I've been saying this for years. Riot has this obsession with tweaking damage on things until they are unplayable or must-pick.
Now to be fair, I'm sure this is mostly due to the fact that there are so many champs and things for Riot to work on. I mean tweaking numbers here and there is much easier to do and to dial up or down accordingly. Changing utility, like say for instance Yasuo's windwall or Bard's ult is much tougher. Since there is not damage attached to it, it's viability is a little less tangible and it's harder to measure impact.
Having said that, though, I wholeheartedly agree. I would much rather see fewer patches or fewer changes per patch in exchange for more dynamic changes. The fact that we now play a LOL where tanks are only playable if they do good damage, and even enchanters like Janna and Soraka have to have some pretty good laning damage and trading to be viable...to me that's debacle. Janna was so much cooler when she didn't do shit for damage but her utility was just so damn impressive she could carry a game. Let's see more of that!
Here's a short list of some good changes Riot did, and should try to strive for:
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Changing the interaction between Zoe's ult -Q comboing. Provided some counterplay windows rather than just nerfing her damage. (Side note: I'd say it's maybe worth looking into nerfing her wave clear a touch too)
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Providing a range indicator on Ori's ult. Again, counterplay input, no damage trade out.
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Sivir's ult deteriorating at healthy rate.
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Kindred ult and mark changes. Now I know Kindred is just messed up and Riot kind of backed themselves into a corner by making a ranged champion with such a strong ult that the only way to balance it is to make everything else about it pretty much garbage. BUT let me just say this: they were on the right track by making the ult have to be cast on Kindred and not on allies, and by making her marks harder to attain. When they started jerking around her sustain and base damages in when she got all kinds of messed up.
Now I know that if we start getting into champions with one dimensional patterns of play or super strong utility it starts to look a little like DOTA up in here, but there are some cool things that I believe DOTA does well that Riot has gotten away from.
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Prioritizing champion identity over class identity.
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Muddling power spikes and troughs. To me runes and items have provided too much coverage for the inherent weak points of champions. Item power spikes used to be more extreme high's and more extreme lows in relation to other characters in the game. This is super evident in things like Crit ADCS, who used to have a pretty garbage early game, a pretty good 3 item spike, then a really strong 5 item spike. Now it kind of feels like they are just ok early game then just kind of run away with it at 3 items. Other classes have issues too, like I want AD assassins to be relevant too, but it kind of feels like the only way to put an assassin in the dirt and keep them there is to accrue like a 10K lead before they can finish Duskblade. (Remember when Riot said in that huge assassin patch that assassins were supposed to be high risk high reward? They don't feel so high risk right now even when they get behind early)
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Game counters. So league has mostly lane counters and then some compositional counters, so like for instance picking Illaoi or Gnar into a tank top laner, or building a 1-3-1 comp with an assassin mid when the enemy team picks Syndra, etc etc. But I'm talking about stuff like Poppy's ability to block Zac engage. We need more of that kind of thing across the board. Or like maybe some champions with a built in Grievous Wounds in their kit.
I know Riot doesn't want to go with the whole "Win game in champ select" thing, which admittedly does happen quite often in Dota, but it makes the game so dynamic and interesting. Like here's the deal, in DOTA you might select this one champ who just scales like crazy and can almost solo carry if you let him get to late game. But the tradeoff is that he does like next to nothing in the early and mid game, and your opponents have all kinds of crazy CC and/or mobility to try and end the game before that point. Very clear powerspikes and defined win conditions BASED ON CHAMP SELECT is actually what creates the variety from game to game and promotes creativity from teams. It's very engaging to watch during both champ select and the actual match under this system.
So my summary after this novel: Let's see larger gaps between champions' strengths and weaknesses, both on the whole and within each of the respective classes (this is part champ design, part item design, part pacing issues). Let's also see some high high value utility with little to no damage. Braum E is one of my favorite skills in the game as like a quiet carry spell. Short duration, VERY high impact, can be game changing when used correctly but can also be very meh based on enemy team's composition and user skill. There should be way more of that kind of thing in the game.
