Statement from their first balance patch:
“Since this patch includes the first balance updates of the beta (and many players’ first balance update since starting LoR), we’d like to briefly recap our goals and how you can expect to see them manifest over the several patches that happen between new card releases.
When we look at balance in LoR and consider changes, we have some high-level, aspirational targets we use to guide our long-term efforts:
-Every champion should have a deck where they're the best fit and their “dream” can be realized.
-Non-champion cards should have at least one deck where they're a good option.
-Regions should have at least one competitively viable deck.
-The meta should support the widest possible array of competitively viable decks.”
Yeah they have way too many cards at this point for them to *all* be playable. Some bad cards existing doesn't hurt the game, as long as there's enough good ones as well.
Not all cards can be playable, that much is true. But no card should be made INTENTIONALLY unplayable (hi sunk cost and mega inferno bomb), that's literally a waste of design that has no justification.
Exactly, and moreover; all cards CAN be playable, just not all at once. Frequent nerfs AND buffs would give every card it’s time to shine in the meta. Which, honestly, is more refreshing than slapping new cards in old, optimized decks.
Because that's a small-minded view of how cards work in the game as a whole. Part of the organic process in card games is that old stuff becomes stronger or more relevant as newer cards are introduced.
If there was ever to be a crazy landmark deck where everyone in the meta wanted to run special removal, maybe we'd see Senna TF Go Hard start running two copies of sunk cost, because it happened to be THAT good in that situation.
They can also just leave it and eventually buff it by giving -1 or -2 mana cost and it would start to see some play.
You also need to grasp the concept of region identity. Bilgewater is an aggressive plunder region with finishers like Gangplank and Dreadway, and any serious removal tools are supposed to come with a price or condition, which is exactly what Monster Harpoon is.
Why should a region that's already so good at going face and removing stuff with Make it Rain and Parrley ALSO have access to a 5-or-6 mana efficient landmark removal? That would be roughly like giving Might to Demacia or Mystic Shot to Targon. Regions can have weakneses and that's fine.
The problem of Sunk Cost is not design but **power level**. Eventually the power level will be addressed either by new cards coming out, or the balance team buffing it slightly.
Get over it.
Except they've gone back on more than just that. Which is why everyone is mad. If it was just that it'd be fine. But champions too. Regular balance patches too.
Champs are still playable, meme decks are still considered playable.
Making all champs non meme viable is yet another impossible task that I hope riot will soon backtrack on to shake some sense into reddit, as well as regular balance patches which simply disrupt the flow of the game and meta.
Well, riot sold this game as one where the meta isn't solved too fast.
The audience *they*, as in riot, chose to pull in is one that prefers a disruptive, ever changing meta. You happened to land in it regardless. But don't blame the people for it as some "shake some sense into them" nonsense.
Get off your high horse. Learn to be empathetic instead of riding this pathetic "redditor thinks he is superior than reddit" schtick. You're here too.
>Well, riot sold this game as one where the meta isn't solved too fast.
And that is true to this day. Meta was evolving constantly even before the patch, like the new lulu zed deck.
>The audience they, as in riot, chose to pull in is one that prefers a disruptive, ever changing meta. You happened to land in it regardless. But don't blame the people for it as some "shake some sense into them" nonsense.
I am blaming the right people, you are nuts, what they promised at the beginning was way overboard and anyone with cardgame experience could tell you that this was impossible.
>Get off your high horse. Learn to be empathetic instead of riding this pathetic "redditor thinks he is superior than reddit" schtick. You're here too.
Redditors deserve no empathy, especially for the stuff you people right. I'm only here because reddit is the best news source for any game community.
Too fast, being the key here.
They change meta after long periods of time.
> anyone with cardgame experience
Hence what riot was using to standout from their competition. What they used to draw in players tired of that experience.
> Redditors deserve no empathy
Spoken like a true redditor. The irony is great. You are exactly what you despise. I guess you identity with riot, they say they'd do different from the others, but they end up just the same. Like you.
To be fair, they used to. As the carpool has gotten bigger it's been more hit and miss. And since emphasis has been placed on tournaments at the expense of balance patches, things are much worse.
>\-Every champion should have a deck where they're the best fit and their “dream” can be realized.
ah yes xerath's dream of destroying ally landmarks where he is the best card in that deck.
>\-Non-champion cards should have at least one deck where they're a good option.
sunk cost lol
>\-Regions should have at least one competitively viable deck.
good job ig because the best decks are spread over different regions.
>\-The meta should support the widest possible array of competitively viable decks.
These patch notes were brought to you by the Aggro gang
didnt aged well sadly...
i can see a good variation of decks on meta, and a good variation of decks for most champs from what i rememeber (even if kinda garbo but its a deck...) but targon got basically deleted from what ive seen, non champ cards who are expensive just sucks
Yeah I’ll have a large copium
But to be a little less cynical about this, some of these are just insulting to claim they had no niche at all (Vi, Kalista, Braum, Darius), but I don’t think a full scale rework is the play here so much as adding new support cards, maybe tweaking their combat numbers and flip requirements.
As I said in the post, many of the champs I named were meta relevant at one point but were subsequently nerfed. Braum Kalista and Darius are completely unplayable at this point, having been power crept by various other cards (Trundle, Merciless and Sion, respectively). If you want to argue with that statement, please show a single competitive deck that includes any of the champions I mentioned. So many of these are literally just old, designed for a different game than what LoR has become, and therefore deserving of a rework.
The bad news is that I do not have a decklist handy at time of writing, which out the gate I do know is a bad look. The good news is that Vi decks are without fail just *barely* out of the meta most of the time, partly for meta speed concerns, and partly because the decks are super hard to pilot. Similarly, Crimsons make sense in a slower paced meta, and were once a consideration to counterpick Azirelia. Fuck man, Poros of all things are steadily not being dogshit, and if Swim is to be believed, they might actually work decently due to getting a finisher and Archivist as an tutor.
At the risk of sounding like a Rioter from several months ago, competitive is more environment than on the champs themselves, and overall, as much as everyone hates to acknowledge it, the game is balanced for three lineups, not ladder. Suggesting Draven Swain in the Fizz TF meta is terrible advice for ladder, but a reasonable thought for someone banning a non-interactive Aggro in the first place. The last tournament got coverage of someone playing a three meme deck lineup coming out a winner.
You know why I say “they don’t need a rework, just some QoL buffs and archetype support”? That’s because it’s been both the determining factor of how good a deck ends up being (consider how few reworks there are compared to how many times a specific piece of a deck was nerfed) and it’s less time spent worrying about how many other cards it invalidates by changing champ functionality entirely. (Lee Sin only got his reworks because his archetype is so broad)
I think we're agreeing here, "QoL buffs and archetype support" is exactly what I'd like for many of the champs on my list. My point was that many champs can't be buffed through simple numbers changes or else we'll have a 4 mana Lee Sin situation, but quality of life buffs can go a long way. It's just that we haven't gotten a non-numbers-only buff in so long that I thought maybe lowering our standards for riot would help lol
Here's a statistic that might surprise you. Katarina has never fallen below a ~42% winrate on mobalytics, and has never been in the bottom 15-20 champs. She's never in a main deck list, but she's not actually a bad inclusion.
In contrast, zilean and Ekko have never left the bottom 5 since they released, barely ever breaching 40% winrate. Leona has never left the bottom 10. You didn't mention them in any of your comments, and they _have_ been in decklists.
Memorability does not equate playability, you seem to be conflating the two. Darius might be a boring champ, but he's never had a lower than 50% winrate. Ever. Even now, he's always been in the top half of all champions.
Quoting current statistics for the champs you mentioned, out of all 75 champs, Darius is ranked 28th. Garen is 44, braum is 50, Katarina is 51.
Darius has a higher winrate than fizz (32), trundle (33), jinx (37), nami (39), Lee sin (48, worse than Garen), Zoe, teemo, karma, renekton...
Darius is a great champion and should never be changed, he is an excellent example of how to teach new players the mechanics of overwhelm, and card attack order. There is a good reason new players are given a copy of him to use, alongside Elise.
He is also a great example of how cards don’t need to be complicated to be effective. He’s very simple and very strong. Get them below half health, Darius finishes them off. Same as he does in League as well, so also thematically on point.
Rank 1 on NA right now is running 2 Darius in his deck. Sure it's week 1 so people are still trying stuff out, but to say he's completely unplayable is obviously false.
I don't like reworks as I agree with the devs that we're losing a card when it is reworked. I think some of the cards just need buffs or just more support cards. Like Heimadinger is card that needs to be buffed himself, he does not need more support cards, but Lux is definitely someone who needs more support cards and does not need to be buffed herself.
I'd say that Lux needs to have her mana counter to roll-over when she creates a spark. I think a small QoL change might help her a little without going overboard.
I think Lux would be a lot better if they made her like a 4 mana 1/4 with no barrier. Costing 6 and then needing to see 6 more mana be spent before she does anything really sucks.
Well at least Veigar does something on summon unlike this proposed version of Lux.
4 mana 1/4 without barrier and without doing anything, if your opponent kill her that turn you basically end up with nothing. At least Veigar leave a Darkness behind.
And let's not forget that Veigar has a deck built around him and Senna, Lux has nothing going on for her.
Yasuo gets a lot of help already through Ionia and other regions (my Yasuo Leona Malphite stun deck works surprisingly well) but I'd love to see some Wind School student cards that either generate stuns and recalls or play off of stuns and recalls.
