NCR Redslayer
NeoGAF's Vegeta
Its amazing how one bad teammate can make you lose a game.
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League of Legends |OT9| Stealing Abilities From Inferior MOBAs since 2009
- Thread starter PhillipCostigan
- Start date
- Status
Yes, people called it "Throwmail."
NCR Redslayer
NeoGAF's Vegeta
Its still terrible as most adcs have lifesteal to go with their Ad.
Wolf Akela
Member
That was before Riot injected lots of HP into many other items. BT also used to give 25% LS and was stackable. When Randuin, Visage and Banshee got reworked to have more HP, it gave tanks a lot of spike against a specific type of damage.
TM really hurts ADCs because people still like to build complete glass cannon (IE/crit/LW) without significant defense (LS/MR). Well guess what happens when you crit on a Thornmail, specially before you get LW?
Personally I think people are just having too much tunnel vision on the ADC. APCs are still there to punish tanks who invest too much on armor by midgame. Even tanky tops deal decent magic damage.
TM really hurts ADCs because people still like to build complete glass cannon (IE/crit/LW) without significant defense (LS/MR). Well guess what happens when you crit on a Thornmail, specially before you get LW?
Personally I think people are just having too much tunnel vision on the ADC. APCs are still there to punish tanks who invest too much on armor by midgame. Even tanky tops deal decent magic damage.
MrCookiepants
Member
I don't understand how to do damage with Zed.
Ghost is Bad
Banned
Double Shurikens and Autoattacks. Deathmark does deceptively little damage, it's mainly his passive and high damage abilities that shit on most targets.
Wolf Akela
Member
Death Mark is essentially a super DFG.
MrCookiepants
Member
So the combo would be like R, W, E, Q, auto to proc passive and then R again to safety?
BreezyLimbo
Banned
The only reason they've made tanks a problem is because they made ADCs hyper carries. And it's this juxtaposition where ADCs are supposed to be the ones that carry the game, and you have tanks who are supposed to not die in 5 attacks, so now that tanks are actually tanky they kinda wreck face with anything. What they have to do next is rebuff most AP carries into being able to wreck Tanks. With pure % true damage. LIke, Annies Q taking off 15% true damage.
This is the final solution. Suddenly tanks will die fast enough, ADCs will die at the same rate and won't be overwhelmed, tanks will still be able to tank against ADCs, and ADCs will still be able to wreck APs.
It's the final solution, really, that's the balancing point that Riot has reached.
Several people in the thread were just complaining about a certain item. I don't know if that will help.
Randuins, frozen heart, thornmail, CC, decent teammates may all help.Ghost is Bad
Banned
no lol. The point of tanks is to make sure that their sustained damage dealers can't be nuked by making sure that bursty champs like AP carries can't blow their spell rotations on their squishy targets. What you're suggesting would literally make the role of ADC absolutely useless.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
IMO all roles should be useful. Right now you kinda have a lumpy hill, where the ADC and Tank are on top, but Tank is slightly higher, Jungle intercrosses with Tank but not all junglers are equal. Last year, tanks were useless that when it came to jungling, Lee Sin and Elise were top tier simply because they can still do damage while being tanky. This year, I'd say that tanks are more important because they can actually tank. From waht I've read and understand, people don't like this because that means ADCs can't fight tanks 1v1 anymore.
So personally, I like where tanks are now. I also like where AP is right now. Support? Ehhh they were fixed long ago, where they're not just ward bots. Games in a good position IMO. Alot of characters are viable again, tanks are actually useful for tank(Except shen because they buuuuutchered him.), ADCs can still carry but against a good tank they'll get wrecked. Which is how it should be imo
i dunno, feels weird, at least thornmail's effect in particular. tanks don't use many actives (and neither do mids now that dfg gone poof) so maybe?
tho i'd like to see how the world is with new bjork and general cinderhulk nerfs before we start changing other items
and like always i wish rito added more items, that's my solution for everything. more items means more builds which leads to new ways to counter stuff, new ideas, etc.
the problem is that the game isn't built like thatI think that's a bit silly though. If someone wants to go glass cannon, they should shatter like glass if they try to do stuff against properly itemized opponents. If enemies need to itemize, maybe it's time for ADCs to do it as well.
