a balance nightmare.

Old poppy worked as well, in fact she worked too well, poppy was broken OP and could go in 1 vs 5 and kill 1/2 enemies that's why she had to be reworked.

yorick worked fine, he got reworked because no matter what you did you could never win lane against him and made laning phase hell.

no comment on warwick lack of experience

old akali was balance nightmare as well due to point & click dash and she still is a balance nightmare

edit; forgot sion, he was reworked as he was either broken as AP sion with his targeted stun + shield burst or useles as anything else

kagepaladin1 votes

man old fucking poppy was so crazzy and ridiculous another one I missed was old eve she was a bit broken with the early invades but its why I liked her

Kazekiba2 votes

Old warwick and new Warwick arent much different, the biggest factor is the W. Old Warwick's biggest flaw was having no use in the game until level 6, and forcing you to pay a 1300g tax item 3140 to not die every 2 minutes once he did. He still sustains like a monster, he still solos dragon, but now his abilities actually matter beyond an AoE Q that didnt do much and a W that gave away his position as much as it helped ganks.

Ralik0985 votes

Old Irelia was perfectly fine.

Kururusu Wind2 votes

Her W needed some sort of an update. And maybe the passive (the old one before the nerf was fine though). Currently, Irelia is still my highest mastery champion, even when I only played ~5 games since the rework. And it doesnt seem like Im ever going to play her again. Thanks riot. And then theres people saying, her rework was "good, look shes played in LCS, dont mind her 43% winrate, thats only because most people dont know how to play her, especially in low elo", so theyre basically saying, this champ is LCS+Challenger-exclusive and if Im a casual player I shouldnt play her at all...

Kazekiba1 votes

Old irelia had a small bit of true damage, a situational stun and tenacity in team fights, but a useless Ult. I dont know how any of that was problematic, or why people cried so much over a gimmick stun.

Hiten Style was one of the best skills in the game, imo, and I hope they put something like it on Wukong's eventual VGU in 3 years so that he feels more like a student of Yi rather than an unrelated champ. The healing on autos was also super nice ... Now theyre removing her shield breaker and her disarm and leaving, what? Immunity to ADCs because Yasuo and Jax arent bad enough, STILL immune to CC on demand? New Irelia's kit with old Irelia's W would be perfect. I dont know, I havent played much new Irelia either... M6 on the old one though

Theorex1 votes

The only champions that I think people were pretty much universally happy with getting reworked were.

Poppy Yorick Heimer. Unsure about Sion. I think he just pissed people off after rework.

Irelia worked, but you had to have dedication and will power.

Same with WW.

ModCaptainMårvelous5 votes

Because those are the nuclear options.

You don't want to go with the most drastic option (Remove <thing>) right away because it's possible you can make something work before you get rid of it. It also preserves an interesting aspect of the character and keeps the unique "gimmick" they have. If your first action is to remove the mechanic, you quickly end up removing lots of things that don't actually need to be removed, just tweaked.

As an example: Riot moving Ornn's unstoppable was pretty shitty considering it was one of the more unique things about him when they could have tried other strategies.

EDIT: Additional edit but of the champs you listed, the design flaw isn't in the kit itself but rather Riot's insistence on having champions who are good in both pro play and solo queue. Pretty much everything you listed is amazing in pro/pickable but steamy garbage in solo queue. Which, IMO, is fine. If some champs are going to be Scrub-tier only then we should have pro-tier only. However, Riot would rather make these characters playable in all ranks. Which forces awkward balancing and fucking with these kits.

Ralik0984 votes

You can't just strip people of the champions they love, and say. "Look now its better!" Then within the same year completely gut those champions. Ever since season 6 you've been doing this exact thing.

Completely agree, never supporting riot again for what they are doing with Irelia and Akali.

Glaricion4 votes

I used to play Irelia from time to time because I loved her 'murakumo' flying blades feel. Completely gone. Karma's also in the toilet now...

Hate the prevalent League culture of 'point-and-click is inherently broken', 'counterplay is skillshots and dashes' and whatever 'statstick' is supposed to mean (hatred of decision-making based champions in favor of execution-based).

Jennifer4204 votes

after season 5 the balance team changed i guess. idk man

Ephixus2 votes

Actually they didn't nerf Irelia right at all.

Ppl were complaining about Q not about R.

Theorex1 votes

Disarm legit fucked the ADC. Q got nerfed. But it needs to lose it's On Hit effect. Buff it's damage, but remove on hit.

Kazekiba1 votes

Okay first of all, her Q is ... exactly the same as her old version. Also, theyre gutting Q too, removing the double damage to minions means she's not going to be one shotting entire minion waves late with just a item 3748

Sxoda2 votes

I loved akali after she came out, more than before the rework. The design was op and her damage was as well. Still a very fun champion to play. Within some months she gets hammered into uselessness. Rip the 60$ worth of skins i bought for her.

It was MY choice to buy the skins so I shouldn't be crying about it. But like i wouldn't mind spending money on someone I enjoy playing, now she won't be worth playing. Even if she is worth playing, she will never be the same.

Kaisha2 votes

It didn't take them 9 months to figure it out, they knew right away, and they did nothing because THEY DON'T CARE.

