Good Work. Indeed good work. @Parlance Team
[{quoted}](name=Riot jinxylord,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZOs3fuE5,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2018-10-03T18:35:46.422+0000)
*Nami [and Ahri] are incredibly powerful in their respective roles at all MMR's. Makes sense to nerf them. *
Your argumentation on nerfing Nami has been that much better than all the arguments we brought up. Better then all the stuff we could have ever thought about. I always defined Nami as THE champion with perfect balance. So everytime I'd think about a champion being out of balance I'd also compare them to Nami's gameplay design. Now the Parlance Team not only fucked up a healthy support short term. They obviously will fuck up their global balance even more in the long term. As Meta shifts, one of your last anchors, that never caused balance issues, will suffer from imbalance. Because we all know. Each and everyone following patches and the discussion around it knows, that Riot only reverts about 1% of the changes made directly. 99% of the reverts or row backs are made by different changes then the ones before.
When talking about balance work, Meddler often mentions "priority". In the state of the game it really confuses me that you prioritized Nami over all the other unhealthy stuff in the game. But this is not about a "why nerf Nami NOW" but a "why nerf Nami AT ALL".
It's not about winrate. It's about agency on the game. It's about that thing that Marksmen mains always refer to when they call you out for making it impossible to play marksmen (ADC2017LUL - ADCMidSeasonLuL). And while Nami is strong and has a good agency on the game, this is not because of her - but because of all the other supports in the game.
You:
-
nerfed enchanters on a global level by cutting back heal & shield power. You did so because you felt obligated to do so after you fucked up with the Ardent Censor Meta. Now you fight one extreme with the other extreme in order to "balance" things out. Do you really think you can satisfy player experience that way? Btw, the nerfes to heal & shield power were not really impacting Nami because her Heal is a by far smaller part of her power budget than that of other enchanters that revolve around healing and shielding at like 70-80%.
-
nerfed shield enchanters directly by reducing shield duration, introduced decaying shields and cut back power from shields. Yeah of course that doesn't impact Nami at all but it benefits her.
-
nerfed supports on an individual level, both enchanters and tanks. Every time one of those categories is ahead you just nerf them straight away. Now it's Nami's turn to be nerfed on an individual level. I hope this solves the problem with Kai'Sa as Maple Nectar indirectly said about why Kai'Sa has not been nerfed yet:
*On 8.19 we instead buffed some champs that are considered decent against her as a low range marksman (Pyke, Thresh, Kog'maw),* ***while nerfing some that gave her a lot of protection (Braum/Tahm Kench).*** -> Nami?
Better don't ship the nerf to Kai'Sa (PBE) because nerfing a protective ally for Kai'Sa is probably going to balance her out anyway. /s
-
nerfed supports that were pick/ban in LC$: Tahm Kench, Braum, Rakan, Shen. Their curent winrates in SQ are now about 45% / 49% / 49.4% / 45.2% depending on source and tier. Nerfing other supports will always benefit Nami because she's never going to play WITH them but always AGAINST them.
-
nerfed support starting itemization resulting in one less pot which did not affect her as much as the others unless you get behind early and need to heal back yourself or the ADC without getting in dangerzone of trading with bounces.
-
buffed Athene's Unholy Grail which is basically her best item and Nami being it's best user especially in combination with the bounce, that makes the second heal stronger than the first one despite the two times -15% effectiveness penalty on bounce.
-> Conclusion: Nami has benefited FROM the Meta, she did NOT MAKE the Meta. And this is important because it often is the defining aspect of champions that ARE considered too strong. They are meta defining because the are so strong they actively crowd out other champions, other classes and other positions. Nami will never be able to mess with non-supportive opponents despite being so OP. She just helps her team as much that the team tends to win more often. If other supports were able to help as much as she could, there'd be no problem with it. Instead the competition around her is moved towards damage orientation, one-shot potential and all-ins. This of course again benefits her as she's one of the last bastion to withstand that playstyle. Most picked supports around Nami are: Thresh, Alistar, Pyke & Rakan. Highest winrate around her are: Fiddlesticks, Xerath, Thresh & Alistar (pre-8.19).
Now despite mostly talking about what makes her actually strong, I want to give arguments for why she should stay the same despite being strong:
Nami has always been top tier in terms of Gameplay Design. She's not a stupid heal/shield bot. She can play out passively and actively depending on the situation and/or prefered playstyle. Especially compared to other enchanters, she has the best way to engage or catch out opponents by landing Q - Aqua Prison. Before all the nerfs to shield supports or items she was just weaker than those supports. Nami is viable at all stages of the game unlike other supports that need to snowball their early game or only shine late-game. But she always had her place in any meta by a small percentage with a good winrate. Nami has always been fun to play outside of assassin metas. Nami is not powerfull. She is successfull, but not powerfull.
She's an extremely fair champion and her low banrate shows that. Despite being "successfull* she is still a healthy opponent. Players across all MMRs still quite enjoy playing against her. This comes from the fact that she can still be outplayed and ganked. Brainlessly using W on opponents cause her to take increased minion damage while fucking up wave management and running out of mana soon. Q can be dodged pretty reliably and a Nami without Q is a super vulnerable opponent. On top of that she's also as squishy as a typical enchanter and early ganks can kill her super fast.
She is super constant both throughout the years and in the course of a game. She is everything but feast or famine. She's not snowbally by any means. A Nami that is ahead can't completely stomp opponent all day long like all-in champions (Alistar, Thresh, Pyke) or full-AP-DD-supports (Brand, Xerath, Lux). And this does reflect in her low banrate. People still like to play against her much more than most other supports, e.g. Morgana or Pyke who have a <50% winrate. Even other supports like Lulu (~47% WR) have a higher banrate than her. Nami gives their opponents agency in the game. You should not nerf a champion for doing THAT.
Is the feeling of "I lost the game but I had a better time still impact, did not need to feed my ass off" worth nothing anymore? Funny (or sad) thing is that her ban rate increased from about 1.5% to 4% since the nerfs hit PBE. I assume that people were like "Uhh Nami must be too strong, better ban her nefore she harms me".
I don't think there is even remotely a single point that that she does not show to be a healthy and successfull champion in terms of Ghostcrawlers dev diary about what makes a champion a successfull champion design wise.
This also reflected in the fact that Nami had no buffs or nerfs despite a random 2s-Q-CD buff back in 8.15. Just like in 8.19 the Parlance team went through with the buff despite nobody asking for it but many Nami mains rejecting it. The only thing that keeps me positive is that her winrate didn't even increase that much despite this meaningfull buff. So I just hope that this nerf is just going to not impact her as well - unless that means they keep nerfing her.
The really sad thing is that the only argumentation about this subject was Jinxlord's comment "She has a high winrate. Deal with it." that collected 179 downvotes up until now. Besides my pretty rude comment on Meddler's QGT that only stands for me and my rudeness, there have been plenty of more productive criticism but NONE of them got a discussion despite the "Deal with it."
So let's hope the best that Nami will still remain successfull, fun and fair for everyone, allies and opponent and of course the players and the beloved mains. Fishlove forever.