Wasn't thornmail almost universally mocked at one point? I'm glad that it's kind of useful now, along with the tank meta.
carries can't "itemize" to counter because they work differently
like say i'm ori and i buy a warmogs then i still die in like two hits because i don't really have defensive scaling or defensive spells (i guess e counts but it scales off ap so it's still a loss) while suddenly doing no damage
and if i buy defensive ap items like rylais or roa it's the same thing, i'm not tanky and i can't carry either
and obviously i can't buy like ad and counter mr stacking that way
so i need lots of "carry" items to do my job, which are more expensive and hard to build, and i need of one specific kind, the idea there being that since i'm always sort of set in one path, it gives the tanks a chance to itemize against me, rather than me itemizing against them.
defensive builds are reactive, which is why there's always a ton of items in common in every tanky item like ruby crystal or cloth armor or something. they're also very cheap so they can change their builds as soon as they see someone fed so if they had like a ruby crystal that were gonna build into a cowl but now vayne's 3-0 they can just stick that into a giants belt and go build that randuins. or whatever.
as a mid i'm forced to save 1600g if i want to do anything in the game, because i'm supposed to be building a threat for the defenses on the other team to counter. there's a degree to which this is true for carries too, with the odd rylais against like udyr or something, and those days you skip void staff because enemy team is all squishies, but for the most part your build is determined by other stuff
if there were more tank busting items that would help too. the problem with things like liandrys is that they're plain weird. like they give out weird stats for mids (hp) while also having the same problem as old bc of having a really early game assassins item with flat mpen (guise) and then turning into a weird ass dot spell against health stackers.
bjork is weird like that too. it has like a burst active, but it's also like a self peel thing and then % hp dmg.
so yea if you want carries to counter tanks you should build items that allow carries to do that that make sense for them the way that banshee's veil still gives hp so it's still a bit useful against ad, and randuins gives hp so it's still useful against ap. and both items also have special effects that are useful against everybody.
create something that's situational but also not absolutely focused on one single thing (like zztop portal) and people will build it
try and get many autos in and remember to use ignite and bjork active
sometimes you need to like flash for a one or two more autos to get the mark to deal killing damage
i'd say the game's definitely in a wonky place right now and not necessarily a very good one
it's fine, but i liked it better than the age of tanks since the jungle still seems to be like a very select few on the top but in exchange of that i feel like top mages have died down a lot, as well as more magey supports like annie and nami
those two things i liked and i feel are less relevant now and i don't think the game's more interesting for it
Ghost is Bad
Banned
I don't think that's why. ADC players aren't frustrated by not being able to 1v1 them, they're frustrated because their power curve is so much more expensive compared to a Tank's. Example, for only around 5000 gold, Shyvana can get 100 armor, return right click damage and 300HP with a bonus HP gain passive and AoE magic damage per second while an ADC would have to itemize IE (3800), PD (2800) and Last Whisper (2300) in order to stay relevant with the resist and HP stacking. This isn't even factoring in life steal, which is ultra necessary as soon as Thornmails start being thrown into the equation.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I disagree. I still see a bunch of top mages(I mentioned seeing Swain top more, but I've seen Fizz, Diana jungle, Maokai top which is amazing to me coming back). But top mages were never really a thing. Sure you had Vlad back in the early seasons, Cho'Gath is still played, Ryze came into prominence a couple of years ago, but top was never a mage shrine. However, despite that I still see mages being played top. And Annie support..I still see it. Nami I haven't really seen, but I mean having one support not being played as much, is that really a problem? If anything it shows that Riot needs to diversify how they make a support and AP. I mean, Morgana and Annie being good supports is simply the nature of their kits. But you also have Thresh and Braum, and I've seen even Nautilus played support, simply because their kits are strong for supporting. As I see it, I disagree on the notion that mages are less relevant or that support roles are being taken over by mages.
