Q. What happens when you nerf champion A because he's strong compared to/against champion B?

In an ideal world, they would be balanced. However, this world is far of a fair one. So what happens is that now champion B is considered worth picking, and god have mercy if he's good now that champion A is not viable.

So, what happens here is that, after a few months (and/or a tournament), champion B is nerfed and is now worse than champion A post-nerf...

And the cycle continues until they both are unviable and reaaaally weak, moment in which neither of them is picked at all. Now the viable champions in A and B role are C and D. And C is stronger than D...

You see where this is going? Yup, reverse power creep. Nerf everything that is relatively strong until everything is weak.

And this are supports in a nutshell.

 

A. This is a red herring. The power level across the board, generally, is up - we constantly add total power to the game. There's zero evidence of a progression of reverse power creep - in fact, our game is power-creeping a little.

For supports, we're going to take it on the chin if we ever nerf any of them at this point, regardless of if it is or isn't correct - the negative feelings of the nerfs we've done have really left a sour taste in people's mouth (and I can understand that).

What this means, is it's going to be even harder to get usable feedback because it's going to be a lot of frustration and anger (Hostile Miku finally lost it with the idea of another Sona nerf!). It's very, very clear to me that this will anger people - I get that.

I also want to be clear, while I'm signing off on this stuff, this is the recommendation my experts are making - and their analysis checks out. I'll ask them to come give it in person on the forums if we do decide to hit Sona so there's more context. That won't solve the anger problem (you can't out-logic emotion), but maybe at least make it understandable.

It's tough, because in cases like this we have to make a choice between making players mad or doing what makes the game better and more balanced. Making players mad isn't something we like to do, but sometimes it is something we have to do.

What I will say is, if we do push supports out, we'll get them back in - just like we did with Sona. We'll just be faster next time Out goal is not to push them out, but it's also not OK to have only Sona/Janna/Soraka used (this was literally six weeks ago in NA finals). If Sona is pushing out Lulu, Janna, and Soraka, that's as much of a problem as if it Leona or Blitz were doing it.

 

Q. No, as long as its better to have one person with 15k gold and another with 7k gold as opposed to having two with 11k gold- a 0cs teammate will always be used.

 

A. This is true.

 

Q. I remember at the beginning of the year, I thought Sona was pretty good. I could actually POKE in lane with her, make people afraid of her and successfully zone out with her. Then she got nerfed. I'm not sure how many times she got nerfed, because there was a period where I switched from Sona to Taric. But by the time I got back to Sona, I tried to zone with her and was completely unsuccessful. Not only did I deal NO damage, but EVERY AD carry could jump on top of me and 100-0 me with little effort.

Sona received some small buffs not long ago, and coupled with a game play change on my part, instead of zoning with Sona just being more of a heal bot, I was able to succeed with Sona again. But she was not was she used to be. Her poke is still not there, her zoning is just not an option. And now I hear that she's going to be nerfed MORE?

Just stop it, seriously. She's too weak to harass now as it is, do NOT nerf her, seriously. She could stand a bit more damage as it is, nerfing her would just make her completely useless.

 

A. Comparing a champion that was widly overpowered (let's go look at those release numbers, eh?) to the current state isn't a valid data set. By this logic, Vlad is terrible and unusable, as is TF and Zyra :P

Sona's GREAT right now. She's very good, and very strong - superb poke, good utility, and tank-level AOE CC. Saying she's bad is just...wrong.

 

Q. but its ok to have only ez, graves, and corki used

makes sense

 

A. It's like we nerfed two of those (Graves and Corki are nerfed now) and Ez's getting swatted this patch.

I'm sorry, were you trying to call me out on something that we fixed? Thanks for letting people know it's not just support

 

Q. Yeah, aware this is an old thread, still this remains relevant:

What happens when new releases are usually overpowered? Power level across the board increases, just as you said.

What about when more of these new champs belong to some classes than others? The classes with more new additions powercreep more than the other classes. This is why support is declining in power relative to the other classes.

Sure, you can bring S3 itemization into discussion (call me on "sightstone" and I'll raise you "locket" which is currently more useful on bruiser than support, or anything related to health stacking, which supports generally can't do), but as a class that largely doesn't get items (especially in competitive play), should this really be used in defending the state of support?

 

A. Support items (via gold) were one of the most buffed classes in Season 3 (maybe except bruisers...BRUUUUISSEEEERSSSSS!), but there's still way more upward powercreep than there is power loss. This is becoming more problematic in characters who have low skill ceilings (looking at you many Fighters and Taric!) because if they're as strong as other options in a myriad of situations, then that invalidates ever taking the risk or preference choice to play something that does allow you to showcase skill.

Comparing the game each season shows an increase in power. Some of that is natural growth and maturation (people learn more on how to optimize the game as they get access to more pro streams, spectator brought this up, replays will bring this up) as well as new champions or items. The game will naturally creep upward, so that's where nerfs combat that.

