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@Morello and @Meddler and Riot on the changes on Leblanc and PBE direction

Deceiving Death·5/24/2014, 2:00:25 PM·2 votes·517 views

This is a really long post so please Riot read through it as i've put a lot of thought and effort into this.

Now before i start i want to say that i've mained Leblanc for two years and this is to point out the problems with her and how simply nerfing her damage will not solve anything other than making her unviable as a champion with no discerning strengths and how changing her kit would merely upset those who main the champion. the true problem with Leblanc is players inexperience with her and how fixing other champions will eventually force Leblanc out of the spotlight.

the current PBE changes are a straight up gutting of leblanc's ult damage. this hurts primarily her early game which doesn't make sense as she falls off really hard in the later game and the only thing you can do currently is try and snowball to stay relevant. even then most times with most players she falls off. the only positive change was with a small mana reduction to her W which doesn't help her in any way other than maybe to focus on farming which should not be as high a focus for leblanc as roaming should be. the nerfs to her ult make it so you would want to max AP as fast as possible and would make it much easier to stack MR against her. this would force her to rush a void staff and rabadons without being able to mix up her build. by that time you've entered into the later game and Leblanc as a champion has fallen off dramatically. i think the one good downside to leblanc's damage was her mana costs, it took good mana management in order to use her skills properly. i do believe that things like her early game burst are strong, same with her level 2 burst, but i don't believe the fact that she's strong in 1v1 scenarios to be the problem even though it may seem that way. Leblanc excels at being a lane bully as does renekton does top lane. renekton can bully just about any top laner out of lane but i think this is great as his late game isn't as good as someone like nasus or ryze. i believe these early game champions are being weeded out in order for more sustain and tankier teams. that's not to say these champions still can't be outplayed for bad positioning or mistakes made

The changes to towers, first blood, and gold distribution have all but stopped snowballing already making champions like Leblanc difficult to play and carry with. Leblanc is one of the last true assassins that people play as an assassin. She was not popular as a champion or as a ban until the LCS started and even then in the first week of the LCS in EU leblanc lost i think every game she was played in. i remember the announcers even saying that she was a bad pick and people should stop playing her. i was relieved to hear that because as someone who's played her for years i knew her potential and i didn't want the spotlight on her because i feared riot would change what i already thought was a perfect kit. then NA LCS started and Bjergsen completely wrecked a game with her. this is where the perception of Leblanc being OP comes in. after this people realized she had really high burst with very little work in lane against people who didn't know how to play against her. yes you could easily burst someone at level 2 and do massive damage forcing the enemy to heal and back up but there are counters to this the community is not aware of yet. putting her spells to good use, in what order, and who on outside of laning phase are what make a good Leblanc different from a bad Leblanc. even though she became more popular after the LCS she wasn't known as some hidden sleeper like ziggs, kayle, and gragas were of the past with win rates close to 55%. her win rate has steadied at a good 45% this entire time while still being considered OP. this is exactly where i think her win rate should be. she is very difficult to play and carry with but with extremely high burst for the person who knows how to build her correctly. if put into the hands of someone who's only played a few games with her they will probably not do very well if matched with an equally skilled opponent. the good news is because of changes to kayle and the emergence of her runaan's build from korea, her and other champion changes Leblanc's pick rate has once again been on a steady drop. a couple weeks ago it was 10% according to lolking and this week it's at 8%. although she is strong in the right hands people are starting to realize that she's not a sleep OP champion and there are ways to counter her. the community and especially lower elo players don't know how to play against her because she only recently became popular. people will comment on how afraid they are to see someone pick leblanc in ranked not because she's strong but because the person playing her on their team probably doesn't know how to use her. this leads to the real problem with leblanc, not her strength and damage but the lack of knowledge the majority of the community has with her as a champion. i as a leblanc main can pick up any champ and do fine against her because i know her weaknesses.

this is a problem for a lot of champs and not just leblanc. some champions people have classified as broken or OP yet still have below average win rates. even those these champions have high skill caps, because players are inexperienced facing an opponent who knows how to use that champion the first thing they think should be done is a nerf. i admit that when i first started playing i thought every champ that beat me or was a supposed counter to me was broken but if i had every nerf i ever wanted i would have never gotten better at the game. i had to learn as leblanc to bait out Fizz's trickster before going in, to use my CC moves on katarina when she jumped in and not use them on someone else before hand, and to side step skill shots like lee sin Q's. if every champion i thought was OP was nerfed i would have never simply learned how to play the game properly. champions like Riven, Lee sin, Leblanc, and other high skill champions in the right hands leave players feeling at a disadvantage in most 1 to 1 fights. however i feel that this isn't a bad thing. the changes to these champions has so far been to straight up nerf the champion because a small percentage that have played hundreds of games with just that champion are considered too strong with them. this might make the masses happier as they are played less often because the nerfs make them almost unplayable and less viable in solo queue and competitive play but it doesn't make it the right way to go.

you are not fixing a problem but merely punishing players who have really dedicated themselves and love that champion. you are merely appeasing the masses of undereducated players. should a person with hundreds of games on a single champion be punished to appease the masses due to their lack of knowledge and practice against said champion? i don't believe this is the way to go as it seems riot as a whole keeps going. this has been going on and as it happens games go longer and become less interesting to watch as play makers like Zed, Ahri, and Elise were nerfed because strong players are too good with them. watching games with Soraka mid, Mundo top lane, and Warwick jungle are incredibly boring for me as a viewer of LCS so much so i've almost stopped watching entirely and focused more on streamers themselves. when people make highlights of LCS games it's usually because of these play making champions such as the Zed ult near baron against fanatic, the Leblanc juke recently featured by Riot, or the lee sin insec type plays. the more you nerf these high skill cap champions the more reason players have to go to the easier and less interesting to watch champions. it's the reason why this years LCS has more people saying things have gotten boring and it's because the top tier champions are not the difficult to master champions but merely the champions with the strongest numbers.

