Instead of buffing perfectly balanced champs for pro play just nerf Orianna and Syndra

Swarovsko·Jul 15, 2017·67 votes·2,605 views

I'm perfectly fine with being able to oneshot 5 people at once late game but she's just way too much oppressive during laning phase. I played as and against Orianna plenty of times and everytime I (or the enemy Orianna) came back to lane with or I would just be able to poke the shit out of the enemy mid laner without even bothering to look at my mana bar once, not to mention how she wins every trade early game because of her E. is still bullshit. She's able to do a shit ton of damage with her point and click ult and increasing her ult cooldown won't solve the problem because she still oneshots. Please make it harder for her to stack balls, she went from a hard to play champion to a braindead press R to outplay champ after the MYMU changes.

56 Comments

KronosFromDotAJul 15, 201715 votes

Syndra nerfs... lol

RainXBladeJul 16, 20179 votes

Community: Pls nerf Syndra. Rito: http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/016/729/large.jpg

Fisher No ChainsJul 15, 201713 votes

I won't talk about Syndra's winrate here, it's kinda pointless, but I'd like to say 2 things: 1) her R CAN'T oneshot unless she's 10/0 in 15 mins, and if she is you deserve to be oneshotted; 2) MR shuts her down pretty hard. Stop pretending that an immobile burst mage shouldn't be able to kill a squishy. Right now Syndra is totally balanced in SoloQ. Yes, she might be frustrating, but that's it, she'll probably struggle even more now that AD assassins are back.

About Orianna, you'll get downvoted very soon. I've tried to discuss how stupid Orianna's early power is, but according to the boards she's the apotheosis of balance and doesn't need any nerf, despite her permapick in pro play.

SnakDatSmilesBakJul 15, 20171 votes

She's permapicked because of her utility. Netting early mana costs might help bring her in line but pros are still going to pick her relatively often for that juicy team fight ult.

Fisher No ChainsJul 15, 20173 votes

Revert the Q mana cost buff and she'll be fine again. 30 at rank 1 for an AoE spell with a very low cd is overkill.

SnakDatSmilesBakJul 15, 20173 votes

I agree. There are a lot of things they can do about it but her q is a bit too good, imo.

SwarovskoJul 15, 20173 votes

Reading the comments I guess I was wrong about Syndra, I haven't played against her in a while but I still thought she was as braindead as she was a while ago. I shouldn't have judged her, my bad

TacosrockJul 15, 201711 votes

While I'm on board for diversity in the mid lane (tired of seeing ori, kass, ahri every game), I think that nerfing the champions on top will not do much good. There's legitimately always going to be a top dog in a certain role regardless of how much you nerf the champs in that role. Take Elise for example. Sure, she was pretty decent before literally every carry jungler was nerfed, but now that she is the last one standing besides Kha'zix, she's now seen as OP. I think that buffing underperforming champions SLIGHTLY (aka not giving Xerath even more damage AND crowd control) is the best way to go.

ShablagooJul 15, 20172 votes

Ty someone gets it nerfing champions doesnt increase diversity, buffing champions does, if they are not as reliable as the top dogs then they wont be played regardless of if they top dogs are nerfed, if you buff them they might find viability again.

sobi999Jul 15, 20172 votes

Its the same thing no matter which point of angle you look it from. If you nerf the top dogs the ones under them will overtake them. Similarly if you buff the weak (the ones under top dogs) they'll eventually overtake the top dogs. The result will be that the top dogs will eventually see lesser gameplay whilst the weak will see more. its basically distributing the playrate as much as possible.

Now let me explain why the former is a bad idea in comparison to the latter.

If you nerf a champion and it turns out that this champion is completely out of meta then only that champion's main will suffer. They can obviously main someone else instead.

If you buff a champion and make it OP (by mistake ) instead of balancing it with other midlaners. This'll mean that all other champions and their mains will suffer.

Moral of the story is... Nerfing a champion only upsets the mains as meta sheeps will just pick someone else to climb or to win. However over buffing a champ (by mistake) means that meta sheep can abuse them and make life miserable for all other players who either are not meta sheeps (and follow favoritism) or there is no worthy competition i.e. like for example how in the history there would be one jungler that just outclassed every other jungler and etc.