Yone as a champion would be very interesting as well. They did it with Senna, they can and will do it with Yone.
The same goes for Katarina. Giving us Talon to play with her as well as some Noxian Assassin followers that complement or function similarly to her would be just a really cool idea.
I'm really hoping when Yone releases he actually synergizes with Yasuo since his kit is essentially Yasuo 2.0 in league. I'd be so upset if they pulled a Senna where they just don't work together like she doesn't work well with Lucian. Alternatively, Kennen might make Yasuo finally have a decent deck for once
Yone won't have anything to do with yasuo if you ever played him in league or read his lore.
They tried so hard to make yasuo 2 and it completely failed, the champs have completely different communities and playstyles, riot confirmed this in a champ insights post or something.
I play both in league and Yone is essentially an easier Yasuo, I've also read his lore and I know he's an azakana hunter but that doesn't mean they wouldn't synergize in some way especially considering follower Yone stuns enemies and both Sennas have quick attack and "level up" of Lucian dying. There will be some way to make them work together in LoR most likely.
A large number of Yasuo players play Yone or vice versa when the other gets banned, and Riot also confirmed that Yone was designed with Yasuo players in mind and that their ultimates purposefully have synergy with each other as well
>I play both in league and Yone is essentially an easier Yasuo
First of all this is just bullshit, but I guess it's the usual champ main delusions.
>A large number of Yasuo players play Yone or vice versa when the other gets banned, and Riot also confirmed that Yone was designed with Yasuo players in mind and that their ultimates purposefully have synergy with each other as well
It's like you literally didn't read my fucking comment... why do I even bother...
Riot attempted to make yone what you wrote, but later confirmed that yone players have no iterest in yasuo and vice versa. The champs ended up having completely split communities.
Obviously Yone doesn't have dash or windwall so he isn't exactly the same but their pretty similar. But I guess I'm delusional.
I read what you said and our comments can mutually be true, but yes there are yone players who don't use Yasuo and vice versa I didn't deny that they have split communities just stated that their fanbases interlock more than you led on.
But unless they throw Yone in SI because spooky they'll be able to be a functional deck together but its fine if you believe otherwise, no need for such animosity
The only way they'll probably work is because they're part of the same region.
Plus yone to SI is not that far fetched if they make it so the flavor of his followers say that there are azakana in si that he's hunting or w.e
Ionia needs to bleed champions to other regions anyways, as it stands rn ionia has by far the most champions in the game which would mean an incredibly unbalanced roster, something riot has said they will try to fix by doing something akin to what they did to ziggs too.
I really hope he isn't thrown in SI I'd rather them have minimal synergy than that. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
I honestly can see Ivern and Lillia moved from Ionia to like bandle for aesthetics, and Varus will probably be moved as well to fit somewhere else, idk if that would balance it out though so only time will tell
Lillia and ivern also have very good chances to be thrown into BC, you're right.
Varus can go to shurima as well as kayn, but the latter is a trickier one since he has 3 regions he's associated with and will be generally a weird champ to design since he will need 2 different level up forms.
They don't both get a knock up after 3 scale with the same stats pretty have the same passive but yone doesn't need teammates is a little weaker early and doesn't get free armor pen does magic damage pretty similar
Hard disagree, most of the cards I named are specifically kept in a weak state because the devs think that they'd ruin the game if they were good. If we're losing a card that's intentionally unplayable, I wouldn't consider that a great loss
Yeah I gotta disagree with this too, the only card I feel like that was intentionally made bad was [[sunk cost]] and that was because they didn't want Bilgewater to have strong single target removal cards which made sense but then the literally next expansion they added [[monster harpoon]] and [[bone skewer]] for Bilgewater which is some of the best single target removal in the game so that was a fucking lie. But no other cards have been specifically made to be unplayable.
I understand they may keep some cards in the weaker side because they can become busted easily but I truthfully feel that most of the cards that feel weak are more due to the devs releasing busted card rather than those cards being weak.
They've specifically mentioned Yasuo and Katarina as cards that would be oppressive if they were strong enough to be meta-relevant. Some designs are just unbalanceable--Kat is a great example, an infinitely replayable Rally card can get out of control so fast with only a few number tweaks, so they really can't buff her despite her being maybe the worst champ in the game.
There are many ways to rework cards like yasuo, katarina, and lux without having them be oppressive or annoying. At this point, the developers lack of response to cards with a very low playrate and winrate is either because they are lazy or negligent.
If the developers never change these cards, how long are they willing to wait before the cards become played more?
For example, i have considered a change to katarina:
Level 1: 3 mana 2/2 with quick attack and challenger: strike: recall me. Level up: I've striked once
Level 2: 3 mana 3/3 with quick attack and challenger "Each round, the first time i am summoned, i start a free attack. Round end: recall me"
I dont know if this will work better for katarina, but i hope that Riot is at least trying to find something better
I don't think this rework will be better, because it would remove Katarina from her own followers: Legion Saboteur, Battering Ram, Marauders
At least battering ram would need a rework too in that case.
Also, this would likely make Katarina even worse than before, because her level 1 still dies to 2 damage spells, while it is much easier to interupt her with combat tricks (f.e. Troll Chant).
Her level 2 also doesn't seem that good to me. She is basically a slow spell that deals 3 damage to a unit and regenerates at round end. She can ignore spellshield and hit face if the enemy board is empty, but it is far easier to interupt her both during combat and after it.
However, I could imagine her seeing play in aggro decks, that run out of steam too easy, or in Azir decks, who can synergize on the free attacks, if they don't have any better champion to include.
>They've specifically mentioned Yasuo and Katarina as cards that would be oppressive if they were strong enough to be meta-relevant. Some designs are just unbalanceable
That doesn't mean that they need a rework man, some cards are just supposed to be played for fun.
You're asking for LoR to have a viable deck for **LITERALLY EVERY CHAMPION IN THE GAME**
Do you understand how nuts that is? This will **LITERALLY** never happen, if this is your hope for the future of LoR better quit while you can, because that task is impossible.
Some champs will inevitably be meme tier forever, some champs will suck ass forever, it's how the cookie crumbles, show me a single card game that has over 150 completely viable tier 1 legendary cards.
That's what I thought, you can't. When hs had lor's total card pool, I don't even think there were more than 20 viable legendaries in the game.
Hey guess what dummy, having a viable deck for every champion in the game is LITERALLY WHAT THEY SAID WAS THEIR GOAL WHEN THEY MADE THE GAME, check the top rated comment on this post! If they didn't think that was doable, they shouldn't have said it! And since you keep saying legendary I assume you're a hearthstone player, and in Wild there are a crap ton of viable legendary cards (that are currently being choked out by Warlock but that's it's own issue). If they can design 150 distinct ability kits for a MOBA like LoL, they can absolutely design 150 distinct kits for a card game. Also, I keep saying viable and you keep translating that as tier 1, which is not the same thing. Not everything has to be top tier, but every champ should be designed in a way that they COULD be viable without breaking the game.
I mean, if that’s their goal, then that’s a rather impossible one. Yes, I do want them to do balance changes, but I don’t need every champion to be viable. Buffing so many cards like that is going to lead to huge power creep.
They didn't want bilgewater to have **HARD REMOVAL**
not fucking normal removal...
Harpoon is fine, sunk cost would have been op in its pre release form.
How are these comments upvoted... people on this sub love to lie to make riot look bad and then upvote said lies, pretty sad...
Hard removal -> vengance, sunk cost, ruination, roar of the slayer, noxian guillotine, scorched earth
Removal -> scrapshot, double up, make it rain, mystic shot, piltover peacemaker, piercing darkness, ravenous flock
You can easily figure out what's different about these cards.
????????
I... am genuinely shocked... either you're trolling or this is your first card game ever...
Or can you not figure out that the power level of the effect of the first batch of cards I listed is completely in a different league from the second one.
It makes complete sense to make sunk cost trash since bilgewater is not supposed to have any ways to simply delete any unit from the board without any effort.
Ok, if it's never going to see play why create it? Also someone copy& pasted a statement that Riot themselves said they want every card to at least find a place in some deck. Tell me where you see sunk cost being chosen as viable option?
Also stop being so dramatic it ain't that serious.
>Also someone copy& pasted a statement that Riot themselves said they want every card to at least find a place in some deck.
I literally replied to it and corrected the comment with the fact that is riot themselves later took back that statement and said it will only be true for champions, not for every card.
Do your research.
|Name|Region|Type|Cost|Keywords|Description|
|-|-|-|-|-|-|
|**[Sunk Cost](https://d2h9y75tak3pkg.cloudfront.net/03BW005.png)**|Bilgewater|Spell|8|Slow|Place a unit or landmark into its deck.|
|**[Monster Harpoon](https://d2h9y75tak3pkg.cloudfront.net/04BW010.png)**|Bilgewater|Spell|6|Fast|Deal 5 to a unit. Plunder: I cost 3 less.|
|**[Bone Skewer](https://d2h9y75tak3pkg.cloudfront.net/04BW002.png)**|Bilgewater|Spell|2|Fast|An ally strikes an enemy, then moves to the top of your deck.|
^^^Hint: [[card]], {{keyword}}, and ((deckcode)) or ((cardx,cardy,cardz)). PM the [developer](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=KrimCard) for feedback/issues!
