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Can we stop pretending all the reworks are bad JUST because you dislike them, personally?

Battlecast Sona··9 votes·752 views

I've been seeing this a lot and it really kinda bothers me, so I thought I'd weigh in. In the wake of the Mordekaiser rework, I see a lot of posts that compare him to Cassio/Karma (mostly), but to whatever rework the poster doesn't really agree with. I'd like to share some things with you.

Before Karma was reworked (and then got her minor changes again recently), I regularly got kicked, trolled, or reported for picking Karma. Now I can pick that character and people will actually let me play it - not only that, but her kit feels more cohesive and requires a lot less reliance on her allies (you no longer have to expect the ally you cast W on to properly run it through people! yay!) but people still wanna talk shit about Karma rework all day long. It was a godsend for that character and put her in a position where she could actually have numbers changes and have power moved around in her kit. Her kit on release was a hodgepodge and was very feast or famine - either you got ahead and the shieldbomb Q combo was doing tons of damage and wrecking people, or you were behind and did nothing (because all her kit did was basically damage, with a small bit of healing in there). Now she has utility, and can play further back without the stringent positioning requirements from her old kit. Regardless of what you, personally think about the Karma rework, it was objectively good for her (she was played in the LCS and it wasn't a troll pick! woo!)

Before Cassio was reworked, we had a "poison mage" whose MO was to spam E. People act like this is new - no, that's always where Cassio's damage has come from. So they take an early/midgame bully who excels in skirmishes and falls off late and made her scale - the reinforced her poison damage (E increases the damage they take from poisons by up to 100% guys) and made her passive assist her in scaling into lategame which simultaneously hurt her early ability to bully people off waves. Regardless of what you think personally of Cassio's rework, she's in a healthier state in the game now. (And again, Cassio was only picked up in higher tier play AFTER the changes, not before.)

So when people say "Well of course they fucked up Morde, look at Cassio/Karma", these people are being ridiculous. What's happening to Morde is very different than what happened to either of the above champions. Cassio has NEVER been about the poison - her damage has ALWAYS, since her release, been loaded into her E resets. This is not a new mechanic. Karma's mechanic was ALWAYS about the Mantra - yes, the specific spell effects may have been nice and you may have liked them, but her theme was MANTRA, and they reinforced this with the rework.

Do I think Morde's rework was good? Not really. It needs some serious changes before it can be balanced, and it's definitely overtuned. But Mordekaiser's rework is an example of the few times that Riot -actually- screwed up, not just "screwed up" in the eyes of the community. At the end of the day, it's about game health, not your personal opinions. There are multiple other examples of reworks breathing new life into champions (Miss Fortune, Fiora, Garen, Skarner, Katarina, Evelynn [though that was short lived], Gangplank, and, yes, even Cassio and Karma). Just because there are a few where they miss the mark (Darius) and some where they miss the mark A LOT (Mordekaiser), doesn't mean that every rework forever will be garbage. And if you think that, maybe you're playing the wrong game.

14 Comments

SorryBoysImLes4 votes

Karma is the only champion I can really say I mained. She was good at every role. She was one of my trick up the sleeve toplaners, my goto mid when I didn't know how to counter a specific mid, and my favorite support.

For some reason Riot decided it was a good idea to do to her what they do to all AP supports; force her to support. Realize it or not but the damage removal on her mantra E was painful. Once you had enough AP it was an AOE nuke utility that could literally change a team fight. Now you can get away with never using it in a match.

Not even going to bring up the other hurtful changes to her as an all-around mage.

I fear the day they give another look at Karma and do to her what they've done to Sona.

Battlecast Sona1 votes

I've mained Karma since the day she came out friend, and I'll tell you that the reason the shieldbomb was removed was because it muddied her kit. Before, you had Q, W, -AND- E all scaling up in damage with mantra charges, making the use of mantra really binary - either you shieldbomb with E and do damage + shield your team or use Q (there was no reason to use W. Ever.)

The changes allowed Karma to actually make a choice - picking power with W for longer roots, buffed shield values on her E to cement it as team support, and leaving her Q as the big damage Mantra. Mage Karma hasn't been hurt in any way - you may not have the shieldbomb, but you have, on average, double the Mantras to use during a fight. This is a HUGE increase in damage considering this means you can choose to use multiple mantra Q's in a fight - and hitting a large number of people with both the first and second hits refreshes the Mantra charge almost instantly after level 16 with some CDR).

The problem with Sona is her ultimate, and since Karma doesn't have that it's unlikely she'll get that treatment. Morello has stated multiple times that the thing holding most of Sona's power budget is her ultimate, as he feels it doesn't fit well on the sort of sustain/aura support that Sona is, but there's not a good way to replace it now without reworking her entire kit again.

