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Ryze and Nasus: a look at balance at different levels of play

The Ecdysiast··3 votes·2,691 views

Ryze Ryze is the worst champion in the game on average performance-wise. That's because he has the absolute best ultimate for a coordinated team to have. He maintains a 52% win rate in professional play because of that, despite continuous nerfs plummeting his win rate to only 46% even in Master, Challenger, and Diamond, getting progressively lower with rank to as low as 38% in Iron.

And why has he been kept essentially in the dumpster for so long despite incredibly poor performance for almost the entire player base outside of professionals? Because Ryze is not balanced around the average player. He's balanced around the pros. And you might think all champions are balanced around the pros, but that's not the case. Especially when we address changes like the adjustments to Galio, Taliyah, Ornn, Sejuani,and Kalista that were specifically aimed at pushing them out of pros and into the hands of the normal players.

Nasus That's where Nasus comes in. Sitting at a 0.14% pick rate in pros, with a 45% win rate even despite only being picked in the best matchups for him, it's safe to say Nasus isn't picked in professional play. And he shouldn't be. Looking at his kit, he supplies almost nothing to a team while having the easiest possible kit to counter as a coordinated team.

So, just as Ryze is mainly balanced around his strengths in a professional setting, Nasus should be adjusted around his strength in the setting where he's actually picked and is most difficult to coordinate against-- low-to-mid rank Solo Queue. Granted, many of Nasus's issues stem from him being wholly outdated and in need of a complete overhaul. But while we wait for that, he should not be receiving flat buffs to his damage or defense like he has been, because those are exactly the kind of buffs that punish low ranking players more while not having any positive effect against the players who have a better chance at properly coordinating against him.

This trend certainly isn't limited to just Ryze and Nasus, but they were the most prominent examples that came to mind when I sought out to address this topic.

8 Comments

Syrile2 votes

Just check the mid lane tier lists. It is flooded with assassins with overloaded kits that are overpowered, have an abysmal skill-floor, and constantly receive buffs now (or indirect buffs /and/ buffs, such as nerfs to tanks and tank supports), all because Riot wants flashy plays in eSports with the hyper-mobile champions that insta-kill you.

This design utterly ruins all levels of play but is crushing at low-to-mid levels, but even at Master+ is overwhelming.

These are issues I have brought up a ton and Riot only seeks to make them worse because they do not understand that this is a business model that will lead to failure. It does for every company that takes this path.

In contrast to this, Riot seems to want to eliminate strategic or tactical skill from the game almost entirely. Other than new or newly reworked champions, they nerf almost all mages or strategic-type champions, unless they are very flashy as well (Zoe, Sylas, etc). They even gave a bit of a buff to Azir, but he tends to be flashy with the Shuffle and all.

The war on vision is another example of this. It weakens the ability to fight back against assassins and insta-burst, hyper-mobile champions, thus we see LeBlanc, Akali, etc in pro play all the time.

Every time pro players try to play around this (Urgot, for example), Riot will begin to nerf them and keep nerfing them, until they are finally pushed out in favor of someone flashier. Notice the buffs to Akali instantly broke her again? Sylas was already near the top of each lane he is good in at Master+ and they still buffed him. They further nerfed tank supports to make sure to push them out of the meta as much as possible and more will likely come if this does not work.

You can see further instances of this with Yasuo, especially, but others like Zed. Not only does Riot have no interest in fixing the ridiculous assassin-meta but they buffed Zed to bring him closer to the level of the others. Only assassins or champions with anti-assassin kits are viable, other than Zoe and she can definitely counter almost all of them if she is good enough. That is the thing though, they make even the weakest of player very "powerful" with these buffs so they feel like they are better than they are. This idea is to keep new players playing, but instead it drives them off in the long run.

3TWarrior1 votes

I don't know why this post was downvoted

the last time I made a list of strategic elements that had been removed from league, there were at least 13 things on it...

Syrile1 votes

{quoted}

I don't know why this post was downvoted

the last time I made a list of strategic elements that had been removed from league, there were at least 13 things on it...

Assassin mains. Yasuo mains. And lots of hate from players who want to feel super strong by pushing two buttons and their opponent having no chance to react, much less fight back.

Eedat2 votes

The game should never ever be balanced around low ELO. Balancing the game around people who have the least amount of understanding of the game is just crazy. Like even a trash tier champ like Amumu has a higher winrate in Bronze than Nasus. Does that mean we should nerf trash champs like Amumu because they do well in Bronze and aren't played in higher tiers because they're trash? No lol. Thats why they compromised on Plat+. Plat is an achievable goal for most players and is still the top 10% of players. Balancing around the players with at least a solid understanding of the game makes way more sense than those who have little to no understanding.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

{quoted}

The game should never ever be balanced around low ELO. Balancing the game around people who have the least amount of understanding of the game is just crazy. Like even a trash tier champ like Amumu has a higher winrate in Bronze than Nasus. Does that mean we should nerf trash champs like Amumu because they do well in Bronze and aren't played in higher tiers because they're trash? No lol. Thats why they compromised on Plat+. Plat is an achievable goal for most players and is still the top 10% of players. Balancing around the players with at least a solid understanding of the game makes way more sense than those who have little to no understanding.

Yeah... for champions that are actually played there. But champions whose kits inherently don't work in high ranks, that can't be the case. Because only insane stat buffs can make a champion who's beaten by coordination viable at high levels of play. And that should not be what a champion gets.

3TWarrior1 votes

if pros were composed of random teams, maybe the game would really be balanced

until then though, highly coordinated, premeditated team compositions rule professional balancing and wreck solo-queue balance

Hemulen Magi1 votes

I don't think pro play should be strongly factored in balancing. A few outliers like Ryze can be banned or counterpicked as pro players see fit to deal with them. Champions that thrive and shine in coordinated high level play should be allowed to be demonstrated by pro players in ways that are unlikely to occur in solo queue. That would at least bring something unique to pro play. I don't think that it improves the entertainment value to balance for pro play. I think it should just be left alone to evolve its own meta free from intentional interference.

I think the game should be balanced for around low platinum, which should make the game playable at both high and low divisions. Extreme high tiers like Challenger, Masters, and pro play have too few players to balance around and they will inevitably have a more restrictive meta than other levels of play. It may also be inevitable that there will always be a few pub-stomping champions in the very lowest brackets of Iron and Bronze.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hemulen Magi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=sXI9XEn4,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2019-03-12T06:17:41.686+0000)

I don't think pro play should be strongly factored in balancing. A few outliers like Ryze can be banned or counterpicked as pro players see fit to deal with them. Champions that thrive and shine in coordinated high level play should be allowed to be demonstrated by pro players in ways that are unlikely to occur in solo queue. That would at least bring something unique to pro play. I don't think that it improves the entertainment value to balance for pro play. I think it should just be left alone to evolve its own meta free from intentional interference.

I think the game should be balanced for around low platinum, which should make the game playable at both high and low divisions. Extreme high tiers like Challenger, Masters, and pro play have too few players to balance around and they will inevitably have a more restrictive meta than other levels of play. It may also be inevitable that there will always be a few pub-stomping champions in the very lowest brackets of Iron and Bronze.

But that still doesn't account for champions who, like Nasus, simply aren't picked once the teams are coordinated enough. Simply put, he needs a rework. But without that, giving him buffs solves nothing. He's still not picked at high levels. All it's done is make him even more oppressive at lower levels of play.

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