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Fighters, as a whole, AREN'T weak. Their targets are just too strong.

THE RlVER KlNG·1/27/2018, 10:26:35 PM·56 votes·2,855 views

for top lane the bottom ten winrates are all tanks and mages (besides trynd and lucian)

and the top ten are all fighters besides swain. In between it's a healthy mix of tanks, fighters, and a few battle mages, and the vast majority of champs above or at 50% winrate are fighters of some sort.

I can't think of a single fighter that is legitimately bad top lane besides maybe wukong (who has a 51% wr oddly enough). Literally every juggernaut besides nasus and trundle have above 50% winrates and respectable pick rates. Riven, Fiora, Camille, Kled, Jax, Irelia, Renekton are all very much playable and can do well vs tanks. Aatrox has the highest winrate for top lane in the game right now for crying out loud. Darius is playable. Urgot is playable. Garen is playable. Yorick and Olaf are all playable. Camille and Fiora in particular are both being picked in pro play over these 'broken' tanks everyone keeps whining about (which is pretty much just Ornn, at a cool 47% wr)

Vlad, Panth, Teemo have all been nerfed. I never see Kennen top anymore and I can deal with GP. In the jungle, Xin, Shyv, Udyr, Jax, Rengar, J4 are all being picked and doing well. The problem is not that fighters are weak, the problem is the same source for every other problem in the game: bot lane is broken. Both supports and ADCs are, and tanks are much better vs them right now because of the on-hand crowd control they bring. FIghters can still absolutely crush tanks in lane and exert their influence throughout the map. But once a fed bot lane gets rolling, tanks are able to do marginally better against them in teamfights and macro play. Another thing is that it seems like the vast majority of fighter mains just don't like to share. The moment top lane isn't some unholy trinity of Riven/Irelia/Jax and tanks and mages are able to be played as well they cry foul. The moment jungle isn't exclusively Xin Zhao/Vi/Udyr fighter mains blame and point fingers. One thing I can agree with them, however, is that if fighters and mages and tanks and assassins all have to share their lanes with each other, then so do ADCs and supports (also, ADC itemization is too cheap compared to fighters and mages, and fighter itemization IS too expensive at times)

The fighter class is not weak. They are all still being widely and effectively utilized in their two roles, top and jungle, and are not horrible autolosses like Hashinshin and all the fighter mains here are saying on practically every thread. People like to say that bruisers are weak and terrible and tanks are infinitely better when that is simply not the case. I've never actually seen anyone explicitly name fighter champs that are weak and doing poorly; because we know that isn't the case and it's just a convenient method to indirectly circlejerk this awful bot-only marksmen meta.

Fighters/bruisers/Juggernauts/divers/skirmishers, whatever the fuck you want to call them, are not weak, in the same way this thread brilliantly outlined that assassins are far from weak (they never will be as long as items like Duskblade and Gunblade and Ghostblade and all the other blades are as strong as they are); instead, it's their targets that are too strong, such as safe hypercarry picks like Tristana and Vayne. Fighters are not weak, and I'm tired of Hashinshin's whining and the circlejerk that has reached critical mass on these boards. Fighters are not weak; bot lane is too strong. There is a distinct difference and if we can all start collectively advocating for that as opposed to something that isn't true then maybe we'll see more success.

55 Comments

Grimspeake1/27/2018, 10:48:55 PM30 votes

I think its just the million shields and cc is the problem

Critmaster Garen1/27/2018, 11:33:54 PM17 votes

supported.

the issue is that top lane bruisers are pressured to snowball insanely hard to keep up with the power scaling of bot lane. which they cant most of the time. a bruiser is literally forced to go 5/0 and be in absolute control of his lane with a massive cs advantage by the time bot lane is decided to either side, if he wants to have some impact on the game. just winning the lane isnt enough. you have to destroy your lane to get even in strength with a slightly winning bot lane.

tanks just need to get farmed and not die to be effective later, and theyre good at just not dieing. thats literally it. combine this with the first point and it makes it even harder for bruisers to scale at the same speed as bot lane. the entire reason why tanks are generally better top lane picks than bruisers.

the real problem with this "stonewalling" of tanks against bruisers that hashinshin brought up is, that bruisers are pressured into snowballing at an absurd speed in the first place to have a game impact. that just farming out a lane to scale isnt enough on its own, unless you can abuse broken mechanics like kleptomancy and gangplanks q passive.

bot lane is op and too snowbally, and not just compared to top lane. thats the core of the problem.

