Does anyone feel like bans are relatively pointless at this very moment in time?

MrNuclearPumpkin··12 votes·1,546 views

I remember when I was first playing, bans actually felt like a major thing. Bans were to remove the champions who at the time would demand the most presence and would give their team the biggest advantage. Renekton back in season 2, Kassadin pre-nerf/rework, Leblanc, Vayne, etc.

During the juggernaut update, you pretty much banned the juggernauts. At that time, Garen, Darius, Sej and a few others were just massively powerful. So you banned them to prevent the other team from having that advantage.

Remember Bronzodia? That was a fun time.

However at the moment it just feels like bans are... fairly pointless. There are so SO many champions that are just outrageously strong that even if you give every single player a ban (10 bans) it still wouldn't be enough.

There are so many God-Tier champions that even if you ban 10 of them, there's still a ton of champions who are just as strong if not stronger.

Let me just use this website as a guide, it's just one and it probably differs greatly from another one, but it's just one I'll use for now. http://www.nerfplz.com/2017/01/2017-best-champions-tier-list-solo_29.html

Mid Lane: Ahri, Ziggs, Talon, Quinn Jungle: Kha'Zix, Vi, Rengar Top Lane: Quinn, Pantheon, Jayce, Camille Marksman: Miss Fortune, Twitch, Caitlyn, Jhin Support: Janna, Soraka, Blitzcrank, Malzahar

As of right now there are only 6 bans. Using just this list alone with 19 God-Tier champions, you'd still be leaving open 13 God-Tier champions and even one of those champions go through, that team will grab that advantage therefore increasing their chances at victory.

Another problem with banning at this point is that a lot of the counters and checks to those champions are other god-tier champions, so if you ban a champion, you now put yourself at an even bigger disadvantage if one of those champions get through. Edit: I apologize for any errors in writing I may have made. It's 2:42am ><

For instance. Blitzcrank is very strong vs Soraka. However if you ban Blitzcrank and Soraka gets through, you just lost yourself that advantage you would have had if you allowed Blitzcrank through. In the same way, Malzahar is great into Blitzcrank because you have a lot of answers to the hook. You can place a voidling in front of the hook, if you do get hooked you have enough crazy damage to turn the fight and burst down the enemy ADC, or just turn on Blitzcrank himself. But if you ban Malzahar and Blitzcrank gets picked, you don't have that answer now. And so on and so forth.

So the question is, if there are so many champions that are ban-worthy, to the point that the number dwarfs the number of bans, is there even a point to banning at all?

20 Comments

Packun Flower5 votes

They are for now until we get 10 bans. There are so many problemetic champs slipping through the ban phase because there arent enough bans.

Yasuo Ziggs Syndra Katarina Khazix Zed Fizz Leblanc Akali Camille Rengar Hecarim Vi Shaco Jhin Jayce Caitlyn Darius Ekko

Ever since the season started i have played nothing but ranked and the above champs are almost always the ones getting banned. With that said, look how many there are. 6 bans does not even gome close to dealiny with that problem let alone 10. I do believe 10 bans will help but not by a lot. Riot has to step up thete balance game here because the above roster is disghustingly large.

JoeMG1 votes

I don't know if Zed Fizz or Akali necessarily deserve to be in that list, but it's pretty crazy how much better these champs are than the rest. Just straight up outclassing everyone else.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

Even still i don't think the balance frustrations with the game are champion related, they are systems related. Turret FB, overall damage, game pacing, etc....

dominusx3 votes

hey there is a better idea!! REMOVE SHITTY MASTERIES wooo lads back to only having to worry about 3-4 champs who abuse items whom are easier to nerf instead of stupid masteries. BUT NOO let's keep masteries they have diversity!! we use blood lust tld and coc and a few people use the shielding one woo diversity!! Dft is barely touched the resolve tree 2 of the masteries are dogshit and stormraiders is used only on certain champions

ZILLAGULA2 votes

Champions like Janna and Ahri always slip through the ban phase, which actually sucks because so many people get to abuse them because we have to ban bigger treats.

DragonManSquid2 votes

tl;dr these days I think it helps people avoid a few hard counters.

ChaddyFantome2 votes

tis what they were always meant to be for.

