Riot tries to be really clever...

Mira Arya Enthe·Sep 10, 2016·93 votes·4,889 views

Riot tries to be excessively 'clever' with balance changes.

"Kassadin one shots people."

Remove silence.

"He still one shots people."

Remove early poke.

"He still one shots people."

Remove attack speed.

"He still one shots people."

Change riftwalk mechanic.

"He still one shots people."

Gimp slow.

"He still one shots people."

Move damage from his Q to his W.

"He still one shots people."

Nerf early game Q base damage.

"He still one shots people."

Make him an unreliable piece of trash with no utility.

"But he STILL ONE SHOTS PEOPLE! AS in DAMAGE! Nerf THAT!"

Buff's Q early game damage again...

Sigh... This is just one example. But it is a permanent example of how they now balance things. Excessive, drastic changes, that rarely are aimed at the direct problem, and instead keep cycling champion identity and fucking with their utilities.

88 Comments

MagicFlyingLlamaSep 10, 201656 votes

Kassadin just lands on your face and oneshots you. Nerfing utility is a great way to counter that.

Riot logic.

dragon1xxSep 10, 20162 votes

Ashe Ekko Fizz

Du Ma MiSep 10, 20161 votes

For a sec I couldn't figure out why you got downvoted... but then I realized that Ashe doesn't generally "Land on your face", or oneshot people.

Ashe flash-e's you and you die Riot proceeds to nerf Ashe's aa slow

AstôlfoSep 11, 20161 votes

Her E is her vision bird though.

The LexerSep 11, 20164 votes

rito pls nurf

AstôlfoSep 11, 20163 votes

Yes bird does too much damage.

Du Ma MiSep 11, 20161 votes

Was the sarcastic point here friend. Also why they're nerfing her slow instead of damage.

I'm not very good at jokeception.

Keira HelshSep 10, 201622 votes

Yeah it's definitely a thing they've been doing for a while. What's really frustrating is their habit of keeping unhealthy identity while removing healthy identity. Similar to the above example, Kassadin used to be about his silence, and turning mages power against them, hence why he had a silence and bonus attack speed from magic damage negated. But, Riot decided that Riftwalk, which while it's a cool ability, is definitely one of the things that made him so toxic in the past, needs to be his ONLY identitiy and did all of those changes above.

I've been playing a lot of Katarina recently, because I like the character, and with what they've said about the Katarina rework, I'm concerned, because while using Shunpo more often in fights for positioning and technical play is cool, keeping her old ult is well, both counter productive to the direction they are taking her, and also completely unhealthy for her. I'd honestly rather change her ultimate before any other ability on her kit.

dunder killSep 10, 201618 votes

underrated post

flibitydooSep 10, 20169 votes

I don't ever remember kassadin ever oneshotting anyone

but I do remember him being sticky AF and getting annoyingly tanky because of his item path. (kind of like someone else I know of Ekko )

elon wątrobaSep 10, 20167 votes

Be glad, that you don't remember permaban kassadin. He had 80++ % ban rate.

ModCaptainMårvelousSep 10, 20162 votes

Higher than that.

I think at his peak his ban rate was like 97%

MonkeyMadnessSep 10, 20169 votes

This is classic Riot logic. Watch literally any video with someone like Socates and you'll see what I mean. Even if they are directly handed a very specific problem, they will change the topic to something else that fits their agenda, tell us we are incorrect in our assessment, and do whatever the hell they want. I mean, this is Riot's game so they have every right to do shit like this, but if they actually want to succeed they had better stop...

TequilaZombieSep 10, 20162 votes

but if they actually want to succeed they had better stop...

I'd say they are already pretty damn successful. Having one of the most lucrative free to play game ever created with a playerbase with millions of players can be safely defined as success.

Punching TopSep 10, 20169 votes

Nerf everything except the main problem.
Nerf the main problem.
Don't revert the previous nerfs.
shit

balbraakselSep 10, 20168 votes

Same as Lulu in my opinion.

DivewingSep 11, 20161 votes

And Azir.

And Sejuani. And Sion. Oh god this is a big list isn't it? (Sad thing is they STILL haven't gutted the damage on Azirs Q)

balbraakselSep 12, 20161 votes

To me it seems Lulu got hit extremely hard though. Maybe Azir, Sejuani and Sion got rekt just as hard or harder by Riot but I don't really play those champions so I don't really know tbh.

ShadòwSep 10, 20167 votes

An Assassin oneshotting you..