Nosnide1/27/2018, 11:06:04 PM11 votes

I got 860k plus mastery points on Wukong. Just want to point out that his winrate only maintains over 50% because only Wu mains play him. Only one tricks lol

Sasogwa1/27/2018, 11:41:47 PM9 votes

They're not that bad but they feel terrible. You used to feel much more impactful before on divers, juggs, skirmishers etc. because you felt actually decently tanky and the adc didn't want to fuck with you at all. They had to play scared, and be very wary of you potentially destroying them. Now it's you who has to bow down and play super scared of the adc because he melts you down so goddamn early into the game, and botlane is so ridiculously snowbally. And that.. outside of all winrate considerations, feels awful. It feels like you're some sort of shit having to be worshipping the botlane overlords.

Ahristocats1/27/2018, 10:55:54 PM8 votes

they tickle

literally don't do damage except few exceptions

their targets have nothing to do with it fervor removal made darius such a fcking joke in teamfight holy shit he deals as much damage as nunu after 20-25 min and it's the same for renekton aatrox or anyone else

Evil Yasuo1/28/2018, 3:53:14 AM7 votes

"I think the problem isn't they're weak, it's that the other champions are stronger" .....yeah, that's called being weak.

DJOKER1/28/2018, 7:39:03 AM5 votes

I dont care how they do it, But as long as RIOT doesnt change bruisers or adc they game will not be fun for TOP lane.

#Thats why i stopped playing League.

Salamencę1/28/2018, 1:30:27 AM4 votes

Stupidest thing I've ever seen. The majority of fighters ARE weak because fervor was removed lmao. Declarations like these are painful to read, especially when they're completely wrong.

Teridax681/28/2018, 11:24:19 AM3 votes

The thing is, while I agree with the central point, most threads complaining about fighters that I've seen do not usually request buffs to the class. Rather, they too point out that the current environment, in which kiting and damage are too high overall, is the main problem, and that the means to alleviate these issues would require changes to other classes to reduce this, not simply buffs to the fighter class so that they all get to collectively ignore crowd control or get extra blinks or whatever.

I think the other problem in the thread OP is that it mainly just discusses the state of fighters in the jungle, when a large part of the current problem is with top lane instead: fighters are for sure popular there, but the position as a whole feels like it has lost relevance in the larger state of the game, and as a result top lane fighters tend to feel less impactful even when they're strong. Even Riot has acknowledged this, and has promised to address it in the future. There is therefore at least a problem of many fighters feeling weak, even if statistically they're doing fine, because it's become more difficult for a fighter in top lane to have the same impact they used to, particularly when compared to the times when Teleport was a lot stronger, and particularly relative to bot lane now.

Another thing worth pointing out is that some fighters are strong because they have legitimately been overbuffed in an attempt to keep up: Xin Zhao's mini-rework gave him ranged CC, damage immunity, and just a whole lot more statistical power overall, and Nasus's Q CDR on ult coupled well with the new runes to essentially give him very few weaknesses against other melee champions. The fact that Nasus also gets kited super-hard in full teamfights, in spite of all the raw power he gained over recent changes, I think confirms the point in the OP, that the problem has less to do with statistical strength, and more to do with the strength of mechanics that tend to hard-counter many fighters. In this respect, powercreeping the fighter class should definitely not be the way to go, because it will simply mean that whoever gets buffed will shit on their unbuffed lane opponents even harder, while still suffering from the same problems in the end. Rather, we first need to reach an environment where melee champions don't need CC immunity or mobility just to be able to function, namely by toning down anti-melee CC and more abusive instances of kiting, and then that should tell us who really needs buffs.

datfatguy1/28/2018, 12:50:11 AM3 votes

The same thing goes with assassins.

