My gripes with Season 6 and some suggested changes

A bit of background: In previous seasons, I played pretty much every role in the game, in season 3 I played mostly Tankplank top and Tristana ADC, but I supported or jungled when required to. In season 4 I narrowed down my play into mostly Tristana ADC and Vi/Udyr jungle. In season 5 I enjoyed the simplistic gameplay of Udyr in the jungle, not the cheesy style that has been adopted, but more of a tanky bruiser and team fighter. After Tristana's rework, I was hesitant to continue playing her, but eventually adapted to the changes made and continued to enjoy the champion. By the time season 6 came along, both of these champions were practically useless, and I decided to give mid lane a go with Cassiopeia and Brand, eventually both of these champions hit the rework block, and are actually in a much better spot than they were when compared to other mid laners. The last season pushed me away from the jungle and ADC roles entirely, and I'd like to discuss why.

Bot lane meta shift: Previously, bot lane felt like it was all about winning trades in lane, and either pushing your opponent out of lane to gain a CS lead or tower damage, or eventually going for an all in trade. In season 6, that all changed, I remember the first time I played ADC in the preseason, it felt gimmicky. The entire laning phase all you did was heal. Kill a minion... +30 hp, attack a minion gain, health back. Between the mastery changes and the new dorans items, both you and your opponents were full hp practically the entire laning phase unless someone made a serious play. The further we got into the season, the more I realized I no longer enjoyed bot lane. It never really felt like I had much of an impact on the lane at all, if someone died it involved either another lane roaming or a gank, sometimes both. The clown fiesta is born.

Jungle meta shift: So... I fell back to playing jungle. In previous seasons, the jungle was all about outsmarting the enemy jungler, warding his paths, watching him gank, observing his health, and predicting where he'd show up next. Ganks and counter ganks felt calculated and rewarding; and farming in between ganks helped you stay in the game. The only thing I wasn't pleased with was the presence of junglers who would completely focus on farm the entire game, neglecting their lanes, a lot of the time this was caused by the infinitely stacking items that were eventually removed. Now, starting in season 6, Udyr was shoved out of the meta in favor of junglers that could provide the kill pressure required to win games. I felt like if I cleared my jungle, one of my lanes would get ganked within the first four minutes. If I wanted to get a gank in, I would be forced to ask my laners to play passively, and hope that I was near when their lane made a mistake. Now, junglers who could clear extremely fast, and or had the ability to gank constantly were dominant. I dread seeing Vi, Hecarim, Kha'Zix, Lee Sin, Evelynn, Twitch, Zac, Ivern or Rengar in any of my games. I cannot out-gank them, and once they have a successful gank... the impact is so much larger than it felt like in previous seasons. Towers are easy to dive, and even easier to destroy. A single successful gank often decides the outcome of a lane, and to execute a counter gank became almost unheard of. Duels last seconds, the burst created from the combined keystones of a jungler and their lane drains the health pool of an unsuspecting opponent quicker than you can run from a side bush into lane. So, dreading being the reason my team lost, I started playing mid.

The jungle has an enormous impact on mid as well, this season practically requires passive play in order to not be punished from the enemy jungler, and to allow your jungler to capitalize on an over extension. The amount of games that are decided on the jungle match up alone is disgusting, and I feel like my impact as a laner has become insignificant when compared to a jungler. And the jungle has become a coin flip, will your cheese gank work? Will theirs? I recall Riot mentioning something about wanting to move away from solo play and move towards team based play, but I feel like this is a mistake. Team based play has its place, but I feel like the competitive nature of the game has been significantly reduced, especially at lower rankings.

The changes in season 6, and the forcing of team play upon the community has resulted in something that I find uncompetitive in nature. The solution? I'm not sure, but I think we need to reduce the amount of sustain in the game, and reduce the amount of damage that is dealt in the early game to compensate for the mastery changes. I also think that there needs to be more vision options late game, perhaps pink ward slots and more trinket options for supports and junglers exclusively. Perhaps having smite allows exclusive purchasing of trinkets? Obviously none of these are be all end all solutions, but I do think the present state of the game needs change.