Are Meta Champions, Items, etc Stronger than they used to be?

jerosammy·11/3/2018, 5:25:25 PM·6 votes·2,960 views

I just want to know if it's not just me that thinks the Meta has become so much more defining than it used to be.

Almost every strong champion nowadays wins lane and carries or just does super well. I hardly ever see an Irelia, Aatrox, Klepto Viktor, or any meta champion do bad. But even just 2 seasons ago you didn't feel completely hopeless when the enemy team had 3 S Tier champions. I think it's due to Riot just constantly changing the game, separating Bad from Good champions more and more without realizing it.

This isn't supposed to be a rant, I just want to know other people's opinions on this. The meta has become super oppressive.

5 Comments

deadlychuck11/3/2018, 7:37:30 PM5 votes

Relative to the non-meta options, absolutely.

You get dramatic power drop offs with respect to gold efficiency to throughput when you don't play things that are meta.

Yeah, it's still technically possible, but pragmatically the amount that you have to makeup for with purely skill advantage is massive to the point of being basically unreasonable. This is why doing anything off meta will still get you flamed in chat, even if you are tied or ahead, deviations from the meta make a much more massive statistical difference now.

Sailor Mint11/3/2018, 5:47:23 PM1 votes

No.

Lane bullies just feel more impactful when games are short and laning matters.
Heavy health sustain in lane gives a free pass to some champions with some historically bad laning phases, especially in already favorable matchups (i.e.: Viktor).
People tend to confuse "annoying to play against" and "strong".
Bias. People remember the times they got dumpstered by Irelia/Aatrox, but don't remember all the bad ones. Their SoloQ stats are average at best.

It's not because a champion is dominant in Diamond II+ and competitive that it's a strong pick for the remaining 99% of the playerbase.

I think it's due to Riot just constantly changing the game, separating Bad from Good champions more and more without realizing it.

There hasn't been any major changes outside of reworks since the mid-season backlash, and basically everything is getting pushed back to Pre-season. If anything, we're in a period with an historically low number balance changes.

Anyway, people wanted top lane to be relevant and more solo carry agency/less reliance on bot lane. What we currently have is what people asked for.

To answer your question. Picks and team comps barely matter pre-Diamond. That's ~98% of the playerbase right there.