Reminder to stop underestimating the impact of those "meaningless" nerfs.

Eedat·Jun 13, 2017·39 votes·1,914 views

Q - Piercing Light

Mana cost increased to 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 from 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70.

Life steal reduced to 12% from 15%.

People said these changes were useless and wouldnt fix anything. Lucian's win rate has fallen from 53% to 49%. His play rate was cut in half. His ban rate is a third of what it was.

Don't underestimate what you might consider to be a "small" or "pointless" nerf. Sometimes their effects are much larger than you anticipate.

46 Comments

InsteadJun 13, 201715 votes

It's as though riot actually knows what they're doing despite people on here complaining about something new every couple days.

nice tableJun 13, 20177 votes

it's almost like riot guts every champion that gets out of hand that isn't flashy but tries to keep their favourites viable :^)

morlockedJun 13, 2017

yah like the nerf ban coming to karma

Big LincolnJun 13, 20179 votes

Caitlyn Draven next

MetallmeisterJun 13, 201710 votes

[deleted]

SalronJun 13, 20171 votes

It didn't even tickle her WR

Big LincolnJun 13, 20178 votes

doesn't seem that bad to me, she's still the most picked adc

MetallmeisterJun 13, 20175 votes

[deleted]

EbonboltJun 13, 20171 votes

People build shiv and rfc now.Her winrate actually increased after that so called nerf

ModAcademy KaynJun 13, 20172 votes

But at what point in the game? Did her midgame winrate go down, and her late go up? Or perhaps smething else.

DisembarkJun 14, 20171 votes

The Shiv/Rapidfire build is simply BETTER on her. Always was. People just were stuck up on the synergy with her passive.

In LCK players switched to the Shiv Rapidfire build on patch 7.10 even though the runnans synergy was still there.

It fits her play style too well, and is way more punishing. You go for caster creeps? Prepare to eat lose your hp from a Shiv. A Shiv crit plus Rapidfire range and a head shot means Cait can effectively take off 70%+ of your health from one auto at 700 range if you try and stop her siege as a squishy.

korg023Jun 13, 20172 votes

nerf yes ,huge? not

AirKingNeoJun 13, 20171 votes

Caitlyn is still pick ban.

If that's a "huge nerf" then someone fucked up.

korg023Jun 13, 20176 votes

Draven + item 3812 should never exist in its current form. Is Riot really letting this thing be? After 2 patches they didnt adress how op this shit is? He literally chunks 1/3 of your HP with one bassic attack while healing half of his health due to crazy lifesteal and ridiculous passive on DD. Jesus Christ riot please do something how is this ok?

Lord DesertJun 13, 20179 votes

Context people, context! Balance is not black or white! Lucian wasnt only affected by the direct nerfs, but also by the enemys he is facing! Cait, Twitch, Xayah all beat him by a decent chunk. If those guys would be weaker Lucians winrate would rise again.

Lucian still has the insane syngery between his passiv and Botrk! That wasnt changed at all. He also excels at medium long trades. The current "just burst them down" is not what he does with blade. He can kill tanks pretty fast with it, but not other dmg threads. Thats why Crit Lucian get popular again. All in all the problem is still there, but he is now "statistically" seen as neutral. Statistics are awesome, but they not always tell the hole story.

Glory ln DeathJun 13, 20172 votes

Because Twitch and Xayah arent the same strength as before Lucian's nerf and Caitlyn wasnt nerfed at the same time...

RealČernochHoursJun 13, 20171 votes

And Xayah gets nerfed next patch...

SnowplosionJun 13, 20176 votes

When it comes to game balance most of the community has no idea what the hell is going to happen. They think they do, but they usually don't

LeetriJun 13, 20176 votes

Sometimes you don't even need to change anything and people will still perceive it differently. Riven was really weak around her release, so Riot buffed her and everyone was saying she was much better after the changes and her stats actually went up. Problem is, Riot didn't change anything. They had put the changes in the patch notes but they had forgot to include it in the actual patch. It's a bit harder nowadays with all the datamining and that, but never underestimate the psychology behind the words "nerf" and "buff" even if the actual numbers are small or even non-existent.

DunkinNoobsJun 13, 20175 votes

Cait's winrate actually went up slightly after the nerf, which kinda makes me wonder if Runaans was overvalued before.

MasziiJun 13, 20171 votes

Its becuase Rapidfire stacks faster and can work with Statikk now

Sir FuzziJun 13, 20173 votes

I had this concern when Ekko lost like 4 AD, and I said, hell no. The problem with Ekko is that there is literally not a single resource in the game he does not access. Poke, hard and soft CC, capable of full interrupts (IE not just roots), functional at close and long range, has a basic proc that enjoys synergy with all three Iceborn items and still boasts some great scaling, a situational self-heal and escape/burst, mobility, a shield and his stun starts off as an AoE slow as a 'warning.'

Apparently, though, it calmed down the Ekko problem. So you know, I don't really comment on balance changes-- when they happen, I say, let the dust settle and then make judgements.

MasziiJun 13, 20172 votes

Yeah Ekko is disgusting.

korg023Jun 13, 20173 votes

These changes nerfed only his BOTRK rush build that made him strong in the first place,he is still fine if you build item 3508 into crit build. Obviously this build takes longer to kick in but at least is balanced and gives enemy adc room to breathe in laning phase due to later power spike. Lucian is still strong in right hands.

