League Of Legends

Lenaldo_sl said:

Bans in soloq are important to weed outcchamps with mechanics that don't transition well to the solo q meta. Eve invis, blitz hook, amumu ult are all abilities that are incredibly strong in solo q because of the lack of teamwork/strategy. Champs are banned in lLCS based on play styles and favorites. Very different circumstance but equally valid.

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If those champs are such a problem in solo queue, why don't their win rates reflect that? The "perma-banned" champs for any given tier are usually far behind in winrates to dozens of champions. It's nothing but perception and personal preference. That's not strategy or depth, again. It's purely emotional and it has built up to the point of being negative more often then not (see people bitching because you banned X champ or didn't ban X champ). People never say "thank god we banned X", just the opposite.

I haven't got to play Yasuo alot lately, but I have been experimenting with different builds for him. I've triedthis guy's builda couple of times and for me it has made his lane phase feel noticeably better, but I need to play with it more.

9/21 masteries and a weird rune setup:

1 crit chance Quint (rest are life steal)
1 crit chance Seal (rest are flat armor)
3 crit chance Marks (rest are attack speed)

It gives 5% crit chance (10% @ level 1 due to passive) and 10% attack speed. Yasuo's Q cooldown and hit animation is capped with 60% attack speed. Yasuo gets 10% attack speed at level 18 with his base stats, so with the 10% from runes, you can cap Q's cooldown by getting Shiv as the only attack speed item. The idea is to start Dorans blade, rush a shiv, IE, then finish with two defensive items and a hydra.

I don't agree. For instance. I ban nasus. Not because I think he is terribly op but because I don't like the idea of having a ticking time bomb top forcing me to change the way I play. My guess is people pick these champsif left open and then genuinely suck with them. That's why the win rate is low.

I also don't want to have to deal with perma stealth so I remove that. Hook bottom lane is annoying so ditch that.

You see the pattern. I'm not sure winrate is the best judge. The problem occurs when people who are good with those champs get them; not the average idiot picking the champ because they think its op. Look At rammus. I believe he has a pretty good win rate but isn't banned. Why? Because I think people don't mind his counter play. He doesn't have some lame mechanic that requires u to change ur normal play style to account for.

I dunno. My group of friends pretty much ban exclusively based on annoyance. For example Nidalee is one of our most common bans.

Lenaldo_sl said:

I don't agree. For instance. I ban nasus. Not because I think he is terribly op but because I don't like the idea of having a ticking time bomb top forcing me to change the way I play. My guess is people pick these champsif left open and then genuinely suck with them. That's why the win rate is low.

I also don't want to have to deal with perma stealth so I remove that. Hook bottom lane is annoying so ditch that.

You see the pattern. I'm not sure winrate is the best judge. The problem occurs when people who are good with those champs get them; not the average idiot picking the champ because they think its op.

I dunno. My group of friends pretty much ban exclusively based on annoyance. For example Nidalee is one of our most common bans.

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That is EXACTLY my point. You're banning based on personal preference. That's a dumb reason to have bans in the game. If you want to remove 'annoying' champions you'd need a solid 8+ bans just on your side. It doesn't add strategy. In solo queue it has gotten to the point where it is a negative emotional experience. It doesn't benefit anyone. Don't let newly released champs be played in ranked for a week and remove bans from non-tournament games. When team builder comes out let that have bans since it actually at least COULD add strategy there.

Yeah, I basically always 100% ban Eve just because the stealth mechanic. I mean, nobody buys pinks wards in soloqueue so she's gotta be banned. I also usually 100% ban nasus (unless I'm going to play him) because he's overpowered as hell. He doesn't lose lane because he can always level Spirit Fire up first if needed and clear from a huge distance. Sure his Q won't get stacked up as much but it can still get high enough. Even a mediocre Q stack is fine because Wither is still OP against ADCs and his Ult is doing constantly % damage.

My 3rd ban is always a toss up. Usually Lucian (I've fought waaaay too many strong lucians lately so I'm getting sick of him), Kassadin (Usually depends what our mid laner is playing, but Kass is scary strong atm), Fizz (Not as much anymore, but his burst is stupid strong) or Annie. (She's such an OP support...)

Even if people bought pinks for eve it doesn't do much... because she can fucking see them now. Oh gee, we just saw eve on my tribush ward. Well I suppose bot is safe to play agressive now, but mid and my top lane are still fucked cause she just killed it.

Amzin_sl said:

That is EXACTLY my point. You're banning based on personal preference. That's a dumb reason to have bans in the game. If you want to remove 'annoying' champions you'd need a solid 8+ bans just on your side. It doesn't add strategy. In solo queue it has gotten to the point where it is a negative emotional experience. It doesn't benefit anyone. Don't let newly released champs be played in ranked for a week and remove bans from non-tournament games. When team builder comes out let that have bans since it actually at least COULD add strategy there.