Tanks tend to farm alot less than ADCs, so it'd make sense that their items are probably cheaper on a per basis. Shyvana I can see being problematic, since I rejoined I've seen my share of Shyvana top with Smite, but I think that's more of an issue of Riot pandering towards Shyvana. I mean, she's a strong champion. She's different now than she was at release, that and with the amount of skins they release for her, I feel they're not nerfing her or actually working on her issues because she's just this hot money-pit. She's strong, she can dive across a team, she can kill the ADC with pure tank items, but that's not a tank meta problem, that's a Shyvana problem. Her speed lets her run into the jungle, kill golem or wraiths with Smite, then run back into the lane with only 1-2 lost creeps.
Other than her, I'd still gladly take the meta how it is now, where alot of champions are being played for their kits and not because they're just flavor of the month or whatever. I had to deal through a couple of seasons of Lee Sin constantly being picked or banned, and I'd hate to go back to that, sure he's still picked but there are other viable jungle picks.
Doesn't this ignore that the tank normally has to itemize against a minimum of two types of dmg? Defense has to be more cost efficient because it has very little application. Doesn't increase farm speed/objective taking, doesn't really have value unless targeted. Like the IE and PD are great on everybody except the onemember of the team with a randuin's/frozen heart with a warmog's.
They were kind of useful at the start of last season. Then hypercarries took over. And around 4.18 they had to buff randuins omen. Tanks were pretty useless for a good part of this year as top was Lissandra, Rumble and Kennen served the role of initiator well enough.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Yeah like, there's still a place for mage tops. It's just that-again, from what I've seen since rejoining-Now tanks can go top, initiate, and outlast *and* do good damage alot because of their tankiness. Which is a good thing.
Stone Ocean
Member
Saying "oh just itemize against tanks" would be great and all if itemizing against tanks was a reasonable possibility. ADCs have by far the worst itemization in the game because your job is to use the gold being funnelled into you to min max your damage at all points in the game which gives you a solidified path to follow if you want to be relevant. Any deviation lowers your usefulness compared to the enemy ADC, which would still be ok if It didn't mean I wound up in lose/lose situations. Being the highest priority target puts you in a position where you'll often be like "oh I need both a BT and a GA right now but I still need to finish my PD so my IE can be useful". Having a big damage threat that also happens to be the tankiest role in the game puts you in a position where you need twice as much gold to deal with that shit alone, then you add in having to buy defensive stuff so the 3 other damage threats don't delete you and it's just not happening. Being the squishiest set of champions also severely limits my defensive options because most items will be a waste of gold since without defensive steroids and good base stats I'll die in 3 hits wether I have 1000 Hp or 2000 with some armor sprinkled on top, but with the bonus of doing no damage against the 100+ armor team and the ADC that bought BT/LW instead, hooray! But hey then I can just pick ADC X or Y to deal with that shit! Except doing that leaves you at the mercy of many other variables due to the nature of draft pick, I can pick Vayne to deal with the Sion Cho Sej team but then the enemy picks Cait and I can't lane unless my supp also went Janna. Oh wait the enemy picked Cait Janna, unless they fuck up I can't lane.
So that leaves us with 3 options to get the game back on track:
1)Completely revamp ADC itemization - which is likely not happening in this game's lifetime
2)Add an item so stupid it'll be a tank buster and carry item at the same time - I'm sure THAT will be fun and won't spill to other lanes
3)Nerf the role stepping out of the boundaries of their design. Wanna be relatively tanky and do damage? Pick bruisers and we'll do a spaghetti standoff to see who kills who first
So that leaves us with 3 options to get the game back on track:
1)Completely revamp ADC itemization - which is likely not happening in this game's lifetime
2)Add an item so stupid it'll be a tank buster and carry item at the same time - I'm sure THAT will be fun and won't spill to other lanes
3)Nerf the role stepping out of the boundaries of their design. Wanna be relatively tanky and do damage? Pick bruisers and we'll do a spaghetti standoff to see who kills who first
That might be more of a problem of your team not properly peeling for you rather than an impossibility to itemize. Tanks are kill-able as long as you have a tank-shredding item or two and some teammates to hold them off while you output damage. The tank getting to the back line to blow up the carry seems more like a failure of the team than a failure of the game.