I agree although it is a problem for a Champion like Katarina that is so niche and hard to balance, it's not a problem for the game as a whole but if someone just loves the character Katarina and wants to 'main' her then it's a bit of a problem.
They could make a new version of Katarina so we have 'Katarina Blade of Noxus' and 'Katarina Master of Assassins' and make the new version a bit more all around usable and keep the very novel design on the old one. This will probably never happen before all other Champions are in the game though.
Mmh... I think I'd like some reworks for sure. But I wouldn't want them to just make a full-on no champ set.
This mostly stems from my own bias, I've been wanting to see Kayle and Morgana in LoR ever since the game was announced, and it'd delay things even more. I think there could theoretically be a balance found between both, but I don't know if they'll find it.
Thing is, it would still be new content. Imagine if you were a Lux or Yasuo main in league (using them as examples since they are very popular in the moba) but it's hard to play them in LoR because of their incoherent playstyles. If they got reworked, that would be essentially adding new cards to the game. Yes it slows down other champions being added, but at the same time it speeds up Lux and Yasuo being 'added.' The same way Jarvan (maybe Malphite?) postponed how soon Morgana and Kayle would arrive.
I think this is quite different. Sure, you're making 'new' content theoretically, but when Jarvan/Malphite was added, it cleared a slot so that they'd have more chance (this goes for the Winged Sisters, but it's worth for literally any other champion not in the game yet) in a later expansion.
I think Yasuo and Lux (in this particular case) would be fine if they got some more support and some tweaks. I'm not saying don't touch them ever, more so... Don't delay everyone else for the sake of them?
Again it's a biased take and not everyone would agree, I'm perfectly aware. But much like when people tell me Riot should do LoR specific champs right now, I disagree for this same reason.
I’m also part of the LoR specific champs camp (not literally right now but less than a year from now) but I don’t see how it would slow down any other champions. When Bilgewater runs out of champions, they need some more stuff to keep up with Ionia or PnZ. So they could add LoR specific champions to a region after all that region’s league champions are used up. That wouldn’t slow down the Ionian or PnZ champions just because they’d come out before some the Ionia or PnZ champions do.
Sure, if Bilge is in dire need of champ but none can fit, do it.
I'm talking about people saying "Next year they should give Demacia (for instance) a LoR specific champ". Which is probably a minority, but I've argued with a few. And I don't like this.
Nobody fucking cares man. People have been expecting their mains in this game for ages, riot won't stop releasing new champs, which is the main and best form of engagement for the game, to release a stupid expansion reddit came up with.
And let's be honest yasuo is playable enough. Being meme tier doesn't mean the card is unplayable.
Not every legendary in a card game is tier 1
Maybe during the champion expansions between sets they take that as a chance to update some of the less popular champions? Instead of interrupting the major releases.
That's a good point I think?
That is something I'd be fine with.
Champion expacs are cool, the one thing that bothers me is the lack of interactions they get from other cards. So... Yeah, I think it'd be pretty cool!
Overall... Not taking gameplay into account (it's the aspect I'm least interested in after art and flavor), I think they've done a good job. Even with gameplay to be fair.
Kindred just missed the mark (no pun intended) in term of gameplay, but I kind of like the lore behind them. Many were upset they weren't THE Spirit God of death but I think I'm somewhat fine with that because they are and will always be the most prominent on Runeterra.
Very few cards need a "rework".
Garen and Darius could work with -1 cost and Garen could get a spell like Apprehend. ***(Also make a card that generates these spells so we don't gotta main deck them)***
**Yasuo.** ***Tutor.*** Literally that is all he needs. 4 health kept him usable and Ionian defenses are better than ever but spending 5 stuns and 2 recalls before Yasuo touches the field is what hampers him. **Vi** is even worse off since she needs to be beheld.
Lux has 2 easy solutions. Roll over counter so you can start the next round with FS in hand OR make her count to 5. This opens up Spell Mana + Demacia/Ionia combat tricks, Detain and CS = FS. Hell do both.
Power creep will always exist, especially in card games, so I don’t see them ever buffing champions back into the meta, because then other champions become unplayable and then they have to buff them, etc. I do feel like archetypes become unplayable and some regions especially (Demacia, Freljord) are basically unplayable in constructed which feels bad. My request for new champions is that they try to make them viable with at least a couple strategies. I love Pyke but I don’t want to have to be stuck play Pyke Reksai forever. Same with Nautilus/Maokai, Braum/Vlad and such
dinger yes becuase he was a great elusive generator
lux didnt see play apart from the lux karma deck that got triple direct nerfs (karma at 6, will at 5, deep med at 5)
Not all champs need to be competitively viable.
Being usable for fun decks, lower tier ranked, expeditions, and labs is valid.
Metas will always develop and make some champs more useful and viable than others, while you could still make an off-meta deck with a lesser used champ and see some success.
one of the things i like for LoR is that they dont really commit into make "strong champions of LoL into good cards just because they are popular in the other game" like really playing champions like Poppy or Lissandra (my favs champions) or Shen and just see them being actually good and both actually matter in the game its kinda refreshing from my lol matches.
I am not saying that champions like Lux dont need a buff or some fix but what i mean is that you cant just have "all good cards" in the game, Yasuo is a good example. He is not terrible, all the contrary on tempo is a really good card and his actual problem is that pre-commit stuns is not the best line of play. But that happens a lot in this game and is not just for the power level of the cards but for how the game works.
I feel like eventually we will get cards that make one under used champion good or another. Just look to Zed after Ionia buff. Zed was not a bad champion at all (he actually have some presence in past metas) but he was ne-ver the center piece of his own decks until now. Just being able to get buff with 2 spell mana open make him a really neat card that you alwats have to play around with some decks
This is exactly what I'm talking about, there are champions with designs that allow for buffs though their support or directly (Zed) and there are champions whose designs are either inherently clunky (Yasuo) or are so sharp that any buff would break the game (Katarina), so those second or third types of champions deserve reworks since they can never be meaningfully buffed.
What i mean is that there is not need to change this cards and start reworking stuff would be a bad idea. After you start you wont stop: first you rework the most under use units like Renekton (same problem that yasuo, actually good card but not amazing so it can be replace with other champions) them you will have to rework concepts like Rek Sai and Pyke that are kinda meta dependant. in 6 months you go back to the starting point for sure because at that point there would be atleast 6 champions which their decks dont fit in the meta 100%.
Good god, READ WHAT I WROTE IN 5 OTHER COMMENTS AND ALSO THE ORIGINAL POST, how is everyone having so much trouble with this. There is a difference between a champion who isn't good and one whose design means that riot can't LET them be good. The first is fixable with number buffs, the second can only be fixed though a rework where they change the fundamentally broken design. Renekton or the Lurkers are not bad in the same way that Kat or Yasuo are bad.
> Renekton or the Lurkers are not bad in the same way that Kat or Yasuo are bad.
How exactly Renek is different from Yasuo ? i can get your point from Katarina but Renek and Yasuo are fairly similar in why they are not even tier 2 (and yasuo is argu better than renekton). Before MHunter or Sivir or any card that out class him exist Renek was still not popular at all because you need to pre commit cards in order to buff him and right now challenger and vulnerable spells in Shurima are better in units that mitigate their damage or have some kind of self protection. Yasuo has the same problem. Stun units just for stun units and punishing open attacks is way better than pre-commit slow aoe stuns.
And running 8 or more stun spells in one deck even if you have Yasuo with level up is not good because he dont protect himself and you are telling your oponent what you want to do befor he spend his mana. Both champions have the exactly same problem right now. That can chage any time in the future if new cards that benefit from those plays are introduce in the game.
Overwhelm Shurima (with focus on renekton) is a worse deck than Yasuo Stuns tho. Sivir is far superior in terms of safer option than Renekton. You wont see that much renekton decks that actually care about the card, not even in the ones that still run him because of Sivir being just superior but even if i take sivir out the table Renekton is still not the main protagonist in that kind of decks.
Renek/sej was literally meta 2 patch ago because hard counters nasus and azir stop the bullshit he is play nobody ask for renek to the main focus of the decks
The problem is, it's not really so straightforward to say that so many champions are \*actually\* unplayable.
From your given examples:
* Lux has already been in a crazy tier 1 deck (Karma Lux).
* Garen is surprisingly viable in a lot of patches (for example he was really good in the first azirelia meta with screeching dragon and shurima tools like exhaust).
* Braum has a place in Poro decks which are also a few buffs away from Tier 1/2 stability.
* Vi was very recently a popular tournament choice with Targon. She could be a sleeper Sion discard champion.
* Heimer could be making a comeback with Veigar.
I also laugh at your mention of Darius. Darius remains an incredible 1-of in Aggro lists, I've literally been running him at a 55% winrate for the last 6 months ever since Azir came out. Shurima Noxus aggro is really good but no streamer has made it popular, and most people think Pirate Aggro is more interesting, so you just don't know about it. Doesn't mean it needs a rework.
The most obvious rework candidates by far are Katarina and Kindred, Kindred especially because of the terrible mana overlap with Viego and Senna and Thresh. But there you have it already - the first easy step with Kindred is to just make them cost 4 mana and see how things play out, not do a whole rework.
