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Riot killed all the fun champions

L Psy Kongroo··2 votes·957 views

Twitch, Talon, Viegar, Shaco, LeBlanc, and Kassadin. All of them destroyed by nerfs, either recently or in the past. All of them unplayable, or close to it. I mean sure, you CAN play Shaco..........maybe in silver where people don't bother to invade you or ward early. And I guess Twitch is KINDA playable...........but why bother when Lucian and Tristana exist? Want to play Talon? Zed is laughing at you all the way to the bank with the money he gets from owning your ass. Come to think of it, the only truly successful changes Riot has made in the past year are to Viktor. But I fail to see why playing Viktor is better than playing Xerath, or Ziggs, or (again) Zed.

I've come to the conclusion that Riot must have it out for me personally; I swear to god every single champion I've ever found fun in this game has either been nerfed to hell or is in such a piss poor state that you might as well afk in base to save your lane opponent the trouble. Darius comes to mind here, as does Olaf, Anivia, Volibear, and Nautilus. I simply can't understand the logic behind putting all the effort into creating 100+ champions but only having ~20 be viable. Not everyone enjoys playing hyper-mobile carries like Lee, Kalista, Yasuo, or Zed. Some of us have different tastes, yet Riot continues time and again to cater to only one type of player.

I ask you: what's the point? What keeps you playing when your favorite champions are left in the dust?

16 Comments

The Drewprint5 votes

If you stop having fun playing the champs you listed, then you deserve to feel upset about their nerfs.

I am thoroughly convinced 90% of this community is allergic to challenges in this game. You expect to breeze through a lane when you enjoy playing the champ you select, then complain when you get outplayed or when you can't carry the rest of your team if you're ahead and they fall behind.

Suck it up and develop new strategies for them. Riot doesn't have to cater to your every whim. Chances are they might buff said champs in the near future, but I'm sure you knew that.

Dreadlocks2 votes

Yeah its kinda funny that point you made. Basically everyone wants their champion pool to be OP but the counters to their champion pool should suck so much shit the game is a breeze.

Dreadlocks3 votes

Talon is still really fun to me :)

Stephenizgod1 votes

Talon is still really good, strong, and fun.

The new Veigar changes make him more fun to play and, in my opinion as someone who has actually played him on the PBE, make him better overall.

Darius counters a lot of popular champions such as Riven and Nasus.

Volibear is OP... idk how you are getting he is weak, he is ridiculously strong.

Nautilus too is really strong.

Anivia can be really strong with the correct team comp, her slows, stuns, and raw damage is not to be underestimated.

Olaf, well he can be good too in the right hands but ill hafta agree with you there are better picks for what he does.

Dreadlocks1 votes

I'm not going to argue against the point that volibear naut and anivia being strong, I will say that they are 'specialty' picks meaning.. their are other champions who do what they do just as good and have other options if they cant accomplish those goals. For example. Look at Nautilus, amazing CC and durability (tank). Lets compare Him to say Vi..., Vi has 2 Knock ups, some mobility with Q, can easily build tanky and still do a crap ton of damage. Not to mention Naut's abilities (aside from his R) can be reduced with Tenacity, Vi's Q/R cannot via Knockup.

Stephenizgod1 votes

The point is that these champions are not weak or useless, i rarely lose Volibear top unless they are ranged. Nautilus has so much tank, CC, and damage that most people dont know what to do against him. Once Aniv hits level 6 you cant out push her (at this point she usually has some mana items). They are not a 'specialty' as one would think, they are underestimated which makes them very dangerous to fight.

Now compare Naut to Vi and yea Vi is all around better, but the existence of Vi does not hinder Naut. Ban Vi and pick Naut now you have a champion who accomplishes the same thing as Vi, albeit to a lesser extent, but more tanky. In my opinion most of the time Naut is better, because he gains damage the tankier he gets where Vi needs to build both Tank and Damage to be effective. Plus this opens up top lane to a hypercarry or a late game champ like Jax so they arent forced into being a tank.

Dreadlocks1 votes

I think you are missing my point. Its not that X champ is bad and X champ is good. Its that X champ is more viable in multiple team comps.

Stephenizgod1 votes

and im saying it only appears that way at first.

Dreadlocks1 votes

What do you mean? Cause the way I see it, The champion pool at a competitive lvl is so small for the reason I just stated.

Stephenizgod1 votes

Thats only because the Pro's can use those champions at their maximum potential to make them look or seem superior (obviously some champions are better at higher levels of play then others). A champion like Volibear can be used at close to his maximum potential by pretty much anyone though and, in my opinion, this makes him more viable then someone like Lee Sin or Vi. Volibear's build is simple and takes him down the tank=damage item path which makes him incredibly useful in a ton of situations, he has amazing teamfight ability as well as 1v1 ability, his CC is great for isolating one champion, he has mobilty to escape and engage. Why do i see this as better then Vi? Not everyone can use Vi to do what anyone can use Volibear to do. The only reason someone picks Vi over Volibear is because the pros can use Vi better then Volibear. Thus people mistakenly believe Vi is better then Volibear, this is false she is not better she is just flashier and the 'plays' she makes seem more impactful.