I can't see where the problem is. He should do that.

Sona x RubickSep 11, 20161 votes

ask kassadin's players: do you want an anti-mage or an assassin?

100% of them will answer option 1

ShadòwSep 11, 20161 votes

Kassadin is classified as Assassin officially by Riot

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/de/c/developer-corner/3A5uuBw7-champion-subclass-list

He has anti-mage elements, but his core identity is Assassin.

BeoridasSep 10, 20167 votes

hes among the weakest early game assassin, his base dmg lower than nami. I mean i do think they way they balanced him before (Morello era) was dumb as hell. Removed all his identity AND his dmg afterwards. So he became trash. I did make a lot of post about how his R buffs was the wrong direction. But i dont think hes out of line at all if ever in the past 3 years

Earl EulrichSep 10, 20167 votes

and that´s even excluding the part when half the PBE community told them that the changes wouldn´t work out in any healthy way...

LegacyDAPSep 10, 20166 votes

The reverse happened to Kalista.

Too much mobility? Nerf her overall damage...?

They shouldn't have even made a champion like that if they're forced to hit everywhere else to keep in their core mechanics making them useless. Kass is also a victim of this.

archerno1Sep 10, 20165 votes

Damage is rarely an issue, its about ways to dish out damage and ability to counter that.

Mira Arya EntheSep 10, 201622 votes

{quoted}

Damage is rarely an issue, its about ways to dish out damage and ability to counter that.

Numbers are typically the first place you should look before rearranging the entire purpose of the champion.

archerno1Sep 10, 201618 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xmE6z6vp,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-09-10T02:26:56.293+0000)

Numbers are typically the first place you should look before rearranging the entire purpose of the champion.

Not really. For example, moving damage from his Q to his W forces him to get close to you and put himself in dangerm giving u chance to react. If damage was on his Q, he could just safely destroy u from distance. Removal of silence again gives u chance to react to his attacks. Kassadin is technically an assassin, he is supposed to be able to "oneshot" squishies.

Mira Arya EntheSep 10, 201623 votes

{quoted}

Not really. For example, moving damage from his Q to his W forces him to get close to you and put himself in dangerm giving u chance to react. If damage was on his Q, he could just safely destroy u from distance. Removal of silence again gives u chance to react to his attacks.

Yes really. No Kassadin players are happy, and when he gets fed he still one shots people and makes them feel like there is no counterplay. He gets fed less often now, and thus is considered a piece of trash, but when he does he is still annoying as fuck. How is that mission accomplished?

If you just gimped his overall scalings, then him getting fed wouldn't be as toxic or devastating, but he would still have the ability to win his lane and carry games because he would have his utilities. He is literally just a gutted piece of walking damage, which Riot literally just stated they don't want assassins to be. That is why they are reworking Akali, Katarina, Talon and such. Because "they need unique utilities that set them apart and to not just one shot people." Meanwhile with Kassadin they did the exact opposite.

So sorry, no it wasn't a good design choice. Because it ceased to please the players of the character, made him trash for general picks and at the same time did not fix the 'WTF Kassadin is so broken, that damage' I still see when playing him.

Making him unplayable so his damage doesn't see play. Doesn't fix the toxicity of his damage. It just makes those who enjoyed him unable to play him anymore, and makes him useless for his team in most games.

Kingdom CornSep 10, 20163 votes

What you are saying is common sense any champion ahead is annoying and hard to deal with.

DKM BismarckSep 11, 20161 votes

You chose the wrong time to complain about Kassa being bad, considered he is seeing competitive play again and is actually a fairly decent champion right now, for the reasons you stated and more High burst High mobility Minor disruption Decent itemization, ends up fairly tanky for an assassin whilst still oneshotting No longer needs level 16 and 4 items to powerspike A fairly strong but short duration slow (this thing has net me and my team many a kill, you wouldn't believe it, and yes I played old silence Kassadin with a longer slow, not to much success as I was a fuckin scrub back then and I am still not really that good at Kassa as is.) this skill in general is fairly balanced You see, like Talon, and Akali, and Katarina, he is bound to his low range casts. His Q is only just longer range than Talon W, his E is Talon W in range, his W is just a basic auto enhancer (maybe it adds like 25 unit range to his auto, I dunno.) He HAS to get into danger zone to kill someone and he CAN be killed in the time it takes him to burst and for his R to come back up, even if that window is small. And he is abusable to no end in lane, he does have a fair amount of counterplay and doing well with current Kassadin is fairly rewarding, he ain't the best design, but he sure ain't the worst.

