Starting to see first hand that new GA is bad for the game

Funkin Dunkin·May 7, 2017·122 votes·13,667 views

Snowballing is a part of this game. It happens. But when we reward champions who snowball an item that also adds to their overall damage output, lets them tank a little bit more, and gain a free life, that's when we start seeing how this game gets out of hand. It isn't uncommon to see champions like or to take out 2 or 3 champions instantly. So after they "die" after acquiring that double, they are still big enough to revive and just lather rinse repeat unless they somehow got caught out. It was fine when this item didn't add to their damage output, but now they have an optimal item that provides damage, defense, and potentially a free pass.

156 Comments

Big LincolnMay 7, 201761 votes

item 3026 item 3812 is a really stupid combination on a lot of fighters and assassins

royalpasteMay 7, 201737 votes

graves with item 3026 item 3812 item 3046 is ridiculously oppressive right now. he will hit like a truck and tank better than most tanks can. also darius with item 3193 is horrifying if he gets slightly ahead

MelledoneusMay 7, 201724 votes

Tank meta my ass.

OwynMay 7, 201714 votes

tanks in 2017

pfff [slayer-jinx-wink]

FantasySniperMay 8, 20176 votes

When all the tank items are nerfed, but then all the damage items are buffed in the same patch...

ThilmerMay 8, 201711 votes

{quoted}

When all the tank items are nerfed, but then all the damage items are buffed in the same patch...

And they call it "The Tank Update", to mock us. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Prison AnaIMay 7, 20178 votes

[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=mUjRkkEE,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-05-07T14:41:53.243+0000)

is a really stupid combination on a lot of fighters and assassins

add a spirit visage and youre never going down

Elkington VIMay 7, 201731 votes

Last time I mentioned that carries/pure damage dealers with GA was obnoxious, a bunch of people disagreed with me, saying a tank/bruiser with GA was worse.

"Just kill them twice" I believe was their argument.

Troll for TrumpMay 7, 20172 votes

NO tank or bruiser should even be getting GA...

ThilmerMay 7, 20174 votes

{quoted}

NO tank or bruiser should even be getting GA...

LOL.

You were rigth... before GA gave AD.

Troll for TrumpMay 8, 20172 votes

No, legit, even then, tanks and bruisers aren't getting it.

Tanks would prefer the old one, where it gave MR as well as Armor.

Bruisers...

Actually, some of them like the new one. Some of them don't.

Definitely no on the tanks, though.

MunchCrunchLunchMay 7, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Elkington VI,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=mUjRkkEE,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-05-07T15:01:39.274+0000)

Last time I mentioned that carries/pure damage dealers with GA was obnoxious, a bunch of people disagreed with me, saying a tank/bruiser with GA was worse.

"Just kill them twice" I believe was their argument.

GA on champions with sustain is the cancer. because you already dump so much into bursting them. potentially long ults and cooldowns. ignite and what not. whoops . hope your talon or fizz has a 3 second ult.

RiotRiotRepertoirMay 7, 201729 votes

We'll probably start midseason item tuning follow-up in 7.11 or so. My personal opinion on GA is that if it's out of line, its revive Health value could stand to go down, or its combine cost up.

That said, the item shouldn't be offering a "free life." For those not feeling that cost right now, I'm sure there's a gold value to the effect that makes it stop feeling "free."

TSP ECLIPSEMay 7, 20176 votes

Can't you just make it a heal 50% of recent damage taken? Similar to Ekko Ult? Wouldn't that balance it better without having to gut it or change it?

RiotRiotRepertoirMay 7, 201727 votes

We could. Might be confusing for both sides though, because sometimes people would pop up with ~50% Health, and sometimes with ~5%. Could be solved by adding grey health to their Health bar, but that would be a very visually noisy effect to have going on for a single item.

TSP ECLIPSEMay 7, 20173 votes

Why not like a stereks gage icon? That tells you current heal amount if dead?

Kr1sysMay 8, 20176 votes

{quoted}

We could. Might be confusing for both sides though, because sometimes people would pop up with ~50% Health, and sometimes with ~5%. Could be solved by adding grey health to their Health bar, but that would be a very visually noisy effect to have going on for a single item.

especially if said champ already has a grey health bar

VekknaMay 9, 20172 votes

Doesn't seem to be a concern with Ekko or Rengar heals, and they don't give you 3 seconds to figure it out, either.

