It seems like heavily defensive AP champions are getting a bit too close to being OP strong

JavelinJoe··4 votes·292 views

I am starting to notice that Zac Galio Gragas and now even Maokai are becoming massive raid boss like beasts that can soak up shit tons of damage (which is precisely what they should be doing, so good job there RIOT), but are able to deal a disproportional amount of damage as well (that is not so good). Whether they build 100% full tank, or work some AP in there, they end up getting to a point where they basically need 3-4 players focusing them just to whittle them down. All of them even have some kind of shielding, damage reduction and/or healing worked into their kits. But the main issue here is that each of them have % Target's Maximum Heath damage, high base damage stats on their abilities, and multiple sources of CC, often times hard CC. The CC is the least troublesome as it defines their role. But the "free AOE damage" is what is the true issue.

"Free AOE damage" + damage reduction, shielding, and/or healing is what could lead them to becoming broken. You cant have massive % TMH as an AOE on top of high base stats and increased survivability in most cases. I am seeing ADCs, who should eventually out scale tanks and win out in the late game vs them, not even scratching them and taking so much return damage themselves.

I am not saying there is too much of an issue quite yet, but they are getting close to being a major concern.

9 Comments

Proxy3452 votes

A fed Zac is scarier than all the others listed lol

koshkyra2 votes

Chogath

Why people consider him balanced is unknown to me..

WitchQueen Annie1 votes

I mean, you just play Renekton, bait/juke his pit... and then you go on him and out-trade him to hell.

JavelinJoe1 votes

He is mainly a only health/AP based champion and thus is pretty easy to kill with item 3153 and/or item 3151 alone. The only issue is his ult, which can almost 1 shot most squishy targets as the game goes on. But mainly it is because he does not have a gap closer of any kind, and his only hard CC is a skill shot which can often be easily dodged.

Cocho1 votes

thats some um, good looking reworks there riot

Ralanr1 votes

So...most of it was probably due to triple Doran's. Though I don't justify Zac.

Galiö1 votes

Sometimes they don't do much damage. It's just they build tank and you don't. If your champ built tank tour base should be similar or better than some of the tanks. For example dravens base damage is huge. You build him one tank items with tanky runes and you'll outrade the enemy adc. Just because your base is higher and you take less damage.

Big Lincoln1 votes

well gragas is meant to be a brawler so tbh I would rather he lose CC over his damage, but he has damage, a lot of CC and 2 forms of in-kit durability so he needs a nerf regardless

zac needs more damage nerfs if he's going to have such a low counterplay displacement combo with his E->R, giving you like a fraction of a second to flash away from him before he launches you into his team. I would rather he also take a CC nerf but making every tank into a "unique" CC bot is riot's new forte so i'll never get any traction on that

same for galio, 'waveclear' shit's kinda BS when he has his passive to also help him push waves. his Q doesn't need that much base damage

Wet Dryman1 votes

well gragas is meant to be a brawler so tbh I would rather he lose CC over his damage, but he has damage, a lot of CC and 2 forms of in-kit durability so he needs a nerf regardless

I would really like him to be balanced around being Bruiser as he was meant to be (dunno which class would fit, prob Diver) instead of Vanguard. Well his jungle most popular build is actually very bruisery. I think that removing slow from his uncharged Q or reducing his E stun duration to 0.5s or 0.75s (or maybe both?) would justify his current damage. And rewarding him with slow for geometrical combo would actually push him more into lockdown playstyle instead of granting him that CC with little effort as it is now.

Though even in his current state he has 48% win rate with 4% pick rate on the top lane and 51% win rate with 8% pick rate in the jungle for plat+ elo.

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