LVL99 Helper TK1/28/2018, 10:23:03 AM2 votes

Bot lane being broken does in fact make bruisers trash by comparison, because a bruiser who snowballs still gets fucked by the enemy bot lane. ADC items are too cheap, shields are too strong.

HavinABadTiem1/28/2018, 2:40:45 PM2 votes

I do agree that top lane as a whole feels pretty bad as it stands. I've played quite a few games over the past couple of days and it has gotten to the point where I REALLY want to open when my bot lane invariably feeds their faces off. There is legit nothing anyone can do at that point to stop the struggle bus from ramming itself completely in your tailpipe. The enemy jungler and top laner need to only meatshield for long enough to allow their adc to blast you and your comrades into next Tuesday (the midlaner just flops around I guess?). Talk about rewarding gameplay. I'll continue playing to see how deep this rabbit hole goes - currently sitting at a 30% winrate over the past 20 games in top lane with an average KDA of 2.39 (for those who feel the need to call shenans). I wonder if it's possible to get that number down to single digits while actually trying to improve.

AirKingNeo1/28/2018, 4:45:28 PM2 votes

Winrate =/= Funrate

Though I agree. Would rather reduce powercreep.

xJLx MCHammer1/28/2018, 5:12:19 PM2 votes

This is really spinning the truth http://na.op.gg/champion/statistics

The top 10 winrates in TOP LANE

  1. Aatrox (Fighter)
  2. Swain (mage)
  3. Gangplank(Fighter)
  4. Pantheon (Fighter)
  5. Rengar (Fighter/Assasin)
  6. Riven (Fighter)
  7. Malp (TANK)
  8. Keld (Fighter)
  9. Akali (mage)
  10. Garen (Bruiser/Fighter)

SO no you are wrong. Stop lying when these statistics are so easily obtained from various website. Tanks in general aren't strong in top lane. The only ones that are strong right now are Malp. The next real tank is Sion who is at **22 ** on winrates. Tanks are also not being picked a lot. The only tank that cracks the top ten list in pickrate is Mao (at he is dead last at 10)

Stop talking about tanks being OP when regular statistics state otherwise.

FalconPawwwwnch1/28/2018, 8:40:22 PM2 votes

GP is really overtuned right now so there's also that

The Yetii Rider1/28/2018, 9:04:43 PM2 votes

"Literally every juggernaut besides Nasus and Trundle have above 50% win rates and respectable pick rates".

What? I'm pretty sure Volibear is non-existent right now, and he's been in the slot to get some work done for some time.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1/29/2018, 12:24:44 AM1 votes

Vlad, Panth, Teemo have all been nerfed. I never see Kennen top anymore and I can deal with GP.

2 things :

  • u play Tamkench/vlad top, so i don't know how u'r experience and insight are revelent
  • u play against silver/gold GP (mean they aren't decent, this pick is op af).

I can't think of a single fighter that is legitimately bad top lane besides maybe wukong (who has a 51% wr oddly enough).

WR isn't revelant to toplane issues. Wukong winrate is "decent" (its not, 51%wr for 1 pr is bad) cause his tp bots are lethal and cause he can assassinate adc fastly (and bot lane win games).

The problem is not that fighters are weak, the problem is the same source for every other problem in the game: bot lane is broken. Both supports and ADCs are, and tanks are much better vs them right now because of the on-hand crowd control they bring.

IF others are better and stronger (like alot).... they're weak !!!

g. FIghters can still absolutely crush tanks in lane and exert their influence throughout the map.

They can't :

  • at equal skill, u won't be able to snowball against them (even if u are able to kill them during early game)
  • tanks have decent wave clear and good tower demolish sh*t

The fighter class is not weak. They are all still being widely and effectively utilized in their two roles, top and jungle, and are not horrible autolosses like Hashinshin and all the fighter mains here are saying on practically every thread.

