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Are snowballing champions a bad concept for league?

ScurvyNave··1 votes·729 views

Any champion can snowball a game when fed enough but there are particular champions who's kits or success completely lend to or depend on snowballing.

I'm talking about people like Draven , Katarina ,Riven ,Talon ,Fizz and Akali .

They can be gods or joke in game depending on their sheer ability to curb stomp. Plus they are often the target of balance changes every patch because they are so dammed tricky to make balanced in game. This is not to say they are unbalanced but we've been on either end of the main issue with these champions.

  1. You play them but never get any kills and get camped/focused to death because of you're potential to solo carry games. or
  2. Your enemy has one of these champions and despite you not losing your particular lane/position one of your tea mates has a bad day and gives the enemy snowballed the 3 kills he needs to get rolling.

Yes they can be focused/killed or cc'd during a fight but these champions are often banned or bitched about. I won't lie I've never gotten higher than silver 5 in ranked but I've often seen these champions banned no matter what.

My question is, Is it right/good for the sake of the game to have champions who are so potentially strong and weak (bi-polar?). Would it be better to lessen their carrying potential to make the game less toxic/annoying when they get fed because of reasons you as an individual can't control.

What is everyone else's thoughts on snowballing champions?

9 Comments

Salt Miner 49 Er1 votes

No. They aren't. Snowballing characters exist in other MOBAs/ARTS games as well. The biggest difference is that given enough gold and farm, a character like Faceless Void can go "ZA WARUDO" with a well placed Chronosphere and bash your entire team to death with maybe one defensive item.

MrPerson101 votes

They're not a bad concept at all. They're part of what give us a healthy champion pool.

Think of them like this: feed or famine. They don't get fed either by out-CSing you or by roaming for some kills (feed), they become irrelevent by not hitting powerspikes when they need to and thusly get melted or CCd then ignored (famine)

ScurvyNave1 votes

{quoted}

They're not a bad concept at all. They're part of what give us a healthy champion pool.

I admit that the concept can work but by looking at the issues and balance changes that have happened with these champions tells me that the idea may seem good on paper but not practically. When a set of champions that share similar traits are the most complained about/banned it seems like an issue to me. Just my opinion.

IcyPepper1 votes

I agree with him because of complacency and stagnation:

  1. Snowballing champions force you to adapt, which is one step to upping your game. If every champion could be beat by just out cs-ing, it would become a farm fest. Take Katarina, for example. Your laning phase isn't about outfarming her, it's about setting up the perfect gank with your jungler before she hits level 6. If you get her shut down, you have the advantage. If she kills you first, she's roam to bot and get more fed. This teaches junglers how to focus lanes (a good jungler will not ignore a Katarina in a bad matchup). It also teaches teams how to focus carries out of position in a teamfight (Katarina has to get in the middle for maximum dps, so ignoring her is a fatal mistake).

  2. If every champion was the same (get more cs = you win), games would be boring. A snowballing champion vs a utility champion is a test of skill to see who can utilize their skills better. It's what separates Graves from Vayne, Jinx from Caitlyn, and so on and so on. It shakes things up, makes it exciting, ups the stakes.

Well, that's my two cents.

Lysdexic11 votes

It is actually healthy from the long term standpoint of game diversity. What fun would it be if every game was a stagnant we-push-you you-push-back scenario? the games would drag on for far too long and people would get bored incredibly fast. What having snowballing classes allows for is a sense of accomplishment for directly affecting the outcome of the game for you, or if you get shut down or focused in fights to oblivion, the enemy team feels good about themselves for keeping you from your full potential. No matter what, someone feels happy at every point in the game.

ScurvyNave1 votes

There is another side to the coin. Why would I pick a champion that couldn't snowball then? I think individual skill differences would prevent the push vs push scenario you described. I think other champion such as a good Maokai, Corki, or even a support like Leona can carry a game despite not having built in mechanics to be snow-balky.

It just seems like theres a imbalance between what the champion brings vs how skilled the player is.

A passable katarina can snowball and take the game while an outstanding nami support or maokai top can't hope to have the same impact. Despite being better players, the nami and maokai are gated/limited by their champions lack of carry potential and have to rely on untrustworthy teammates whereas the katarina can slaughter people all on her own.

Lysdexic11 votes

{quoted}

There is another side to the coin. Why would I pick a champion that couldn't snowball then? I think individual skill differences would prevent the push vs push scenario you described. I think other champion such as a good Maokai, Corki, or even a support like Leona can carry a game despite not having built in mechanics to be snow-balky.

It just seems like theres a imbalance between what the champion brings vs how skilled the player is.

A passable katarina can snowball and take the game while an outstanding nami support or maokai top can't hope to have the same impact. Despite being better players, the nami and maokai are gated/limited by their champions lack of carry potential and have to rely on untrustworthy teammates whereas the katarina can slaughter people all on her own.

Because the champs that cant hope to match Katarina's killing potential make up for it in ways to shut her down. A well times Maokai Q can easily shut down a kat just after she starts her ultimate, turning that game winning pentakill into brutal ass rapage. Every champion brings something to the game, and there is no game where going in against 5 snowball heavy champions spells automatic defeat.

Sona Ping1 votes

Talon?! Who complains about Talon other than that guy who just lost a game to Talon?

And everyone I've seen complain about Fizz wasn't complaining about him snowballing; if anything, they were complaining about how he didn't even need to be snowballing in order to wreck people with no effort. Their complaints are more along the lines of things like how gets a Zhonya's Hourglass active, a 3k gold item, for *free *in his kit on an 8 second cooldown and how unlike other assassins who are kind of all-in (like Talon, for example) he can go in and get out with his Zhonya's Dash while taking literally no damage.

SmknWdl1 votes

Well here's the thing. I use those snowbally champs when i know i can get a snowball rolling. Ill go Fiora top or mid if the enemy team has Vladimir Garen because i know she counters them... It's a game of picking and choosing. If I've got first pick ill go yasuo usually, cause i know i can do well with him even when countered in lane. Or ill jungle. It's a strategy game... duh

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