Counterplay in ARAM

Drunk Rummate·May 20, 2015·9 votes·1,079 views

I'd like to preface this with a statement that I understand this is just ARAM, it's meant to be a fun gametype and sometimes balance will fall to the wayside for that. I believe, however, that the availability of counterplay in a defensive sense is extremely important to the 'fun' aspect of playing any game. If your opponent has a strategy that works 100% of the time, that's a problem and it should be addressed. It's not fun because you know it's coming and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

I wanted to make another Mark/Dash post, but after thinking about what I wanted to say I believe it falls more under the category of counterplay than anything else.

One of my main gripes with Mark/Dash is a lack of counterplay available to the team being jumped on. Your primary option to avoid the Galio/Amumu from dashing into your team and ulting all 5 of you is to dodge the snowball. That's it, it's the only option you have. However, that option is literally impossible for a number of reasons. The Mark/Dash player can ALWAYS engage when he/she wants to, simply by hitting a minion wave. That alone is a lack of counterplay, especially with regards to high CC, AOE ultimates like Amumu and Galio.

It doesn't stop there - say you dodge the mark. Fantastic! Unfortunately your teammate behind you didn't. So Lee Sin takes the dash, ults YOU into his team (the guy who dodged his mark) and you die instantly even though you dodged it.

Now in an ideal realm of fair balance, that's your teammates fault and your team should be punished for that mistake. However, in the realm of ARAM balance, it's pretty hard to dodge these things when there's 5 flying at you at once on that tiny little bridge and you're also trying to juke a nidalee spear at the same time. People are going to get hit. And you should be rewarded for dodging skillshots. The Mark takes away that important aspect of positioning because there are so many displacement or otherwise hard CCs that can just destroy you if a teammate gets tagged.

So lets talk about another thing in ARAM that removes counterplay - Ludens Echo. I believe if you look at %purchase stats for Howling Abyss, Ludens Echo will probably rank as the number 2 or 3 purchased item for AP behind Athenes/Morello/Tear (and maybe Dorans ring). The reason is not only because of the burst and extra damage, but because *even if you miss your skillshot, you can tag the minion wave and deal 100+ damage that prioritizes champions. So I dodge the Xerath Q but it hits the minion wave, I take 150 damage anyways. Great.

There needs to be defensive counterplay for Ludens and Snowball implemented. If you can't figure out how to add that, then they need to be removed or substituted for an alternative. It wouldn't be terrible to swap Ludens back for DFG in Howling Abyss, for example. The high CD on DFG's active and the relative chaos of ARAM makes the item pretty average despite it being overpowered on Summoners Rift.

Thats all, thanks for reading.

13 Comments

LuggMay 21, 20157 votes

I completely agree with not allowing snowballs to proc Ludens Echo.

PepijndMMay 23, 20151 votes

Do they really proc Ludens? I thought Ludens only procs on magic damage...

Drunk RummateMay 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Do they really proc Ludens? I thought Ludens only procs on magic damage...

No I'm 99% sure that mark/dash doesn't proc luden's echo.

PepijndMMay 25, 20151 votes

Isn't the snowball a really hard counter to ludens then? On any champ like Wukong or Renek at least

Drunk RummateMay 25, 20151 votes

I wouldn't say it's a hard counter to ludens, it's just another broken mechanic that they added in addition to ludens.

My issue with both Mark/Dash and Ludens is that even if you dodge the skillshot, you still take damage or get engaged on a lot of the time. So what's the point of dodging at that point? It's a lack of counterplay.

NaramielMay 20, 20155 votes

Agree on all points. Especially given the low CD of Mark, expecting your entire team to dodge it for 20 minutes is unreasonable.

bens on 28May 21, 20155 votes

I agree with your points but I want to see how it feels after the nerfs on mark/dash in 5.10 which I think would be enough to satisfy me personally.

but here's a few ways that you could possibly introduce counterplay for mark/dash... just to throw some ideas out there:

someone suggested in another post that two colliding snowballs hit each other and cancel. would be pretty hard to aim/time but would be pretty cool!
either remove mark on minions, or possibly increase mark dmg to minions - this would give melee a safe way to creep (every 40 seconds...), and would make it so that you can only dash to the siege minions since your mark would kill the caster minions, and probably the melee ones too.
allow players to mark allies and dash to them - i think this would be crazy and bad for the game.
allow players to mark both enemy and ally turrets and dash to them - this would serve another purpose in that you can use your turret as a shield, but also you can mark and dash to your inner turret to escape a tower dive.
allow mark/dash to be treated as a spell so that it can be blocked by spell shields and maybe even barrier, maw of malmortius (given you meet conditions for hp threshold), bloodthirster, etc.
allow mark/dash to be removed by Cleanse (can it already)? by mikhael's crucible?
remove invulnerability during a dash

As for Luden's Echo, I kind of agree but isn't that the same issue with statik shivv? it kind of seems fair to me since luden's echo gives poke off minions in the way that shivv does for adc's, and for tanks, mark/dash gives initiate off minions.

Dr JarjarbinksMay 21, 20153 votes

I agree with the OP and other posts on here.

The thing that really caught my attention is the idea of mark hitting allies and structures. It would be great counterplay to be able to escape someone who marked you by hitting your own mark on your turret and zipping to it, either to pull the enemy into turret range or wait until they get to you and just escaping completely. Idk much about balance but that sounds way more fun than the way it is now. I have to admit it isnt fun trying to run from a jump comp and knowing escape is just impossible.

Dessim8May 26, 20152 votes

Never did get a response, and I'm troubled by it slightly. You preface by saying "It's just ARAM" but then say things the exact opposite of that mentality, short of caring about hidden ELO.

This feels... odd and enables a bad mentality.

Drunk RummateMay 26, 20151 votes

I'm sorry for not responding sooner.

My point with that statement was to say that I view ARAM as a 'for fun' gametype because it is incapable of ever reaching perfect balance from a design standpoint. I didn't meant to offend anyone who takes it seriously on a competitive level - I actually do this myself. I win about 60% of my ARAMs and I'm proud of that, considering I don't use an ARAM specific account. However I do understand that it's really unlikely that ARAM will ever be balanced properly just because of the nature of random teams. I also think it's silly to try in many cases (exemplified by mark/dash breaking more than it fixed), and that the focus should be on keeping the gametype fun even if there is an occasional face-stomp due to the RNG nature of it.

Obviously getting face-stomped isn't fun, but on the bright side they've reduced the surrender vote to 15 minutes instead of 20 to alleviate this a bit. I don't think Mark/Dash adds to the 'fun' for ARAM. It creates stress because it lacks counterplay and I view it as an unfun mechanic mostly for that reason. If you disagree with me I would love to hear why.

Kholdstare13May 21, 20151 votes

Luden's is still a noobtrap item on ARAM. Don't buy it.

PepijndMMay 23, 20151 votes

Yup, Luden's is counter'd SO HARD by snowballs.

Especially if you're the monkey king :3

Dessim8May 25, 20151 votes

Ya had me, but at the start, your preface left me with a funny taste. This line:

I'd like to preface this with a statement that I understand this is just ARAM, it's meant to be a fun gametype and sometimes balance will fall to the wayside for that.

This can give people the idea that ARAM players who care about doing well in the upper echelons of play are in the wrong and that nobody should dare try to win for real. It fuels the "It's just ARAM" foolishness.