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How to nerf (or potentially fix?) Gold Funneling?

C9 Squeeky ·7/21/2018, 6:57:00 AM·2 votes·922 views

I've watched NA & EU LCS as well as streamers to gain their insight & perspective on Gold Funneling and what should be done about it. Here are my so-called "solutions". Hoping they are more intuitive/clear and less ugly than the current band-aid fix.

Before we can find solutions, we have to identify the problem. Why gold funnel? What makes it a viable strategy? The answers I came to (and I may be wrong) were that either one particular set of carry champions are so strong that they can be the team's only (or main) damage source...another answer is that supports are so strong that teams simply don't need a 4th stream of gold income to a tank/carry. The last answer is because top/jg Tanks (other than DrMundo are sub-optimal, that you don't need more than 1 (or 2) sources of damage to bring down a team of squishies; all you need is one super-fed carry being kept alive via picks like Braum Alistar Rakan Shen being the most commonly played. I've noticed that these supports are tanky (and therefore are not easily killed themselves, not giving up free gold), have ways to engage, peel and even shield their funneler from harm. Below are my "solutions"

  • Nerf the main offenders (the funnel-desired champions) Kaisa , Taliyah (maybe revert?), Lucian , Graves . Lower their ratios (would funneling be worth it if these champions didn't scale as high, or rather as early?). Common denominator is they are all ranged with high burst / good in 1v1 or 2v2 skirmishes, making the enemy team unable to counter jg or contest scuttle. More on that below. Kai'Sa IMO too strong, both with her passive killing tanks and squishies alike, and that W, especially when built AP and is upgrades via Living Weapon.

  • Increase cost of certain items? (Is a reason to funnel because of cheaper items? 1-item powerspike? mid-game powerspike?

  • Increase minion HP/tankiness? (If it's harder to wave-clear, more chance to counter jg, taking away one source of income?) But I realize that would penalize solo mid laners so probably not.

  • Nerf Jg items? Are they too strong/too good at clearing camps? Should jg timers be re-tuned?

  • Nerf engage/tanky/peel supports - Are supports too strong with only a few levels and fewer gold? It's been said supports have been too strong all season. Nerfing their early-mid game impact (mainly durability or CC duration in kit) may be the right change. Perhaps some base stat nerfs to HP/armor/MR. Perhaps just revert support quest/Sightstone change and make Sightstone an Item again? Having to "earn" gold via Support Quest to gain Sightstone is NOT the same as having to spend gold as well as taking up a slot. Having a Sightstone at the same timing doesn't matter, what matters is not needing to spend as much gold on it. I understand the initial reason why they made the change, to make supports feel like real champions and not a slave to paying 800g for Sightstone but honestly it balanced them. Base Stat changes and Runes Reforged as well but that topic is for another post, another time.

  • Revert Scuttle Crab changes. One of the reasons why early-game oriented champions are picked and duo-jg (gold funneling) because you can't contest crab if you are tank jg or a jg that can't duel early to contest vs the enemy gold funnel duo. gold funnel duo can bully you off scuttle. This forces the enemy to pick even faster-clearing junglers to keep up and to hopefully with fast enough clear speed and good pathing, steal some jg camps. I haven't even gotten to Smite mids like Talon but I won't go into self-funneling in this post.

  • Revert entire mid-season (patches 8.9 - 8.11)? Includes mana changes to mages, jungle changes to scuttle/camp timers, and marksmen base stat + crit itemisation. If all else fails, could always revert to a more stable patch. Riot hell-bent on making changes (scuttle & botlane in particular) because they want "variety" is breaking the game and making it unfun for everyone. They are too stubborn-willed. In a sense they gave the players (at least from Boards) what they wanted, they nerfed crit marksmen, and this is what we got. Be careful what you wish for!

I have seen the 8.15 PBE changes to crit items and while it may make crit marksmen feel better, I feel it doesn't really solve the gold funneling, non-interactive strategy. Even if it makes gold funneling meta go away, it'll be because it's a better, more optimal strategy...not because gold funneling isn't a viable strat anymore. It's kind of like when X champion is strong and then Riot buffs Y champion to make it stronger. X champion didn't become weak(er), it's just Y champion is better, for the time being.

2 Comments

RekSai CoffeeCo7/21/2018, 12:35:56 PM1 votes

{quoted}

  • Revert Scuttle Crab changes. One of the reasons why early-game oriented champions are picked and duo-jg (gold funneling) because you can't contest crab if you are tank jg or a jg that can't duel early to contest vs the enemy gold funnel duo. gold funnel duo can bully you off scuttle. This forces the enemy to pick even faster-clearing junglers to keep up and to hopefully with fast enough clear speed and good pathing, steal some jg camps. I haven't even gotten to Smite mids like Talon but I won't go into self-funneling in this post.
  • Revert entire mid-season (patches 8.9 - 8.11)? Includes mana changes to mages, jungle changes to scuttle/camp timers, and marksmen base stat + crit itemisation. If all else fails, could always revert to a more stable patch. Riot hell-bent on making changes (scuttle & botlane in particular) because they want "variety" is breaking the game and making it unfun for everyone. They are too stubborn-willed. In a sense they gave the players (at least from Boards) what they wanted, they nerfed crit marksmen, and this is what we got. Be careful what you wish for!

This is the only thing that is needed, Revert scuttle crab, balance jungle experience to equal solo laners at all times 20 cs for laner and 20 cs for jungler should have same amount of level experience.

Basically we are talking 8.10/8.11 jungle changes and scuttle crab revert to fix this and bring back jungle diversity (not just the early game oriented scuttle crab champs) where jungle could pick to what the team needed such as a tank, sin, twitch, an actual AP jungler not named Eve etc.

hi ìm groot7/21/2018, 12:40:56 PM1 votes

Im confused, is it not fixed? That nerf to gold income for a jungler who has the most gold on team seemed like it should have been effective, and I haven't seen anyone use the strat since.