Open Discussion about Champion Balance

It's time for yet another post ragging on Riot's champion balance team. Except this time I'm going to actually provide you examples in a well thought out argument. Yes you're still on the League of Legends forums.

Riot's Champion Balance team has done some genius things. It's clear that many of them have learned the merits of small nerfs or buffs to abilities deemed problematic; seemingly tiny growth stat changes, minuscule base armor tunings, etc. Maokai's completely unplayed? Okay, we can change his base stats a little and just even him up with everyone else. Gnar needs some love? Small base damage changes.

Despite that, it's clear some aspects of the balance team have not learned from the 8 years of League of Legends they've been a part of.

When you reflect on the pain points, it seems apparently that they generally occur when a champion is too strong and in need of nerfs, not the other way around. The balance team has a tendency to "Olaf" champions, hence the existence of the Olaf meme. Except they don't just tend to take away power. No, let me be clear: if this was just a matter of reducing power from champions, I would not be writing this right now. Instead, what the balance team has trended towards is a much more slippery slope. Rather than reduce power on abilities or base stats, they make champions clunkier. That is NOT okay with me.

Let me show you what I mean with some prime examples.

Patch 5.2 saw the removal of the ability for Akali to activate her Q (Mark of the Assassin) with her E (Crescent Slash). This means her full combo is now Q>Ult>AA>E assuming she starts from a reasonable distance. It could also be Ult>Q>AA>E. Regardless, what it did for the champion is make her completely fall off. She can no longer adeptly assassinate people Zed or Talon style because she has to weave in that otherwise useless auto attack, giving a ridiculous amount of time for the enemy to react. Accordingly, full damage Akali has all but fallen off the map, giving rise to tank bruiser Akali. Why? Because no other build feels good on her. Her ratios and passive clearly encourage building damage, but that isn't how she's seeing play. It's not fun to play her like that any more.

Next, we have everyone's favorite fastest kitty cat.

Patch 6.2 implemented a 0.25 second cast time on Rengar's E (Bola Strike). That patch, Rengar sat in a corner and cried while Kha'zix got all the kills for two weeks. Immediately after, the cast time was reduced to a 0.125 second frame, and Rengar is mostly restored. My problem here is that the initial nerf made it past PBE and internal testing onto live. For those two weeks, Rengar couldn't full combo anyone and was absolutely awful. And for what? It was and still is League of Tanks as of that patch and this one still. Rengar is all ready fairly bad at high levels of play because of that. But he just needed that 45% winrate, right? Because people don't know how to buy pink wards and not split up against a fed Rengar who they let farm to 6 early game and then go on a ganking spree.

Graves is still sending people to their graves quite often. Now, he's a tanky bruiser ranged ADC. He takes Warlord's Bloodlust and buys Death's Dance and leaves Vladimir in awe with his sustain. Yet, when Graves was first seen as truly broken, what was the change he received? That's right, Patch 6.3 saw his Q (End of the Line) no longer instantly bounces back when striking terrain. So now Graves feels slower when you play him, but to the enemy he's literally exactly the same, and his usage in professional play has only gone upwards. Oh, right, and now his Auto Attacks no longer knock back the Scuttle Crab, so he feels awful when taking it by himself. Let's not forget that awesome change, rather than, say, giving that particular ability an internal cooldown against Scuttle Crab. So Jungle Graves is boned, but everywhere else is still good. Good support of whatever role they fall into.

