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Unpopular Opinion: The Aram Balance Changes Are Awful

Raven·4/11/2019, 5:04:25 AM·6 votes·1,625 views

Just a personal opinion of someone who pretty much only enjoys ARAM in the game now.

I really really dislike the changes. I've been playing ARAM for a while now and no longer really enjoy the base game and the balance changes to ARAM make the mode really unfun.

I always found the fun of ARAM to be able to adapt to your team comp and learn new champ kits. As weird as it sounds, I feel like I can attribute hitting diamond directly to learning all the champs and kits in ARAM. The bans maybe get rid of some annoying champs you really don't enjoy playing against, I get that and understand the implementation, but the buffs and nerfs to champs is pretty out of nowhere.

Poke mages weren't an issue in ARAM in the first place, and the true menace of ARAM is tanks and supports built as tanks and supports. Having more sustain and tankiness than most champs while outputting consistent damage compared to the poke mages they were against in the late game more than made up for this weaker early output. The attempts to balance the champs that were considered annoying or strong has made tanks and supports even stronger, leading to a play-style in ARAM that I would deem sort of anti-fun?

I come to ARAM to play as, or against, AP Shyv and full AD Sion, not ardent/redemption/athenes Nami and full tank Braum. Unless you have a form of true damage or on-hit damage with a front line in ARAM, it's incredibly difficult to win against 2 or even 1 tank or support. Everyone is entitled to their own play-style in the game mode and as much as I don't like how some people play the game mode, they can do whatever they please and I won't flame them for it. But if you want to have fun and win in ARAM, it's almost like these changes force you to pick an actual team comp than what would seem most fun at the moment. I understand I play the game a certain way but I feel like the changes are trying to stamp out my personal fun indirectly.

I've played this game for a while and this is the worst I've seen ARAM at outside the times when Warmogs was extremely broken or the pre-change Morellonomicon, if anyone agrees or disagrees let me know, feeling like a fish out of water with these changes.

5 Comments

Tobykachu4/11/2019, 6:37:54 AM3 votes

Any one of them would have worked fine. Lowering the damage from poke? Good. Bans that ensure you're not facing the same 10/11 champions every single game? Not ideal, but I can understand it working. Straight up nerfing the insanely oppressive champions to deal/take more damage and also buffing the under performing champions? Amazing. All three of these changes just makes ARAM feel like you're never playing a strong champion.

Jaspers4/11/2019, 9:41:17 AM3 votes

Talk about different opinions. The ARAM changes are fine IF there was only 1 of them.

BUT put all three together and it's a bit of a mess. People are banning Ziggs but Ziggs has 30% damage reduction from his damage. He's not a problem. Because they ban Ziggs and ADCs now have free reign to not get poked down, they survive longer and better, dealing meaningful damage to the front like tanks, healing up from the reduce damage from poke. ADCs are rolling over the mode.

Honestly, in my last 10 ARAM games, only one ADC (this includes Ez), on the winning side or losing side, has finished negative. I even had a game before that as a full armour Leona against a full AD team and the enemy ADCs still finished positive.

Honestly, after the event, I'd be more than happy if they removed all the changes they made. I'd happily go up against a poke mage comp over any ADC team.

III BAKURYU III 4/11/2019, 9:07:37 AM2 votes

Tanks in my aram games/Melee champions get s$it on 24/7. Let's be honest if you're a range champion = win

usul12024/11/2019, 6:22:28 AM1 votes

Just wondering, since I didn't see you reference it elsewhere, what do you think of the barrier change?

TwitchInMyPants4/11/2019, 9:55:41 AM1 votes

Just saying you're complaining about poke mages not being an issue and they're still one of the strongest classes. A support squad is very strong but it falls apart if the carry dies. Like seriously, most bans I'm seeing go to mages and the teams stacking mages are still overperforming. The poke nerf only really starts being relevant at really long range and this certainly isn't stopping Nidalee or Zoe or Xerath from nuking people out of orbit.

The changes do allow for other types of champions to survive, mainly ones with no/low sustain. You can actually tank the poke a bit and still be in the round and able to do a rotation. I feel like assassins and fighters really benefit from the nerfs to mages since they don't just get poked to death, its actually possible to find openings and leave without just straight up dying.