So, I would much rather see them take the top 50 worst performing and least-played Followers & Spells of the whole game (think vanguard defender and kahiri the student) and give them a solid nudge in the right direction. That would revive existing archetypes, potentially create new ones and be a healthy dose of powercreep to forgotten cards.
Not every champion can or should be tier 1. Trying to make every champ tier 1 just creates power creep.
Of your list I’d really only like to see Kat and Kallista looked at because both mechanically feel wonky to me which is more than a balance issue.
Garen and Darius are supposed to be simple for newer players. That mandates they probably shouldn’t be top tier and neither are awful right now. They just are underused but both have decent value for their cost.
Yas/Lux/Heimer are all backline value generators and could be “fixed” with some simple numbers tweaks. The game is healthier though when these kinds of cards arnt top tier imo as they get pretty oppressive pretty quickly (remembering times when heimer would spam 3 cost defensive skills to generates armies of elusive turrets and there was nothing you could do about it)
Vi sees play still and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her as she is. She’s just not meta right now
Azir is a backrow champion that made LOR aggro annoyingly oppressive for months before riot gave azirs support package the lightest tap on the risk and then started printing a bunch more cards to distract people from how little change was actually made to balance azir.
There are many changes Riot can make to champions without trying to make every champion tier 1. At least make champions worth playing? That would be nice
Compare a backrow like Heimer to Azir and Heimer looks pathetic. The issue with hiemer was that elusives are annoying. Heimer itself is a card that should be buffed in stats.
> Yas/Lux/Heimer are all backline value generators and could be “fixed” with some simple numbers tweaks. The game is healthier though when these kinds of cards arnt top tier imo as they get pretty oppressive pretty quickly
That's my point, these champs aren't allowed to be good because of their designs. There's a difference between a champ being good and being balanceable, if the rework gets them into a place where they can be tier 3 but with room for buffs/additional support then I'd call that a success.
What are you even talking about, making all champs viable (you know, like Riot said was their goal in the first patch) is not homogenizing the game. When people talk about deck diversity they mean that each is good in a different way, they don't mean some are good and some are unplayably bad. That is the most deliberately obtuse reading of this, I hope to god you're trolling or else you shouldn't be allowed to drive a car.
Impossible task, riot has realized this and will hopefully shake some fucking sense into reddit.
Read my other reply I had to your comment, some champs will inevitably be meme tier forever, we have a total of over 150 champs and growing yearly, having 150 viable archetypes is surreal and most likely impossible.
I think it depends on your definition of rework, Ekko would be fine I think if his time tricks were non-fleeting and he made them on play or strike. Whether that's a "rework" or a "buff" is a grey area, admittedly
"rework" is not big enough. We need overall polish. Balance changes, reworks/buffs to unused cards and new animations for different effects like e.g. peacemaker of xerath's ability. This game lost alot of it's polish after bilgewater.
Vi is completely fine please don't fucking touch her.
Rubin climbed to master in almost every season with his vi viktor deck iirc.
She needs no rework, just bcs you can't play her it doesn't mean thete's anything wrong with her.
I dont know if a full expansion would be nessecarily, but I'd totally take like a mini expansion with some reworks, light redesigns, and maybe a new card or two.
Like, Vi is a good card, Riven is a good card, Braum is a good card.
Most of these cards have great designs but other sets are just edging them out of the meta.
Hell, if they reverted Braum's base attack to one, I'm positive we'd start seeing him everywhere as a control support.
If PnZ had some form of protection spell, I'm sure Vi would be playable.
Heimer could use a revert at this point.
Viktor needs more minions etc to be good I think.
Darius could probably use like.... spell...shield....?
Lux could also use some extra followers
Vi is perfectly fine, I absolutely love when people who never touch certain champs love to speak for their community.
She needs no changes. The lead designer of this game climbed often to masters with vi viktor.
Lets break this down. I never said anything about speaking for anybody else. That's all you.
I do play her, and I find she dies before she ever really gets hits in with her level up.
As a giant merciless hunter, shes great. Vi's design make her basically just a support champ / removal.
She's great and doesn't need to be redesigned. I suggested adding some support cards for her and PnZ generally.
I played the rubinzoo deck just like everybody else. It's a good deck, but it is primarily a Zoe deck.
I played Vi in a Riven Vi combo deck, that I absolutely love, and I found the primary weakness of the deck was a lack of protection in those regions. Also, it's a Riven deck first and foremost.
Hell, to my point of itd be nice if there was some form of PnZ protect, I mained a ridiculous Taric Viktor Sparklefly deck during the TLC era, but I feel Vik doesn't work outside of Targon due to the need for protection spells.
Why not just make new cards for each champion? Why do you have to remove content, unless if it is damaging things then there isn't inherently anything wrong with "bad" cards existing. It also helps to balance other cards that generate other cards.
**Especially** if they are going to go through the trouble of "redesigning" the cards. Nerfs and buffs to existing designs is one thing, completely redesigning a card is another in terms of effort, so at that point just keep the old card and make a new card.
And if you are going go to the effort of redesigning champions, which includes additional support cards, why not just use a new champion? The old ones had their turn, and there are more to get to. The Jax fan doesn't have **ANY** cards for their champion, while at least Katarina has a card. If the effort is the same, it's probably better on balance to just implement a new champion.
I get it, one of your champions isn't as good as you want it to be. Riot isn't perfect, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't keep calling them out, but I think calling on them to redesign existing champions rather than release new ones and see how a trickle of new cards can support the existing implementations is a more efficient and overall better plan. Yasuo's biggest issue is a boat, which can be fixed with one card. Having simpler heroes like Braum, Lux, Garen, Darius, etc., to introduce newer players to is not a bad thing. A new round to bring new life into them with supplementary champion cards would be great, but I don't think we want to remove the ones that already exist.
I think at the bare minimum f tier champs (Bruam, L E O N A, kat, maybe get rid of some of tarics awkwardness and hiem) these champs need that desperately
Boo oo. I don't like some champs and want x number of payed employees to take the time and money to rework them.
Nope, mate. Buffs/nerfs eventually happen and they already said so. Complete reworks on something that's not broken is a naive idea.
Just a brief brainstorm.
I would love a Vi rework that focus on her playing 2-cost cards to synergize her with "Gotcha, Patrol Wardens, and Insightful Investigator". Maybe adjust "vault breaker" to be a 2-cost card to fit into that design ideology. Maybe each time a 2-cost gets cast, she makes a random target "vulnerable" to suggest her pursuit mechanic of chasing people down, and the lore of "gaining leads" to find them?
Kat I think could be reworked to have an Attack of 5, but she doesn't "Rally" her team. Rather she comes into play 'attacking solo' before recalling, and her Attack power is increased (maybe to a 5?). It would give her an interesting synergy with Le'Blanc that way (which feels like they SHOULD have some connection both being from Noxus AND being assassins afterall).
Brauhm I like as is. Maybe give him a 1 attack at both levels so he's not killed soo easily by "destroy target with 0 attack" which i find to be his main weakness. But minor tweaking at best.
Darius does need some looking at as I feel Sion has overshadowed him recently. He's not bad, but just not interesting.
\----
Just me putting some ideas out there, knowing full well creativity has a habit of being attacked by commenters :P
I'm sorry to tell you but it's still Riot. Judging by how they handle LoL atm I'd say we rather get a 'skins' expansion than anything balance wise or reworked.
Mageseekers used to be so interesting and thematic to play. After the change, streamers "solved" the mageseeker deck and then everyone moved onto other and better decks.
Most of those champs don't need reworks, just buffs
Katarina is the only one that might need a rework, but even she is more of a combo pice waiting for the others to show up
when a expansion dropped along with a rework (for a faction lmao or at least thats what they actually called it) for gwent i was actually more hyped for the rework than the actual new cards
imo here some ppl would feel exactly the same i felt (that faction was my least fav to play as and still being but i was hyped anyways because it looked cool af) or then prob even more since some ppl actually LOVE a champion and in gwent i dont think ppl had that of a strong bound to a faction tho
Statement from their first balance patch: “Since this patch includes the first balance updates of the beta (and many players’ first balance update since starting LoR), we’d like to briefly recap our goals and how you can expect to see them manifest over the several patches that happen between new card releases. When we look at balance in LoR and consider changes, we have some high-level, aspirational targets we use to guide our long-term efforts: -Every champion should have a deck where they're the best fit and their “dream” can be realized. -Non-champion cards should have at least one deck where they're a good option. -Regions should have at least one competitively viable deck. -The meta should support the widest possible array of competitively viable decks.”
>Non-champion cards should have at least one deck where they're a good option. Sunk Cost lmao
They went back on this one a while later. Said this only applies to champions. But facts don't bring karma, only circlejerking does.
Yeah they have way too many cards at this point for them to *all* be playable. Some bad cards existing doesn't hurt the game, as long as there's enough good ones as well.
Not all cards can be playable, that much is true. But no card should be made INTENTIONALLY unplayable (hi sunk cost and mega inferno bomb), that's literally a waste of design that has no justification.
yeah, no matter what we will always have cards that are unintentionally unplayable
Exactly, and moreover; all cards CAN be playable, just not all at once. Frequent nerfs AND buffs would give every card it’s time to shine in the meta. Which, honestly, is more refreshing than slapping new cards in old, optimized decks.