Therefore making a mistake with a buff can have a negative effect on the majority whereas nerfing a champ only affects a minority. There will always be picks that are meta but mistakes in buffs are less forgiving than mistakes in nerfs. You can see this from the history of LOL i.e. when lethality items were consecutively buffed, zac was buffed, kassadin in season 2, nidalee (once upon a time and then was made garbage) and etc. Now look for example how leb was made garbage (did you see an insane uproar)? Also from what i saw, only the mains were making threads about her but nonetheless i do believe in the notion of balancing all champs as much as possible. So that people could rely more on personal skills than the champ itself. It'll increase the diversity of the champs that are played and make the game much more enjoyable. Sadly that goes against the money making schemes so i don't blame a free game trying to get money to run its game.

ShablagooJul 16, 20171 votes

It does more then just upset the players it sometimes removes them from the meta, Nautilus was completely taken out of the top meta after his nerfs, Shen as well, literally push now mao to the top of the tanky tops. Galio too is at the bottom pushing certain champions down to put one or two at the top isnt healthy because ppl will just complain about that champion being op. Nerfing Iveran just put Nunu at the top of jg's same with nerfing most carry jg like explained before this isnt good balancing.

Buffing lux because she is at the bottom wont make her overtake anivia it will make her more viable instead of being useless. If you start adding more champions to the diversity wont completely knock top dogs off it will just balance them, nerfing a champion till their useless isnt good balancing at all this is what we have been doing for so long and it literally isn't working. Adding more champions starts to add counters to the pool and making them take certain champions out, I think buffing Xer will work wonders on malz because he can poke off his shield and poke him down it might knock him off the top which is a good thing, but it wont make Xerath the new op champion because champions like kass or Kat exist to counter him.

sobi999Jul 16, 20171 votes

"Therefore making a mistake with a buff can have a negative effect on the majority whereas nerfing a champ only affects a minority. There will always be picks that are meta but mistakes in buffs are less forgiving than mistakes in nerfs"

That above is a very important concept in league. We all know that league is a complicated game and balancing it 100% is literally impossible, especially when they make changes every 2 weeks to make the game less stagnant. Nonetheless, for riot to run efficiently they need meta picks so tbh balancing at its apex is not the actual intention of riot.

Nerfing or buffing champs can backfire and obviously intentional or non-intentional from riot's side, its the players that suffer. Some champs may not be strong but their utility makes them useful to be picked on LCS. For example shen is a very common pick in LCS although he is not the meta pick for top lane. Also buffing lux will make her dominant in lower elo's as she'll always be weak at higher elo's. Even if you were to nerf anivia, she'll just get overtaken by ahri or ohri but the point still remains that whichever route you go buffing comes with a lot more risks than nerfing.

I agree that buffing sometimes is a better choice like you explained that it increases diveristy in the lane as there is more competition now but if a champ is dominating in lane (according to stats) then i believe its better to nerf that champ than to buff 10 other champs to bring them back to meta or make them viable. Its obviously alot more complicated than this as you have to think about counter picks and at what elo the certain champs dominates or is weak at, but i believe that buffing compromises alot more risks to the majority of the playerbase.

ShablagooJul 16, 20172 votes

I agree with you buffing is honestly something Riot has a real problem with, especially this patch Singed is at a 55% winrate, with a playrate of 5%. Looking at something like Janna with a 55% winrate and 18% playrate literally triple close to quadruple the play rate of Singed.

Sometimes nerfing certain champions will increase diversity too, but buffs can really effect the player base because really good player of that champion will start to dominate. But SInged is an example of overbuffing, just like Fiora is a example of overnerfing going from 50% to literally below Ryze in top lane http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/fiora/top/diamond in the end of the day the balancing team really struggle at nerfing and buffing sometimes it seems like they dont even know what they are doing.

Votable JesterJul 15, 20173 votes

To be fair, the Xerath buffs aren't even that big. The buff to his ult is strongest at rank 3, and only give an extra 100 total damage if you hit all 5 shots (this is when you're level 16+).

The buff to his W is a bit bigger, but it basically just helps him out a little against high movement speed enemies (because they can get out of the center really easily, but at least hitting them with the edge does something now).

