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for me the worst example of this has to be AP shyvana, not just because riot abandoned her AD bruiser build (ya know, the way she was meant to be built) but kept buffing the AP build which consists of ulting, spamming E and 1shotting your entire team
shyv main here, her ad build was extremely strong in s13 and was for a time one of the best jg in the game. its still strong in s14 but not as prevalent probably because the ap build is significantly simpler to play. and thematically a dragon spitting fire and doing a bunch of damage makes sense within the confines of the character
oh and yknow, a complete inability to really dodge or stop it cause the impact radius is always at max size and not the projectile that spews out first before growing
remember when they said at the beginning of statikk shiv's revival that off meta builds like shiv veigar were fun gimmicks that werent that oppressive and will keep them as is but as time went on, they kept nerfing the AP ratio until eventually no more ratios
@@Nikolai0169but how do you nerf ad/on hit leblanc? Her kit has 0 incentive to build like that, she just do it because she has high mobility. Nerfing her mobility would also nerf her ap traditional build, which is not that great. So the only solution is to nerf items.
I have to say that in the case of Kaisa, her off meta builds are part of the champion identity to an extent. She was specifically marketed to be an adaptable champion with a variety of playstyles and builds, unlike say stuff like tank ekko/fizz, or bruiser Katarina.
Yup. That W literally has a "transformation" built in for if you build enough AP. It's blatant that she was intended to be able to build at least some AP. That upgrade also blatantly made it a poke tool. It was already baked into her kit. Especially considering all the other AP ratios in her kit.
this, the problem with AP kaisa artillery was that it had no counterplay. they would have to increase the visual clairity of her W to make that build stay in the game, so instead they nerfed it. Thankfully it did not nerfe kaisa being kalista with her passive build lol
A gimmick build should never be removed for being a gimmick. More playstyles means more fun for more people. Anything that is winning too much should simply be nerfed numbers-wise. There will, of course, be exceptions that need to be addressed. The rule, should be to embrace creativity, not stifle it.
Its really weird how riot is against such builds and nerfs them into oblivion but forces some into existence like bruiser or onhit kata and ad tf at the same time
they cant possibly know enough about the entire playerbase's playstyle and preferences to balance the game well using lolalytics and angry reddit posts, but those are literally their only resources besides their internal numbers. by their choice.
The thing about "Ad tf" was that they never really intended it it feels like. They added some ad ratios, and most importantly crit convertions to him, because over the years TF players figured out that RFC is basically his best item, even though it costs him a lot of dmg and stunts his power a lot, simply because 5 sec CD on click stun is broken. So instead of going for big dmg, which usually takes few items to really become threatening unless super ahead, they decided to go full ham on pick aspect of the champ, and get ahead this way instead. And it feels like riot wanted to smooth that curve on AP TF by giving him convertions so that AP build is not inted by RFC. Of course however they did not think that through very well, and suprise suprise, that build is stronger than AP in every stage of the game, starting at first recall.
Limitless possibilities yet enforcing roleplaying. How many champions do you think are just off-meta builds they nerfed into the ground but wanted to have a more appropriate character doing them. I don't play LoL, but Nilah as "the first real Melee ADC" could be an example.
@@theflyingtoaster7414 eh, samira would be the first real melee adc. sure, she has ranged autoattacks but to use her abilities, she needs to get in melee range and her W, E and R are specifically built to be used while in the middle of the enemy team
If I got to decide at riot, I would make it so that all champs that aren't designed to be in bot lane got minus 50% stats from being in bot lane before the ten min mark. Yasuo has no business being a viable adc.
Sometimes "gimmick" builds also become so entrenched that they become the new default for the champion. Gragas was originally a tank, but the AP gimmick became so common that now it's all he's known for.
Gragas was always AP. His rework was better as a tank, but they wanted to preserve his AP playstyle option, so they've made changes to push its viability.
@@GlacialScionhe was originally designed as a tank, that was the intention, but back in season 1 they just kinda went hard with random AP ratios (see sion for another example)
Yup. Many "lost" their original identity due to items. Tanks becoming full damage and vice versa. Gragas, Galio Nunu, Malphite, Well the latter two still have their tank builds. And assassin's becoming tanks or fighters (Katarina, Akali, Nocturne, Diana). Reworks also push champs into completely different roles. I always like to remind that Swain was a top laner, Camille a jungler, Taliyah a midlaner etc.
I remember when Riot actually bragged about not forcing a META and letting things happen organically. Nowadays they try their hardest to force everyone to play a specific way.
I remember them pretty specifically giving up on that when the discussion around allocated roles in ranked happened. They put that off because they didn't want to embed the lane meta but were convinced when realistically nobody played any other way, in ranked at least.