 

Q. Love the balance in this game. Better nerf Taric and leave health stacking untouched.

 

A. Untouched is interesting as we just nerfed health stuff last patch. And whether its a problem or not has little to do with Taric's problems.

 

Q. But why continue to ignore the problem that caused health stacking? Too much ArP and MR items that are too niche for a tank to want to invest in them made health the only reasonable gold investment for tanks/tanky DPS/squishy champ who needs durability. Tanks aren't typically rolling in gold.

 

A. I really need to get Xyph and company in here - there's a direction they're going with this, and that the problem is how this interacts with characters who were balanced for the old system.

 

Q. have to agree. Janna is just pathetic at the moment and it boggles my mind why she's currently in this state. She doesn't even offer a heal, so you can't argue that's why she's been so nerfed ala Soraka. I as well don't understand why supports keep getting nerfed and nerfed

 

A. The same reason Fighters are about to. We're trying to generally reduce power because of the amount of power creep.

It can feel bad, but feels a lot better than the opposite, over the long-term.

 

Q. I'll be sure to necro this thread in a year and hold you accountable for that! Janna better be FOTM XD

 

A. I think there's several areas of our game where, if I wasn't worried about the shock value to the playerbase, we'd tear an entire subset of things in half to get power back in check. Supports feel close to me (and maybe even get buffs if not - which is cool!) and Fighters are way off. Mages and ADC are the closest imo.

 

Q. Power creep? Supports? Are we living on the same planet?

Seriously, stop dodging my questions and tell us WHY supports are power creeping (and please, don't even talk about the items). Enlighten us, we're listening.

 

A. Most supports were so overtuned since their inception that we've been trying to undo it. Think of it this way;

Two cities have different tax rates. City A has an 8% tax rate, and City B has a 35% tax rate.

City A's taxes keep getting raised by about 2% a year. After 5 years, they have an 18% tax rate. It's likely people would be mad about how the city is overtaxing, and the whole city has changed into something that's all about taxes - even if they're no where near the 35% of City B.

The point here is if you start at a place that's too high or too low, you'll have to make many more changes to get it to the right spot. Supports have less power creep, but they had one of the highest starting values as a classification. ADC did for a long time too, and most were nerfed much more than buffed - putting them into a much healthier state today.

Original support champions weren't tuned for a 0CS game originally - that came up in the S2 meta. We've had to make adjustments to meet that, and then we saw where things were much more crazy than we'd ever thought.

So, I understand the feeling, but the goal is to get them on the right power mean, and then balance them against each other. This requires a total power reduction.

 

Q. You just had S3 then, which was your big chance to do just that.
How come you kept it so tame?

 

A. What we could get done in the time frame. It was pretty crazy to even get what we got done.

 

Q. may I just ask what are your plans to return viability back to the roles that lost them s3 (assassins, adc to an extent, and burst ap )?

will you simply nerf other champions to lower the playing field and slow power creep, or will new items come to renew the roles of said classes?

 

A. The only one of those roles that has any viability problem is burst (whether assassin or AP). It's something we need to fix, but it might not be the way you expect.

 

Q. Playing the game, as it stands, I would agree with your assessment. While I still think most supports could use tiny buffs once you're able to balance them against eachother more closely, I think once you adjust the fighters and balanced them will be a lot more even across the board.

 

A. That's the goal, and the focus, for the team right now. The support one has been a slow burn (and was pretty contingent on getting ADC fixed - see the difference in ADC viability between this thread's inception and now? ) and Fighters are going to be hit more aggreesively.

A lot of people love fighters. Lowering their total power is going to make support nerfs look popular =/

 

Q. Oh please lord comment on ziggs. What's his problem? He's part of the burst family that is good in lane, but just falls off after that unless you get ridiculously fed, which anyone can do well if ridiculously fed.

Will you buff his minefields utility or something? GImme an example here. And please tell me ziggs is part of the problem. Even if you read this and say "I dont know" is good enough for me. Ziggs is my favorite champion, and it sucks when i don't feel like people pay attention to him from a balance perspective.

 

A. I think he's lacking a "reason" past lane to exist, and needs a distinct niche. There's some trepidation on the team to doing the wrong buffs here, but it's something I'd like to see.

 

Q. You've made me happy as hell. Love my ziggs, it's nice to see you guys have an eye on him. Thank you. What do you mean by Distinct niche though? I thought he was an AOE mage. Isn't that a dintinct niche, or is it not good enough? Can you comment on what you mean by Distinct niche?

 

A. (Phreak) For example, Short Fuse dealing more damage to turrets.

A few months back I heard that Ziggs' best purpose was probably "Siege mage." Every one of his abiliities is a poke. He zones the enemy team so they can't engage. He brings down turrets. If your team is looking for an early victory, push all lanes, and start a 5 man push early, he's the guy you bring to make sure they can't engage on you while you bring down turrets.

Now that said, this is only one random sentence months back. Don't know if that's the actual direction.

Compare to Brand who just deals all the damages or Nidalee who makes pushing work by harassing and healing.

 

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2686136&page=2#30285954