Tried to give Doom Bots its fair shot

This is largely a repost from GD, that I quick cleaned up a bit(poorly) and I wanted to bring it over to a different audience and hopefully catch some Rioter attention. I really, really loved this mode when it was first released. I largely don't play League of Legends anymore because I just don't agree with the balancing decisions that have been made in the last two years and the game just lost its appeal in the six years that I've played it. However, when I saw my favorite game mode was coming back, I just had to try playing it again. Unfortunately, after I read a little bit more into it, I was... slightly disheartened with the changes that were incoming. I did not really like Nexus Siege, and I was even less thrilled Doom Bots was to be played in a similar manner just without any attacking phase. Despite the feeling of reluctance, I still gave it a fair shot...mostly because I just quit my raiding guild on WoW and I wanted something different to play, but I digress. Below is my 1 hour experience with the game mode, that being said, I didn't experience every bot that was available, but I imagine that the results and the feelings that I harbor for the reworked mode would stay the same regardless.

> Game 1. > Noticed everybody was picking ranged champions with the exception of a Diana. I just wanted to play my girl Poppy since I haven't played since May, and felt maybe giving us a knock back would be good, just in case things got really outta hand. > Diana, Jinx, Zyra, Victor, Poppy. Vs Heimer, Malz, Ezreal, Brand, Ziggs. We lost. Went bot side, Diana followed for some reason. Malz Ezreal zerg rushed our tower down really early and things just fell apart from there. when it came to base defense, we were pretty solid despite the choice of picking a tank not being a good idea. I was killed by brand and Malz so often and so quickly, I honestly didn't know what happened half the time. Teemo spawns, waddles down lane while Brand/Malz made it for certain that our creep waves just didn't exist at all and the game ended before teemo ever step foot into our base.

That felt awful. Clearly ranged champions or ones with really powerful wave clear are good in this mode. Thats pretty boring.

> Game 2. PIck Kayle, Reasoning: "Cleave their creep waves before they cleave mine." Works great. They really don't kill us much because they really can't push us too hard early on. We were Zillian, Orianna, Kindred, MF and Kayle, vs, Veigar, Annie, Blitz, Udyr, Morgana. Lots of life saving potential, we got this maybe? Nope. Teemo spawns, really can't stop him for some reason. We lose.

Thought that was a bit more fun than the first one, but still didn't feel good to lose. This permanent defense thing is really annoying.

> Third game. Pick Varus. Reasoning: Long range, high powered snipe potential! I suck as Varus though, so it nearly wasn't as awesome as it could have been probably. Really wasn't sure what to build, so I just built straight AD to amp my windrunner arrow up to as powerful as it could get. Wasn't as strong as I thought it was going to be. Anyway... > Varus, Xerath, Jihn, Mf and Vel koz vs Annie, Blitz, Heimer, Trist and Malz. > Game going great. So much long range made this ridiculously easy so far, with kills piling up. Play of the game goes to Jihn, MF and myself with an amazing triple R combo play that completely shredded their team with the exception of Blitz who ran away with a massive mana shield. Felt really good, gave MF the quadra and we were rolling. Teemo spawns, things get hectic, but not out of control. Teemo dies before he steps into our base.

Yay we won, but it didn't feel that great. Best moment was only the wombo combo set up with Chain of Corruption, everything else was pretty flat.

What I did like: I thought some of the bots abilities were interesting at times and how broken they were was pretty humorous. Udyr's jungle creep pulling was probably the best I've seen from these three short ones that I have played. I liked the curses a lot. Brush fires, Akali shroud, electrified allied towers... the random Ryze ult. That one I really loved.

What I didn't like: Brand. Malzahar. These two sucked so much of the fun out of the game. Multiple spawning pillars of fire, constant zerg rush. That felt awful, especially at the same time. -Teemo. You coulda picked anybody else, you coulda done Mecha Nashor, but instead continued to play on the "Teemo= Satan" meme. I dunno, didn't have any effect on the fun, just thought it was a little lame. -Permanent Defense. This is the real killer of the mode. Being stuck on a permanent defense just isn't fun and almost forces players to pick long ranged champions to exploit the bots poor AI. This also poses a question, what we learned from the original doom bots is that they couldn't properly counter split push tactics. So instead of creating anti splitpushing mechanics, or upgrading the Bot AI, was the only other viable option was just cut the map in half? Its already been shown that its possible to allow the bots to use other skills like TF's "Gate" which they do to take dragon, and that its also possible to have towers preform different effects, ala Victors ult on our towers, and Fortify. Couldn't we just have their towers deal additional damage/call for help the bots and allow use of gate/ Fortify splash damage+ additional defense/hell, call a Nexus laser ala Nexus Siege under certain circumstances when splitpushing is attempted? Honestly, I didn't think too hard on possible work arounds.

Conclusion- The new Doom Bots is lack luster and disappointing. Playing against the original doom bots even made losing fun, losing against these bots just feels aggravating because, even if we do well early, you still "lose" and have to play defense for 20 minutes and deal with a rather boring "boss". The original concept of "overcome and counter attack" was just a lot more fun to play. While the bots have interesting new abilities, when some of these abilities are combined and added together on a forced defense, it really sucks all the fun out. (Malz/Brand.) So much of your chance to win feels like its completely dependent on which bots you're forced to fight against, and thats really not fun. This mode has so much potential, and a lot of room for improvement.