If you think Karma is "forced" to support because of a shieldbomb change, just know that she definitely isn't forced to anything - you don't need shieldbomb to lane, and it was literally just a holdover mechanic from old Karma that did nothing positive for her actual design overall. People really value the power of it, but I think overall she got buffed (even with the removal of shieldbomb, even in solo lanes). You lose out on a little bit of waveclear early, but if you're REALLY using a Mantra E to clear a wave I'm confused. Mantra Q does basically the same thing only without the shield (and more damage), and 1-2 Q's without a Mantra will easily clear a wave...

A Miss Fortune1 votes

Karma needs a rework that makes her more than just a R > Q bot. There's no reason to ever use her W or E with Mantra except in very rare cases. As Karma Mid I probably use them maybe once every other game and even as Karma Support why have a trashy shield over an AoE nuke.

killd0zer4 votes

Mord is literally worse in every way. People openly expressed this and he didn't listen.

CT should be fired

A Miss Fortune1 votes

CertainlyT shouldn't be fired because his rework sucked, but because he refuses to accept feedback or even try anymore.

Every single champion he's designed, reworked, or even touched has been insanely unbalanced. He doesn't show any regards for balance or healthy gameplay and I don't see a reason he should be allowed to work on gameplay or champion design again. He doesn't care about the community's feedback and he doesn't care for improving. Last time I checked his most recent full champion design was a girl with infinite dashes and infinite scaling damage.

Baseball3b3 votes

You say that reworks are about game health, not personal opinions, yet you state that Morde's rework was a screw-up. Hypocrisy doesn't make a good argument.

And, can you really, honestly say that getting two-shotted by a Cass at 25 minutes in because she broke her E key is healthy? I can't speak for Karma's rework since I never played her before it happened, but the Cass rework made her a completely binary champion -- the only reason she was seen in high levels of play was because her numbers were blatantly overtuned, not because her rework magically made her better to play as and against. In fact, the exact opposite occurred. Pre-rework Cass was perfectly healthy, all that was preventing her from seeing viability were a few QoL changes.

Battlecast Sona1 votes

But the problem I have is that people complain about Cassio losing her "fantasy". No, she didn't - her gameplay pattern remained almost exactly identical.

Also, it's not "hypocritical" to say it's not about personal opinion: Morde is 100% pick/ban rate in Worlds. Many pro players have stated blatantly that they believe he's beyond broken. This is bad for game health.

Baseball3b2 votes

No I agree that E spam was always a big part of Cass's kit. My whole issue with her rework is that it made her centered on it. Her other 2 non-ultimate spells are essentially useless without her E. And it isn't interactive like Syndra's kit either. That's my problem. Having the majority of her power budget shoved into her E--a spammable, targeted nuke with a mana refund and spell vamp doesn't make her fun to play as, or against.

I could just as easily say that Mord's rework wasn't bad design, but he's just overtuned. No matter what the stats say, it's still personal opinion, the majority of people are just accepting that opinion. (And don't get me wrong, I agree that he's broken as all hell)

The point is, the community circle-jerk is usually pretty spot on for reworks (wish I could say the same for balance), and you just can't ignore the fact that many of the reworks done have caused problems for game health, been broken, or have alienated the playerbase.

Inphernal3 votes

" Cassio has NEVER been about the poison - her damage has ALWAYS, since her release, been loaded into her E resets. This is not a new mechanic. Karma's mechanic was ALWAYS about the Mantra - yes, the specific spell effects may have been nice and you may have liked them, but her theme was MANTRA, and they reinforced this with the rework."

was reading until i realized you have no idea what youre talking about.

Battlecast Sona1 votes

did I say anything wrong? Cassio is right, Karma is right. Karma's big thing when she came out was "guys she doesn't have a REAL ultimate, her ultimate just empowers her other abilities!" Cassio has had E reset since release.

What's the issue?

TheXtractor2 votes

Pre-rework cassio at least had an idenity of a poision mage, Now its just spam E no matter what.

Baseball3b1 votes

I'll reiterate what I said in my other post.

A large amount of Cass's damage has always come from her E spam. My problem with the rework is that it makes her entire kit centered around it, so much that her other 2 non-ultimate spells are pretty much useless without it. Similarly, having a spammable, targeted nuke front loaded with a mana refund, spell vamp, and DoT amp makes for a very binary play style that is boring to play as and against.

TheXtractor1 votes

Riot's definition of a 'rework' is "Lets make this champion overpowered for no reason so that people will play it again, and lets fuck all the lore and visuals too because yay"

Earl Eulrich1 votes

well, as so far the only rework that really produced a good outcome had been Sion... seriously, they usually just ignore the playerbase and change very important thematic hooks, without adding anything to the gameplay - most newer works just get outright abusive and binary.

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