League of Legends - Megathread

[Katadeus]

I shouldn't play so early in the morning.
I win games as fed hybrid Veigar.

[Ad Bot]

[Doomonkey]

It's literally impossible to have the one perfect team

One strategy, not one team combination.

And it is nearly impossible for a non random game to have more than one best strategy.

[Chrono]

people won't like them and then proceed to buy the new ones.

Explains why Kha'zix and Syndra are bad.

Any new champion I've seen that came out that was too powerful got nerfed.

Even the supposed 'OP' league champs...
Ezreal gets called OP, yet only sitting at a 52.48% win rate.
Even for NA Platnum rank, he's only got a 52.27% win rate.
Yet we see him in about half the games played, just because people think he's overpowered.
Oh how I see people scream in draft "BAN MORG NOW!"
In the past 3 weeks, never broke 50% win rate. Whenever I see people play her they do terrible.
Her win rate in NA Plat is spiking from 30% to 55%.

These are some of the older champions, let's take a look at these so called "new op champs for $$$$"
Elise, the newest champion, has only a 39.34% win rate. omg so op
Kha'zix sits at about 45% win rate.
Syndra at 41.84%.
Rengar, who was considered actually OP and is the 4th newest champion, was nerfed on the 24th. Prepatch, he sat at about 52% win rate, postpatch, he's at about 45%.

But yet Amumu, old as balls champion, is about an average 55% win rate.
Another old champion, Evelynn, before nerfed on the 24th, ranged between 56% and 57% win rate.
Even Teemo, who is considered horribly underpowered by 20 paragraph rants, still has above 50% win rate.


So I'm not sure where you're pulling this "they nerf old guys to make people buy new guys" from.

[Acid]

It's literally impossible to have the one perfect team for many reasons, considering you can ban good heroes, counter-pick their heroes, or just outplay them. The metagame is a strategy that teams use during a game, like a 4+1 strat where they have a really hard carry and 4 people constantly turtling so he can farm, or a push heavy strat with lots of early game power. Yeah that is exactly like in League of Legends. Funny huh? Teams run different strategies. When we say league of legends has a stable meta game we don't mean the same team composition and strategy is the best in every situation, we mean that we have an optimum lane configuration for maximum gold income and map presence. 

I could think of any 5 heroes that would have amazing synergy, as well as a team that counters it to not be OP. Hell, league goes against counter picks because they think it's not fun to have heroes good against the OP bullstuff they shovel in for money. You are completely mis-informed. League of legends is ENTIRELY about counter-picking and team composition and out-playing your enemies strategy with your own.

There is no such thing as a best strategy, the game is not balanced around these specific strats. A game is balanced around how the hero overall works with things. Centaur Warchief is a great example for this, because Icefrog reworked his ultimate to be a new skill. It didn't take people long to know it was stupidly good in any situation. It was nerfed within a week of being added because of that, so he wouldn't be a ridiculously top tier hero. Heroes in league suffer heavily from power-creep so they sell, only to nerf them when the next new bunch are out so people won't like them and then proceed to buy the new ones. This just leads to really shoddy balance that is intentionally focues towards that one thing so they don't function well in any situation with variety. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here because your argument construction is piss-poor, but if what you're saying is Riot nerfs and buffs champions based on trying to sell them you're completely wrong. Riot has so much money they can literally shower money on whatever they want (E-Sports for example) and make it grow. Riot is indisputably one of the most generous company towards their fan base (Mostly because of how sodding rich they are). They don't need to make champions OP to try and sell more of them. I think you have a grudge, mate.

De-constructed your other argument for fun too:

League of Legends has the most boring cookie cutter meta possible, how is that interesting in any way at all?
Being the most effective is alright if you do the same old stuff routine which is the stale metagame they run over there.

Picks aren't interesting, heroes are getting boring and they hardly balance people to give the competitive drafting pool a larger variety. Complete bullstuff. You are completely wrong in this statement. Champion balancing is a major part of having a stable meta and Riot do it frequently.

A shifting meta means the competitive scene is always going to have something interesting, Personal opinion - do not agree.

 keeping teams from running the same one trick pony lineup every time. More bullstuff. Teams in league of legends do not run 'the same one-trick pony lineup' every time. Team comps vary from AoE to Assassin to Poke comps and Split-pushing comps. The meta won't change this in either game.