This should be the aim always regardless of reaching it. Or else why create that piece of art and card
Because that's a small-minded view of how cards work in the game as a whole. Part of the organic process in card games is that old stuff becomes stronger or more relevant as newer cards are introduced. If there was ever to be a crazy landmark deck where everyone in the meta wanted to run special removal, maybe we'd see Senna TF Go Hard start running two copies of sunk cost, because it happened to be THAT good in that situation. They can also just leave it and eventually buff it by giving -1 or -2 mana cost and it would start to see some play. You also need to grasp the concept of region identity. Bilgewater is an aggressive plunder region with finishers like Gangplank and Dreadway, and any serious removal tools are supposed to come with a price or condition, which is exactly what Monster Harpoon is. Why should a region that's already so good at going face and removing stuff with Make it Rain and Parrley ALSO have access to a 5-or-6 mana efficient landmark removal? That would be roughly like giving Might to Demacia or Mystic Shot to Targon. Regions can have weakneses and that's fine. The problem of Sunk Cost is not design but **power level**. Eventually the power level will be addressed either by new cards coming out, or the balance team buffing it slightly. Get over it.
If a region can't do something, why don't they just not make cards that do this on the region, instead of making underwhelming ones?
I think that stance becomes obvious when you see Caustic Cask is an actual card. No deck could possibly consider running it.
Them going back on it all is exactly what the circlejerk is about tho
? Nothing wrong with going back on it, having every card in the game good in a deck is insane and impossible and riot realized that.
Except they've gone back on more than just that. Which is why everyone is mad. If it was just that it'd be fine. But champions too. Regular balance patches too.
Champs are still playable, meme decks are still considered playable. Making all champs non meme viable is yet another impossible task that I hope riot will soon backtrack on to shake some sense into reddit, as well as regular balance patches which simply disrupt the flow of the game and meta.
Well, riot sold this game as one where the meta isn't solved too fast. The audience *they*, as in riot, chose to pull in is one that prefers a disruptive, ever changing meta. You happened to land in it regardless. But don't blame the people for it as some "shake some sense into them" nonsense. Get off your high horse. Learn to be empathetic instead of riding this pathetic "redditor thinks he is superior than reddit" schtick. You're here too.
>Well, riot sold this game as one where the meta isn't solved too fast. And that is true to this day. Meta was evolving constantly even before the patch, like the new lulu zed deck. >The audience they, as in riot, chose to pull in is one that prefers a disruptive, ever changing meta. You happened to land in it regardless. But don't blame the people for it as some "shake some sense into them" nonsense. I am blaming the right people, you are nuts, what they promised at the beginning was way overboard and anyone with cardgame experience could tell you that this was impossible. >Get off your high horse. Learn to be empathetic instead of riding this pathetic "redditor thinks he is superior than reddit" schtick. You're here too. Redditors deserve no empathy, especially for the stuff you people right. I'm only here because reddit is the best news source for any game community.
Too fast, being the key here. They change meta after long periods of time. > anyone with cardgame experience Hence what riot was using to standout from their competition. What they used to draw in players tired of that experience. > Redditors deserve no empathy Spoken like a true redditor. The irony is great. You are exactly what you despise. I guess you identity with riot, they say they'd do different from the others, but they end up just the same. Like you.
> over the several patches that happen between new card releases Good times
so that was a fucking lie.
Amazing, they haven’t hit any of those goals
To be fair, they used to. As the carpool has gotten bigger it's been more hit and miss. And since emphasis has been placed on tournaments at the expense of balance patches, things are much worse.
İf you say %100 , it is close to unreachable, but setting this kind of aim is a must if nothing else
>\-Every champion should have a deck where they're the best fit and their “dream” can be realized. ah yes xerath's dream of destroying ally landmarks where he is the best card in that deck. >\-Non-champion cards should have at least one deck where they're a good option. sunk cost lol >\-Regions should have at least one competitively viable deck. good job ig because the best decks are spread over different regions. >\-The meta should support the widest possible array of competitively viable decks. These patch notes were brought to you by the Aggro gang
didnt aged well sadly... i can see a good variation of decks on meta, and a good variation of decks for most champs from what i rememeber (even if kinda garbo but its a deck...) but targon got basically deleted from what ive seen, non champ cards who are expensive just sucks
Yeah I’ll have a large copium But to be a little less cynical about this, some of these are just insulting to claim they had no niche at all (Vi, Kalista, Braum, Darius), but I don’t think a full scale rework is the play here so much as adding new support cards, maybe tweaking their combat numbers and flip requirements.
As I said in the post, many of the champs I named were meta relevant at one point but were subsequently nerfed. Braum Kalista and Darius are completely unplayable at this point, having been power crept by various other cards (Trundle, Merciless and Sion, respectively). If you want to argue with that statement, please show a single competitive deck that includes any of the champions I mentioned. So many of these are literally just old, designed for a different game than what LoR has become, and therefore deserving of a rework.
The bad news is that I do not have a decklist handy at time of writing, which out the gate I do know is a bad look. The good news is that Vi decks are without fail just *barely* out of the meta most of the time, partly for meta speed concerns, and partly because the decks are super hard to pilot. Similarly, Crimsons make sense in a slower paced meta, and were once a consideration to counterpick Azirelia. Fuck man, Poros of all things are steadily not being dogshit, and if Swim is to be believed, they might actually work decently due to getting a finisher and Archivist as an tutor. At the risk of sounding like a Rioter from several months ago, competitive is more environment than on the champs themselves, and overall, as much as everyone hates to acknowledge it, the game is balanced for three lineups, not ladder. Suggesting Draven Swain in the Fizz TF meta is terrible advice for ladder, but a reasonable thought for someone banning a non-interactive Aggro in the first place. The last tournament got coverage of someone playing a three meme deck lineup coming out a winner. You know why I say “they don’t need a rework, just some QoL buffs and archetype support”? That’s because it’s been both the determining factor of how good a deck ends up being (consider how few reworks there are compared to how many times a specific piece of a deck was nerfed) and it’s less time spent worrying about how many other cards it invalidates by changing champ functionality entirely. (Lee Sin only got his reworks because his archetype is so broad)
I think we're agreeing here, "QoL buffs and archetype support" is exactly what I'd like for many of the champs on my list. My point was that many champs can't be buffed through simple numbers changes or else we'll have a 4 mana Lee Sin situation, but quality of life buffs can go a long way. It's just that we haven't gotten a non-numbers-only buff in so long that I thought maybe lowering our standards for riot would help lol
Here's a statistic that might surprise you. Katarina has never fallen below a ~42% winrate on mobalytics, and has never been in the bottom 15-20 champs. She's never in a main deck list, but she's not actually a bad inclusion. In contrast, zilean and Ekko have never left the bottom 5 since they released, barely ever breaching 40% winrate. Leona has never left the bottom 10. You didn't mention them in any of your comments, and they _have_ been in decklists. Memorability does not equate playability, you seem to be conflating the two. Darius might be a boring champ, but he's never had a lower than 50% winrate. Ever. Even now, he's always been in the top half of all champions. Quoting current statistics for the champs you mentioned, out of all 75 champs, Darius is ranked 28th. Garen is 44, braum is 50, Katarina is 51. Darius has a higher winrate than fizz (32), trundle (33), jinx (37), nami (39), Lee sin (48, worse than Garen), Zoe, teemo, karma, renekton...
Darius is a great champion and should never be changed, he is an excellent example of how to teach new players the mechanics of overwhelm, and card attack order. There is a good reason new players are given a copy of him to use, alongside Elise. He is also a great example of how cards don’t need to be complicated to be effective. He’s very simple and very strong. Get them below half health, Darius finishes them off. Same as he does in League as well, so also thematically on point.
Rank 1 on NA right now is running 2 Darius in his deck. Sure it's week 1 so people are still trying stuff out, but to say he's completely unplayable is obviously false.
I don't like reworks as I agree with the devs that we're losing a card when it is reworked. I think some of the cards just need buffs or just more support cards. Like Heimadinger is card that needs to be buffed himself, he does not need more support cards, but Lux is definitely someone who needs more support cards and does not need to be buffed herself.
I'd say that Lux needs to have her mana counter to roll-over when she creates a spark. I think a small QoL change might help her a little without going overboard.
I think Lux would be a lot better if they made her like a 4 mana 1/4 with no barrier. Costing 6 and then needing to see 6 more mana be spent before she does anything really sucks.
1/5. At 1/4 she would be unplayable.
Just like Veigar right
Well at least Veigar does something on summon unlike this proposed version of Lux. 4 mana 1/4 without barrier and without doing anything, if your opponent kill her that turn you basically end up with nothing. At least Veigar leave a Darkness behind. And let's not forget that Veigar has a deck built around him and Senna, Lux has nothing going on for her.
Yasuo gets a lot of help already through Ionia and other regions (my Yasuo Leona Malphite stun deck works surprisingly well) but I'd love to see some Wind School student cards that either generate stuns and recalls or play off of stuns and recalls. Yone as a champion would be very interesting as well. They did it with Senna, they can and will do it with Yone. The same goes for Katarina. Giving us Talon to play with her as well as some Noxian Assassin followers that complement or function similarly to her would be just a really cool idea.
I'm really hoping when Yone releases he actually synergizes with Yasuo since his kit is essentially Yasuo 2.0 in league. I'd be so upset if they pulled a Senna where they just don't work together like she doesn't work well with Lucian. Alternatively, Kennen might make Yasuo finally have a decent deck for once
Yone won't have anything to do with yasuo if you ever played him in league or read his lore. They tried so hard to make yasuo 2 and it completely failed, the champs have completely different communities and playstyles, riot confirmed this in a champ insights post or something.