BlåbæretMay 7, 201747 votes

GA has always been a frustrating, maybe even unfair item to deal with. I really don't understand why you'd change it into something every single AD champion will build.

Just revert the change already.

SweedishGunnerMay 8, 201714 votes

Riot don't know what the term 'revert'means. Kappa.

JuhnChanMay 8, 201710 votes

KogMaw have faith?

nah.

patmax17May 7, 20172 votes

What if it didn't give AD but instead some more dps-focused stat, like AS or crit?

Nik NikersonMay 7, 20174 votes

Because then you just turn it into an item for marksmen, instead of the bruisers it's really meant for.

AtanchanMay 8, 201710 votes

But - it's meant for marksmen, not bruisers. If it was meant for bruisers, the revival would be based off of your total or bonus health, not base health.

I mean, sure, that means bruisers would usually revive with more health anyway, but given that bruisers want to be in the thick of the fight and marksmen don't, coming back with 29% health just because you built Sterak's, Triforce, and Spirit Visage isn't exactly appealing.

statelesskillerMay 8, 20176 votes

Gangplank more crit items please

SEKAIMay 8, 20178 votes

{quoted}

We'll probably start midseason item tuning follow-up in 7.11 or so. My personal opinion on GA is that if it's out of line, its revive Health value could stand to go down, or its combine cost up.

That said, the item shouldn't be offering a "free life." For those not feeling that cost right now, I'm sure there's a gold value to the effect that makes it stop feeling "free."

The first misstep is even thinking about adding AD onto a completely defensive item whose existence is to snowball an already winning team harder, or to try and create an edge to snowball on in later stages of the game. It has also never been a core build thanks to its completely defensive stats hence it's not everyone's favourite to immediate rush onto (which thank god), but now it is, and it's creating a massive problem.

Hell, the current item name also makes no sense to its own stats now too. Why would a "Guardian Angel" give their subject more AD? At least if you have to, make its offence qualities something along the lines of Sunfire Cape or Dead Man's Plate or something, straight up giving the character more AD is just imo unfathomably stupid on so many levels.

Let's be real, I rather suspect the very reason why this change was passed, was trying to fix the imaginary "lol adc 2k17" issue that's never there in the first place. And even if you have to "fix" it, why would the most ridiculous solution be the one that ultimately passes the QA? I don't get it.

Sure, do more testing, I insist. But in the end, I highly wish the change would simply be reverted instead of having more random changes that drives the rabbit hole further, or even end up straight-up ruining this iconic item such as having the revival removed, all because of this 1 utterly silly mistake that shouldn't have happened to begin with.

AtanchanMay 8, 20176 votes

Dude, have you seen Biblical angels? Those things were badass, and quite a lot of them kicked a lot of ass, too.

SEKAIMay 8, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Dude, have you seen Biblical angels? Those things were badass, and quite a lot of them kicked a lot of ass, too.

Yeah, but "Guardian Angels", ie your pocket angels that supposedly come with you ever since you're born or something, is never said to magically give their subject more brute force or that their fists would hit harder.

The defence stats and revival makes sense, because that's what Guardian Angels supposedly do in a sense (outside of the fact GA is a piece of armour so it should provide the former anyway), that they are said to generally just protect their subject from brutal fate and providing guidance subconsciously if needed.

ZT XperimentorMay 7, 201724 votes

As if they didn't have enough burst & safety in their kits already. Riot and their 'great' ideas. [zombie-brand-facepalm]

Dextix LTMay 7, 201715 votes

Wait, you mean adding offensive stats to a pure defensive item makes it unbalanced?

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!

Sraeg2013May 7, 201714 votes

I don't disagree with the general idea, but...

and gain a free life

Aw for Pete's sake. It's not "free" if you have to pay gold and waste an item slot for an inefficient item.

If it was "second life" then yeah whatever, but not "free".

AtanchanMay 8, 20174 votes

It's also only 50% of one. And only if you have absolutely nothing that gives you bonus health.

NickssaaMay 7, 20178 votes

Honestly, you know your item is a problem when its basically the reward for killing the boss monster in Dota...

