When You Nerf the 2nd Worst Champ in the Game...
...he becomes the worst champ in the game.
This is really frustrating as a Ryze player. Even his win rate for diamond (top 1% of players) is 46%.
Presumably Riot want's champion diversity at the pro level to make the competitive scene more interesting to watch. However I think there's some fact's that are important to point out
- The pro's still lack champion diversity; They only pick a handful of champs out of 140, and basically ignore the other 100.
- When Riot balances around the pro's the game becomes massively imbalanced for the regular player (see Azir, Kalista, Ryze)
It appears Riot currently has no new solution to issue #1 and #2 above. They are trying the same thing (tweaking champs with buffs, nerfs, or redesigns to flatten the skill curve). After 8 seasons of attempting to balance for the pro's and regular players at the same time I think we can admit it isn't working.
I don't think anybody can dispute the points above. So I think it's time to try something new... but what to do?
Would Riot consider a variable number of lockout/bans for pro play? For example in a pro best-of series in the 1st game they get 10 bans but by the 5th game they get 50 bans (40 previous bans + 10 new). Or alternatively lockout champs that were previously played in the best-of series (possibly only for the winning team)? Doing something like this would force champion diversity on the pro’s (which I suspect is the primary end goal of the attempts at pro play champion balance). Then Riot would be free to balance for us regular players without having to also consider the pro balance.
Sound interesting? Any other ideas?
