Your obsession with % damages and % damage reduction is one of the most bipolar actions ever

Fed by Snu Snu·Jul 20, 2014·3 votes·613 views

And that says a lot, because over the years you have been officially crowned the kings of bipolar statements - actual actions.

Let's see why:

You nerfed tank items because tankiness was "too much" in S2. You increased the effectiveness of penetrations. You then nerfed HP in items. You then nerfed every form of reducing incoming damage, first with the FH nerf, lately with the Randuin's nerf. How Banshee's is still not hurt is beyond me, I assume ADCs aren't hurt much for it, so they didn't compain about it. (yet)

And then I have the bad luck of playing a game where the enemy team had Maokai and Braum on the same team.

Do you understand how tanky they were? Can you just imagine it?

Replace Braum with Gragas or Kassadin and we have the same problem.

Their tankiness put S2 tankiness to shame. And guess what, they did considerable damage as well, since one of them scales with his own HP and the other scales with his opponent's HP.

But there's one catch here. Their tankiness was unmitigated, impossible to deal with and/or circumvent in any way.

After seeing that, I've lost the last drop of faith I had in your balancing team.

I thought you'd learn by now how problematic % dmg reductions are ever since the Gragas fotm craze, I guess not.

This game seems to be heading towards being called "LoL, the game where if you aren't an ADC and don't have a % dmg or dmg reduction skill, bend over"

Can we finally have penetration apply to those forms of damage reduction in SOME way? Even by half the normal amount would suffice.

9 Comments

Hyrum GraffJul 20, 20141 votes

Sure, Braum and Mao deal some damage. But you should be able to ignore them for the most part - if you kill their carries, those two have no hope of dealing enough damage to win a teamfight.

Maximum NidaderpJul 20, 20142 votes

You can't ignore Braum, you forget that he forces skills on him.

Or do you mean that we should control a fight for the 4 seconds of his E and then also magically burst the backline (that we would have to reach through him and Mao) within the few seconds before Braum has E again?

Ye, let's be realistic please.

Even if that was a reallistic scenario, you would still have lost the fight within the first few seconds that you have to keep Maokai's and Braum's cc in check. Because you forget something, they have unmitigated defenses, you don't. You will die in 3 seconds because your defenses mean nothing to their damage sources.

Hyrum GraffJul 20, 20141 votes

You can't ignore Braum, you forget that he forces skills on him.

Or do you mean that we should control a fight for the 4 seconds of his E and then also magically burst the backline (that we would have to reach through him and Mao) within the few seconds before Braum has E again?

Lategame his shield is up most of the time, but early and midgame it has significant downtime
He forces ranged skills on him. Take a melee assassin or bruiser mid/top/jg and that's not so much of a problem anymore.

Even if that was a reallistic scenario, you would still have lost the fight within the first few seconds that you have to keep Maokai's and Braum's cc in check. Because you forget something, they have unmitigated defenses, you don't. You will die in 3 seconds because your defenses mean nothing to their damage sources.

If your carries are building 6 damage items and dying, that's a problem. They should be building 5 damage items and 1 tank item, then, so they don't die to the pure tanks. If Mao isn't building pure tank, he's going to die much more quickly.

On a slightly different track: if you think this team comp is so strong it's unbreakable (hue), que with friends and play it yourself, and see what other people do against it. Whenever I have a champ who's particularly difficult for me to play against, I wait for its free week and then spam games on it to learn its weaknesses.

Maximum NidaderpJul 20, 20141 votes

I guess I'm talking to someone who thinks Braum is balanced.

I think I can stop the conversation there.

By the way, it doesn't matter if my squishies have 1 defensive item, when their front line has the equivalent of 8. (do the math, see for yourself.)

And immune to penetration among everything else.

Also, something about "counterplay" and "games shouldn't be decided in champ select" Riot has been spewing around and never delivered truly.

PS: It wouldn't matter even if squishies had 2 defensive items each, but I'll repeat something that you missed. DEFENSIVE ITEMS ARE USELESS BECAUSE THEY ARE AFFECTED BY PENETRATION.