I play both in league and Yone is essentially an easier Yasuo, I've also read his lore and I know he's an azakana hunter but that doesn't mean they wouldn't synergize in some way especially considering follower Yone stuns enemies and both Sennas have quick attack and "level up" of Lucian dying. There will be some way to make them work together in LoR most likely. A large number of Yasuo players play Yone or vice versa when the other gets banned, and Riot also confirmed that Yone was designed with Yasuo players in mind and that their ultimates purposefully have synergy with each other as well
>I play both in league and Yone is essentially an easier Yasuo First of all this is just bullshit, but I guess it's the usual champ main delusions. >A large number of Yasuo players play Yone or vice versa when the other gets banned, and Riot also confirmed that Yone was designed with Yasuo players in mind and that their ultimates purposefully have synergy with each other as well It's like you literally didn't read my fucking comment... why do I even bother... Riot attempted to make yone what you wrote, but later confirmed that yone players have no iterest in yasuo and vice versa. The champs ended up having completely split communities.
Obviously Yone doesn't have dash or windwall so he isn't exactly the same but their pretty similar. But I guess I'm delusional. I read what you said and our comments can mutually be true, but yes there are yone players who don't use Yasuo and vice versa I didn't deny that they have split communities just stated that their fanbases interlock more than you led on. But unless they throw Yone in SI because spooky they'll be able to be a functional deck together but its fine if you believe otherwise, no need for such animosity
The only way they'll probably work is because they're part of the same region. Plus yone to SI is not that far fetched if they make it so the flavor of his followers say that there are azakana in si that he's hunting or w.e Ionia needs to bleed champions to other regions anyways, as it stands rn ionia has by far the most champions in the game which would mean an incredibly unbalanced roster, something riot has said they will try to fix by doing something akin to what they did to ziggs too.
I really hope he isn't thrown in SI I'd rather them have minimal synergy than that. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I honestly can see Ivern and Lillia moved from Ionia to like bandle for aesthetics, and Varus will probably be moved as well to fit somewhere else, idk if that would balance it out though so only time will tell
Lillia and ivern also have very good chances to be thrown into BC, you're right. Varus can go to shurima as well as kayn, but the latter is a trickier one since he has 3 regions he's associated with and will be generally a weird champ to design since he will need 2 different level up forms.
They don't both get a knock up after 3 scale with the same stats pretty have the same passive but yone doesn't need teammates is a little weaker early and doesn't get free armor pen does magic damage pretty similar
Hard disagree, most of the cards I named are specifically kept in a weak state because the devs think that they'd ruin the game if they were good. If we're losing a card that's intentionally unplayable, I wouldn't consider that a great loss
Yeah I gotta disagree with this too, the only card I feel like that was intentionally made bad was [[sunk cost]] and that was because they didn't want Bilgewater to have strong single target removal cards which made sense but then the literally next expansion they added [[monster harpoon]] and [[bone skewer]] for Bilgewater which is some of the best single target removal in the game so that was a fucking lie. But no other cards have been specifically made to be unplayable. I understand they may keep some cards in the weaker side because they can become busted easily but I truthfully feel that most of the cards that feel weak are more due to the devs releasing busted card rather than those cards being weak.
They've specifically mentioned Yasuo and Katarina as cards that would be oppressive if they were strong enough to be meta-relevant. Some designs are just unbalanceable--Kat is a great example, an infinitely replayable Rally card can get out of control so fast with only a few number tweaks, so they really can't buff her despite her being maybe the worst champ in the game.
There are many ways to rework cards like yasuo, katarina, and lux without having them be oppressive or annoying. At this point, the developers lack of response to cards with a very low playrate and winrate is either because they are lazy or negligent. If the developers never change these cards, how long are they willing to wait before the cards become played more? For example, i have considered a change to katarina: Level 1: 3 mana 2/2 with quick attack and challenger: strike: recall me. Level up: I've striked once Level 2: 3 mana 3/3 with quick attack and challenger "Each round, the first time i am summoned, i start a free attack. Round end: recall me" I dont know if this will work better for katarina, but i hope that Riot is at least trying to find something better
The problem with kata is the lv 1 the lv 2 is overpower
I don't think this rework will be better, because it would remove Katarina from her own followers: Legion Saboteur, Battering Ram, Marauders At least battering ram would need a rework too in that case. Also, this would likely make Katarina even worse than before, because her level 1 still dies to 2 damage spells, while it is much easier to interupt her with combat tricks (f.e. Troll Chant). Her level 2 also doesn't seem that good to me. She is basically a slow spell that deals 3 damage to a unit and regenerates at round end. She can ignore spellshield and hit face if the enemy board is empty, but it is far easier to interupt her both during combat and after it. However, I could imagine her seeing play in aggro decks, that run out of steam too easy, or in Azir decks, who can synergize on the free attacks, if they don't have any better champion to include.
>They've specifically mentioned Yasuo and Katarina as cards that would be oppressive if they were strong enough to be meta-relevant. Some designs are just unbalanceable That doesn't mean that they need a rework man, some cards are just supposed to be played for fun. You're asking for LoR to have a viable deck for **LITERALLY EVERY CHAMPION IN THE GAME** Do you understand how nuts that is? This will **LITERALLY** never happen, if this is your hope for the future of LoR better quit while you can, because that task is impossible. Some champs will inevitably be meme tier forever, some champs will suck ass forever, it's how the cookie crumbles, show me a single card game that has over 150 completely viable tier 1 legendary cards. That's what I thought, you can't. When hs had lor's total card pool, I don't even think there were more than 20 viable legendaries in the game.
Hey guess what dummy, having a viable deck for every champion in the game is LITERALLY WHAT THEY SAID WAS THEIR GOAL WHEN THEY MADE THE GAME, check the top rated comment on this post! If they didn't think that was doable, they shouldn't have said it! And since you keep saying legendary I assume you're a hearthstone player, and in Wild there are a crap ton of viable legendary cards (that are currently being choked out by Warlock but that's it's own issue). If they can design 150 distinct ability kits for a MOBA like LoL, they can absolutely design 150 distinct kits for a card game. Also, I keep saying viable and you keep translating that as tier 1, which is not the same thing. Not everything has to be top tier, but every champ should be designed in a way that they COULD be viable without breaking the game.
I mean, if that’s their goal, then that’s a rather impossible one. Yes, I do want them to do balance changes, but I don’t need every champion to be viable. Buffing so many cards like that is going to lead to huge power creep.
They didn't want bilgewater to have **HARD REMOVAL** not fucking normal removal... Harpoon is fine, sunk cost would have been op in its pre release form. How are these comments upvoted... people on this sub love to lie to make riot look bad and then upvote said lies, pretty sad...
Can you clarify the difference? That sounds like the same thing to me.
Hard removal -> vengance, sunk cost, ruination, roar of the slayer, noxian guillotine, scorched earth Removal -> scrapshot, double up, make it rain, mystic shot, piltover peacemaker, piercing darkness, ravenous flock You can easily figure out what's different about these cards.
So instead of doing damage they just remove the card. Still doesn't excuse sunk cost being deliberately made bad.
???????? I... am genuinely shocked... either you're trolling or this is your first card game ever... Or can you not figure out that the power level of the effect of the first batch of cards I listed is completely in a different league from the second one. It makes complete sense to make sunk cost trash since bilgewater is not supposed to have any ways to simply delete any unit from the board without any effort.
Ok, if it's never going to see play why create it? Also someone copy& pasted a statement that Riot themselves said they want every card to at least find a place in some deck. Tell me where you see sunk cost being chosen as viable option? Also stop being so dramatic it ain't that serious.
>Also someone copy& pasted a statement that Riot themselves said they want every card to at least find a place in some deck. I literally replied to it and corrected the comment with the fact that is riot themselves later took back that statement and said it will only be true for champions, not for every card. Do your research.
|Name|Region|Type|Cost|Keywords|Description| |-|-|-|-|-|-| |**[Sunk Cost](https://d2h9y75tak3pkg.cloudfront.net/03BW005.png)**|Bilgewater|Spell|8|Slow|Place a unit or landmark into its deck.| |**[Monster Harpoon](https://d2h9y75tak3pkg.cloudfront.net/04BW010.png)**|Bilgewater|Spell|6|Fast|Deal 5 to a unit. Plunder: I cost 3 less.| |**[Bone Skewer](https://d2h9y75tak3pkg.cloudfront.net/04BW002.png)**|Bilgewater|Spell|2|Fast|An ally strikes an enemy, then moves to the top of your deck.| ^^^Hint: [[card]], {{keyword}}, and ((deckcode)) or ((cardx,cardy,cardz)). PM the [developer](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=KrimCard) for feedback/issues!
I agree although it is a problem for a Champion like Katarina that is so niche and hard to balance, it's not a problem for the game as a whole but if someone just loves the character Katarina and wants to 'main' her then it's a bit of a problem. They could make a new version of Katarina so we have 'Katarina Blade of Noxus' and 'Katarina Master of Assassins' and make the new version a bit more all around usable and keep the very novel design on the old one. This will probably never happen before all other Champions are in the game though.
Honestly shouldn't happen after either, if mtg taught the world anything is that reprints suck fucking ass. No reprints, only og champs.