Stone Ocean
Member
Good luck peeling off an entire Righteous Glory'd team
Also good luck surviving the rest of the enemy when you're busy having to waste your abilities peeling off fucking Sejuani
Also good luck surviving the rest of the enemy when you're busy having to waste your abilities peeling off fucking Sejuani
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I mean..at the bolded...riot has already done that. In the very beginning they were like 'Oh hey we're not going to touch the meta', and then kinda turned around and were like 'Ok let's balance around this meta and pidgeonhole roles. Annie too strong of a support? Lower her basic damage and increase AP ratios.'. They have been pidgeon holing champions to do this or that. Before in spotlight vids Phreak would be like "I play X as an X, because X or X", now it's "X is an X champion, made to do X role". Characters are already punished for stepping out of their design.
As for your second point...yeah it's called BotRK and Last Whisperer. God forbid you deviate from your Infinity Edge and have to build those 2 first, but if you want to kill tanks primarily then you have to make sacrifices.
Great, that's the tanks job to peel off that Sejuani! A tanks job is to either charge through the frontlines and go straight for the squishy carry, or to control enemies charging through that frontline to protect their squishy carry. If Sejuani is able to get through and kill your squishy carry, that's not her designs fault, its your teams fault for not preventing and stopping her from doing that.
Stone Ocean
Member
Apples and oranges. That pidgeonholing has nothing to do with tanks being super tanky and also dealing a lot of damage. God forbid tanks also have to choose between not dying and killing me themselves! Did you ignore everything I posted about ADC itemization?
A tank's job is to go for the carry, not kill the damn carry. I should die when a Sejuani jumps at me because she stunned me and the enemy carries got my ass, not just because Sejuani jumped at me.
OH so both ADCs have to deal with the same bullshit
THAT MAKES IT OK THEN, REVERT THE CINDERHULK NERFS THIS META IS SUPER HEALTHY
On an unrelated note
Rito just stop dancing around while buffing Trist and revert the AS/passive nerfs already
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Well I mean, ADCs are squishy. If Sejuani jumps on you, and you start getting stunlocked, yeah Sejuani might kill you.
I don't see anything wrong with that. A rock breaks a window, life goes on. ADC itemization is either build IE and kill everything but the tank quickly, or build BotRK and Last Whisperer and kill the Tank quickly. Either way once they reach the apex of their build, once they finish their build, they're going to be killing everything. That's when it becomes the job of positioning to decide the victor.
And yeah, I read about what you said of itemization. I don't see the big deal. ADCs, for a long time, have had the same items to hang onto. Riot is ok with this. Personally I'm not, but whatever that's how the meta is played and has been played. The issues I had before, where tanks were useless to the point that Lee Sin/Elise were always being picked, is now relieved because tanks can tank again.
...So yeah. What you're discussing isn't a design issue, it's a teamplay issue. You have problems with Sej or Shyv being able to jump directly on your ADC and killing them, and yet you neglect to blame the issue not on where your team is, and why they're not protecting your ass, but on item design.
I mean, it's been a while, but for a long time now League has been a 'Protect the King' sort of game. Whether it's an extremely fed AP carry or an ADC, games revolve around protecting said roles. If you deviate from that, well sorry but you lost. If you approach the game like that, and if you have teammates who approach it like that, you'll notice that you'll start winning more and that games suddenly stop being 'Who dives who first'.
Stone Ocean
Member
That would be great and all if BoTRK LW actually killed tanks with similar amounts of gold. But hey, let's pretend ADC damage is that simple and everyone scales like Kog.
Tanks never had trouble doing their jobs. Tanks were useless because it was easy to bully them out of lane/their jungle with early game monsters to avoid them getting to their power spikes, but pre-Cinderhulk tanks were always great in teamfights. They never needed the damage beyond the jungle.
I have no trouble with bruisers like Shyv being able to dive me and kill me. Thats their job and their kits reflect that with less CC among other things. Tanks with like 2 stuns, slows and a knockup soloing me however? Fuck off with that.