Hyrum GraffJul 21, 20141 votes

Flat penetration (which is what braum/mao would be getting - neither builds a void staff or LW) is much more effective against low resistance targets. If you get some resistances, it's still just as effective, but doesn't mean as much because you still have resists left over.

I think braum is strong, but not game-breakingly so.

Overall though, what I see here is that no matter how much I argue, I'm not going to convince you. So, I guess I'll leave it at this: if you think mao and braum are so strong, go spam them in ranked for freelo.

SilverclawJul 20, 20141 votes

Good luck getting past Braum and Maokai so you can HIT the damage dealers.

PhoenixUnrealJul 20, 20141 votes

I take percentage damage increases on percentage health damage to deal with percentage damage reduction.

I've never experienced a high elo situation where this happened, but down here in the *Bronzy-Silvery *area, Mordekaiser item 3128 deals more damage that can be reduced by Braum Maokai

I do however, think that something should be done about Braum/Maoki; they can carry a game too well.

Fed by Snu SnuJul 20, 20141 votes

Even though that sounds like a plausible strategy, it would still wouldn't be enough to burst one of them late-game. We are talking about a lot of reduction here, especially on Braum's part.

The real problem though is, that even in that situation, you are forced to waste a really valuable CD (DFG+ultimate) for their front line, when you are supposed to be using in on their squishies. Not to mention that both of them will make lackluster ghosts assuming they actually die. (which i doubt, even with DFG we are talking about sooo much reduction that you can't reduce with Void Staff.)

Additionally, the main problem is how much pressure they can put to the ADC, exactly because they can't be brought down. This means that a teamfight is almost an automatic win in equal terms, since one team has an ADC right clicking freely and the other has an ADC that just runs from a wall of hp that they will get hurt more if they actually try to fight back. (e.g. get stunned and die immediately or get rooted, same deal)

(and at the same time, your own front liners can't put as much pressure, because they can only rely to items to mitigate damage, which means they become useless as soon as LW/VS enters the game.)

Their tankiness is so high that there is no way around them, since it can't be mitigated either. There is no interaction around it other than pray to a divine power that their squishies will be caught out alone.

Like, really, I had a full-build Vel'Koz in that game and I channeled a full duration ultimate and both Maokai and Braum only lost 450 health each, and 350 of that was from the true damage proccs. That's A LOT of mitigation to be justified in any way, especially since a whole class was nerfed in S2 exactly because they would end up being too tanky. (warmog's+atma's era if you had the luck to be that old in the game.)

TL;DR: Unmittigated % reductions is a flawed concept by default, even more so when taking in account previous changes and design philosophies Riot has stated.

This tankines makes no sense whatsoever in Riot's stated philosophy of the game. Not that I ever trusted their words fully though.

PhoenixUnrealJul 20, 20141 votes

That is all true, especially the parts about Braum being a bad slave One of the things that is easily overlooked by an average person is how much good armor/magic pen can actually do. If I am correct, the game prioritizes damage reductions like those from item 3075 and Maokai before anything can be done. It's the centerpiece of the entire argument that there is no way to avoid or counter-play this. I know many people who think that building any penetration against this is useless, and that only more damage can deal with damage reduction. The truth is that magic pen still increases your damage as much as it normally would. After your damage is reduced, it is then amplified again by your penetration stats. While this may still seem meager, if you look at a random situation, an enemy Syndra can relentlessly put down damage, either forcing them to engage or back off, which can possibly limit the teamfight potential. AGAIN- I want some changes to Braum and our tree friend, but I also think that people can do more than simply give up when facing them. Vayne, as a perfect example, still gives zero cares about damage reduction, and she still makes me angry. how can I have 400 armor on an ulting Alistar and still be killed in 9 hits?

I think change needs to happen, but I also think there is more than one solution. Also, I enjoy reading your, thoughts; They are well thought out and organized.