In Dota 2, you see constant patches balancing and tweaking heroes that are either OP or UP to make room for loads of new strategies. Like in league of legends and all other MOBAs

You can run lanes all sorts of different ways in Dota because doing the unexpected will give you a better edge compared to knowing there will always be a jungler and a solo top/mid, there's no skill involved in that. No one's stopping pro's from running 'lanes in all sorts of different ways' in league of legends either. It's just that after many years of the game being out they've figured out the optimum lane compositions that give the most gold income and presence on the map. (e.g. if they think their top lane is going to lose they will send bot lane top to 2v1 their top laner. This gives their ad carry and top laner maximum income and is a team strategy that varies depending on the game - But usually it is always ad carry + support bottom, jungler, ap mid, and anything situational top) Dota 2 WILL find this spot where they have pretty much the same lane compositions and this is when Dota 2 will be considered a viable competitive game.

Balance is another thing, in the International 2, Morphling, Lycan and Naga Siren were all ridiculously OP, being constantly drafted. Right after, all of them were beaten with the nerf stick and buffs were given to underplayed heroes like Jakiro and Batrider. Now both of them are creeping towards top pick/ban statuses while the other 3 are now taking a back seat more often as opposed to being pick Lycan, win game. Even without the buffs or nerfs on some heroes they can still be picked up by a team to throw curveballs at the enemy team. When EHOME did their signature carry Tiny, even some of the best carries were trampled by the Tiny Wisp combo that always ensured a great game to watch. Having all those factors keeps a fresh meta that won't get boring, because Icefrog actually gives a damn. Yeah that sounds exactly like league of legends again. You are talking about champion balancing when you should actually be trying to explain the validity of players not knowing what lane compositions to run.

/rant

Dota as a whole has also had a much older competitive scene going through different phases, and it's because people learn how to beat the top strategies because they balance stuff so well. Nothing can stay at the top forever, because if it does then you're going to see more repetition than the Call of Duty series.

Also NaVi drafts are best drafts, you can't plan when you have no idea when they're going to pick someone to wreck your stuff like Pudge or Axe. They also make the weirdest things work like jungling Huskar or intercepting enemy waves with a 3 melee trilane. Interesting not stuffty new stuff.

[Proog]

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here because your argument construction is piss-poor, but if what you're saying is Riot nerfs and buffs champions based on trying to sell them you're completely wrong. Riot has so much money they can literally shower money on whatever they want (E-Sports for example) and make it grow. Riot is indisputably one of the most generous company towards their fan base (Mostly because of how sodding rich they are). They don't need to make champions OP to try and sell more of them. I think you have a grudge, mate.

If they can shower so much money into E-Sports how come they had constant connection issues during the tournament, as well as teams cheating due to their own lack of preparation, and bad booth placement where people could turn around and see a minimap with the enemy team on it?

You are completely mis-informed. League of legends is ENTIRELY about counter-picking and team composition and out-playing your enemies strategy with your own.

How are you going to counter-pick a hero when you have to spend money or in-game currency to buy that hero? What happens if you don't have any counters to their team? Tough stuff looks like you get to lose because the game makes you buy heroes instead of letting people be free to try whoever they want whenever.

Complete bullstuff. You are completely wrong in this statement. Champion balancing is a major part of having a stable meta and Riot do it frequently.

Personal opinion - do not agree.

More bullstuff. Teams in league of legends do not run 'the same one-trick pony lineup' every time. Team comps vary from AoE to Assassin to Poke comps and Split-pushing comps. The meta won't change this in either game.

I'll give you credit for these ones, the last one was a poor choice of wording though. The problem is just because 1 1 1 2 is the ideal split doesn't mean you need to run that lineup every single time. Often sacrificing a perfect split of gold can lead to stronger lanes and determine the outcome of the early game, arguably one of the most important stages. Then again, hero bounties and cs gold ratios are different in Dota 2 and LoL so it's a tough subject to compare.

And yes, a lot of what you said is how League is much like Dota, and that's because they're based off the original WC3 mod, just not to the extent of HoN being a complete copy of it with a different coat of paint. Some of League's heroes share similar skillsets but that's bound to happen eventually.

[Acid]

If they can shower so much money into E-Sports how come they had constant connection issues during the tournament, as well as teams cheating due to their own lack of preparation, and bad booth placement where people could turn around and see a minimap with the enemy team on it? This is actually a different discussion, I think Riot was extremely stupid for letting players have the ability to view the minimap from where they were sitting. Just seemed like common sense not to do that. As for the technical difficulties, I don't hold it against them. Mistakes happen but I am only so tolerant - I expect this to never happen again.

How are you going to counter-pick a hero when you have to spend money or in-game currency to buy that hero? What happens if you don't have any counters to their team? Tough stuff looks like you get to lose because the game makes you buy heroes instead of letting people be free to try whoever they want whenever. This is an often debated part of league of legends. Technically, all of the champions and runes can be acquired without spending any money in real life at any point but it does take a veeeery long time. Dota 2's model of all champions being free is quite appealing and one of the reasons I am waiting on a beta invite to play it. League of legends model is good though as earning Influence Points to buy champions gives you something to work for other than levels.