Tanks never had trouble doing their jobs. Tanks were useless because it was easy to bully them out of lane/their jungle with early game monsters to avoid them getting to their power spikes, but pre-Cinderhulk tanks were always great in teamfights. They never needed the damage beyond the jungle.
I have no trouble with bruisers like Shyv being able to dive me and kill me. Thats their job and their kits reflect that with less CC among other things. Tanks with like 2 stuns, slows and a knockup soloing me however? Fuck off with that.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
And let's pretend that Tanks can farm as much and efficiently as an ADC. But hey, let's pretend that all tanks are like efficient and can farm like Shyvana.
Tanks actually used to have problems doing their jobs. Rammus is still probably a joke. And pre-cinderhulk....I haven't really built Cinderhulk on anyone but Hecarim. But to say that tanks have always been fine, when Lee Sin and Elise dominated jungle for a couple of years simply because they could do damage while being tanky, and it was frowned upon to pick a real tank like Rammus or Sejuani(Pre-buff), wellllll......I can't take your points seriously.
Also-tanks with alotta CC tend to not do alotta damage. Sejuani does damage to squishies thanks to her passives, but that's because glass cannons tend to be....liek glass. Again, it's a fit metaphor. Dunno what's hard to grasp about that.
Stone Ocean
Member
And let's pretend a tank build doesn't cost half of what an ADC build does. Let's pretend tank item components cost 800 gold and upwards. Let's pretend most tank items aren't as cheap as a Last Whisper. Let's pretend a tank with 4000 gold and most ADCs with 4000 gold are on equal footing or that the ADC will win. Lets pretend tanks even have to make any meaningful choices when high amounts of HP coupled with innate tankiness will be dealing with most champions in this game.
Also let's pretend tanks like Rammus and Amumu weren't dominating late season 4 to the point of being pick or ban
Also let's pretend tanks like Rammus and Amumu weren't dominating late season 4 to the point of being pick or ban
Ghost is Bad
Banned
tanks weren't useless because of Lee Sin/Kha/Elise. The bruiser jungle meta came because there was a high demand for low economy, high pressure styles with a heavy gank and vision control focus. As soon as 5.5 came out with cinderhulk, that jungling style fell out of favor compared to the strong, tanky teamfight focused champs like Nunu Sej and Gragas. The issue is that their item spike, cinderhulk, is so ridiculously strong in all phases of the game because it amplifies every purchase made after with a 25% hp boost, providing almost no way of catching up to their ever growing tankiness unless both teams hit full 6 items. It's not reasonable for someone to be able to have the best of everything by buying just one item and spiking.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Different items for different roles cost differently. Truly you have opened my eyes with your appealing argument. Yeah, tanks items are cheaper than ADC items. ADCs also farm alot more, and can farm it better. I don't see a problem with this.
Yeah, Cinderhulk is strong, but it's really what the game needed in order to balance out the bruiser meta. Bruiser meta is disgusting. I still have a bad taste in my mouth thinking about it.
Except that isn't true though. Mages go abyssal to survive against leblanc and seekers/zhonya against zed. Fighters regularly balance damage, mr and armor and health.
Jesus I love Naut jungle. The changes to W and E are so damn nice. Even after Cinderkulk gets shitcanned into the ground he'll still be good, such a solid kit. I get way too much satisfaction out CC chaining enemies to their deaths.
The appearance and disappearance of metas aren't a matter of demand, they're a matter of supply, but I get your general idea.
mmmmm yup. Finishing my latest match with ~4500 hp on Naut with only 4 +hp items feels dirty as hell.
The appearance and disappearance of metas aren't a matter of demand, they're a matter of supply, but I get your general idea.
mmmmm yup. Finishing my latest match with ~4500 hp on Naut with only 4 +hp items feels dirty as hell.
Stone Ocean
Member
Right, there is no problem at all when the role that gets to farm better and gets nothing but damage and combat sustain is killed by the one that can't farm well when that role is itemizing solely to not die. That totally makes sense and isn't backwards at all.
