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Respecting and Fearing enemy champs, and its impact on gameplay.

Inx·3/1/2014, 5:39:24 AM·5 votes·1,087 views

Couldn't hurt to post this here. Stuck it under misc cause I have no clue where else I'd stick it. Also it's long, though there's a tl:dr at the end if you really just want the jist I guess.

Disclosure: This is based mostly on anecdotal evidence based on trends and personal experience, so take it as you will, though it'd be interesting if there was a way to get metrics on something like this.

I have been mulling over the idea Respect in league of legends. Not like, respect of other players in the social sense, but the respect that a champion demands that in turn affects the way opponents play against them. Of the top of my head an example would be Leona/Draven in bot lane. This is a really powerful and snowbally lane, and because of this, the opposing lane is usually forced to play conservatively and won't take as many risks against the draven and leona out of fear of being outtraded or killed. This is what I mean by respect. If the enemy lane isn't taking risks or being aggressive against you, they are respecting your space and strength.

Forcing your opponent to respect you occurs in two ways. One is a bit hard but straightforward. It's essentially good and aggressive play. Out-trading and outplaying your lane opponent puts you on the fast track of making your opponent fear and respect you. Beating them without jungle assistance, or as a jungler, applying massive amounts of map pressure on your own, cause you to become respected by the enemy team. This is pretty obvious. If you're winning, you will probably be treated as a player who is winning, and thus will be played around accordingly. (or called op regardless of who you're actually playing)

The other method is much, much simpler, and come into play all the way in champ select. Champions have an inherent amount of respect that they command of others. Like my leona draven example of before, or say, Kassadin. This respect is a result of a combination of factors, ranging from the actual strength of the champion, to their perceived strength and popularity, and it's this second part that's the most important. The percieved strength of a champion is an extremely powerful aspect that cannot be controlled and has no actual weight on the game, but has a great amount of impact on how they are treated by players. You see a lot of nerfs that target perceived strength, actually. Those buffs and nerfs that boost movement speed by 5 points, minor base damage or mana changes, are usually more targeted to nerfing perceived strength, not the champs actual capabilities.

The respect you are given from just picking a strong champion can shore up a lot of weaknesses that a champion would otherwise inherently have, in my mind. There are a good number of of champions that have ridiculously awful early games, but when they become flavor of the month or are considered op, things like their weak early game just get thrown out the window. Because they are labeled as overpowered, they command massive amounts of respect from the enemy at every stage of the game. Look at vayne. Vayne has an atrocious early game. she does no damage, has a terrible steriod for laning, and has garbage wave clear. You can shove in on her and beat her up and she'll have a hard time responding with equal harass from a lot of adc/support pairs. But when she's considered strong, she won't have to suffer as much through this weak phase.

This same concept applies to the player as well. A mediocre player playing a strong champ will have more of his or her mistakes ignored, because people are less likely to punish the mistakes of someone who is playing a champ they are afraid of.

My personal example of this is Riven. I've been playing riven for a long while. Since some time in late season 2 I've played her, and she's gone through multiple phases of what people considered strong and weak, without ever getting buffs. During these strong times, where people are complaining about her strength, I find my matchups become easier, even ones that have never changed, like renekton vs riven, or iunno, whoever's popular in top lane at the time. Shen or mundo or garen or whatever, you get the point. I feel like I can farm unthreatened and pick my own fights, and I only start getting all-inned when I've started making too many mistakes or have genuinely fallen behind due to lack of gold or items (or I'm getting ganked, but that's not really part of it). I feel like when I play a popular champ, even if I don't feel like they're anything special, I will get a more forgiving experience and thus be allowed to scale up more freely and less likely to fall behind.

However, if my champion doesn't command any respect, either because they are unpopular or are perceived to be weak, regardless of their actual power, a champion like, say, Fiora, I experience the opposite effect. Champions that don't get the respect they deserve tend to be abused and have their weaknesses exploited, to the point that the enemy may make un-optimal plays because they don't have any fear of the enemy. Fiora was essentially the champ I leveled my account with, and I love her to death, but this is something I noticed as I rose in level and rank, and again whenever I play a champ that isn't very popular or considered strong at the time. I find that enemy laners tend to be more aggressive against these champs, and try to make plays against them more frequently, and that I am forced to respond in kind and pull off a lot more work to gain the respect of the enemy laner and force the lane into my favor. I've had a lot of people try to fight me early as fiora even though I'm running around with 100+ ad at level 1 and have a more favorable match up. It's completely nonsensical to do, but since a lot of people think I'm playing a weak champ, they feel more comfortable trying to press advantages they think they have.