Tobias BracknerJun 13, 20173 votes

I feel that drop is more from people memeing the idea of "oh they are nerfed, let's stop playing them"

Let time move on and suddenly people will realize he's still good and nobody has actually learned how to respect him and he'll jump up in popularity.

Lady HammerlockJun 13, 20172 votes

True, considering the amount of times Luc spams piercing light, +20 mana is a whole lot mana that people make it out to be

CatastropJun 13, 20172 votes

I think it's less that he got weaker and more, "Oh no he's nerfed, that must mean worse, better find something else." As ridiculous as that sounds, this legitimately dies happen, remember when that one time they "gutted" Vlad with his W speed removal that never made it to live? His playrate, winrate and banrate all plummeted over a change that didn't even happen.

deadlychuckJun 13, 20172 votes

placebo nerfs. These are nerfs which exist to create small changes which, if tested objectively, might reduce the win rate by less than 1%. Though, because people still view them as nerfs, the players who are just looking to min/max, who tend to be the better players, will stop playing the champions to find the next "best" champion.

Now you want to see a meaningless nerf? Yasuo Q buff 10sec > 6sec [zombie-brand-clap] Targeting Yasuo's power fixes none of his problems, so this nerf is actually meaningless, even though the nerf itself is pretty much inconsequential even in respect to power.

EnloctJun 13, 20172 votes

15 to 12 lifesteal is a huge fucking nerf though.

hhaavviikkJun 13, 20172 votes

that's because people are stupid, riot once did a experiment, put in patch notes a small nerf for a champion without actually nerfing it, the champion then proceeds to get a lower win rate because people abandon ship, same thing with caitlyn yeears back, she was overpowering every laner, she then got a -5ms nerf and you know what happened? she was never seen again and deemed garbage tier all because of -5ms, people can't think for themselves, lucian is still strong, it's jsut that people think ''oh shit nerf champion dead gg move on''

Sexy Jack RabbitJun 13, 20171 votes

Recent Syndra Nerf was enough to drop her out of competitive play.

LankPantsJun 13, 201722 votes

That's because that Syndra nerf was fucking giant. There's a reason why Riot rarely touches AoE sizes, small changes have huge impacts. In fact they did this exact same change to Syndra's E before and it destroyed her that time as well.

Sexy Jack RabbitJun 13, 20171 votes

Well yeah, you kind of re-iterated my point, albeit in a more informative way. From first glance 50- less units on a spell doesn't seem like much.

SociopathFriendJun 13, 20174 votes

That's why percentages are so great.

275 to 225?

That's almost a 20% size reduction. Doesn't seem quite so small now, does it?

Troll for TrumpJun 13, 20171 votes

Yeah, but that's also why percentages are problematic.

They make big changes seem small and small changes seem big.

abbbezJun 13, 20171 votes

now keep in mind that since it lost 50 units on the diameter resulted in a 33% loss on the area.

ShadowParkerJun 13, 20172 votes

On the other hand, I'm so glad they finally did nerf the aoe radius. It was almost impossible to dodge.

ProfDrDeathJun 14, 20172 votes

I'd argue that changing an AoE's size often has a huge impact because it messed a lot with their user's muscle memory and feel - hits that would've occured under the old system might not occur anymore, and you are required to not only learn this in your head, but also in your fingers and muscles.

To that end, I find it easier to adapt to such a change if you willfully let yourself get rusty with said champ by not using it for a while, then pick it up again.

EnlegacyJun 13, 20171 votes

not entirely, but her pick/ban rate did drop a lot.

ZT XperimentorJun 13, 20171 votes

Meanwhile the blind monk is still seen everywhere, despite getting nerfed slightly.

Darkdemon653Jun 13, 20171 votes

{quoted}

People said these changes were useless and wouldnt fix anything. Lucian's win rate has fallen from 53% to 49%. His play rate was cut in half. His ban rate is a third of what it was.

Don't underestimate what you might consider to be a "small" or "pointless" nerf. Sometimes their effects are much larger than you anticipate.

Additionally, to those who care about win rates, this serves as a testament to how good the balance is in this game right now.

2Charmnot2CharmJun 13, 20171 votes

Most of these people don't respect shit in games so getting them to not underestimate nerfs/buffs is pretty hard to do unless it's a obvious gutting.

Teridax68Jun 14, 20171 votes

In a competitive multiplayer game like League, balance is on a hair trigger at all times. We've all laughed when Riot mentioned the difference 3 base AD can make on a champion, but it's true, those kinds of changes can completely affect win and play rates. We've all felt this when our favorite champions received a nerf to their base damage by about 5 or 10 units and felt like they got trashed. The only time where it seems like we're not aware of this is when it happens to champions that are popular to hate, like Lucian right now, so targeted, effective nerfs (these ones might even be a tad excessive) will seem like harmless love taps on paper.

I think part of the problem here is that some players might unironically believe in nerfing champions to the ground just because they got a little too strong all of a sudden, or even deleting those that are annoying to deal with, but the larger issue is that Gameplay is still a place where emotions take precedence over reason. While it's useful to convey how you feel about a certain issue the game has, asking for hyperbolic, reactionary balancing, or immediate design action that cannot possibly take fewer than several weeks or months to do properly, is not so good. Every champion has a fanbase behind them and, while their fun should not come at your expense, the reverse is true as well, and if there can be a happy compromise where a champion can feel good to play, and good to play against, that's what should be aimed for.