Alas, poor Tahm. I knew him well. Within a few patches of being released, Tahm Kench was a problem. Why? A slew of buffs left him with insane tankiness and incredible damages, as well as the most powerful ally-saving non-ultimate ability in the game, by a long shot. What was the answer to that? Well, first, Patch 5.23 reduced his Auto Attack range by a little bit, in accordance with the Auto Attack Range smoothing-out that was done that patch. That's the first sin, though. Immediately that isn't actually addressing his issues, but arguably it wasn't intended to. Still, it makes his power harder to access. Keep your eye on that birdie. The next patch (5.24) removed his speed boost when carrying an ally AWAY from enemies with his W (Devour). That's reasonable- if he wants to be saving people like that, he'll probably have Boots of Swiftness and other movement enhancers. It was already an incredibly strong ability, so that's not a huge hit. He remained highly sought after until Patch 6.2. This saw a few large changes to the champion. The random damage enhancement based on his health bandaged onto his Ultimate (Abyssal Voyage) was reduced. That was part of his problem. That's a good change. The next change, however, saw the reversion of a previous buff to his Passive, An Acquired Taste, where his passive stacks on enemies were made to last 7 seconds from 5. This saw it put back down to 5. This is interesting because it's another case of hindering his ability to access his power, without actually reducing his power. Next, Patch 6.4 saw what I would call the largest offenses, even though they don't seem that large on their own. First, his Q's hit box width was reduced from 90 units to 70 units. This makes his passive difficult to actually stack up, in conjunction with the previous passive nerfs. Following that, his Ultimate as of Patch 6.4 can no longer be instantly recast to travel to his destination. It's important to note that this ability already had a considerable wind-up time, at 1.5 seconds. Now, if one wants to use it immediately, its entire cast time is 2.5 seconds until Tahm-down. Houston, we have a problem. This ability lost what little engage potential it had, as it's so telegraphed and long-winded. What none of these changes properly addressed is how tanky Tahm gets with his E and his percent max health damage on his W, which is where a large amount of his damage stems from. Instead, it made the champion less fun and less engaging. He does nothing except eat allies and meat-shield for them. Riot created a perfect professional champion. He was too pure for this world, and now he is dead, both in pro play and in casual play.

This is more recent (yesterday), but let's talk about it. Her Passive (Prowl) no longer roots monsters. Okay, so it's harder to properly first-clear with her. Her first clear was a bit of a problem, as the fact that it was so good meant she could immediately run and invade or gank. Next, her Cougar Form's W (Pounce) no longer provides an auto attack reset. Here's where the problem comes in. High level Nidalee players should be rewarded for champion mastery, right? Apparently not. Instead, the ability was made awkward. Yet, in the face of this, most people agree Nidalee is still strong. Her issues (incredibly damage from range, healing, amazing mobility) weren't addressed. Just pain added to her first clear and gracelessness added to her Pounce.

I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how the most toxic champion in the game turned into a staple of power and fun, as well as one of the most successful reworks ever. In west Demacia born and raised- okay I'm not actually going to do that. I want to talk about the PBE changes for Poppy right now. It's why I wrote this whole long winded essay. It's why you're reading this from me right now. It's why the Earth spins. Eh maybe not that. Three changes for Poppy on the PBE right now. #1: Q (Hammer Shock)'s damage down at all ranks. Good, she deals way too much damage while being incredibly tanky. #2: Passive (Iron Ambassador)'s range decreased from 400 to 300 units. #3: E (Heroic Charge) range reduced from 525 to 425. Numbers 2 and 3 are BAD. Why? Simple: they make it harder to access her already situational power. Right now, her numbers are over tuned. Her E>Q deals way too much damage, while her W's passive, particularly the below 40% part, makes her INCREDIBLY tanky in conjunction with her innate shield. Her E's range all ready feels small, though. It's an ability that is amazingly hard to actually get the full damage out of, as it requires your opponents to allow you to properly position yourself and them against terrain. Her innate's range is supposed to be ranged not "barely out of melee range." Why bother with a ranged ability that isn't really ranged? Just make her first auto attack act like ZAC's passive blobs but with her shield, as it essentially already does. Remove the range and give it a better chance to get thrown down somewhere she can actually access. Instead of making her E feel awful to use, reduce its damage or increase its cooldown.

This trend seems a bit recent to me, so hopefully I can be part of a movement to shut it down before it grows larger and larger until no champion feels good to play.

TL;DR: Stop making champions clunkier rather than actually addressing what's wrong with them. It's not good balancing. It's slowly squeezing the fun out of champions until they die and then require mega buffs.

Feel free to leave additions or criticisms in the comments. My logic is surely not flawless, nor did I offer up every example. I'm open to discussion, and I KNOW I'm not the only one who sees this trend.