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Well I'm banning also because I don't think my teammates can handle those mechanics. I never go bot lane (if possible) but still ban blitz. If little Timmy couldn't dodge fire in WOW how is he going to dodge hooks in league? I don't want to deal with that. So ban him.

It benefits me because I don't have to risk having a game ruined because my team can't handle a mechanic that requires coordination. I want my team to be against the most boring, lame champs because those are champs I have high confidence my teammates can deal with.

And I don't think they are fotm champs. I think they get a unexpected boost from a change in the game (items, meta shift, etc) that make previously balanced champs now slightly op. They just buffed rivens q and movement... of course her damage is now going to be too high if originally it was bases on the old q mechanic and mobility.

Sidian_sl said:

Yeah, I basically always 100% ban Eve just because the stealth mechanic. I mean, nobody buys pinks wards in soloqueue so she's gotta be banned. I also usually 100% ban nasus (unless I'm going to play him) because he's overpowered as hell. He doesn't lose lane because he can always level Spirit Fire up first if needed and clear from a huge distance. Sure his Q won't get stacked up as much but it can still get high enough. Even a mediocre Q stack is fine because Wither is still OP against ADCs and his Ult is doing constantly % damage.

My 3rd ban is always a toss up. Usually Lucian (I've fought waaaay too many strong lucians lately so I'm getting sick of him), Kassadin (Usually depends what our mid laner is playing, but Kass is scary strong atm), Fizz (Not as much anymore, but his burst is stupid strong) or Annie. (She's such an OP support...)

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And this is what's wrong with bans in soloqueue. Those are opinions and aren't factually true. Banning based on opinions is not a strategy. I'm lost games as a 700+ stack nasus with 6 items and defeated nasus' in the same position. I've won against 6-item vaynes. I've beaten Eve more times than lost to her. Annie is a great support but plenty of people are beating her in lane and at the nexus.

Arbitraty made the point that bans are used as a kind of band-aid for champions with balance problems, and that is true. Sivir's winrate almost hit 60% so she was permabanned for a couple weeks until Riot finally got around to tweaking some numbers. Other champs people say are 'permabanned' actually aren't, they just always ban them in their own games. Except maybe bronze but I haven't played any bronze matches so I can't vouch for that.

Lucian was considered weak until people saw pros playing him, now he's considered OP. Nasus was considered weak for MONTHS after his buffs and now he's finally getting a minor nerf. People ban based on FOTM. That's retarded. People banning for strategic reasons is awesome. That is NOT what's happening anywhere outside of 5v5 premade pro matches and the rare 5v5 premade matchmaking match.

Edit: They flattened Riven's damage to make it less spikey and they nerfed her shield duration, not sure what you're on about. Do you legitimately think you'd lose more games if you couldn't ban eve, blitz, and nasus every game? Because I KNOW I wouldn't. Because it would equal out, because that's how statistics work.

You keep missing the point. The strategy is there. Ban champs with mechanics that are stronger in soloq. Just because a champ becomes op after people find a strategy with them doesn't mean he wasn't op before. Its just now the strategy is available and people will exploit it. Its then up the riot to decide if that strategy is what they intended. But in the mean time if I feel its something that my team can't handle; then yes I'm going to ban it out. That's strategy. Maybe unilateral , but regardless.

Actually I would expect to lose more games based on statistics. 5 people on each team. But on my team 1 person (myself) has no desire to play those champs. So there are only 4 people that can possible pick those champs on my team; 5 on theirs.

So the option is play those champs and exploit them( I used nasus all the way to gold) or ban them out so the other team doesn't have a higher likelihood of getting them.

It's your opinion that those mechanics are stronger in soloq than other mechanics that you aren't banning. Anything sounds scary when you write about it in a void. I should start banning Urgot (wtf 1200 range targetable nuke and 120 armor from his ult. Oh and you do 15% less damage if he hits you, OP), Morde (wtf 35% effective spellvamp at level 1 from passive, and even if you're losing just ult their carry for easy 6v5).

Those mechanics are sometimes better than other mechanics. It depends who they're facing. In soloq your bot lane is as likely to punish them for having blitz as to lose because of it. That's the nature of the game. Blitz has tons of weaknesses and lots of people know to exploit that. Same with Malph, Amumu, Nasus, Nidalee, Kassadin, and on down the line. Are all champs perfectly balanced? No, of course not. Are all mechanics equally relevant? No, of course not. But no one bans Poppy and if you actually face a Poppy it's less likely your team with be able to deal with her and her ult than a blitz that everyone fears and understands.

Poppy has Been intentionally nerfed because her mechanics are so strong. Riot has stated this multiple times.

Why can't my opinion be strategy? I don't understand why my opinion is considered knee jerk but a pro team banning stuff is strategy? That makes no sense. I don't think soloq and pro bans have any correlation because I think the reason to ban in solo is completely different. I don't have research on the team on playing against or my teammates. So I have to go with trends. If the trend is the community cannot handle nasus. Then I ban him. That's the only data I can base my strategy around.