Also, when you are a lower level and play one champ exclusively that not many other people play it's very fun as friendlies and enemies who are playing for the first time will get their first impressions of a champion from you rather than you just being another person playing that week's free champ rotation - That's how I enjoyed it anyway.

I'll give you credit for these ones, the last one was a poor choice of wording though. The problem is just because 1 1 1 2 is the ideal split doesn't mean you need to run that lineup every single time. Often sacrificing a perfect split of gold can lead to stronger lanes and determine the outcome of the early game, arguably one of the most important stages. Then again, hero bounties and cs gold ratios are different in Dota 2 and LoL so it's a tough subject to compare. I do partly agree with you tbh, I just wanted you to see that League does have a lot of opportunities to play a strange strategy like push comp where you roam around pushing towers and stealing enemy jungle buffs. I'm not too sure what the Dota 2 map is like but the way league of legends is makes it so the optimal placements for different types of champions are pretty defined (Blue buff important for ap casters and blue buff is easily accessible from mid lane, needing more people near dragon always to protect it hence support + ad bot)

And yes, a lot of what you said is how League is much like Dota, and that's because they're based off the original WC3 mod, just not to the extent of HoN being a complete copy of it with a different coat of paint. Some of League's heroes share similar skillsets but that's bound to happen eventually. I meant in the sense of how you were describing dota 2 heroes who go from OP to UP but can be pulled out to surprise enemies. I was just saying this happens in League too all the time. (Shen is a good example. Started out as OP and got nerfed like 3 years ago before i started playing, became unplayed for years until he got some buffs and is now almost permanently banned in draft pick.)

[johnnyboy]

did i just start a flame war lol

anyway, round 2 of "Cause People to Queue Dodge" has begun with...zed, the ninja friend

[Chrono]

If they can shower so much money into E-Sports how come they had constant connection issues during the tournament

Because that tournament stream alone was 5% of the bandwidth being used across all of North America. Now think about how much you use on average, and how much your percentage would compare to the total being used now in North America.

How are you going to counter-pick a hero when you have to spend money or in-game currency to buy that hero? What happens if you don't have any counters to their team? Tough stuff looks like you get to lose because the game makes you buy heroes instead of letting people be free to try whoever they want whenever.

Being countered isn't an automatic loss. It's just a good chance. A challenging part of this game (believe it or not) is the champion selection screen. And here's the thing, if you do not have enough champions to counter with, then perhaps you should either play some blind pick, where you don't have to try to counter because you don't know who they have, and in turn, earn IP for buying new champions. Or, you can spend just a bit of money and get a bundle of champions. If you really don't feel it's right to be able to play every single champion (hint, it's not a circle of counters, it's a web, champions will have multiple countering options, so you don't even need every champion, and in the case where you have zero counter options, play in another lane), then maybe you should play a game that doesn't use the free to play market. But don't call it bad based on that, it's just your decision.

[Block Box]

spellthief or republic lux

[Chrono]

did i just start a flame war lol

anyway, round 2 of "Cause People to Queue Dodge" has begun with...zed, the ninja friend

Zed vs Jax new sidequest
(if people get what i'm referencing)

[Acid]

did i just start a flame war lol

anyway, round 2 of "Cause People to Queue Dodge" has begun with...zed, the ninja friend

I wouldnt call it a flame war. I like having discussions about things

Also zex yay more assassins. Means I will have to get him too because I am all about da assassins. AD Caster with energy sound pretty cool as long as he does Tons of Damage.^TM

[johnnyboy]

he does look cool imho. kinda the tricky jumping around in fights style that i like.
too bad pbe queue is over 9000 again i swear they did that on purpose...
EDIT: dota 2 has a different balancing system than the others made from its concept.
EDIT2: and dota 1 as well. can't forget the original.

[kevin 51l]

imo dota 2 is WAY funner than LoL, but only with friends. my one friend that i've played it with will never play it again, even though we had the funnest games ever (mass couriers new meta)

i'd play dota 2 over LoL with friends any day, but it's just that no one wants to play it because of the 5 minute que

[Evar678]

Rengar, who was considered actually OP and is the 4th newest champion, was nerfed on the 24th. Prepatch, he sat at about 52% win rate, postpatch, he's at about 45%.

Jeez, I'd think it'd be higher than that.
I have a replay of me killing a decently fed riven in LITERALLY less than a second.

[Katadeus]

spellthief or republic lux

All of the spellthief
So much better imo