Like...how casual can you be? That's like a fundamentals of pvp games sort of thing. What type of shit counter could you have where you have a delay on the start-up, then ANOTHER DELAY on the tail end of the animation? If you want a casual game, you can play HotS.
Like what type of...
Aptest2 votesI have been giving this exact question some thought. Please bare with me.
To make skill difference between the players cause the win in a scenario, the outcome has to be determined by the players rather than the characters. Therefore some uncertainty of outcome has to exist if we look at the character's kits alone.
where does this uncertainty come from? it can come from luck (crit% and other random BS) which is BS, or it can come from the ability of players to force skill checks on one another and pass them.
You can divide all skill checks into three types: strategic, reactive and predictive.
A reactive skill check is basically this: you see an animation start and then you have X amount of time to input a response. If you input a correct response you can evade the enemy skill shot or stun your opponent or whatever. Predictive skill checks are, you have to commit to your response before you see your opponent's move start.
At a high level of skill AND low level of lag, reactive skill checks do not produce variance in outcome. Once you reach X level of skill you can safely assume players will flash X skill-shot successfully. Predictive skill check however are still able to produce skill-based variance in outcome, however they are heavily biased towards the attacker (the person who forces the skill check) as long as the amount of lag is minimal.
With that said, there is a case to be made for making Riposte have a casting time. I don't know if that is a correct choice, but the argument can be made.
chipndip12 votesWhat you wrote is actually A1 quality...except the conclusion.
Here's the thing: Defensive maneuvers are ALWAYS reactive. That's how they function. Imagine if Janna's shield had a cast time? Imagine if Lulu's R had a cast time? Imagine if Kench's allied W had a cast time? All these moves would be way worse because you wouldn't be able to reliable block or peel damage anymore. Meanwhile, offensive maneuvers are almost always predictive (I'd use proactive, but it's fine either way). If you could take an offensive maneuver and just never miss, you end up having game play woes akin to someone like Sona or Xin Zhao, number pumpers that just win out or die trying based on the strength of their itemization rather than the merits of the champ themselves.
Riposte is primarily a defensive move. It makes no sense to force someone to use it like an offensive move for a defensive situation. Sona's cast time on R makes sense because it's good on defense, but it's rather good on offense too if the enemy missteps, hence the delay on it. Other moves offer a large amount of offensive presence, but can miss, which effects how much delay is applied. Karthus, for example, just doesn't miss, and thus has a ton of delay. Soraka, on the other hand, is entirely defensive, and thus hers is instantaneous as soon as she presses R. Kinda get the difference?
Aptest1 votesNot sure I reached any conclusion yet.
I think my core issue with reactive skills is that at the high level, low lag play, a reactive skill used to pass a skill check does not represent a pvp experience anymore. In that I mean, despite the fact that you are issued a "check", you are not tested against the other player, but rather you are tested against the computer.
You make a really bad argument. It is essentially, things are as they are, therefore it is good that they are at they are. I.E, currently in the game riposte is a reactive skill. Therefore and because riposte is also a defensive skill, it should be a reactive skill. There's a bit of cyclic logic here, i hope you can see it better than i explain it.
Yes skills like riposte, tidal/trickster, janna shield etc would absolutely be "worse" if they are left as they are but given opportunity to "miss". But is leaving them as reliable as they are the best situation in the game? I do not know.
here is an example of what I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9XC56NokbI
here is how i see a jump-in response VS the haduken in this video
As you can see there is some value to making the defensive move risky, and this can be compensated with power on the move.
So i think the big question is this: can we make defensive skills predictive, without losing out on their ability to function?
chipndip11 votesActually, let's use that Hadoken example a bit more:
Let's say Player 1 shoots a fireball, right? Advantage is a ranged attack, but the downside is that they're left doing the follow-through animation of the attack after it leaves for x frames. Doing it closer gives less reaction time, but doing it farther away makes it easier to dodge.
Player 2 is now reacting to that fireball. If he were to simply block, blocking in and of itself is instantaneous. The downside is that you take chip damage from special moves + you're left in a state of block stun where the guy on offense can continue to pressure you, but you can rest easy that you either fully block or mostly block incoming attacks (unless thrown, but that over-complicates the example).
Now let's translate this to League. If I were to use a shield while someone's throwing out...let's say a Ziggs ult, the shield comes out immediately, and the advantage is that I get to block the damage of the attack as much as the shield allows. We can relate LoL shields to fighting game blocks.
Now let's say Player 2 jumped, then tried to attack back. For this, Player 2 could clear the attack but miss his own attack, clear the attack and land his counter-attack, or just fuck it all up. With this said, the properties for jumps in SF start up instantly, as well. You're immune to throws as soon as you hit up, even if your character isn't off the floor yet.
Now, let's translate this back to our main point. Fiora's W works a lot like that jumping response (I mean, it ACTUALLY works like a counter, since it's a counter, but Idk how much you know about fighting games). The defensive portion of this reaction, the ability soaking wind-up, needs to start up instantly because it's mainly used for a reaction to an incoming attack. The OFFENSIVE part of this move, the stab, behaves like the kick after the jump. It COULD miss. It COULD hit. It's not instant. It's not protected. The offensive part of the move is telegraphed and dodge-able, but less so for the person she's countering. It's her reward for using the move properly, similar to how it's foolish to just randomly jump in SF unless you want to eat Shoryukens to the crotch on repeat, but doing so properly allows you to dodge and land hits you wouldn't be able to all while avoiding chip damage outright.
The point I'm getting at here is that a defensive move needs to be snappy because what's the point of a defensive move if you have to predict farther ahead of time than the person that's trying to decide how to attack you? Offensive moves, on the other hand, have wide variety in terms of delay based on the payout and purpose of the move. Fiora's W has both these concepts playing into it at the same time in ways that make logical sense. There's no need to tack on extra conditions to it.