Even if the items were removed, it's not like damage would be any less absurd. The overlying problem are the underwhelming defensive options, both through runes and itemization. There are myriad ways to improve your damage, but extremely limited ways to mitigate or reduce it aside from avoiding said damage completely. I see percentage based damage amplifiers all over the place, but where are all the percent based mitigation skills? The only one I can think of through runes that purely offers defense is conditioning, which can only be accessed 10 entire minutes into the game (aka when the snowballing has already long started). The others either deal damage or accommodate damage stacking like nullifying orb.
There is too much damage all over the place and not enough mitigation and reduction. Back in season 2, there was an even amount of defensive and offensive scaling, and nearly every champion was viable to some extent. The only champions that had a hard time back then were arguably assassins and/or flashy champions that relied on one-shotting opponents. They were feast-or-famine back then because defensive scaling and itemization were actually good, so they had to snowball early on or risk falling off late game, since even adcs would purchase at least one pure defensive item.
I feel like a broken record at this point, but this game will always be a balance nightmare until Riot decides to finally even the power between offensive and defensive scaling/itemization. **Simply buffing a few tanks/bruisers does nothing, you have to improve the power of both defensive itemization AND defensive runes. No damage, just straight up buffing defense. ** League of Legends is supposed to be a strategy game, where defensive and offensive options are generally held in equal value.
and other divers. I knew it was going to be a problem ever since the item hit the pbe. First auto attack stacking should have never became a thing. There is no way to balance these items. I would actually recommend they just get removed from the game. There is way too much lethality, so 1 less lethality item will make assassins easier to balance. As for stormrazor, it is mndatory for crit adcs to rush it because of its cheap cost and its massive powerspike. If your crit adc doesn't rush stormrazor, the enemy team can easily take advantage of that by forcing fights since your adc is only 1/2 of a champion at that stage.
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