A large part of this early-game Meta is classes spiking heavily with one item/reduced item delays.

I'm not going to go into details about the current Rune system, because I think it injects too many stats into the game and doesn't so much offer 'choice' so much as it drastically changes match-ups to whoever can abuse it better (Tank? Take conquerer. Can abuse this champion with poke heavily early? Take Aery/Scorch, etc.)

Most classes now spike hard with one item, well except Crit ADCs (besides with ).

With many of the itemisation changes recently, champions have gotten stronger damage spikes earlier in the game. This contributes to the overall 'snowball' feeling of the game.

For instance, the obvious choice, AD Assassins currently spike with . Although, I think the item in itself is problematic, I don't think Assassins spiking early is a bad thing since it's what they're designed to do. Unfortunately, we don't often get to the part of the game where their itemisation and also kit becomes inefficient (being outscaled, teams grouping)

People raved over the Mage itemisation changes, saying it 'fixed' choices, when really it just forced mages to spike harder at one item than before. The previous iteration of wasn't a 'Oh crap that mage is gonna burst me' item. It was the 'Alright, I can start grouping for fights without running out of mana' item. Sure, it was a jack-of-all trades item and did a lot of things right - Mana sustain, 100AP, 20% CDR - But it was never a strong bursty item. Mages damage would become burstier towards the mid-game, where burstier mages such as and would opt into . If a mage were building before Morellos, it was only because they were fed and sitting on . This combination had its upsides - Higher burst, better poke, better waveclear but much worse sustain towards mid-game. I don't want to get into and how much this warps AP itemisation but I do want to say I don't think enjoy how much power it staggers in Mages' kits - Buy it and feel like suddenly you do damage, bypass it and feel mediocre. Now, all you do is rush and suddenly you do a hell of a lot more damage and earlier - but your mana sustain is awful.

has always been the 'spike really hard first item', and it always should be. Users of this item (normally melee fighters/bruisers, etc.) have to gain relevancy through a lead early as they gradually fall off in relevance later in the game. It's expensive and generally users of this only build this and/or 1 more offensive item before dedicating themselves to , etc. I think Conquerer does a little too much come later into the game against tanks - not saying tanks are supposed to win the fight, but not get melted so easily without them dedicating at least some sort of armour-shred item.

Supports. Yep, Supports. Even supports now no longer need to dedicate gold to first upgrade their gold income item - and then an extra 800g on top for vision control (old sightstone). This might have been a better-feeling change for the support role, but instead of needing to spend that 800g on health and wards, it's instead invested into whatever first item they best synergise with. Brand, for instance, can rush his / / earlier without paying heavily into having lower vision control. His and many other supports' scaling comes online earlier without the old sightstone 'ward tax'.

Although, probably not the most significant, the use of red/blue and the unavailability of the warding option now introduces damage back where other junglers would normally opt instead for vision. Not the greatest amount of 'extra' damage, as this assumes certain junglers would instead go the warding option, but nonetheless contributes to the extra early damage pressure.

The introduction of 'one-item wonders' does also contribute to this creep. These items each have had their share of large balancing issues, generally warping the meta (less-so for Hexdrinker - I main mages and sure the item is annoying but I wouldn't say it's busted). changes lane dynamics by preventing all-ins within periods where some champion classes need to get leads. Sure, you might say it only has 1-use, but we can see the creep this item has slowly drawn into the game. Able to have your early all-in opportunity denied? (in higher elos, I'm sure these opportunities generally become more scarce, as well) well then create more opportunities either by raising damage, mobility or changing laning interactions - Cannon buffs and minion wave changes are resultant of this decreased interaction in lane. made fighters/bruisers largely irrelevant when it was overtuned and extended trades - where melee fighters are supposed to supersede tanks, made them come out with less of a healthy trade - potentially even losing it. And this is where conquerer came in, as well as sterak changes, etc. and now everything has kind of creeped out of control. We need less 'one-item wonders' so that vulnerabilities within classes can't just be covered with simply 2000-3000 gold. If a tank invests in , then they're not going to be dueling/trading well, but they'll be much better at pushing the wave. If a tank invests in , then they know they'll be more relevant in fights and a bit more of a deterrence for the fighter to duel (although the fighter should still win, if they're itemising, csing and trading correctly) but they'll have a hell of a time waveclearing - and that's the weakness the fighter can abuse to instead push their lead elsewhere.

I think the current issues with what we perceive as 'meta' are more intertwined than we think. When we say 'less damage' we really mean less of a culmination of all of these factors that have gradually creeped the game to the point where making one mistake results in a severe deficit.