Canastus2 votes

You hit the nail exactly on the head, there are at least 20 op champs right now and the utter mess which is the current snowballing meta makes it even worse dealing with them. I've stopped playing on the Rift entirely this season, all I do is play ARAM nowadays - it's literally the same, except games tend to be shorter since you don't have to waste your time trying to stall out an inevitable loss due to being 10k gold behind. I won't be taking this game serious anymore until they finally fix all of these issues.

GayFluffyUnicorn2 votes

Now take into account all those dynamically boosted animals sitting in low diamond and elo hell is perfect.

Raven Redeemed2 votes

I don't think the point of banning should be to cut out all the strong champs as defined by the meta, that would be pretty lame. Bans help with recently discovered op champs, hard counters, or someone you just really don't want to lane against. Winrates rarely ever go above 55% which pretty amazing when compared to other MOBAs and if you feel there are that many strong champs and they are necessary for a win, you are free to pick them yourself. This might be different in pro play, but I don't think the champs with a slightly higher winrate should get banned out every game.

Daeronwich2 votes

Balance wise the game is in a bad state right now, Riot dont seem to have any basic idea how to do balancing. This is not helped by the obvious favouritism that gets shown to certain champs, the knee jerk over nerfs which completely ruin champs and the re-works which just break everything every time they do one.

The biggest problems balance wise thought are off tanks deal too much damage while being too hard to kill, at the same time champions are overloaded with abilities, utility and damage. Just look at Ekko, he has the highest total AP ratio in the game benefiting more from AP than any other champion. Lets look at his kits abilities outside his insane ap ratios, his passive has a speed steroid, Q has a slow, W has slow/stun/sheild, E gifts mobility and his ult is mobility and heal.

Note all Ekko damage values do not take into account the 33ap = 1% target missing hp scaling on his W

So 1 point of ability power gives him 3.6 damage, 0.6 heal and 1.5 shield.

Which means an item like Crystal Scepter gives him 300hp, 270 damage, 45 heal and 112.5 shield.

Compare this to another assasin akali who would get 300hp, 240 damage (including her ult x3) and 33.75 heal.

In other words because of his overloaded kit Ekko benefits 35.96% more from this item than akali.

Now lets look at an Akali item, the Gunblade. Ekko in sheer statistics would benefit over Akali by around 20% when buying gunblade.

Ekko is just one example of a champion whos kit is so overloaded that he is literally just a better version of X or Y champ. Even when buying an item for which some of the stats are useless it benefits him more than it does champions its designed for.

The sheer number of champs like this mean that bans are almost useless if you dont intend to pick one of these statistically better champs.

Ahristocats2 votes

soraka in god tier

lmfao

Xela Syab2 votes

Well there really needs to be 10 bans, essentially then you can just ban a potential lane counter or strong pick from the enemy. I think the real issue with the game is vision, I think Riot needs to bring regular wards back or reduce the cd on trinkets or reduce the cost on sightstone. Tanks feel strong and relevant, adcs are strong, assassins and mages are strong so that leaves one class weak...

Leo10241 votes

i like bans, i'd rather face literally anyone over Yasuo, even if the enemy yas is bad he's relevant if he gets 10 cs and is still overloaded as hell

420 grams1 votes

Maybe just ban your counters? Like you know you're playing teemo, so don't ban nasus even if he is a God tier pick. Then if there are champions that you think are over tuned and need perma banned, voice your opinion that the champion is too strong and needs adjustments.

Hexs Fortune1 votes

Luckily the wind wall mechanic only takes one good ban to adios

xBushx1 votes

Yes actually. Once we get to 10 bans it might be more realistic.

Usernamehere12351 votes

There seems to be a disconnect between what you're saying, and why you think it's true. Yes, there aren't enough bans to ban the strong champions in their respective roles. However, it would be wrong to say these champions are "god-tier". See, bans are generally used for picks that are considered "god-tier", however, with recent balancing efforts, champions who are certainly not god-tier in any way are being banned regardless. This shows, I think, that the game is more balanced than in the past, because people aren't banning champions (Yasuo) based on their strength, but purely because of their playstyle (Yasuo = annoying).

RookPusher1 votes

No 'cause Ziggs.

SzGamer2271 votes

No.

Every game I don't have to lane against Jayce is a game I have a half decent chance of winning.

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