Meddler just talked about how he decided to nerf the champions that are on top of the board rather than bring the rest to their level. Why? Why not just buff everyone to try and equalize between them in a way that all of the players will be happy? I'm not a main of any of the champs he noted but let's face it, nobody likes knowing their champion is expecting to be nerfed.
Darkdemon6531 votesHe gave the reasoning - to also reduce the overall power of the jungler role.
Nahui1 votesDepends on what scale.
It's better to nerf stand out champions, but only if you're referring to stand out as a small minority that actually shift balance of the game to one side simply by virtue of being picked as a champion instead of being dependent on player skill/team comp. Think champions like original cinderhulk Sejuani, reworked Skarner (Juggernaut update), Cait a few patches ago, release Ekko, etc. These are a small pool of champions who have a power curve much higher than the rest of the champions and are bad for the game.
Having weak champions is less fun for the game, but it doesn't necessarily hurt the game either. It's a champion that will be avoided instead of sought out for its power. So instead of featuring a high pick/ban rate and adversely affecting any game it gets into, a weak champion is simply ignored altogether and doesn't really factor into statistics. One could argue a teammate picking a weak champion swings the balance into enemy's favor, and this is true, but the scenario that people pick weak champions is MUCH less frequent than people picking strong champions.
Now if you're talking in the most general sense, assuming 50% of champions are strong, and 50% are weak (Although it could never be this simple, using it as an example), then I believe a middle ground would need to be found or it'd be better to weaken champions. Buffing champions introduces a higher power base that all new items and champions must adhere to when introduced into the game. This would lead to a higher frequency of overloaded and overpowered kits, and make changing items much harder as any changes to items would scale harder if the champions were stronger.
It really depends though. If Riot would want to extend game length, weakening champions is the answer. Shorten it? Strengthening champions.
But in terms of Meddler, he's talking about first case scenario. A select, small group of elite picks. Buffing the rest 115+ champions to that level would require lots of work and really wouldn't fix much since you really can't find perfect balance in a moba like LoL. It's easier and better to just nerf the top tier champs as an equalization of power. The best solution would be to nerf the top tier, buff the bottom tier, and adjust the mid tier in either direction to find a more balanced roster.