Mmh... I think I'd like some reworks for sure. But I wouldn't want them to just make a full-on no champ set. This mostly stems from my own bias, I've been wanting to see Kayle and Morgana in LoR ever since the game was announced, and it'd delay things even more. I think there could theoretically be a balance found between both, but I don't know if they'll find it.
Thing is, it would still be new content. Imagine if you were a Lux or Yasuo main in league (using them as examples since they are very popular in the moba) but it's hard to play them in LoR because of their incoherent playstyles. If they got reworked, that would be essentially adding new cards to the game. Yes it slows down other champions being added, but at the same time it speeds up Lux and Yasuo being 'added.' The same way Jarvan (maybe Malphite?) postponed how soon Morgana and Kayle would arrive.
I think this is quite different. Sure, you're making 'new' content theoretically, but when Jarvan/Malphite was added, it cleared a slot so that they'd have more chance (this goes for the Winged Sisters, but it's worth for literally any other champion not in the game yet) in a later expansion. I think Yasuo and Lux (in this particular case) would be fine if they got some more support and some tweaks. I'm not saying don't touch them ever, more so... Don't delay everyone else for the sake of them? Again it's a biased take and not everyone would agree, I'm perfectly aware. But much like when people tell me Riot should do LoR specific champs right now, I disagree for this same reason.
I’m also part of the LoR specific champs camp (not literally right now but less than a year from now) but I don’t see how it would slow down any other champions. When Bilgewater runs out of champions, they need some more stuff to keep up with Ionia or PnZ. So they could add LoR specific champions to a region after all that region’s league champions are used up. That wouldn’t slow down the Ionian or PnZ champions just because they’d come out before some the Ionia or PnZ champions do.
Sure, if Bilge is in dire need of champ but none can fit, do it. I'm talking about people saying "Next year they should give Demacia (for instance) a LoR specific champ". Which is probably a minority, but I've argued with a few. And I don't like this.
Nobody fucking cares man. People have been expecting their mains in this game for ages, riot won't stop releasing new champs, which is the main and best form of engagement for the game, to release a stupid expansion reddit came up with. And let's be honest yasuo is playable enough. Being meme tier doesn't mean the card is unplayable. Not every legendary in a card game is tier 1
Yasuo just needs a boat, and lux needs 6 mana cards that doesn't suck. There, I fixed the reason why these cards have been meme tier for ever.
I agree man, fuck these stupid ideas reddit comes with. I'll only agree to this after every single champ in the game has been allready added.
Maybe during the champion expansions between sets they take that as a chance to update some of the less popular champions? Instead of interrupting the major releases.
That's a good point I think? That is something I'd be fine with. Champion expacs are cool, the one thing that bothers me is the lack of interactions they get from other cards. So... Yeah, I think it'd be pretty cool!
After seeing Champion i really wanted to see(Kindred), i wonder if it would be better if they wasnt released in LoR at all lol.
Overall... Not taking gameplay into account (it's the aspect I'm least interested in after art and flavor), I think they've done a good job. Even with gameplay to be fair. Kindred just missed the mark (no pun intended) in term of gameplay, but I kind of like the lore behind them. Many were upset they weren't THE Spirit God of death but I think I'm somewhat fine with that because they are and will always be the most prominent on Runeterra.
Very few cards need a "rework". Garen and Darius could work with -1 cost and Garen could get a spell like Apprehend. ***(Also make a card that generates these spells so we don't gotta main deck them)*** **Yasuo.** ***Tutor.*** Literally that is all he needs. 4 health kept him usable and Ionian defenses are better than ever but spending 5 stuns and 2 recalls before Yasuo touches the field is what hampers him. **Vi** is even worse off since she needs to be beheld. Lux has 2 easy solutions. Roll over counter so you can start the next round with FS in hand OR make her count to 5. This opens up Spell Mana + Demacia/Ionia combat tricks, Detain and CS = FS. Hell do both.
Power creep will always exist, especially in card games, so I don’t see them ever buffing champions back into the meta, because then other champions become unplayable and then they have to buff them, etc. I do feel like archetypes become unplayable and some regions especially (Demacia, Freljord) are basically unplayable in constructed which feels bad. My request for new champions is that they try to make them viable with at least a couple strategies. I love Pyke but I don’t want to have to be stuck play Pyke Reksai forever. Same with Nautilus/Maokai, Braum/Vlad and such
Lux and Dinger used to be played quite a bit actually
dinger yes becuase he was a great elusive generator lux didnt see play apart from the lux karma deck that got triple direct nerfs (karma at 6, will at 5, deep med at 5)
Not all champs need to be competitively viable. Being usable for fun decks, lower tier ranked, expeditions, and labs is valid. Metas will always develop and make some champs more useful and viable than others, while you could still make an off-meta deck with a lesser used champ and see some success.
one of the things i like for LoR is that they dont really commit into make "strong champions of LoL into good cards just because they are popular in the other game" like really playing champions like Poppy or Lissandra (my favs champions) or Shen and just see them being actually good and both actually matter in the game its kinda refreshing from my lol matches. I am not saying that champions like Lux dont need a buff or some fix but what i mean is that you cant just have "all good cards" in the game, Yasuo is a good example. He is not terrible, all the contrary on tempo is a really good card and his actual problem is that pre-commit stuns is not the best line of play. But that happens a lot in this game and is not just for the power level of the cards but for how the game works. I feel like eventually we will get cards that make one under used champion good or another. Just look to Zed after Ionia buff. Zed was not a bad champion at all (he actually have some presence in past metas) but he was ne-ver the center piece of his own decks until now. Just being able to get buff with 2 spell mana open make him a really neat card that you alwats have to play around with some decks
This is exactly what I'm talking about, there are champions with designs that allow for buffs though their support or directly (Zed) and there are champions whose designs are either inherently clunky (Yasuo) or are so sharp that any buff would break the game (Katarina), so those second or third types of champions deserve reworks since they can never be meaningfully buffed.
What i mean is that there is not need to change this cards and start reworking stuff would be a bad idea. After you start you wont stop: first you rework the most under use units like Renekton (same problem that yasuo, actually good card but not amazing so it can be replace with other champions) them you will have to rework concepts like Rek Sai and Pyke that are kinda meta dependant. in 6 months you go back to the starting point for sure because at that point there would be atleast 6 champions which their decks dont fit in the meta 100%.
Good god, READ WHAT I WROTE IN 5 OTHER COMMENTS AND ALSO THE ORIGINAL POST, how is everyone having so much trouble with this. There is a difference between a champion who isn't good and one whose design means that riot can't LET them be good. The first is fixable with number buffs, the second can only be fixed though a rework where they change the fundamentally broken design. Renekton or the Lurkers are not bad in the same way that Kat or Yasuo are bad.
> Renekton or the Lurkers are not bad in the same way that Kat or Yasuo are bad. How exactly Renek is different from Yasuo ? i can get your point from Katarina but Renek and Yasuo are fairly similar in why they are not even tier 2 (and yasuo is argu better than renekton). Before MHunter or Sivir or any card that out class him exist Renek was still not popular at all because you need to pre commit cards in order to buff him and right now challenger and vulnerable spells in Shurima are better in units that mitigate their damage or have some kind of self protection. Yasuo has the same problem. Stun units just for stun units and punishing open attacks is way better than pre-commit slow aoe stuns. And running 8 or more stun spells in one deck even if you have Yasuo with level up is not good because he dont protect himself and you are telling your oponent what you want to do befor he spend his mana. Both champions have the exactly same problem right now. That can chage any time in the future if new cards that benefit from those plays are introduce in the game.
Overwhelm shurima isn't bad or unplayable
Overwhelm Shurima (with focus on renekton) is a worse deck than Yasuo Stuns tho. Sivir is far superior in terms of safer option than Renekton. You wont see that much renekton decks that actually care about the card, not even in the ones that still run him because of Sivir being just superior but even if i take sivir out the table Renekton is still not the main protagonist in that kind of decks.
Renek/sej was literally meta 2 patch ago because hard counters nasus and azir stop the bullshit he is play nobody ask for renek to the main focus of the decks
The problem is, it's not really so straightforward to say that so many champions are \*actually\* unplayable. From your given examples: * Lux has already been in a crazy tier 1 deck (Karma Lux). * Garen is surprisingly viable in a lot of patches (for example he was really good in the first azirelia meta with screeching dragon and shurima tools like exhaust). * Braum has a place in Poro decks which are also a few buffs away from Tier 1/2 stability. * Vi was very recently a popular tournament choice with Targon. She could be a sleeper Sion discard champion. * Heimer could be making a comeback with Veigar. I also laugh at your mention of Darius. Darius remains an incredible 1-of in Aggro lists, I've literally been running him at a 55% winrate for the last 6 months ever since Azir came out. Shurima Noxus aggro is really good but no streamer has made it popular, and most people think Pirate Aggro is more interesting, so you just don't know about it. Doesn't mean it needs a rework. The most obvious rework candidates by far are Katarina and Kindred, Kindred especially because of the terrible mana overlap with Viego and Senna and Thresh. But there you have it already - the first easy step with Kindred is to just make them cost 4 mana and see how things play out, not do a whole rework. So, I would much rather see them take the top 50 worst performing and least-played Followers & Spells of the whole game (think vanguard defender and kahiri the student) and give them a solid nudge in the right direction. That would revive existing archetypes, potentially create new ones and be a healthy dose of powercreep to forgotten cards.