U don't understand top lane... thats why u can't understand most of his points (he's not right for all tho). When u play top u play in 2v2 situation, if u pick a bruisers into a tanks most of times it'll become a 1v2 :

  • for ur junglers its a waste of time to gank tanks (take to much times/ressources for TRYING to kill them)
  • bruisers will take a sh*t tons of damages at any trades
  • bruisers will be out of the lane at slightest ganks (jungler don't even need to kill here, to make fighters out of the game) the 1v2/2v2 thing isn't true for low elo (junglers have no clue about the game... and don't planify anything

And having a class being good in 1v1 situation and outscales in utility for teamfight is a nonsense. A pick shouldn't c*ckblock eveyone during lane and be godlike in teamfight.

n the same way this thread brilliantly outlined that assassins are far from weak (they never will be as long as items like Duskblade and Gunblade and Ghostblade and all the other blades are as strong as they are)

Duskblade is broken, gunblade is strong, Ghostblade is far from strong and EoN is garbage. This thread is all but brilliant. the begining is stupid actualy

The Talon/Zed/Kha is waiting in the brush near gromp with a Youmuus and Serrated Dirk, with a ward on the otherside of gromp. The ADC doesnt know hes there. The assassin can easily kill the ADC, no matter the delay.

so the op use this to convince us assassins aren't weak Oo

Assassins, as a whole, ARENT weak. Their targets are just too strong.

So they 're weak, if they can't do what they meant to do. But he's right on

The game is not friendly to assassins right now. But its not the assassins fault. For the love of god most of them dont need a buff. There are exceptions but as a whole they dont need any buffs.

just back to this thread

Fighters are not weak; bot lane is too strong. There is a distinct difference and if we can all start collectively advocating for that as opposed to something that isn't true then maybe we'll see more success.

NO. Botlane is too strong but Tanks are too. And tanks are since age, for no reason (recquier lower skill floor than other class, low risk highreward).

FlameHalbrdOkido1/29/2018, 3:54:29 AM1 votes

agreed

u should probably check out this post

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/lT3B52ki-in-my-opinion-for-marksmen-to-be-a-healthier-class-riot-should-flesh-out-their-gameplay-niche

Turbanator13371/28/2018, 7:49:03 AM1 votes

Jax player here. Just anecdotal evidence, but nowadays I'll sometimes play Nautilus top (who I have dedicated absolutely no time into learning) instead of Jax , especially when playing with friends, and I'll feel infinitely more useful than if I were to play Jax. I feel more powerful in lane, out of lane, and there's no pressure for me at all because I know that all I have to do to be useful is to farm up. I've defaulted to playing GP because he's the answer to tanks.

The point is, top is no longer fun for me because whenever I pick a bruiser I enjoy, I feel like I'm actively making the game harder for myself and for my teammates by not just picking a tank like Ornn or Maokai that can autowin trades, be useful late, completely stop splitpushes, and on top of all that, really aren't super hard to play.

The people that are complaining about how bruisers are weak by and large aren't actually complaining about bot being too strong, they're complaining about tanks being too strong. Bot is strong, but it's only because of how snowbally it is compared to the other lanes. Engage supports are super popular, and the two most played ADs at the moment, Vayne and Tristana, become gods at 2 items.

On the other hand, nothing ever happens top, or at least, not if there's at least 1 tank top on either team. If the other team gets a lead bot, and I feel like I have to match that by playing aggressively top, I run into tanks that out-duel me with items that cost less, less risk to themselves because they never die, and I know that it's not going to change, because they'll get tankier and tankier while I have to either settle for going some hyper risky 3 damage item build (armor pen) that doesn't actually guarantee I can duel them, or the standard option: get tank items so you can be a worse version of my lane opponent.

If you pick a bruiser against a tank, it makes you feel so useless. I can't speak for all top players, but I'm complaining because a I miss the exciting 1v1 knife fights against Darius, Wukong, and Renekton. Because that's the fun part of top lane. Because I want to feel like I'm deciding how useful I am through how well I play, and not what champion I pick.

Iffy Jarl1/28/2018, 10:32:55 AM1 votes

"FIghters can still absolutely crush tanks in lane and exert their influence throughout the map. But once a fed bot lane gets rolling, tanks are able to do marginally better against them in teamfights and macro play."

Well who do you expect to do better against a class that is solely based upon damage a class that is soley based upon taking damage, or a class that is based on dealing and taking damage?

