My thoughts on the state of the game so far
Now before i get into it (ill try to keep it as brief as possible) I AM aware there are changes coming but from what i have seen all it will do is create another meta so these arguments will still stand albeit in different forms in the future, but for now I am addressing the current live patch and the 2 main issues that i have with it.
First off.. meta's in itself is a very dull concept, its a case of.. build this, this or this or lose gametype and that becomes extremely stale/boring to most people and will eventually leave the game. Any game that has a meta is in my opinion bad game design, it could entirely be possible that most players are braindead and cannot come up with something new to deal with the meta or it could be both.
This leads me to my second issue. The level of power in some of these 4 cost champions is absolutely absurd, Yes im looking at you Brand and Olaf. A 1* brand does absurd damage with his ability and once its launched there is nothing you can do about it, Also being a mage he has the doublecast effect which is even more silly, now the obvious counter for this is Magic resistance which screams mystic for me but I feel these are available WAY TOO LATE into any game to rely on getting because 2 of them are 5 cost, 1 at 4 cost and 1 at 3 cost. 2 Mystic helps somewhat but will in no way give you enough of a chance to defeat what these builds around brand are doing. Wardens you can build immediatly and slowly increase its effectiveness overtime which is further supplemented by items. If you rely on getting Mystic then chances are you will die way before you actually aquire enough of them to be of any use in your build which makes it worse because they are an AUTO INCLUDE with the silly amount of mage/summoner spam thats out there. This is why i feel these magic builds are so popular and consistenly placing top 4.
On the topic of 4 cost i feel ashe is SERIOUSLY underperforming even with her recent buff, maybe I just need to experiment with her some more and give her the right items to be a credible threat. But compared to Brand and Olaf she is an ANT! Speaking of Olaf.. should i bother? I mean there are plently of other posts that explain the issue(s?) with him but from my own personal perspective these are the main problems..
- His atk speed allows him to consistently AOE freeze at any given time
- His ability lasts for the entire round
- He is an auto include for a lot of builds that vary around glacial. (Personally i dont have an issue with glacial itself but add it to a rapid firing AOE champ you may aswell just quit.)
Now there are viable counters to this however: Kindred, red buff and morello for example to stop him getting his hp back so rapidly and you can consistently get 1 of those 3. Or another way of dealing with him is killing him before he can reach full mana which is more viable now since it now takes longer for him to get to full mana. Wardens with Thornmail is also a good way of dealing with him and Berserker comps entirely, im sure most of you have seen a fully decked out defensive Braum.
Overall I feel when you have champs like Olaf and Brand that stand out as much as they do, you have a serious problem with the game, as I have said above that makes them become highly constested and the game becomes stale because everyone wants to do the same thing... Get the strongest stuff and win to climb ranks. Bringing forward other champs that get used so much less often to promote diversity will keep the game fresh for much longer than introducing more content. More content eventually will find its way back to the stale gametype ive talked about.
On a positive note I managed to make a build work that I have been trying to get to work for a while.
https://i.imgur.com/ZuPjxYa.png
It hinged on getting Yi but considering he is a 5-cost I believe it is the correct cost for him given his level of power.