I Main SwainJul 15, 201710 votes

ori's problem is more morello tbh, riot needs to overhaul the entire ap item tree because right now its a crapfest and morello is really the only good item

Witch of BabylonJul 15, 20179 votes

Have you even seen Syndra's winrate?

PluniverseJul 15, 20178 votes

But syndra is in a bad spot right now how come people are giving this upvotes have you seen her wr my god

Sraeg2013Jul 15, 20176 votes

If she wasn't picked in LCS those people wouldn't even acknowledge her existence.

LadyRenlyJul 15, 20173 votes

{quoted}

But syndra is in a bad spot right now how come people are giving this upvotes have you seen her wr my god

because this forum is easy to game for upvote farming

SwarovskoJul 15, 20171 votes

I don't give a fuck about upvotes, I barely posts stuff in this forum, wtf? Not to mention I've already acknowledged that Syndra is fine and here's a quote from a comment I made an hour ago: "Reading the comments I guess I was wrong about Syndra, I haven't played against her in a while but I still thought she was as braindead as she was a while ago. I shouldn't have judged her, my bad". Just because someone posts something on the boards it doesn't mean they're looking for upvotes aka fame. Check my profile and count how many posts I made, then try to talk.

Sire HippingtonJul 15, 20171 votes

Because this post is about proplay, and syndra still dominates proplay.

GayFluffyUnicornJul 15, 20176 votes

All they need to do to balance ori is nerf her E level 1. Either take off the passive resistance entirely or take 20 from the shield or up the mana costs to let's say 80 or even 90 so she can't blindly shield every poke/trade attempt without watching her mana. Right now it does absorb 80-100 dmg. On top of her own resistances AND THE RESISTS SHE GETS FROM THE BALL. Look at viktors pitiful shield in the early game which is just good enough to eat a bit of minion aggro when he Qs you.

Dani El PezgloboJul 15, 20171 votes

Up cd q early game, main problem is not her damage is that she can do it every <10 seconds without waste 2 much mana (i mean q w aa thunderlord)

DoktorKaiserJul 16, 20171 votes

You do understand that she cant function without moving her ball all the time right? Not to mention that Q-W wastes 1/3 of her early game mana. Really dumb suggestion...

Dani El PezgloboJul 16, 20171 votes

EARLY GAME , THAT MEANS 10 FIRST MIN, 10 FIRST MIN OF THE GAME ARENT TF SO ORIANNA DOESNT NEED Q EVERY 4 SECONDS, PLS , her q+w coast 1/4 of her mana , and with 1 aa u get thunderlord as the same time u push wave, so she needs a nerf to that, on that way her early game ll be more risky and not like, oh bad match up i stay back and farm with q. Dumn sugestion, ok , what do u think they should do? pls answer me

DoktorKaiserJul 16, 20171 votes

The whole point of the champion is to stay back and farm for late game while being safe. The fact that her early game is decent now is because everything else was nerfed and her Q mana cost got buffed for no fucking reason so it now takes 1/4 of her mana at lvl 2 but aroudn lvl 6 it will take as it used to - 1/3 of her mana. But her W still costs as much as her ultimate so she is mana hungry. If you nerf her Q she would cease to exist as a champion, that is the worst possible idea you could have come up with, thats like putting a cooldown on ADC's autoattacks. Revert the Q mana cost buffs and nerf broken morellonomicon and she will be fine as she used to be.

LankPantsJul 15, 20175 votes

Syndra's a must pick/ban in pro play right now, right guys?

I mean just look at the LCK

0 picks and 0 bans in SKT VS AFs 0 picks and 0 bans in BBQ VS JAG 1 pick and 0 bans in BBQ VS LZG 0 picks and 1 ban in SKT VS SSG 0 picks and 0 bans in JAG VS KTR 0 picks and 1 ban in ROX VS AFs

These are the games over the last 3 days, 2 bans and a pick. Syndra is clearly such a problem in pro play and not, say Corki or Taliyah who are both picked and banned significantly more.

That doesn't fit your narrative though, does it?

tophitJul 15, 20171 votes

Taliyah is only picked because she's one of few mid laners that actually do well in the early game. Surprise surprise, the early game meta combined with weaker AP items means that late game mages cannot compete like they used to, hence a sub 50% winrate.