Sahn UzalMay 7, 201710 votes

Honestly, as much as I think GA is an issue, this is a horrible comparison. You're straight up comparing it to something from a different game.

HellpyreMay 7, 20172 votes

Especially since the one in the other game is a full HP/MP revive that doesn't cost you anything in terms of build. It serves a very different purpose.

Dextix LTMay 7, 20175 votes

It takes up an entire item slot.

ForeverLaxxMay 8, 20173 votes

Fun fact: Aegis used to be purchasable.

BLACK REALM GODMay 7, 20176 votes

have you seen the new banshees veil? or the abyssal? OR the new helm of turn burst/sustain magic into mosquito bites? guardian angel is just one keystone in an overlying arch of magic damage negation oppression that's about to be experienced.

FourVsFiveMay 7, 20176 votes

reviving to 50% life is a lot, I think they should reduce it to 30%.

ThilmerMay 7, 20176 votes

I have said it since the beginning:

A defensive ítem should be defensive. Why in the world ítems like item 3026 item 3139 item 3156 give a ton of defensive stats and passives, but also a ton of AD? I don't really get the point.

ForeverLaxxMay 8, 20173 votes

Because Riot has been catering to the "no damage is unfun" idea for quite a long while. Players "felt bad" that they had to buy items designed to make them tankier and "lose out" on buying damage instead. So now Riot has taken it upon themselves to remove the bad, icky feeling by putting defense on offensive items and offense on defensive items.

It's one of many missteps that Riot is unlikely to admit or go back on.

AtanchanMay 8, 20173 votes

It also allows people to play damage-dealers without requiring a perfectly put together frontline backline strat, because playing pure damage characters in any game is a great way to die the instant any enemy with any sort of threat can reach you.

If not for life-extending tools on marksmen and the like, they'd either have to do so much more damage or be tossed in the gutter. Allowing DPSers more time to live means they are allowed to get their job done later rather than soon - which means rocket tag gameplay can be avoided and we don't a game that would be akin to League composed entirely of full-build assassins in their strongest state.

ForeverLaxxMay 8, 20171 votes

Or, and maybe I'm crazy, but carry/assassin players could expect to build at least one defensive item in every game where they aren't fed and actually rely on their teammates for the bulk of their protection. It's a team game, afterall. Expected time in combat can be done on a base-stat level, like game-wide changes to HP or damage output (be that up or down, depending).

It's far too late to head down that path, though. Riot seems intent on preventing players from buying "feel-bad items."

AtanchanMay 8, 20172 votes

To be perfectly blunt, if you think an item where you sink half the cost into defensive stats and tools doesn't count as a "defensive item" in a game where the best offensive items get you gold efficiency of 95% to 105% from raw offensive value, then your itemization is kinda trash for DPS.

I mean, another hybrid offense-defense item in Maw only gets 62% efficiency from offensive stats, and while that's booted up to 83.6% while its passive is active ... that is actually a lot of value missing from the passive, because most of it is dedicated to defensive effects. Not to mention that offensive value from the passive is worsened by the fact that you need to take magic damage and be taken below 30% health to trigger it, meaning that it has to be carried with other defensive stats to leverage it well or else you'll just get blown up by physical damage before you can benefit from it.

Also, to put it in perspective, Bloodthirster is 78.9% efficient from raw damage, but it also has a huge chunk of life steal that is always active, which means that its main defensive component scales really well with DPS, unlike GA's armor and revival which don't interact with DPS at all, or Maw while inactive and doing it far worse while inactive. It also effectively provides 120 - 350 bonus health depending on how soon you get it, which is only a bit under the health Sterak's gives late in the game, which makes it a completely efficient item ... at level 2, when that effective health is 60.

Blade of the Ruined King is another example. Its minimum offensive efficiency is only 71.8% in comparison to Bloodthrister ... if it's attacking a target with less than 188 health. Against a target with 1000 or more health? 118.4% of offensive stats and rising at the health rises, before factoring in defensive stats. Which, since it gives only 5% less life steal than Bloodthrister, also scales really well the user's DPS, which BotR provides a lot of bang for its price tag against anyone who isn't limping or severely underleveled. And that's before factoring in its active, which is a great tool for offensive chasing or defensive kiting ...