So what's the solution? there are many that need and could be done.

first a training mode has been needed in league for such a long time. a place where players can go and practice things like lee sin flash kicks and just reset their abilities to try again. where you can buy different builds and set up ai players builds to practice damage outputs and combos. or simply where two friends can go and practice how to counter another champion without it being a full on game. if someone was thrown into a game like street fighter one will for sure assume one character seems broken over the other. however every fighting game has a training mode that allows a player to practice their moves before taking them into a game. league needs this type of mode desperately for new players to learn how to face the champions they have a hard time against and also to practice them safely themselves. there are many videos online from more experienced players but the the community shouldn't have to search the internet to learn the basics about a champion.

other champions need to be fixed. Ahri's foxfire for example is a common complaint that has yet to be fixed and will immediately make her more viable, Lissandra's ult is a running joke at this point and needs some serious attention, and old underplayed champion reworks like Galio who naturally counter Leblanc need to be a focus. there are so many champions that need love and attention to become more viable in solo queue and competitive play that are being ignored or made less of a priority for current flavor of the month picks.

warding tutorials and popular places to ward. people still don't ward. most of my picks as a Leblanc main still stem from the enemy team having a lack of vision. i still spend money on wards because i want to ensure i pick someone off and secure an escape route for myself. it's incredibly aggravating to watch people face check bush after bush getting picked off by teams waiting in there because people still aren't warding. it used to be the supports job to spam wards and now this season in solo queue most players take their chances face checking bushes. i like the vision changes being made but i know as a player early on i had to look up good support guides to learn how to ward properly. this is something that should probably be looked into.

just wait it out. leblanc's popularity is dropping as people are learning how to play against her and stop playing her as much. eventually with the changes being made to other champions she'll soon fizzle out as people are already beginning to learn how to fight her and realizing that she's not as easy to play and carry as the community makes her out to be.

if a champion already has high damage with a high skill cap and low win rate a nerf is not what's needed. educating the community is. otherwise you'll just end up appealing to the masses and just because a majority thinks something doesn't mean that it's right.

meddler i don't want you to think i've forgotten what you said the last time Leblanc was going through some changes... http://www.reignofgaming.net/redtracker/topic/102345-meddler-what-is-your-position-about-leblancs-current-state

2 Comments

Hyrum Graff5/24/2014, 6:53:46 PM2 votes

Ok, first off: Can you add some formatting to your post? It's such a huge wall of text, it's really hard to follow it all.

That said, I'll try to respond to this post.

simply nerfing her damage will not solve anything; changing her kit would merely upset those who main the champion.

Agreed on the nerf point, but I think that if the kit were reworked well, it wouldn't necessarily upset LB mains. Her W-E-R are important to keep, but I think there's room to play with her Q.

Leblanc excels at being a lane bully as does renekton does top lane. renekton can bully just about any top laner out of lane but i think this is great as his late game isn't as good as someone like nasus or ryze

LB's Q-W-E together have 240% AP scaling, and her ult (mimic: distortion) has another 97.5% ap ratio on it. That's a total of 337.5% AP, on top of her base. For comparison, Annie 285% scaling including her ult, and Xerath has 330%. Neither of those champions have the kind of mobility that LB has, and their ults, which bring 100% ap and 130% ap, are on an 80 and 100 second cooldown respectively (LB's is 24 seconds). Not to mention, Xerath's damage, which is closer to LB's, is all skillshots - it's much harder for either Xerath or Annie to get off their whole damage than LB.

If LB scaled poorly, it'd be fine that she is a lane bully. But she's a lane bully who also scales really well.

The changes to towers, first blood, and gold distribution have all but stopped snowballing already making champions like Leblanc difficult to play and carry with

The thing is, LB doesn't have to snowball - she has good bases, too - she can 100-0 a squishy even if she's behind. And once she gets her DFG, she can do it to fighters, too.

her win rate has steadied at a good 45%

As you pointed out, she has a really high skill cap. If you're bad with her, she's not good, hence her low win rate. But balancing a champ based on the average, is not a good idea - you need to balance her based on how LB mains do with her, and right now she's very, very strong in the hands of a good player.

people will comment on how afraid they are to see someone pick leblanc in ranked not because she's strong but because the person playing her on their team probably doesn't know how to use her.

This is really subjective.

some champions people have classified as broken or OP yet still have below average win rates. even those these champions have high skill caps, because players are inexperienced facing an opponent who knows how to use that champion the first thing they think should be done is a nerf.

It's not just an issue of being OP or not. The biggest issue with leblanc is that there's very little room for counterplay. If leblanc is very skilled, there's not much you can do to avoid her damage, or win trades with her, except stay away from her.

Here's a good example: Nidalee wasn't, in my opinion, OP. That's because, while her spears were super strong, if a teamfight breaks out before Nid hits a spear, it's basically a 4v5, because Nid is useless. However, just because she's balanced, doesn't mean that her kit is healthy, because the damage on her spear just wasn't.

should a person with hundreds of games on a single champion be punished to appease the masses due to their lack of knowledge and practice against said champion?

Are you suggesting that in the LCS, where LB has been very strong, the enemies don't have knowledge and practice against her? Maybe that was true at first, but not anymore.

Soraka mid, Mundo top lane

I'm pretty sure these were both nerfed. I'd go so far as to say patch 4.8 gutted soraka (on purpose, until they can rework her).

Lissandra's ult

Got a bugfix a couple patches back.

a training mode has been needed in league for such a long time. a place where players can go and practice things like lee sin flash kicks and just reset their abilities to try again.

I like this idea.

Continued in my next post, I'm out of characters.