AmazoXJul 15, 20173 votes

Orianna gives me the most bitchiest cheapest feeling when I face her during laning phase, I'd take on 10 Yasuo's any day over one Orianna during laning phase.

Her E shield is so EFFING strong!

Sraeg2013Jul 15, 20173 votes

If Syndra can one shot you with the ult you deserve it.

Why?

Because she needs to completely dominate the lane and can only do it against a target with 0 MR or HP in items.

Daddy AntsJul 15, 20173 votes

Syndra nerfs when she has a 47% win rate.

LUL

[{quoted}](name=Bears Dont Care,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=v6m8AzRI,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2017-07-15T17:00:19.347+0000)

I do not get the complaints about Orianna.

The Orianna complaints imo are valid.

The Syndra ones are not.

tophitJul 15, 20173 votes

Looking at OPGG, Orianna is sitting at a perfect 50% winrate. I understand people's annoyance at her Q costs, but seriously it's the only thing keeping her affloat in an early game meta, you take that away and she drops out of play too.

My Waifu VanillaJul 16, 20171 votes

Except her playstyle is incredibly solitaire. She WILL outtrade most midlaners which is complete bs considering she is a late game hyper carry. Her burst is a 2-1 AP ratio with an ABSURD base meaning after Morello and some pen she is GOING to kill you very easily while also having the popular picks of Lee, Zac, Galio, etc. to make it so she can't miss her ult.

RavenMagusJul 16, 20171 votes

Have you tried playing against Orianna lately?

I'll admit, she is actually difficult to play, which likely helps keep her winrate low.

But play against someone who knows what they're doing and you'll quickly find out how bullshit she is. She's a high utility mage that still has a lot of damage. And she's just like Yasuo, where having the right teammates takes away a lot of the difficulty in playing her later in game.

I'd honestly rather face Syndra. I'll probably lose lane against her too, but at least winning 1v1s is all Syndra does; she doesn't hypercarry teamfights like Ori does.

tophitJul 18, 20171 votes

I find her biggest weakness is her CC, it's not nearly as reliable as other midlaners. If you are engaged on, your shield is your first response, then your W (which is only a slow and a bit of damage, won't help if you're against a champ that is super sticky). The last ditch response will be the ult which can buy a precious second which can make a difference, especially if you're engaged on by 2 or more of the enemy team. But because of her completely conditional CC (her only effective CC being her ult) if you are ever dived, jumped on, whatever, you are fully relying on summoners and your E shield. As a result, I don't feel like Orianna does particularly well when made a target by the jungler, or when you play against a true early game champ (i've done well playing Taliyah into Ori previously).

It's all relative though, lots of mages don't do well when being focused hard early, if any. When it comes to late game impact, Orianna is very similar to Kennen, massive potential to do something amazing, but also massive potential to completely balls it up. Late game, the safety net she has earlier in the game is completely taken away, all it takes is a trash team engage and all will be lost. You cannot force a good Ori ult, very rarely will it come easily.

I would agree that late game, you would rather face a Syndra in a full on teamfight than an Ori. However, the reality is that in solo queue, you don't get that in many games. If the team grouped up at every stage and never splitpushed, I wouldn't like to be against an Ori, if the team splitpushed constantly and never grouped up, I wouldn't want to be against a Syndra.

RavenMagusJul 21, 20171 votes

I can agree that she can be pretty weak when piled on. In a 1v1, though, it's actually really hard for an assassin to dive on her in lane - she's got the shield that stops her from being one shot, and her ulti and the rest of her burst is really easy to land.

Which is part of the reason I dislike her. She does so much damage that having a Morello's is pretty much enough to 100-to-0 an enemy squishy (i.e. any other mage that also has just a Morello's), and the ulti is actually impossible to dodge in a 1v1 unless you flash it or have some mobility to dodge with because its area is so huge.

That's mainly my issue with her. She's bad at 2v1s, yeah, because she doesn't have much mobility and low cc - so she can be vulnerable in lane. But she's amazing in 1v1s and she's amazing in teamfights too.

tophitJul 26, 20171 votes

The only times I've felt that I hard won lane as Ori, I feel, is when playing against other mages. If mid lane assassins no longer existed, then you would see a lot more of her. But the nature of her damage (all in the ball), means that any nerfs will be treading on a very fine line.