Cinderhulk meta is just as disgusting as the bruiser meta. All it did was turn tanks into bruisers that cannot die, but hey you can pick Sejuani instead of Lee, whoop dee doo.
And you know what those items also have? Damage. Abyssal has AP and MR shred. Zhonya's has 120 fucking AP and one of the best actives in the game. But Abyssal won't stop Leblanc from killing you, it'll only make it slightly slower. Zhonyas won't stop Zed from killing you either, it'll just stop the ult. Unless you're Cho the resistances don't mean anything as soon as the items get completed because Zed/LB are buying damage too. You're not countering anything, you're just itemizing normally and getting damage to deal with other things. Now try getting a Banshees or a Randuins to really, really counter them and see how far you go.
Fighters often just need one or two damage items to optimize their damage, and often said items have HP or resistances tied to them, but they're not carries.
ADCs need to stop whatever they are doing and go the complete opposite way to counter things. Zed is a problem? I need 1250 gold for an item that is useless outside of the active.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Sounds like the problem isn't itemization, but positioning in teamfights. If you're getting hounded by a Zed or Sejuani and your team isn't stopping them...that's not the itemizations problem. Thats your teams problem.
khazix is in an okay spot right now. he kind of needs a couple kills early, which he can definitely get. the game still has a timer before it shifts in favor of the tank though, but there's definitely a window that can be exploited if kha gets ahead early.
We'll just have to agree to disagree about how ridiculously static ADC builds should be.
Stone Ocean
Member
My whole point is that yeah, in a perfect world I would grab a BoTRK to deal with HP and a LW to deal with armor and that would be swell and working as intended, but what you're failing to grasp is that tanks can stack both at the same time but I don't have the tools outside of champ select to deal with that and then champ select is a whole other problem in itself because of how draft works for a 2v2 lane.
I don't think we want a meta where adcs can build resistances/hp to counter their opponents as well as get all the damage they need. They still deal the most damage in the game past 4 items, it's fine if they are fragile.
Stone Ocean
Member
I'm not saying carries being squishy is a bad thing, I'm just chiming in on the whole "carries can't itemize" discussion. ADC defensive itemization is fine, it's the offensive stuff that is too limited.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Yup. They're glass cannons. They're supposed to be Glass cannons, because they can obliterate the whole enemy team if not checked.
I have no qualms with them being glass cannons. I also have no qualms with tanks not dying easily and being able to take out a glass cannon.
Like I mentioned before:Rock, meet Glass. Rock shatters Glass. Too bad glass, move out of the way.
Stone Ocean
Member
Yeah, we have a thing that doesn't die easily and kills carries, it's called a bruiser. Those are the rocks shattering windows and that's fine.
Tanks on the other hand aren't rocks, they are Dwayne Johnson carrying a baseball bat carved out of a 2x4 riding a monster truck.
Tanks on the other hand aren't rocks, they are Dwayne Johnson carrying a baseball bat carved out of a 2x4 riding a monster truck.
If he falls behind tho he's hot garbage late and provides nothing for the team, a problem tanks don't really have. He's just too high risk when you can just pick a ch jungler and be a damn near sure thing to get strong
Kha is one of my favorite champs too :-/
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Would you be fine with removing all the damage a tank does and replacing it with 5-15 seconds of hard CC they can apply at any time? Cause knowing Riot, if they removed or nerfed a tanks damage, then they would 'compensate' in other areas.
Cause I think Tanks are in a fine position. CC the one charging for your carry, get rid of his buddies, and then deal with the tank if he isn't running away. Dunno why that's so hard to grasp.
It's asinine to argue that Nunu, Sion, Sejuani are balanced atm.
This is a new problem that's specific to this meta.
I think you're wrong. Tanks were never meant to solo the backline of teams. They were meant to stall for time.
This is a new problem that's specific to this meta.
kha has usually been feast or famine, regardless of meta. most assassins tend to be.
Except during the days of tanksassin kha. That was a dream come true for me
But yeah tanks just do too much too well right now
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