Keira HelshSep 10, 20164 votes

{quoted}

Not really. For example, moving damage from his Q to his W forces him to get close to you and put himself in dangerm giving u chance to react. If damage was on his Q, he could just safely destroy u from distance. Removal of silence again gives u chance to react to his attacks. Kassadin is technically an assassin, he is supposed to be able to "oneshot" squishies.

If instantly killing people was an assassins job, Riot's primary goal in the assassin class update wouldn't be to make it so assassins don't kill people in less than a second.

Also, I have a post laying around somewhere that compares pre and post rework Kassadin that shows the damage breakdown on their kits.

In this I break down Kassadin's ability kits and show that old Kassadin's kit Q and E was about 66% of his total damage output on a single rotation. New Kassadin's Q and E are 50%, which is still less, yes, but think about it this way, Kassadin can still SAFELY do 82% of the damage that he did before. So that means that if Kassadin used to bring you down to 10% hp with his Q and his E from range before. Now he brings you down to 26.7%, which means his next Q is going to kill you just like it would have before. But now, his ult is on an even shorter cooldown, and his W is a burst tool, which means he can jump in and guarantee your death and have a just as high window of escape, because silence or not, he can put that damage out in less than a second.

None of the above is even considering the fact that this is a game where people are playing that can make decisions, and Kassadin can just super safely throw out a Q and bait you into using your escapes before killing you regardless of silence or not.

For reference, the breakdown I mentioned in this post. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/ZBEda0oY-let-us-remember-kassadin?comment=00020000

Keira HelshSep 10, 201610 votes

Even Blizzard when they made Starcraft 1, a game legendary for it's competitive play and balancing, the patch that really pushed it to that place was full of things like, "Spawning Pool now costs 200 Minerals up from 150." Because back then, game developers weren't trying to be clever with their balancing.

Sir FuzziSep 11, 20161 votes

Listen, having played maining marine rushes, there's a big difference in fifty minerals. It can be the number an entire strategy is featured around, designed to stop up early game rushes that feel oppressive. But it inhibits an entire build.

People tell me changes like 4 AD on Ekko is the same. But is it really that kind of gravity, or does it tell of the effect without actually delivering the result? Maybe the early Sheen loss and AD loss sucks, but I think the problem Ekko has is that he doesn't get punished for anything in the way that his competition does.

That said, my experienced in ranked is nothing. So I dunno what I talkin' 'bout.

SammystormSep 10, 20163 votes

You fail to understand why kass's silence got removed. It was so that he couldn't burst people well they were silenced. Same reason talon's got removed.

CrazFight Sep 10, 20162 votes

Its really not even the champ anymore, they keep having to nerf champions because of the "damage" they provide, but the damage creep is so high this season, probs more than ever before so everyone is doing tons of dmg now.

GayFluffyUnicornSep 10, 20164 votes

Funny isn't it? Kassadin oneshotting you is bad muh. But a lucian or Jhin walking up to a mage essentially oneshotting them too is okay. Boards logic.

notmebuthimSep 10, 20162 votes

Its the same with Talon and LB.

Bladerunner7777Sep 10, 20162 votes

People think Kassadin is OP in 2016??

lul

BlakiepugSep 10, 20161 votes

I think you pinpointed a good issue. I haven't been around as long and I don't always read the patch notes in their entirety but I have definitely seen this problem in their balancing (or at least, to me I feel it is an issue). Like with Azir, instead of just nerfing his damage they pranced around it and nerfed a bunch of utility that was not causing any problems in game to the point where he just isn't as fun to play anymore. For me, the fun in the complexity of Azir wasn't that he could do tons of damage with his basic spells but rather that he was a mage who I could use as a split-pusher with good escape tools. They destroyed that identity because he was too powerful in team fights. But like if team fights are the issue, then why not nerf something actually relevant to that like his damage output, not his ability to damage towers with w?????

