game of skill?
Is there any chance in the future of Riot returning league to a game of skill vs a game of picking the current broken champions and banning their counters? If the only way to win is to play specific counters and specific broken champions, then I honestly doubt I'll play much longer. Instead of rebalancing by nerfing, it seems like everything is getting thrown out of balance by blowing up other champions or creating new masteries and items that overbuff specific other champions. Why do people have constant bans on certain champions across the game? Because they're out of balance with the current game thanks to new masteries and new items. And instead of fixing this by evaluating the balancing act of skill vs items or skill vs champion tier, riot worries about people playing a champ enough or nerfing the champion. It's an entire meta that's been thrown askew.
SSN 6 has thrown a harsh light on the lack of insight. There's a conflict of tank meta, ad carry meta, and assassin meta while mages were absolutely crushed! Which doesn't make sense at all. Mages are glass and the whole point of assassins was to focus the apc or adc. Not anymore. Now, with lord dominik's and the right runes and masteries, a Talon can erase a malphite. An Olaf, who was already insane late game, might as well not even have a team because there's literally NOTHING you can do while he's ulted and his true dmg, lifesteal, movement speed..... he'll just 1v5 as long as the person playing him isn't an idiot.
Riven will always be in favor because god forbid we fix her kit which is what's honestly the unbalanced aspect of her.
Soraka? Oh, we had nerfed her before because her lane sustain and her healing were out of scaling and created a huge snowball and imbalance in the game. We've given that back to her and then some because of new masteries she can take as well as masteries her adc can take on top of that PLUS she got small buffs because people didn't play her.
WTF are you thinking?!!! You're basing your game mechanics on whether or not a majority of intellectually understimulated individuals who aren't good enough to play a specific champion means the champion isn't good enough. The champions were fine. People need to learn the strategy and skill and mechanics behind champions and team fights. So what if people don't play a champion a lot. It just means that people aren't currently playing this champion because of LCS fads or because not enough people can handle the mechanics. Either adjust the mechanics so it's simpler or deal with the concept that certain thought processes are difficult for a majority of people! Oh well!
3 bans right now are not enough when you have to worry about champions like LeBlanc, Mord, Darius, Mundo, Illaoi, Kog, Draven, Soraka, Blitz, Fiora, Kha, Rengar, Nasus, Poppy (after rework), Ez with new season, Garen. Sure, all of them can be killed. But it takes a specific set of circumstances.
I remember when league was about the skill of a team and your ability with a champion, not just who is just unforgiveably out of balance with the rest of the champions because of snowballing built in or current seasonal items/mechanics. I mean, I laughed incredibly hard when Riot pulled the DFG from the game because of it's power and then BUFFED all of the champions that people were putting it on. So you said, essentially, that these champions were out of control with this item so we'll remove the item and make them out of control with out it. Which many of them were. Then you buffed a lot of other champions and MR items to fix it. Now you've nerfed mages across the board by removing mana pots, clarity, and increasing the cost of EVERY AP item.
You've essentially removed the idea of being an actual tank because, God forbid, they weren't doing enough dmg. So now you've got insane tanking on what are, in reality, bruisers that do crazy damage late game. WTH?! The whole point of being a tank is to take damage and zone and cc, NOT to 1v1 an adc or apc. Somewhere along the lines, popularity of a champion got confused with the roles of the champions and people's inability to play with good teamwork or just a basic understanding of the match.
Top on all of that the amount of glitches I'm seeing this season. For instance, Morg's ult not triggering in the middle of a group of bad guys. It wasn't on CD. I had 24 ping. I ran around in a team fight for nearly a minute smashing my R, being able to cast everything else, while my ult, available, wouldn't trigger. It didn't even light up. No silences, nothing. Just a massive glitch turning a team fight in the enemy's favor. This kind of thing completely screws up the game. Like Braum's Q starting from behind him so that he hits a minion he standing just in front of instead of shooting forward from in front of him.
I also find the minions jumping out to block this season really stupid. They have no aggro on you, but move out to the side just the same when you sidestep to ss. Or the autopathing where you click a river bush and, instead of taking the 500 distance path that's right in front of you, your champion turns around and runs all the way back through the jungle to come around from the other path, you know, through the enemies rather than to your teammates. WTH?! There's a lot of really glitchy mechanics this season that are just destroying the playability. It's hard enough to solo queue and win a ranked match. Now, even with a premade team, you might just lose because of glitches and overpowered champions and items that are out of balance in today's new environment.
I like the game. I like the strategy. But if Riot doesn't pull it's head out of its butt soon and start putting the focus back on strategy and skill vs items, masteries, and breaking champs for popularity and skin sales, I'm going to regrettably retire league into the dark, dusty shelves in the back of my pc's deepest corners.