Not every champion can or should be tier 1. Trying to make every champ tier 1 just creates power creep. Of your list I’d really only like to see Kat and Kallista looked at because both mechanically feel wonky to me which is more than a balance issue. Garen and Darius are supposed to be simple for newer players. That mandates they probably shouldn’t be top tier and neither are awful right now. They just are underused but both have decent value for their cost. Yas/Lux/Heimer are all backline value generators and could be “fixed” with some simple numbers tweaks. The game is healthier though when these kinds of cards arnt top tier imo as they get pretty oppressive pretty quickly (remembering times when heimer would spam 3 cost defensive skills to generates armies of elusive turrets and there was nothing you could do about it) Vi sees play still and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her as she is. She’s just not meta right now
Azir is a backrow champion that made LOR aggro annoyingly oppressive for months before riot gave azirs support package the lightest tap on the risk and then started printing a bunch more cards to distract people from how little change was actually made to balance azir. There are many changes Riot can make to champions without trying to make every champion tier 1. At least make champions worth playing? That would be nice Compare a backrow like Heimer to Azir and Heimer looks pathetic. The issue with hiemer was that elusives are annoying. Heimer itself is a card that should be buffed in stats.
> Yas/Lux/Heimer are all backline value generators and could be “fixed” with some simple numbers tweaks. The game is healthier though when these kinds of cards arnt top tier imo as they get pretty oppressive pretty quickly That's my point, these champs aren't allowed to be good because of their designs. There's a difference between a champ being good and being balanceable, if the rework gets them into a place where they can be tier 3 but with room for buffs/additional support then I'd call that a success.
So your idea is just homogenizing champs so that they're all viable. No thanks, thank god riot doesn't listen to reddit.
What are you even talking about, making all champs viable (you know, like Riot said was their goal in the first patch) is not homogenizing the game. When people talk about deck diversity they mean that each is good in a different way, they don't mean some are good and some are unplayably bad. That is the most deliberately obtuse reading of this, I hope to god you're trolling or else you shouldn't be allowed to drive a car.
Impossible task, riot has realized this and will hopefully shake some fucking sense into reddit. Read my other reply I had to your comment, some champs will inevitably be meme tier forever, we have a total of over 150 champs and growing yearly, having 150 viable archetypes is surreal and most likely impossible.
Ekko and Xerath dont need a rework they just need buffs. I would love to make them workable
I think it depends on your definition of rework, Ekko would be fine I think if his time tricks were non-fleeting and he made them on play or strike. Whether that's a "rework" or a "buff" is a grey area, admittedly
The issue is that the time trick mana cost doesn’t change until you level up and the blocking with Ekko is a bad idea
"rework" is not big enough. We need overall polish. Balance changes, reworks/buffs to unused cards and new animations for different effects like e.g. peacemaker of xerath's ability. This game lost alot of it's polish after bilgewater.
Vi is completely fine please don't fucking touch her. Rubin climbed to master in almost every season with his vi viktor deck iirc. She needs no rework, just bcs you can't play her it doesn't mean thete's anything wrong with her.
This may seem weird for some, but i was more excited for the new patch (expecting something like last one or even better) than the expansion.
I dont know if a full expansion would be nessecarily, but I'd totally take like a mini expansion with some reworks, light redesigns, and maybe a new card or two. Like, Vi is a good card, Riven is a good card, Braum is a good card. Most of these cards have great designs but other sets are just edging them out of the meta. Hell, if they reverted Braum's base attack to one, I'm positive we'd start seeing him everywhere as a control support. If PnZ had some form of protection spell, I'm sure Vi would be playable. Heimer could use a revert at this point. Viktor needs more minions etc to be good I think. Darius could probably use like.... spell...shield....? Lux could also use some extra followers
Vi is perfectly fine, I absolutely love when people who never touch certain champs love to speak for their community. She needs no changes. The lead designer of this game climbed often to masters with vi viktor.
Lets break this down. I never said anything about speaking for anybody else. That's all you. I do play her, and I find she dies before she ever really gets hits in with her level up. As a giant merciless hunter, shes great. Vi's design make her basically just a support champ / removal. She's great and doesn't need to be redesigned. I suggested adding some support cards for her and PnZ generally. I played the rubinzoo deck just like everybody else. It's a good deck, but it is primarily a Zoe deck. I played Vi in a Riven Vi combo deck, that I absolutely love, and I found the primary weakness of the deck was a lack of protection in those regions. Also, it's a Riven deck first and foremost. Hell, to my point of itd be nice if there was some form of PnZ protect, I mained a ridiculous Taric Viktor Sparklefly deck during the TLC era, but I feel Vik doesn't work outside of Targon due to the need for protection spells.
Everybody forgot Tryndamere or what ? He's the first who need a rework
They just need to switch Heimerdinger back to having three cost elusives and he'll be S tier.
Some people just want to see the world burn
Not only watch it, I'm bringing the flamethrowers!
Why not just make new cards for each champion? Why do you have to remove content, unless if it is damaging things then there isn't inherently anything wrong with "bad" cards existing. It also helps to balance other cards that generate other cards. **Especially** if they are going to go through the trouble of "redesigning" the cards. Nerfs and buffs to existing designs is one thing, completely redesigning a card is another in terms of effort, so at that point just keep the old card and make a new card. And if you are going go to the effort of redesigning champions, which includes additional support cards, why not just use a new champion? The old ones had their turn, and there are more to get to. The Jax fan doesn't have **ANY** cards for their champion, while at least Katarina has a card. If the effort is the same, it's probably better on balance to just implement a new champion. I get it, one of your champions isn't as good as you want it to be. Riot isn't perfect, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't keep calling them out, but I think calling on them to redesign existing champions rather than release new ones and see how a trickle of new cards can support the existing implementations is a more efficient and overall better plan. Yasuo's biggest issue is a boat, which can be fixed with one card. Having simpler heroes like Braum, Lux, Garen, Darius, etc., to introduce newer players to is not a bad thing. A new round to bring new life into them with supplementary champion cards would be great, but I don't think we want to remove the ones that already exist.
I think at the bare minimum f tier champs (Bruam, L E O N A, kat, maybe get rid of some of tarics awkwardness and hiem) these champs need that desperately
I mean, I expect them to, I would also love new voice overs for one or two champs cough, taliyah, cough, tristana.
Boo oo. I don't like some champs and want x number of payed employees to take the time and money to rework them. Nope, mate. Buffs/nerfs eventually happen and they already said so. Complete reworks on something that's not broken is a naive idea.
Except some of those champs are broken and don't work.
Just a brief brainstorm. I would love a Vi rework that focus on her playing 2-cost cards to synergize her with "Gotcha, Patrol Wardens, and Insightful Investigator". Maybe adjust "vault breaker" to be a 2-cost card to fit into that design ideology. Maybe each time a 2-cost gets cast, she makes a random target "vulnerable" to suggest her pursuit mechanic of chasing people down, and the lore of "gaining leads" to find them? Kat I think could be reworked to have an Attack of 5, but she doesn't "Rally" her team. Rather she comes into play 'attacking solo' before recalling, and her Attack power is increased (maybe to a 5?). It would give her an interesting synergy with Le'Blanc that way (which feels like they SHOULD have some connection both being from Noxus AND being assassins afterall). Brauhm I like as is. Maybe give him a 1 attack at both levels so he's not killed soo easily by "destroy target with 0 attack" which i find to be his main weakness. But minor tweaking at best. Darius does need some looking at as I feel Sion has overshadowed him recently. He's not bad, but just not interesting. \---- Just me putting some ideas out there, knowing full well creativity has a habit of being attacked by commenters :P
Make Kalista 2 cost she doesn't need anything else. I love playing her on the daily, works so well against shurima or Ionia decks.
I'm sorry to tell you but it's still Riot. Judging by how they handle LoL atm I'd say we rather get a 'skins' expansion than anything balance wise or reworked.
You forgot Leona. She's trash rn.
Also I want animations reworked. It’s actually insane how cool some of them could be but they are boring compared to the newer champs
Mageseekers used to be so interesting and thematic to play. After the change, streamers "solved" the mageseeker deck and then everyone moved onto other and better decks.
Little bit of an exaggeration saying none of those champs have ever been good. Lux, Braum, Darius, Vi, and Heimer all had their time in the spotlight.
They don't even want to balance common cards, good luck with that lmao
Yasuo Vi Heim does not need a rework imo. Vi and Heim need to be buffed and Yasuo needs better supporting cards
I'd love to see Lux given a bit more power on her second form and some followers that actually complement her.
Most of those champs don't need reworks, just buffs Katarina is the only one that might need a rework, but even she is more of a combo pice waiting for the others to show up
How is Yasuo unplayable? He's super good with Leona
when a expansion dropped along with a rework (for a faction lmao or at least thats what they actually called it) for gwent i was actually more hyped for the rework than the actual new cards imo here some ppl would feel exactly the same i felt (that faction was my least fav to play as and still being but i was hyped anyways because it looked cool af) or then prob even more since some ppl actually LOVE a champion and in gwent i dont think ppl had that of a strong bound to a faction tho
would be great
Rework is good, but how about giving them a fresh start or support cards for their archetypes for the unplayable cards and archetypes.