My point with riven is that they just buffed her mechanics and now are realizing her new combination of mechanics and numbers are too powerful. Its the same with poppy. Poppy is intentionally kept limited because they know if her damage was too high her mechanics would be too powerful.

You can't deny that Eve should be 100% banned at the moment because of how vision works. Shit, I still can't get team mates (I'm in plat 1) to use their damn warding trinkets the majority of the time. You have no idea how many times I'll be playing support, grab my sightstone and place my 3 wards and those 3 wards are the only wards on the map, it's crazy. Now, you have to do that with pinks to see eve? Hah, yeah right. I have like a 90% win rate with Nasus and I know Wither completely shuts down certain ADCs, his Ult does % damage, his Q stacks to infinity, rather not put up with that.

There are certain champions that work extremely well in Soloqueue that I would rather not go against. As I said earlier, even if you shut nasus down early he still becomes a mid to late game terror. Also, it's why I mentioned Kassadin or Fizz. They are huge snowball champions in middle that can roam extremely well. I'd rather not play against them because if our mid laner gives up 1 random death those 2 can roam so hard and snowball every single lane by 100-0ing most bot laners. It's a lot scarier to give a Fizz first blood than to say a Ori. Sure, Ori's team fight might be better but her 100-0 and roaming potential are much worse. In a 5v5 Competitive series it might be better to get that Ori fed, but in Soloqueue, that Fizz is a lot scarier.

So, I was playing a match earlier with a Yasuo and a Blitz...The Blitz was biching about windwall because it appeared to stop the grabbed target at the windwall.

Has anyone else seen this? The only time I witnessed it was a grab on a Vayne, but it sure seemed like the wall stopped Vayne from being pulled to Blitz.

Strategy without knowledge isn't strategy, it's guessing. You're guessing your team will do worse against X champ. If YOU are bad at fighting a champion, it makes sense to ban it. Banning just because the popular thing to do is ban that champ isn't strategy, at all. I would much rather take away bans and just let people adjust then have bans be the huge fuckfest they are right now. Out of the 4 people on your team every game, they will never agree on your 3 bans. It just doesn't happen. Everyone has their own champs they hate and suck at fighting and everyone has their champs that they are good at playing against.

Saying that banning is soloque is strategic is just farcical and ignores a larger problem with the community and the balance of the game. I guarantee you if bans were removed from soloque, there would be no apocalypse. Bronzodia would not emerge from the nether and carry people into Diamond. There would be a surge of people picking a dozen champs and then things would normalize again.

Edit: I would think the windwall would stop the blitz grab from going through in the first place, it should. Unless Blitz is on the Yasuo's team.

No sense arguing this as we have a fundamental different opinion of strategy. I'm an engineer. I make strategic decisions everyday based on statistical analysis. You never have the full answer. There are always assumptions. That doesn't mean there isn't strategy in the solution. Just means its being made with specific assumptions. Only shitty engineers make decisions only when they have all the data... that and soon to be unemployed ones.

Amzin_sl said:

Edit: I would think the windwall would stop the blitz grab from going through in the first place, it should. Unless Blitz is on the Yasuo's team.

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They were both on my team.

The difference between banning in pro games and soloque is there's no statistical difference to bans in soloque. If the bans are in or not, there's no difference for soloque. It just makes a few people feel good and a bunch of people angry. The outcome of 100, 200, 300 games will be the same regardless. That's why bans in soloque are not strategy, because they do not affect anything in the long run. In pro games, a well-targeted ban can mean the difference between earning your salary slot or bopping off back to the challenger circuit.

Edit:

They were both on my team.

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Ok yea that seems wrong then. It's treating the enemy attached to blitz' fist as an enemy projectile somehow, even though Windwall is designed not to block things like Ziggs satchel jump and Tristana rocket jump from enemies.

Lenaldo_sl said:

Poppy has Been intentionally nerfed because her mechanics are so strong. Riot has stated this multiple times.

Why can't my opinion be strategy? I don't understand why my opinion is considered knee jerk but a pro team banning stuff is strategy? That makes no sense. I don't think soloq and pro bans have any correlation because I think the reason to ban in solo is completely different. I don't have research on the team on playing against or my teammates. So I have to go with trends. If the trend is the community cannot handle nasus. Then I ban him. That's the only data I can base my strategy around.


My point with riven is that they just buffed her mechanics and now are realizing her new combination of mechanics and numbers are too powerful. Its the same with poppy. Poppy is intentionally kept limited because they know if her damage was too high her mechanics would be too powerful.

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When did Poppy get nerfed?

Poppy is almost never, ever in the patch notes. Look at her patch notes history. She's a rock. This last patch had a small nerf changing her ultimate to not augment true damage.