To me, it doesn't feel like Orianna isn't OP as such, I would say its more the nature of her kit. She isn't massively reliant on any single ability, they all flow into each other, so if you nerf one ability, it will have a knock-on effect to every other ability too. Neither can you really shift power around her kit, if you were to say "ok, Ori is too much of a bully early, lets hit her Q", where would you buff to keep her balanced? Her ult and W are always used in combo so buffing either will make her teamfight and her burst even stronger. You put it on her E, she then becomes a counter to other burst champions, including assassins. You buff her passive, then Ori's will probably start buying Lich Bane. If you straight up nerf her Q without any sort of compensation, I can't think of a nerf that wouldn't open up a glaring hole in her kit that would kill her off as a champion.

To be honest I think the only thing that will help Ori fall in line with the rest of the mage pool is a serious look at the whole AP item tree. She is the best generalist mage in the game, and Morello's is the best generalist AP item in the game. If Morello's is nerfed, BUT AP itemization is improved as a whole to make up for it, then Ori won't be so much of a problem anymore.

DanjengJul 15, 20173 votes

Orianna's mana costs were actually lowered sometime last year (among other things).

This is what happens when you buff perfectly balanced champions. I don't mind her late game, since that's where she excels, but her early/mid trading power is quite strong. I'm fighting close battles against her as a battle mage.

I don't see Syndra all that much lately, so I cannot give a strong opinion about her.

l Helios lJul 15, 20173 votes

I've always felt Orianna should be the utility and defensive mid lane mage because of the utility she has rather than a high damage mage with all the utility too. Tone her damage down a bit early and I'm good

SkorchJul 16, 20173 votes

I feel like "buffing for worlds" is being used as an excuse to hate on the changes, if you dislike them, you dislike them, dont push some alterior agenda because you dont like the changes.

And IMO the changes are decently founded, who on earth complains about a +5 movespeed buff on tf?

Bears Dont CareJul 15, 20172 votes

I do not get the complaints about Orianna.

Torterra62Jul 15, 20172 votes

syndra's priority is bursting one person and she does it pretty well. she is at a 48 % winrate and a high play right. cause shes a good champion and fun to play. she honestly isnt that bad to play against

VectrosJul 15, 20172 votes

I say this realizing she's really powerful....

I don't mind Orianna. She's very strong, she has been for pretty much her entire existence. But I'm completely fine with her being meta. She doesn't feel as opressive as other champions have been in the past, like Heimer.

Jhin is another champ I don't mind being meta-he doesn't feel overwhelming even at his strongest.

Hovering HentaiJul 15, 20172 votes

As much as it's hated - her ult is point and click for a reason which is to instantly shut down someone on the enemy team who is ahead. Same goes for Veigar's ult and Annie's flash ult stun combo

Maddened King Jul 16, 20172 votes

Statistics say otherwise with Orianna and Syndra . They both are in a good spot. Orianna is at #23 in Winrate for mids and Syndra is #36.

tophitJul 15, 20171 votes

Nerf two champions that already have a 48% winrate. Fantastic idea. Maybe it would actually be a good idea to start buffing the other AP laners and general itemization so midlaners are not forced to choose from an incredibly limited mage pool?

Arsenic SulfurJul 16, 20171 votes

Hey man if the lower ones become as powerful as the big ones that's balance. When everyone is super no one is.

Rand0mH3r0XJul 16, 20171 votes

Literally the top 10% of champions is going to see 40% of play.You're guaranteed that every game will have one of the top 10% champions in a game. Just get over it, Riot can't force champion diversity on pro-players, but they can give special attention to the champions they're using.

DoktorKaiserJul 16, 20171 votes

Yeah why make mages decent when you can nerf the only 2 ones that still do anything. Fucking brilliant...

The thread should have been: "Instead of nerfing perfectly balanced mages, just buff the other ones who are in the gutter"

AirKingNeoJul 19, 20171 votes

Starting to know why I was questioning if you were smart or not. Guess not.