They should be allowed to a certain degree. Unless it's game breaking, removing this kind of things only reduces variety of the game. A good example is allowing Karthus becoming mainly a jungler despite being made as a mid in the first place. A bad example is how they got rid of Nilah jungle (Wild Rift) despite being only played in the jungle and not being that opressive. Now absolutely no one plays her nor as adc or jg.
Just to show how different the design philosophy of old vs new league is, in the old days basically every champ was made to have an ad or ap build, now we have to have the discussion as to whether we should even allow off meta builds at all.
I didn't play until a few years ago but as far as I understand, items were made to be utility instead of being the entire gamplan too. I think changing from items being useful into the current characters being able to use the right items is a big part of the issue
I think you are almost correct in these conclusions, in my opinion. What I feel is: It is not that some off-meta builds are removed because they go against what is expected of the champion, but that some of these off-meta builds ruin interactivity. And so yes if interaction is expected in the game it goes against what is expected of that champion. Interactivity can be a little vague but generally speaking players should be able to fight one another, having clear strengths and weaknesses; either in micro-combat, or macro strategy. Some of these builds lower interactivity, either literally where the off-meta champ can simply never be approached or put in danger but is still highly effective (Think of AP Poke Zeri/Kaisa at long range). Or as a team strategy the enemy can't overcome the off-meta champion's team due to their superior tactic for whatever reason (think of Inting Sion before all of the nerfs and changes Riot attempted to stop Baus, or things like funneling Taric/Yi.) Or maybe their off-meta build supersedes the original intention of the champion's playstyle, which then shows Riot more they failed in their design more than them punishing the players (like ADC Neeko being just better than her Mage intention on release, or AP assassin Galio when Riot overdid his ratios not expecting players to build him full AP.) Some off-meta builds still exist and are doing quiet well, the only thing stopping them is peer-pressure as mentioned in the video, but as far as I am aware these off-meta picks are still able to be interacted with? For example, AP Kog'ma is still a fragile back-line damage dealer, just like crit/on-hit Kog'ma is....still a fragile back-line damage dealer. Why do you want interactivity? Well because its a video game, ultimately made for enjoyment even if it is a competitive e-sport. It would make for a pretty poor experience for everyone involved if there was no interactions, no cool fights and instead someone uncovered some mystical tactic where you can destroy the Nexus with the push of a button. This is a hyperbole.
Yep. This is it. Riot is fine with AP Malphite, AP Nunu. Both are meant to be tanks, but use AP to explode you. They are not fine with AP Maokai. What is the difference? Well Nunu and Malphite expose themselves to one shot you - interact with you - AP Maokai covered the map in saplings and chunked you with 0 counterplay. Another example is champs not meant to be tanky being tanky, but still doing damage. Ekko has enough safety tools, he doesn't need to do damage while being impossible to kill on top of that They are fine with On-Hit Yi melting an entire team, but not fine with lethality yi doing the same thing but while going invisible and perma Qing. To me there are 2 main factors, interactivity and proplay visibility. Riot might be ok with some of these wonky stuff existing if it doesn't take over proplay. But as it happens, pro loves low risk, low interactivity strategies that win you games at the highest level, so when these show up they will go to the surface.
@@skozy3 i think singed is a special category. Along with AP shaco, heimerdinger, Illaoi. Maybe teemo (though he skirts the limit, because he benefits the most from not interacting at all from that list). They are champions that want interaction, but only in their terms. They basically want you to play into them, but they don't really have tools to force you to play into them. So they kinda force this by creating pressure or controlling zones you will be forced to go into. There is some overlap, but I think there are some distinctions. The key is if you have to opt-into interacting with them, for them to kill you AP Maokai and AP Kaisa and teemo, dont need you to opt into fighting them. They do so regardless of that. Meanwhile, something like heimerdinger or Illaoi or Singed won't kill you if you avoid them, but they will have a big advantage is they force you to fight them on their terms - if they force interaction on those terms they win. So in a way, they are interactive. They look to interact where they are strong and go avoid interaction where they are weak. This is different from AP Maokai that wants to interact never (and if you ever manage to do so, he can use his 3 remaining abilities to stop you and go back to not interacting
@0 For ur tanky point tho, nearly every tank can do nutty damage thru their items or max health damage, so, especially when ahead, there is 0 counterplay. Ekko was good becuase he utiliesd meta trinity item really well, exerted lots of sidelane pressure and could always r back to lane, used fervour of battle, had better up-front damage (didnt scale as well before changes) etc He had a lot going for him and that made it strong. But when i think about his playstyle, zac today is veryy similar.