I feel this concept becomes most clear when we see tiny nerfs resolve any issues a champion was thought to have. Lux was considered over powered for a little while last year, and was later nerfed, losing a whopping 5 movement speed and an increase to her ult cooldown at early levels. And she was considered fine again, even though her damage and safety really didn't change all that much, but she was considered alright very quickly. Or champions that were once considered bad become good again, based sheerly on popularity shifts.

I'm not sure what I meant to accomplish by posting this, I guess on wanted discussion on how perceived strength can override what is actually strong or weak, and shore up the weakness of poor champs or players. How it's kind of under appreciated how this aspect of the game is. Or something like that I guess, Iunno. Please excuse and scatterbrained thoughts or poorly phrased sentences, I ended up getting a bit distracted during the writing of some of this, so there might be an error or two, or it might just not make sense.

TL;DR because I'm so nice: I feel like a champion's perceived strength (aka: the respect they get) has a significant effect on the game and is an under-appreciated factor involved in how the game is played.

3 Comments

Afr0samurai893/1/2014, 4:19:22 PM1 votes

Ok I definitely understand what you are saying. Not only that, I would say that I agree that this is something that happens and is exploited. It's a part of the League Community at this point. For instance. Taric. Taric was considered stupid last season. His provided sustain created a lane phase that was un-matchable for lower tier players and given an adc who can farm, and or notice a stunned+plated kill became a ridiculous match up bottom lane. To the point that he became banned. This really brings me to the point of responding to your original post. It's why we have banns. Ranked is definitely different from normal play in the fact that banning out champions who are too popular and thought to be too strong is necessary in ranked/solo que because without that your team has no sense of security that "they won't miss out on picks/won't be able to create enough coordinated picks" in champ select that they'll lose in champ elect and won't be able to create a positive gaming experience with each other. Or that is what I've realized it to be useful for.(This is COMPLETELY different in high tear team play. Because some people are just that good at certain champs and if they don't ban out 2 of the 5 champs that any given opponent team can take and destroy with they won't be able to retaliate. Again not the point in question) That being said I would like you to take your attention and move it to Nasus.

Nasus is a destructive opponent top lane who you may find yourself at odds facing if he's picked last. Mainly because of his stacking q ability and the fact that he can in a reasonable game destroy turrets in about 10-15 hits without much fear of being stopped and killed. He might be stopped, or killed. But a good last pick Nasus can find a team with little option of doing both. Even if done it would take some ults to do so.

Regardless on how good you think you are. A mediocre Nasus player can do this. We all know it to be true. That's why we saw such a big Nasus ban in the last few months. He received a lot of respect in champ select but also to counter him there was a lot of respect in lane. That being said a 3rd pick Nasus would see singed, teemo, or some other champ who was able to play him aggressively enough to push him out of lane/interrupt his farm/or just burst him down enough early that he would have to wait an extra 20 minutes to hit that point in the game where he was a snowballing monster again. This is the part of respecting opponents you aren't really accounting for. Yes people respect champs in one way by playing conservatively. Making sure to chose even last hits carefully as not to get a burst of damage as a trade for an extra 15 gold. But. There are champs like Nasus who must in stead be respected by being played against aggressively. I say this because without aggressive play they hit their peek earlier. It's the same with vayne. Vayne is countered immediately in champ select by a support thresh/blitz or by an adc cait. Both ways this is a respect factor not a "we think she's a bad champ let's harass her" but more "she's a really distructive late game we need to shut her down now" maybe that's what you were explaining when you brought up vayne to begin with Idk but it seemed like you were just saying that people need to learn to handle vaynes rather than just sitting shell shocked at the thought of a 250 cs vayne 30 mins to that point if it's what you are trying to say I counter with people have noticed it and that is why she is no longer a popular pick like the current.

Similar to this I would say there are many champs that don't get enough play considering their destructive nature. Like Sion for instance. I am not a Sion player but i know that in solo que he's destructive. He has a passive that gives him HP constantly throughout the game. An R that makes him almost unkillable without grievous wounds of some sort. And isn't really countered by any one champion THAT well. Honestly his best counter method is made when steps are taken early game and when they are done in a coordinate team method......

Afr0samurai893/1/2014, 4:23:22 PM1 votes

This is a simple one and it counters most every champion. But most importantly a Sion. You just kite him. You force him to switch agro by having 2+ people force him down with cc when he stuns one player, and then after one person runs away from him while the other teamate damages him as constant as possible. That way he can't lifesteal and i done early enough he either isn't tanky or doesn't do damage. This effect makes him a trash pick in most team coordinated games but a monster in solo because it seems to be an unheard of strategy to work together in solo que.