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Cinderhulk, The meta, and issues. (A view of what has happened.)

Vaelix·4/27/2015, 6:45:31 PM·2 votes·1,257 views

So its been a while now that Cinderhulk has been out, its gotten small nerfs and probably is getting a little more adjustment according to Riot. There have been a lot of complaints, which mainly get down voted under the justification of 'Well you just dont want Tanks to be viable', which is something I disagree with. This post will attempt to explain my issue with this mind set and why theres probably a little more to the arguement against Cinderhulk from most of us that make it.

Some people of course havent been playing the game since it was released, and missed the tank meta of the past, this meta we find ourselves in is alien to them and therefore they simply dismiss it and tanks as OP without really understanding whats occurring. I however have been around since the beginning of S2. I've seen Bruiser meta, Tank meta, Assassin Meta, Mage unholy grail meta, and of course, mobility meta, but realistically thats more of a sub-meta that has been prevalent for years now, regardless of the main meta/picks.

Now to start this out, I do not have a problem with tank meta. I'm perfectly fine with tanks being viable and am glad that they're back. But with that in mind, lets take a look at what happened when Cinderhulk came out.

Cinderhulk released. - Overnight the meta shifts. Tanks are back, and not only that, they're extremely oppressive unless the meta picks change. They do.

Top - People realize that Cinderhulk is extremely powerful and start taking smite, this limits the picks to those who can reliably lane without flash, mainly with an engage/disengage ult. Hecarim and Shyvana are the primary offenders of this.

Jungle - Moves over to Cinderhulk, tanks start scaling extremely hard and early pressure falls off. Engage / Disengage seems to reign supreme in Gragas and Sejuani.

Mid lane - Assassins become less prevalent and long range mages look more viable without assassins and early pressure. Utility mages like Orianna and Lulu start being picked for 'Protect the ADC' comps. Mid lane Corki becomes very appealing. Vladimir with sustained DPS and tankyness becomes popular with his Ult.

ADC - Hyper carries become popular, games are lasting longer, theres less early pressure to stop them, and you need someone to rip apart the tank. Urgot being tanky with %ArShred becomes popular.

Support - Engage / Disengage supports become more popular, you need more peel to keep your carry alive and/or disengage the enemy front line. Having engage helps your own front line.

To summarize this, Top starts using Cinderhulk, the Jungle starts using Cinderhulk, the Mid lane picks become more about preventing Cinderhulk tanks from engaging or being tanky themselves, ADC becomes about late game Cinderhulk tank shredding, Support becomes about helping your Cinderhulk tanks engage or disengaging their Cinderhulk tanks.

To summarize my post, those of us who have an issue with the current state of the game are not Tank hates, its not that we dislike a tank meta, and its certainly that we only want certain picks/roles to be viable. The issue we, or at least I, have, is that the item in itself completely warped the whole game, each role/lane, and how the game progressed, basically overnight. When a new item, champion, mechanic, whatever, is able to do something like that though its mere existence, its generally accurate to say there are at least some underlying issues with it.

Ending point : It is accurate to say that what I've outlined above isnt 100% of the games we're seeing. There is of course some variation. However, it is also safe to say the examples I've given are still very true, in more games than not.

2 Comments

Vistha Kai4/27/2015, 7:51:18 PM2 votes

Mage unholy grail meta

It's hardly a meta. since Morello was a worthless pickup. After the regeneration stats rework and multiple Athene nerfs, Morellonomicon was picked by everybody. But after Athene got buffed back into useful state, people still blindly, without respect rush Morello aganist AP teams and go OOM after 1-2 rotations of spells.

But that's slightly OT

Mandang04/27/2015, 7:42:32 PM1 votes

I wasn't going to write anything, but your post deserves a discussion, so I'll throw in my two cents.

Tank meta by itself isn't a problem. Tanks finally getting their day in the sun and assassins finally being knocked down a rung is a breath of fresh air. However, this isn't the same as saying cinderhulk is healthy or well-designed or that tanks are/aren't balanced. Personally, I have 2 big problems with the current meta:

**1) Smite top being forced by Riot's still-sloppy design of jungle items. ** It warps that lane and forces them to take smite, which sorta sucks for summoner spell diversity (yes, tp/flash wasn't any better, but that doesn't mean you go force something else instead).

2) Riot's covering up the balance of health vs damage itemization by shoving %HP kits down our throats. Remember how rare %HP damage used to be? Now you can't swing a cat without hitting a champ with that damage in their kit. Not saying it shouldn't exist, nor that it shouldn't come out during a tank meta, but it complicates balance between classes when the champions who want to stack health also excel against health stackers - it's a self-reinforcing meta. Whose damage should scale harder into lategame, the bruiser who builds 1-2 damage items or the tank who builds none?

So, in short, I agree with you. Good post!