Is it time for the snowballs to melt?

Aryan Coconut·May 21, 2015·2 votes·497 views

While I love the attention ARAM has been getting recently, I am not a huge fan of the snowball spell. It seems to change the balance from "Who can do the most with the champions they have" to "who has a tanky champ with some sort of pull/flip/knockback." I have never seen anything like what Alistar, Singed and Volibear can do to the balance of an otherwise close game. The Bull is by far the worst however.

The long range skill shot on a 20 second cooldown means he just sits back until he lands a snowball. Once he does, he dashes, knocks everyone up, walks two steps past his target and knocks them into his waiting team. And with the healing rework, his heal spell has him regen all of the damage he took in no time.

So all he has to do to win is: (A) learn an easy three move combo and then (B) build health, as his ult will do most of the tanking for him.

I've been thinking for hours about how to beat it, but all I can come up with is dropping heavy cc on him and retreating. Even that, however, gives the enemy team a HUGE chance to drop all of their skills on you, as you no longer have any skills to trade them with. And that's assuming you even have any cc.

I understand that tanks were meant to benefit from snowball the most, and I like the fact that you guys have been working on balancing my favorite game mode and map, but the snowball seems borderline abusive.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but maybe snowballs should be removed from ARAM? Or the cooldown could be lengthened to give us some time to get some counter play in between casts? Or maybe this is a good chance to make a new permanent game mode on the Howling Abyss that features the snowball?

Anyway, thanks to all that read and consider!

5 Comments

lightdragoon88May 21, 20152 votes

It has gotten some nerfs on the PBE.

Now it is 40 second cooldown

And it range is now this long:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R-Bi2JtLKME/VVpNzc3OlqI/AAAAAAAADCk/R0chhPirJEQ/s1600/markpbe.jpg

As you can see...that is much shorter and more fare.

Aryan CoconutMay 21, 20151 votes

That seems much more reasonable. Thanks for the info! :D

lightdragoon88May 21, 20152 votes

Yeah considering we can seem them when they throw them now, it already feels more reasonable.

Lights And MagicMay 21, 20151 votes

They're the only things that makes melee champions viable in aram

Aryan CoconutMay 21, 20151 votes

I assume you are talking about the snowballs? Little difficult to tell.

If so, I disagree. I've seen plenty of Master Yis and Fioras dominate matches. I've seen Akali Rengar and Kha Zix decimate squishies in the backline. I have seen (and been) Garen tanking the whole enemy team and walking out alive with a kill and 3 assists. Amumu ends team fights with his 5 man stuns. And I've seen it all done without the snowball Mark/Dash

And there are plenty of other examples I'm sure. While I completely agree that melee champs are at an inherent disadvantage in ARAM and can appreciate the attempt at balancing the range difference, the snowball now makes it very difficult to kite or safely skirt the edges of a team fight. The bushes may as well not exist either, as someone always seems to throw a snowball in them.

I'm not trying to make sure we go back to the days where having a Nidalee on the enemy team ensured a very painful game, but ARAM seems to be strongly biased towards tanks with strong cc, much like the Rift has been recently.

It would be nice if one style of play didn't dominate the game right? Isn't that what Riot has been aiming for? Diverse play?