A Ryze Balance Idea

masterdragon481·Jun 12, 2015·2 votes·387 views

So we all know that Riot is revamping a lot of Ryze's kit due to balance problems.

I would like to see what the community has to say about the suggestion that he only stacks his passive upon a successful spell cast. Currently, Ryze can spam Q and build his passive, which is increasing his power beyond what was intended. If he had to actually land skills, he couldn't build his passive when coming to lane, or build it without pushing his lane, etc. Note that this would really only affect his Q, as he can't miss his E or his W.

4 Comments

Mat7itanJun 12, 20151 votes

I can't say I agree with this. His kit relies heavily on his passive so if he jumps into a team fight without any stacks on his passive he has to wait for his cooldowns (which are surprisingly long without his passive) and this is assuming he can land his spells, so by the time his passive is up and he is actually over the team fight is most likely going to be over. HIs passive is not like gnars in which he can hold it just on the brink of activation, ready for any team fight. If he let's too much time go by with out casting a spell he has to start over, and if he casts to many spells his passive may activate early. There is very little control with his passive. By allowing him to stack his passive just for casting spells he can prepare his passive on his way to the team fight, and then he will only need a spell or two to activate it.

masterdragon481Jun 12, 20151 votes

I don't disagree with what you are saying; but wasn't the whole point of the rework to create opportunities where Ryze is weak? Ie, when his passive is down (or far from being ready) that is the best time to fight him?

To talk about your comment that it is hard to control his passive; I have to disagree again. With Q on a 4 second cool down, Ryze has access to his passive very quickly; he can throw 3 Q's to hit nothing (or cs with them, or harass with them), and hold E, W until he is ready to engage. When he gets his R, he only needs two Q's. This means his passive is at his beck and call every 12/8 seconds, before you account for cdr (he gets a LOT of that for free). Remember, he doesn't have to land his spells, only cast them; his W, E, and R can't miss, and his Q stacks regardless of a hit.

As a result, Ryze only has to wait, at most, for two spell cool downs before he gets his passive. If one of those spells is his Q, his E will be up 3 seconds later (fairly quickly) and then he can return fire. The window in which an opponent must attack is so small considering any even semi decent ryze player will know this is their only weak point and back off enough to charge it again.

Ordinarily I would say this isn't a huge problem, but when you have a champion like Ryze, who can build VERY tanky, get sustain, and still output large amounts of damage (his calling card), I can see some problems arising. By letting him build his passive whenever, you seriously inhibit the enemy's chance to exploit the weakness when it is down, because that weakness is never really there.

Because of this, we are seeing his rapidly rise in the "this champ is OP" category and we can see Riot's response on the pbe; a response I think is the wrong approach to the problem.

I guess basically the TL:DR is his passive is SUPPOSE to have down time that enemies are suppose to take advantage of, because otherwise Ryze basically steamrolls your team. His current passive doesn't seem to support that sentiment that was part of the foundation of the Ryze rework.

EDIT: This was added as a very late after thought, but if you are going to compare ryze passive management to Gnar's, I think you are way off base for a few reasons. The first is that opponents can force Gnar's passive, something that opponents can't do as easily to Ryze. More important, and related, is the second reason; gnar's passive has a long cool down (between time you can't build fury and then actually building the fury again) where Ryze doesn't. A skilled ryze should hold his W and E near the end of his passive to just charge it up again as soon as he can; the lack of an internal cool down on the passive is what is pushing Ryze to be so hard to balance.

If Ryze passive were to change in such a way that it actually had a meaningful cool down between activations, then I think it would be okay to make it easier to use. For example, if the passive had a cooldown of say, 15 seconds between which it could be used, then I think the active management of the passive would be much more important. Stacks could decay one at a time (rather than all at once) and spell casts (not hits) could charge it. But again, this would only work if his passive wasn't so accessible the rest of the time, which it currently is.

BeddlamJun 12, 20151 votes

{quoted} Currently, Ryze can spam Q and build his passive, which is increasing his power beyond what was intended.

I disagree. I think this is exactly what was intended. A think like that isn't just an accident. I also think its a pretty vital aspect of his gameplay and doesn't really contribute at all to the aspects of him that are a problem.

masterdragon481Jun 12, 20151 votes

I don't think it was an accident like they had no idea that it was working this way. I think it was an accident in the sense that it has had a much bigger impact on Ryze's performance than was originally intended.

I think that now that people are figuring him out, his passive has become the problem. The total amount of uptime he has on his passive is why is currently so hard to balance. And clearly Riot believes that the passive is the majority of the problem; given the pbe attempts to adjust the way it functions. I just don't think their change direction is ideal.

Right now, because of the small amount of down time on his passive, half the point of the rework has been ignored; forcing ryze to stack a passive to be able to machine gun spells was suppose to come at a cost of down time where he was more vulnerable. This isn't the case.

I think ryze would be better served by keeping his passive very strong, but only allowing him to use it at less frequent intervals (think sorta like gnar passive, when it goes down, it stays down for a bit, allowing opponents to seize an opportunity). In a situation where he wasn't able to use the passive as frequently, more control about maintaining the passive could be used, such as stacks falling off one at a time, and spell casts adding to the counter.

As it stands now, however, it seems that he has access to his passive too quickly and too often and as a result, cannot be balanced properly (again, hence their nerfing of the passive, rather than his access to it).