A reason I think Riot's gameplay team understands the game worse than they did a year ago

Quepha·Mar 7, 2018·11 votes·563 views

To try and buff Lane Brand relative to Support Brand, they created a mechanic that gives Brand mana back when he softens the wave with a W and lets the adc last hit, but does absolutely nothing when Brand one-shots the ranged minions with W i.e. the primary purpose of a midlane mage outside of actual damage output in teamfights.

Every patch feels like it has some kind of backwards nonsense like this where Riot says they want to buff one aspect but the actual mechanics do the POLAR OPPOSITE of what was intended.

5 Comments

ModWulf HelhammerMar 7, 20185 votes

Are you referring to the part of his passive where he restores mana for killing targets marked with 'Ablaze'? Because I can't find any other kind of mechanic similar to what your talking about.

QuephaMar 7, 20182 votes

I am referring to the mana restore on Ablaze, but I am not referring to mana restore mechanics. I am referring to balance changes that seem to go completely against what Riot is trying to do, creating a sense that Riot's gameplay team doesn't understand the game.

Another recent example would be the Galio update where Riot said they wanted Galio to build a mixture of damage and durability by just giving him blanket AP ratio buffs. AP ratios do not encourage a mixed build, they encourage an all-damage build because they increase the damage of a combo. Investing in a damage combo means you want to deal as much damage as possible in one go to try and kill your target (and the ratio of Galio's combo at the time was more than any other champion in the game, another irresponsible oversight). It should have been obvious to Riot that Bruiser Galio would not be a thing from that patch, only AP Galio and/or Tank Galio.

ModWulf HelhammerMar 7, 20181 votes

Ok, then what was the point of bringing up brand? Because he only gets mana back for killing targets with ablaze, so that wouldn’t have been a buff in any capacity for support Brand.

As for Galio, the only way to encourage him to build AP is to give ratios. If you increase base damages, all it does is encourage tank (which Riot was also trying to nerf at the time). They wanted it so that a both a damage and tank Galio could work, with anything in between.

QuephaMar 7, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Wolf King,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uowK472I,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2018-03-07T17:47:10.465+0000)

As for Galio, the only way to encourage him to build AP is to give ratios.

False. They can give stat conversion ratios like Vladimir has, or give him damage mechanics that encourage having him in a fight for an extended period rather than direct damage burst abilities.

They wanted it so that a both a damage and tank Galio could work, with anything in between.

They were specifically talking more about the "anything in between" portion which still does not exist and was not encouraged by the changes.

DanjengMar 7, 20184 votes

Brand's passive burn damage doesn't scale, meaning mid Brand doesn't do any more damage than support Brand with it. Why pick Mid Brand when Support Brand does just about as much damage.

They doubled his burn damage. Support Brand becomes strong. I wonder why.