Because sometimes they are better than the normal ones,like the manamune into ludens kaisa top,or the eclipse and nashor and berserker boots kaisa top that have all 3 evo,or the ap kaisa mid,or double marksmen kaisa support,or just lethality kaisa with all 3 evo and duskblade,or just kaisa kaisa
Another issue with alot of builds is how the kits of the champions can make a playstyle unbalanced. Like for example kaisa w was designed to give her some long ranged poke mostly to ult onto a champ but when it had its full AP scalings it basically became a single target jinx rocket that could hit someone from 2-3screens away which has no counter play except dodge a ability coming from fog of war and 3 screens away
Ap twitch was not just allowed to stay, it was purposefully put into the game, i remember the patch when riot just added ap ratios to twitch ablities that were not there before.
A good example I always think of when talking about gimmick builds is old AD Sol before his rework. For those new to League, Aruelion Sol's old kit involved stars that orbited him as part of his passive that did small amounts of damage when they made contact with an enemy, and his W expanded the range of these stars and increased the speed of their orbit to let them hit harder and more often. His Q and R were built around this larger orbit, with his Q growing in size so long as it stayed in this outer orbit, exploding once it was out of it or Sol manually detonated the skill to stun every enemy inside of it, while his R would blow enemies in a rectangle shape towards this outer orbit, setting them up for the Q and W. AD Sol would eschew this by just flat out ignoring the stars and just build Sol like he was a Marksman, sometimes even taking him into the Jungle like Kindred (since his E, which would become his W, was practically the same as it is now with how it worked). His Q was more relied upon since it was an AoE stun that worked well in getting in more poke, and his R was a helpful self-peel that could be used to turn around a tower dive. The stars were practically ignored outside of the rare instance that they actually secured a kill. Frankly, and this is just speculation on my part, AD Sol was the main reason Sol's Rework went the way it did, so that he would have to be played as a Mage and not a Marksman, and by extension the development of Smolder being to make a new psudo-AD Sol without the stars but still having some of new Sol's mechanics.
I've been having a blast with AD Neeko lately, a very different playstyle but she still has some big weaknesses akin to her usual playstyle (squishy, low mobility, not a ton of range) so I'm hoping Riot doesn't decide to nerf it into the ground
I don't think AD Neeko would go anywhere, since it is a very niche build. Now that AD Twisted Fate is a thing, I believe Riot would allow for more diversity. - Been an AD Neeko main ever since returning to League.
theory crafting builds is so fun. I main Kalista and have 1 official theory crafted glass cannon build. Two other builds im still testing. Metas get boring really fast.
It also limits you in the way you can play the game and makes draft more important where league players are notoriously draft illiterate. Such as in league if you are full ad you will suffer against armour stackers or if you are too low range you will suffer against hard to catch heroes
As someone who is always trying all the gimmick builds on marksmen champions, the reason why most of the builds get nerfed is that the popular ones are usually exploiting design oversights to make certain abilities more effective than originally designed. There are a lot of builds that people try that never get any kind of mainstream popularity that are just a little bit better than the average build so nothing happens. Right now there's an Ice gauntlet Vayne top build being experimented with that hasn't received much attention yet, but could get the champ or the items nerfed if enough people start to spam it.
I believe one of the main reasons League is such a good game in concept is being able to have your own unique playstyle, which includes gimmick or off-meta builds. Example being; "Hi I'm so-and-so and I play ___ champ, in ___ role, with ___ summoner spells, with ___ runes, and with ___ build" out of 5 variables theres so many ways to have your own way of playing the game. What makes some of them bad is simply if the off-meta or gimmick build is uninteractive or just overpowered, likely the ladder, as you said when most people see a champ they expect the meta build and so on and so forth, and when it isn't that, its unexpected and can/usually does give the person playing the off-meta a advantage from them knowing the limits of what they can do and the enemy doesent. The thing is that if its uninteractive like a lot of the examples in this video: AP Kai'sa, AP Zeri, Tank Ekko, etc, everything else i mentioned gets thrown out of the window for game balance, cause Kai'sa chucking a singular ability off the screen that does a quarter or more of someone's HP bar is surprisingly not interactive gameplay or fun to play against, or AS for that matter, I doubt the AP Kai'sa player is having fun after a while after the high of the gimmick wearing off and your just spamming one singular ability and R'ing in every once in a while to assassinate someone. In-general, unless the specific playstyle is toxic, uninteractive, not-fun, OP, etc, i think alternative playstyles to champions are fine and beyond that, should be encouraged, again unless its inherently toxic.
Like you said, certain champions should not be allowed to venture away from their core, because most of the times the "gimmick build" covers too many weaknesses and gets straight up cancer to deal with.
I think there are 4 archetypes of builds: Tank AD AP On hit If a champion normally builds 1 of these archetype, but goes a different one, then the champion should feel different to play as and against. AD TF plays different then AP TF, good. AD Sion plays different then Tank Sion, good. AD Varus plays different then On hit Varus, good. On hit Kata does not play different from AP kata, bad. AD Mastery yi does not play different from On hit Yi, bad. The thing why a build should be removed for example AP Kai'sa, is when a playstyle is toxic/unhealth, same thing for inting sion where you bash your head into the tower etc. Or maybe better said, when a build/playstyle changes how the enemy must play. AP Kai'sa bullet hell, int Sion tower defence, Jana top farming simulator that is when Riot does not like the build and tries to change/remove it.
