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Riot, are there any plans to hit the top picks/bans of this season?

Annie C Hastur·9/17/2013, 7:27:49 PM·5 votes·3,054 views

Hi, I'm a fairly decent (D1) player and as this season has dragged on it has seemed more and more like the top picks have been too far out of line.

Some of the prime offenders to me have been:

Ahri: Incredible mobility, damage, super strong laning, really good pick. Has no clear disadvantages.

Orianna: Laning phase ridiculously powerful, late game DPS among the highest of the ap carries, and comes with tons of utility and CC.

Zac: Way too difficult to kill. Damage is actually within reason for his capabilities, actually being lower than other tanks, but it's impossible to prevent his engages and nearly impossible to kill him when he does.

Corki: Strongest laning phase of all the AD carries with amazing mid game, impossible to prevent farming from post 6, tons of mobility and the best scaling with Trinity Force, which may be overpowered in its own right.

Anything?

26 Comments

Capt Carmine9/17/2013, 8:04:18 PM6 votes

Orianna actually has one of the lowest bases, and ap scaling on her abilites, her q-w does less damage than a nidalee spear. she looks big because she is always wombo comboing her spells really efficiently. and she also doesnt really have that much mobility so it can be easy to catch her.

I spoke on another thread, but I feel aatrox has really starting pushing into zac's space, Zac has only really been picked once or twice in worlds, and aatrox pretty much carried the game he was in.

I feel for the majority of play characters really arent as overpowered, it is just with the limited bans the game has, teams are playing a small subset of the characters so they can ban and pick the other teams champions.

As much as Certain Rioters say they dont want to increase the champion bans I feel they really do need to do something to help with the ban pick phase of the game. becuase right now blue side has 4 bans with first pick, due to the fact that every team has come up with the idea of sharing a certain champion pool for sharing the champ, and when that happens a champ hits perma ban status, as it has happened for ahri and zed.

if they increased the number of bans but then allowed some champions to get picked before all of the bans happened I think it would really allow for more characters to get played and for teams to play different champions and not feel limited for not playing the same champions other teams do.

However going to your balancing question I feel Zed, Ahri, and Aatrox are the characters they really need to look at since they already have a trinity force nerf coming up on the PBE for corki.

RiotPWYFF9/17/2013, 8:50:27 PM4 votes

Zac I would agree has ridiculously high base damage on his spells, but currently I don't think he's a mega concern.

Capt Carmine actually pointed out exactly what Orianna's core flaws are, but I would agree that if she's being deferred to as the fundamental "fall back" for a team fighting champion (if the Assassins are banned off), then maybe she should be looked at.

If you've been paying attention to the PBE, we're actually looking at Corki but, on a larger level, Trinity Force. From what I understand we're looking at simply halving the movespeed bonus of Trinity Force.

Ahri I think actually has champion deficiencies (similar to Orianna) but she's being deferred to as a high mobility assassin when Zed / Kassadin are off the list. I personally go to LeBlanc but that probably doesn't work beyond plat.

But on that note, good thoughts to bring, but the originating factor (THEY GET BANNED SO MUCH) isn't something LD really focuses too heavily on. It's more of a per game health and objective look, although pro picks and pro play does factor in certainly.

Riotricklessabandon9/19/2013, 7:17:40 PM4 votes

i'm looking into ahri and kass as candidates for changes in the 3.13 patch.
orianna isn't currently on the table as far as i know.
zac was changed recently—we're still digesting the data regarding their effects.
corki should have some changes in 3.12 if i'm not mistaken.

Pramxnim9/17/2013, 10:41:49 PM3 votes

I think the recent Corki hype has everything to do with Triforce and almost nothing to do with where Corki is as a champion himself.

A couple of patches ago, Corki had his mana costs readjusted to make him less of a resource hog in lane, but his kit has basically remained unchanged since season 2. As a champion, he's in a good spot.

Triforce, however, is currently a problem. I really liked the Phage change at first, but even before everything blew up I felt the cost reduction was too generous. Triforce was already cost-effective after the buff to its combination cost (300 gold -> 3 gold), and this change to Phage cut its cost by another 215 gold (Phage went from 1465 -> 1250 gold). The cost reduction and reliability of the new Phage / Triforce made it a must-buy on many champions and brought a resurgence of some favourite season 2 picks, Corki being the foremost among them.

Without the recent Triforce change, Corki would still be in his own little niche, not too popular, but not fading into obscurity either. His potential as an AP mid has also been explored by some people (myself included). Now with this latest patch, he's seen a resurgence in solo queue and competitive play not because of a metagame shift or a change to his kit, but rather a much too generous buff to a classic item.

For solutions to this situation, I feel like the changes that are being implemented on the PBE is a step in the right direction. The stats on Phage and Triforce remain untouched, but the item costs are being readjusted, which is super nice. Right now it is sitting at 1350 for a Phage, and on paper I think it looks fine. I wouldn't mind buying Phage at 1375 or even 1400 gold for the movement speed and kiting potential it gives though, so that's always an option if you guys feel like the current changes are not enough. But please re-consider nerfing Corki, as he has been fairly balanced ever since his mana cost changes.

MyNameIsTinaFey9/20/2013, 6:54:10 PM1 votes

ahri is fine, nerfing too many other mids just made her shine out right now. jayce, khazix, ryze, tf, all were much worse then her

Varsuuvius9/17/2013, 10:02:35 PM1 votes

Orianna isn't an insanely powerful champion, especially not in laning phase I feel. She's very safe though due to her high utility and ability to safely fark. xPeke showed how easy it was to dodge Gragas ults simply with his speed boost making ganks very difficult on him. She works best with others around to utilize her utility and combo with certain champions better. I don't think she's in position of extreme power, her kit simply lends well to compositions with AoE spells or a champion that can easily dive into battle which, with Zac and Aatrox being used often, is not had to build a composition around.

Ahri is very powerful, there's no denying that but poor utilization of either her ult or her charm can often ruin an attempted assassination or make her very vulnerable. If anything needs fixing, perhaps a slightly smaller ratio on her Orb of Deception or maybe a smaller amount of Spell Vamp on her passive to make her laning phase a bit weaker without really hitting her ability to pinpoint and kill specific targets.

Zac is a bit tricky. His Elastic Slingshot makes initiations extremely easy and he brings great CC to a team. I think the most recent nerfs to him have brought in into line rather well actually. He has a harder time healing from his bloblets and it's possible to lock him down while he is in Let's Bounce. He seems to be much better suited for Solo Queue now although I don't think he's nearly as dominate as he used to be.

Corki is primarily a problem due to TriForce. In his own right, I don't think Corki is a terribly overpowered champion, rather well balanced I'd actually say. World's has shown just how powerful the chances to TriForce have made him so perhaps some tweaking of the item rather than himself would be warranted.

sarcasmsmurf9/18/2013, 2:57:05 AM1 votes

i think a lot of issues with the likes of zed and Ahri is in their kit, if you have the skill to manage the mechanics and the decision making ability .. their kits simply allow too many tools...

personally rather than nerfs to the assassins i would love to see some improvements for the old ap mage class of characters perfreably changes in ap items .. so they scale better unto themselves like ADC items do.. just a thought

Not Awful9/17/2013, 7:42:31 PM1 votes

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