People tend to follow what the pros do, that doesnt mean those 20 champions are the best of the best for all levels of play, overall i would say Volibear is more useful in more levels of play then Vi is. Most Vi's i see either do really well early game then fall off late game or do terrible early game then get tanky late game. Most Volibears i see do really well pretty much all game and only get stronger in late game.

To summarize: Why pick Volibear over someone like Vi? Because you will most likely do better with Volibear then Vi if you just gave him a chance.

mvargus1 votes

actually the champion pool at the competitive level is small because of the level of risk the professionals are willing to accept.

Most of the champions are viable in the right team composition and with a good plan. However, they also understand the truism that "no plan survives contact with the enemy." and their job requires that their team win or they might end up out of a contract. So they have to build team compositions and plans that have a high level of flexibility so they can minimize the risk that their team comp will prove unusable once they run into the other team. Losses like the time that CLG won in about 25 minutes with a kill score of only 4-0 because Team Curse couldn't counter their team comp are to be avoided at all costs.

That means taking Nautilus as a jungler while extremely viable, isn't what the pro teams look for because he almost forces the team into certain tactics that they can't be sure won't be countered. They end up with just 2-3 champions for each position being considered flexible enough to use, even if they aren't necessarily the most powerful.

It's part of why I won't watch the LCS. It's just dull because the risk adversity that exists at that level ruins the fluidity and fun of the game and turns it into something else.

Dreadlocks1 votes

This is exactly what i am saying. :/ so yeah agreed.

NoMonku1 votes

If you want to look at it from the flipside, why is it fair for the champions that you like and play be able to dump on others when they have unhealthy aspects to them? I noticed all the champions you listed have been considered OP in the past and a lot of their gameplay involved little to no counterplay, which is why they got their nerfs. I will say now, though, that I don't know how new jungle affects Shaco, I'm just assuming he isn't as good in it, but I won't comment on him.

Twitch was basically Draven 1.6 before he got his nerfs. His DoT did a significant amount of dmg which was comparable to Dravens old passive before it got reworked into his new gold on kill one. Also his Q, his ability called "ambush" was being used to ESCAPE from enemy ganks when he pushed incredibly far up into lane. I don't know about you, but I've never really used an ambush to escape from people.

Talon, LB, and Kass all had their silences removed because they have phased out silences on assassins. The worst abuse case was LB who could Q->E which silence + tether slows the person into a root into ANOTHER tether for a total of 4 seconds of root without a chance to use ANY Abilities. There is NO counterplay in it because you can't use any abilities once she silences you. The only way is to take cleanse, but you won't have that up every time she has a spell rotation. They removed to silence so now she can't guarentee a 100-0 at level 6 and has to poke down more first. For Kass, it was so he wouldn't have such an easy time in lane. His Q basically allowed him to go toe to toe with champions who were stronger then him because he could negate their ability to retaliate. Also lategame this was the same problem, though it hurt more since he had a LOT more dmg then in laning phase. For Talon, I was sad to see it go, but since they phased out most of the other silences, it seemed reasonable. Also he was just 100-0 most targets, so at least this way the person has a chance to flash/dash/zhonyas and possibly live, since RIOT has been pushing counterplay.

For Veigar, he needed these changes. He was one of the older champions, close to the launch of the game. He had a LOT of OP values in his kit that clashes horribly with the way the game has evolved to today, which is why he got changed. To me his worst aspects were his E and his R. His E is a moderate CD AoE Stun that you can be easily landed on a primary target, in which he and his team goes to nuke to death. His stun has a LOT of power for a non ultimate ability, so it getting nerfed made sense. For his R, I guess it goes along with the rest of his abilities, but his mana costs were TOO HIGH. He needed them nerfed. Also his AP ratios were very high for abilities that if he had be created recently, it would not have been so.

shadecrapper1 votes

Well they hate AP assassins, even if they say they don't they do. There are tiers of champions, the problem is the kings now are there because everyone has been nurfed but them.

IcyPepper1 votes

Shaco is not fun to play against, even if he's easily beatable.

He KS's his own teammates (yes, I hate it when the enemy does this. Junglers should not be as kill-dependent as their laners), goes invisible (god forbid I have a pink ward in my inventory and just slap it on the ground), his boxes are annoying but easy enough to manage, and his ultimate is, well, ridiculous if not used well. Seriously, don't use it in lane while you're farming, because we're going to see which Shaco levels up. -_-

He's annoying because of how players play him. He's skill based, not raw stat based, and nobody's capitalizing on that. Imagine LeeSin with the difficulty of Sona and you'll get my drift.

insaiyanbacca1 votes

huh ive played against diamonds and plats as shaco and done just fine

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