Altonius Amakiir1/28/2018, 6:44:12 AM1 votes

Okay, maybe they aren't weak per-say. If I were to reword/clarify my feelings on it, I would have to say this: The fighter role for me has always felt like this role where you get the best of both worlds, damage and tankiness. You get enough tankiness to survive a fight when not fed (if you play well) with a sliver of health. If you are fed, you have the opportunity to do 1v3s up to 1v5s. That to me is another core part of the feeling of playing a fighter, and it doesn't necessarily correlate with win-rate. I want to be able to, if I engage smart, to survive a teamfight with a sliver of health (because that feels epic), and if I'm fed I want to be able to take on multiple opponents alone. That to me is what draws me to play fighters, just like picking the enemy off one by one or bursting down a squishy before the enemy team can pin you down is the assassin dream, and living through the entire enemy team's full rotation and a couple turret shots is the tank dream.

Currently it isn't delivering on that I feel. If I'm fed as a fighter now, I can 1v2. Before, depending on the fighter, I could 1v5 sometimes (against low cc enemy teams). Currently if I'm even with the enemy team and do a good engage, I need someone to shield me to survive most times. It feels like no matter what I do, I will die if I fight in a full team fight. Now I might take a few with me, but I don't want that to be what fighters are about. I want to go in, get 1 or 2 kills in a teamfight, and have a fair chance of getting out alive after with a sliver of health. I don't think it should be a safe escape, I don't think I should be in a position to re-engage after.

The strengths of a fighter should be having just enough tankiness to survive an evenly matched team-fight if played well, while having comparable damage to an assassin or ADC when in melee range. What I mean by this on the damage side of things is, an assassin should out-damage me with our first rotation, but afterwards my damage should overtake theirs because of their higher cooldowns. A fighter's damage should be fairly lower than an ADC's, but given the difference in tankiness, the ADC should die to a fighter if the fighter is not significantly cc'ed while trying to get in range.

That being said, their weaknesses should the engaging part and the counterplay should be to cc them/ kite them before they get in range. A fighter gets superior defenses and offenses in exchange for losing out on range, multi-target abilities, and their engage. Divers should have strong enagage, but weaker offensive and/or defensive stats and/or making it hard to stay on someone after the initial engage (someone flashes Vi dash, long cooldown prevents her from getting up to you again). Juggernauts should have worse engagement than most fighters, but gain in other areas (staying in range once in it, multi-target abilities, higher scalings, or tankier, etc.).

So all Fighters should have the weaknesses of being harder to recover if behind(because of range and susceptibility to CC). Juggernauts should have the further weakness of poor engagement, while having good stickiness. And Divers should have the further weakness of bad stickiness, but the strength of good engagement.

Going back to the 1v3, 1v4, 1v5 thing. If you have superior defenses and damage, but your weakness is staying in range (whether it be engagement, or stickiness) you should be able to do straight-up better in a fight 1v1 than a non-fighter, and thus if you play well you should be able to 1v2 if you aren't fed. If we assume that, then if you are fed, you should be able to 1v3 if you play well/outplay your opponents. 1v4, on the other hand should only be possible (in my opinions) as a fighter if you are fed and either they were significantly weakened to begin with or they are really bad/meseed up a lot. And still then, if they have any CC at all, you should have a high risk of death. 1v5 should just straight up never happen except under the most extreme conditions (entire team fed, just a complete stomp, and they have almost no CC). If 1v4s and 1v5s become common, then they need nerfs/ rebalances.

Given the Op's insights on winrates, this is probably the reason why people feel they are in a bad spot. They aren't hitting their fantasy anymore of 1v2s and 1v3s, which means they can't split push like they used to.

Black Jesus1/29/2018, 9:29:48 AM1 votes

The problem is 4 season riven/jax/renek/irelia one-tricks struggling against first time mao/ornn players.

HavinABadTiem1/28/2018, 9:26:56 PM1 votes

Nasus has an incredibly high win rate over a large number of games across all elos as of late, but that's because his kit is simple and instills a specific playstyle over someone like Aatrox or Gangplank. I mention those two because they are far more complicated and have an even higher recent winrate somehow.