I mean, BotRK is even really good right now.

It's really just you guys having arbitrary definitions of what's "right" for a DPS's defensive item. As long as it's life steal or otherwise has no offensive value whatsoever, it's fine. As soon as armor or magic resist find itself on an item with 20 AD, though? Comment chains like this happen. It's pretty inane, especially from the perspective of someone who plays both League and DOTA.

ForeverLaxxMay 8, 20172 votes

Not going to win any arguments here with the "I play League and Dota" line, particularly with me.

Mercurial Scimitar only exists because Riot thought it was "bad" for a ranged carry to need the QSS active but gain no damage out of the deal. That design philosophy has permeated every "defensive" item by tacking on needless damage just to make the item less of a "bad choice" in the situation where you'd actually care to get an item with defensive stats. Sometimes it's done so badly that other roles cannibalize the item from the intended role (an argument I won't get into, because I don't think this is a problem on its face).

You want to argue stat efficiency, and I'm arguing that these items shouldn't have damage stats to begin with when you're picking them up for their defensive qualities. Lifesteal is really the only acceptable exception since the defensive quality of lifesteal is entirely dependent on damage to function at all.

ThilmerMay 8, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Not going to win any arguments here with the "I play League and Dota" line, particularly with me.

Mercurial Scimitar only exists because Riot thought it was "bad" for a ranged carry to need the QSS active but gain no damage out of the deal. That design philosophy has permeated every "defensive" item by tacking on needless damage just to make the item less of a "bad choice" in the situation where you'd actually care to get an item with defensive stats. Sometimes it's done so badly that other roles cannibalize the item from the intended role (an argument I won't get into, because I don't think this is a problem on its face).

You want to argue stat efficiency, and I'm arguing that these items shouldn't have damage stats to begin with when you're picking them up for their defensive qualities. Lifesteal is really the only acceptable exception since the defensive quality of lifesteal is entirely dependent on damage to function at all.

This is exactly my opinion.

Apparently ADCs complain because they die, but they don't want to buy a defensive ítem because "if an ítem doesn't give AD I'm not interested". And Riot chose to listen to the crybabies.

PartholonianMay 8, 20174 votes

Those items don't have a ton of AD, they have a moderate amount of AD. GA in particular has no gain in AD over the BF sword that is one of its ingredients.

item 3031 item 3812 item 3508 item 3072 have a ton of AD, twice as much as GA or close to twice as much, and two of them also have crit. You'll do more damage with one of those items than with one of the semi-defensive items (although BT kind of is a semi-defensive item since so much of its power is in lifesteal, it still has literally double the AD of GA).

ThilmerMay 8, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Those items don't have a ton of AD, they have a moderate amount of AD. GA in particular has no gain in AD over the BF sword that is one of its ingredients.

have a ton of AD, twice as much as GA or close to twice as much, and two of them also have crit. You'll do more damage with one of those items than with one of the semi-defensive items (although BT kind of is a semi-defensive item since so much of its power is in lifesteal, it still has literally double the AD of GA).

Ok, Guardian Angel only gives a Little AD... but that's a problem because it should give not AD at all.

And this thing item 3139 doesn't give "moderate AD"; is a damn offensive ítem that they sell us as a defensive ítem. More or less the same to item 3156 .

BellowsMay 8, 20172 votes

Its these reactions every item change. Even banshee's veil is getting shit for swapping with abyssal. Which was a much needed health change for ease of life for BOTH tanks and mages.

This is no different. Yah, they get more damage, but what if theres a fed ahri or syndra? no mr. Ever hear that people ridicule low lvl players for only building full damage with no defensive items? If you dont have any ap to counter the new GA, thats a problem. Even before these GA changes, you should have some ap AND ad. All I see is a shift in meta for the item. Not really a power change. It offers less defense for more damage and opens these hard carry champs to having a magic weakness.

Might be an unpopular opinion, but a valid one.

PrinceOfStormsMay 8, 20174 votes

It's not the fact that GA has armor. The issue is the fact that an item that was already really good on AD champions was buffed further for them. If Riot wanted to prevent tanks from using it, they should have just deleted the item entirely.