Mayo 132 votes

old irelia was 10x better. dash in with a risk. now its just dash in. kill entire team. when i started playing this game i was gonna main poppy then they changed her into a brain dead tank. dont know about old yorick but i think the current one is quite nice (doesnt have million cc or one shot). warwick is the only really well done rework i can think of but they really just gave him aoe cc like everyone else. i never find myself playing him. akali was broken and underplayed but i enjoyed the old one. now shes just broken and overplayed i started maining taric before they changed him into a MUST.... TEAMFIGHT. PROTECT ALLIES!!!!! champion. i started maining swain before they changed him into a zap 1 shot bird man i started maining aatrox before they changed him into a terrible mess of a riven 2.0 i started maining galio before they changed him into aoe cc clusterfuck 1 shot mess of a champion old urgot ultimate was much more interesting than having another execute ability in the game new evelynn is just old evelynn with more cc more damage another execute ult like everyone else only it doubles as an escape making it even more annoying.

they just do reworks without any justification other than, we dont want to keep balancing whatever champion even if the champion doesnt need balancing. most of the reworks are less interesting overall and have lead to limiting my champion pool drastically because i dont want to play aoe cc teamfight one shot dash over walls type champions, which 99% of the reworks are.

my entire history of this game is just finding a champion i really like and it being reworked moments later. the only champion i play now is udyr. i can finally rest in peace when they rework him into a aoe cc 1 shot monster truck mowing everyone over in teamfights and i can just quit the game because theres no one left.

Tobykachu2 votes

Because the design philosophy has shifted from, 'let's add a new champion that has some distinct characteristics that we may have seen before on other champions, but with slight alterations and tweaks that make them ultimately feel unique, but not massively stronger than any of the other champions that currently exist' to 'let's see how far we can push the design of a champion in a direction League was never intended to go' resulting in blatantly overpowered kits that simply have no place belonging in the same game as the oldest champions.

Excellent Era2 votes

revert Zac

it be lìke that2 votes

been saying it ever since. since the changes i just cant fucking get back to gold, former zac and evelynn main...my life is hard.

Stone7661 votes

Evelynn is P good right now though... could use a early game buff tbh but her mid game is one of the best

it be lìke that1 votes

just not the same, i dont really enjoy her now.

Gilgayu1 votes

Before downvoting me, let me give some counter points.

How to nerf akali, irelia, and the other broken champions?

Now that akali can be attacked by tower, how unique is she? Akali's w's mechanic changes almost every patch little by little because Riot want to keep her unique. That last patch (surrender@20) was a desperate move. They knew they spent too long. It's harder to bring an op champion to balanced than it is to gut it.

About reworking...

If someone was one-trick of the champion pre-rework, did they actually lost everything? Maining a champion will teach you a lot about the position you play because you don't need to learn a different champion every game. Reworking an outdated kit is absolutely necessary. Do you remember the old akali? q/r/aa and you're dead. Remember the old nunu? what was w for? on-hit build? and remember the old irelia? No skill shot whatsoever (don't even mention her old r).

This game is changing every patch, and nerfing/buffing a single champion might affect 10 others.

Kazekiba1 votes

Old nunu's W was a team-focused support skill. Especially after they added the 40% AP bonus to it, which created a temporary KarthuNu meta. (Blood Boil karthus while he ults) W made his carries stronger, and gave him faster clears. Keep in mind it had negative downtime after a while, with a 10 second CD + 12 second duration.

Old akali, before the assassin update, is by far the best version of Akali and the healthiest. Essentially she was a mixed-damage Kassadin who couldn't leave a fight as easily. This one is nice because she can waveclear and exist in lanes, but her Ult and E are insanely problematic skills. If R isnt massively buffed after these changes to her mechanics, Akali will be unplayable and boring, not to mention NOTHING like her old self.

Seenan1 votes

Akali's getting killed basically. No sustain without compensation is too rough of a hit, imo. The shroud thing, sure.

Sxoda1 votes

You're gonna see tank akali everywhere. She has no sustain and no defenses anymore. So she'll need to rely one more health to be viable.

TwitchInMyPants1 votes

Just saying most champions immediately nerfed weren't having skins made for them lol

Its not a 100% correlation but even if a new skin isn't released, a reworked champion might as well have all new skins. They definitely make money off of a champion being broken post release, though I think the real reason it takes so long even afterward for them to fix things is because they're too stubborn to admit their mistakes. They clutch their pearls on the idea of uniqueness and let the game suffer for it.

Kazekiba2 votes

leave Kai'sa broken for an entire year with 80%+ pickrates in pro Release a prestige skin for $60 or so

no one buys it because Kai'Sa was never actually popular, just broken

gut the shit out of Kai'Sa and hit Guinsoos as soon as Prestige came out

Nah I believe Riot balances around skins now thanks to Prestige cancer.

TwitchInMyPants1 votes

{quoted}

Nah I believe Riot balances around skins now thanks to Prestige cancer.

I mean you're not wrong, its just not 1:1. Galio for example ages ago had a small nerf before having a legendary released and arguably the champions with ultimate skins have been pretty fair overall. Though I agree, they're really biased to the champions who got Prestige skins and its a noticable trend. Aatrox was top 2 of toplane for a long time, Akali was a top 3 mid for a long time that attracted permabans, Kai'Sa was so busted on release and still left pretty busted months in for her skin release... Riot seems to really love their brass colored chromas lol

koshkyra1 votes

I loved playing taliyah but thanks proplay/“high” elo i guess.

xXDiddimsXx1 votes

honestly akali wasnt even that broken, yes she can dive a full health enemy under there own tower but which mid laner cant? sure she has a lot of sustain but so does vlad she shouldnt of been nerfed

Hawthorn Tree1 votes

They aren't properly nerfed. They're gutted beyond viability, and that's not a good thing. And I say that being fully aware that Aatrox and Irelia both fuck my Talon all throughout the game.

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