Rundus1Sep 10, 20161 votes

Because his main identity was a team fight late game monster and high damage threat. To preserve that, they had to not nerf it to the point of encouraging new identities. Instead, they make it harder to achieve that goal, and thus make it more rewarding to achieve that late game dominance that Azir (not unlike other late game hyper carries) possessed and was built around. It's like how they nerfed Kass's early game into oblivion so it was fair that his late game was op, since he had to stall out games and farm for a while to get there. If the enemy picks panth and doesn't abuse that early game difference, then they are fully deserving of the terror of the late game hyper carries or scaling monsters. (Zil is another good one. In lane he's ok, but really hard to use. Late game his damage can easily 100-0 squishies in one rotation and he has all the peel in the world for him and an ally)

BlakiepugSep 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Because his main identity was a team fight late game monster and high damage threat. To preserve that, they had to not nerf it to the point of encouraging new identities. Instead, they make it harder to achieve that goal, and thus make it more rewarding to achieve that late game dominance that Azir (not unlike other late game hyper carries) possessed and was built around. It's like how they nerfed Kass's early game into oblivion so it was fair that his late game was op, since he had to stall out games and farm for a while to get there. If the enemy picks panth and doesn't abuse that early game difference, then they are fully deserving of the terror of the late game hyper carries or scaling monsters. (Zil is another good one. In lane he's ok, but really hard to use. Late game his damage can easily 100-0 squishies in one rotation and he has all the peel in the world for him and an ally)

But they didn't make it more rewarding for Azir to achieve late game dominance is my point. All they did was take out the aspects of his kit that made him unique and different from other late game hyper carries. Azir has been sitting at 40-41% win rate all summer with even the most skilled players only having around a 45% win rate on the champ. Shouldn't the mastery curve go higher if he is such a hard champion to master. Riot removed a good chunk of that mastery curve because he was being played in the LCS all of a sudden and now he has an extremely sub-par win rate especially for his reduced mastery curve.

Rundus1Sep 10, 20162 votes

I'm not saying they correctly accomplished the idea, but they did attempt for him to faze into the pool of late game monsters. His rewarding feeling came from merely achieving the same levels of late game power he's always had because of how much harder it is to get there. Now, you are right, though. He's meant to be one with a high skill floor and ceiling that becomes amazing in the right hands and scales monstrously. They accomplished this, but only partially since his weakened state with less CC directly influenced his late game power. They effectively left him with only his damage and shadows of his original glory. He needed nerfs, but his CC shouldn't have taken all of them. Now he genuinely is underperforming at most levels and until the meta shifts more favorably or he is changed he won't regain his place, but the changes were of the correct mindset. His CC and utility should definitely have gotten most (if not all) of the hits, but they shouldn't have ripped him apart so much without buffing something else that encourages the gameplay they wanted. Idk if keeping the MS boost on ult or it's former duration would fix him, but some power does need to come back. They had good intentions with shaping him into a late game monster of a champ. It was just poorly executed.

BlakiepugSep 11, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I'm not saying they correctly accomplished the idea, but they did attempt for him to faze into the pool of late game monsters. His rewarding feeling came from merely achieving the same levels of late game power he's always had because of how much harder it is to get there. Now, you are right, though. He's meant to be one with a high skill floor and ceiling that becomes amazing in the right hands and scales monstrously. They accomplished this, but only partially since his weakened state with less CC directly influenced his late game power. They effectively left him with only his damage and shadows of his original glory. He needed nerfs, but his CC shouldn't have taken all of them. Now he genuinely is underperforming at most levels and until the meta shifts more favorably or he is changed he won't regain his place, but the changes were of the correct mindset. His CC and utility should definitely have gotten most (if not all) of the hits, but they shouldn't have ripped him apart so much without buffing something else that encourages the gameplay they wanted. Idk if keeping the MS boost on ult or it's former duration would fix him, but some power does need to come back. They had good intentions with shaping him into a late game monster of a champ. It was just poorly executed.

I fully agree. :) Personally, if I could choose anything to come back, I take the ability he had to damage towers with W. Tbh that probably wouldn't help his performance much but I always thought it was a fun way to use the ability.

Rundus1Sep 11, 20162 votes

Agreed. It gave him more early lane pressure so you couldn't just ignore him and roam until you feel like coming back and getting him off your turret. He could really hurt if left on his own in a lane.

DivewingSep 11, 20161 votes

They could have just nerfed his Q damage to hit his early game, unhealthy poke pattern, and obnoxious siege all in one go, but instead hey nerfed literally everything else. I promise you Azir will at some point come back, and this will all happen again.

RequiemsfireSep 10, 20161 votes

Kass is by nature an unhealthy design, 2 second blink, burst, shield, magic mitigation all with low cooldowns meaning that if he by some chance gets ahead he is borderline unstoppable where since he's not longer overpowered or "strong" he gets gimped with an overly weak early game.