Riot designed Pyke to be a catcher-assassin but wanted to make sure that he remains in the realm of being balanced as a gold-generating support, thus they gutted his waveclear and regeneration for solo lanes and jungle-caging him in botlane. Orrrrr, at least when Pyke players aren't building the new Profane Hydra along with other Lethality items+some resistances to allow for solo laning.
i think every champion that can, should be allow to have "gimmick" builds, the problem is when their design and the build makes it so they can circumvent their weaknesses or the weakness of the build, like tank ekko, not fair for a tank to have that level of sticking potential, kaisa's issue was the safety of W spam, very apparent in aram. a build i like to use is straight up tank janna support, her kit has the CC already so making her harder to kill is as valuable as going full utility
I agree that champs should be able to have gimmick builds but I personally don't agree that its an issue if they circumvent their weaknesses. I think everyone can agree that riot isn't very good with designing character kits. Every new release is either unplayable or unbeatable and most of the common characters have some sort of absurd unbalance to them that makes them appealing for competitive play. The reason why their weaknesses go away with different builds isn't because of the builds themselves, its because of unbalanced kits. Think about the tank ekko he showed. It only worked because they gave him max hp damage for free as long as they are around half hp. Without that, it isn't possible. Why does a character with that much damage need free percent health damage added on top? In the end, I think they should always fix the character instead of destroying an item. It just ruins the build for several other characters in order to avoid correcting the actual issue
Vainglory did the two build paths so well. One of the champs I played was kestral. A marksman who shot you with a bow. She looked a lot like Ashe. Ap, was a mix of long range artillery with her arrows exploding in a long rectangle behind their target or just their max range and setting up a trap in players paths as they tried to get on top of you, only for you to blow them up, go invisible and repeat the process. But if you took any damage your invisibility/trap would go on cooldown so you had to sneak around an area before a fight, place a trap and get out. The invisibility duration and trap damage scaled with AP. Ad your arrows granted you armor pen so instead of bombarding the back line you crushed the front line. Your trap/invisibility no longer went on cooldown if you took damage and it granted you a big burst of movespeed when activated.
Damn i dont remember the champs name but i played the mech with laser ult, with possible focus on just the ult ap scaling with the ult reset item or ad bruiser build not relying on ult. The game was so much fun back when it was only 3v3
And then there are champs with 3 separate builds like Adagio & Baptiste AD Adagio was a menace of an ADC until every other champ's range was buffed for 5v5 AP Adagio now being the burst carry that 3-4 shots you with just normal attacks (my personal favourite) HP Adagio being the standard healer the devs originally intended for him
Neeko can still go whatever she wants, i've seen so manny builds for her, 3 ap neeko builds, 1 crit build, 1 on hit build, 2 tank builds, 1 hybrid bruiser build, 1dot build and 1 support build, i honestly think the comunity just got used to it, especially since this is a rare thing, and she still goes one of the 3 ap builds most of the games. Also, i think it makes a lot of sense thematically for her to have so manny diferite builds
I REALLY miss AP Zeri. Back when she was viable I used to spam her mid, bot, top, jg, and support. She instantly clicked with me, and even though now I have more LP, I would sacrifice the elo I’ve gained just to play her again in her peak… When they gutted her, a piece of my heart went away with her
Amusing you didn't bring up Shyvana when talking about champs with many types of builds. Since there's here Ap focused build and then the AD type. Also missed opportunity as it is the year of the dragon.
@@elih6087 by strong you mean nobody in the entire world can manage to climb past master with it? got nerfed to the ground 2 patches after it is buffed?
Dunno what you mean by that, AP shyvana pretty good at blowing up a squishy and is one of the worse champs to not keep an eye on and be left alone to split push. But I don't play rank for the sake of my sanity so eh, what do I know?
I think the biggest aspect about weather a build stays or not is agency. AP Kaisa was toxic to play against because playing against it didn't give you any agency. Same with AP Tryndamere. Where as something like AP Cho or AP twitch, you still have agency versing them.
As much hate as Shaco gets from the community, i'm very happy he can still just build whatever and work, and has multiple playstyles in one champion's kit.
Riots need to obliterate any and all playstyles that are different from the meta is what pushed me into Dota2, it feels terrible to find a playstyle you enjoy just for Riot to come in and gut it for not conforming to what it believes the game should look like everytime.
Most Offmeta builds which are being gutted have the problem that they use absolut unfair interactions in the game which the designers did not account for. After these interactions are commonly known, they get nerfed and the metaslaves who abused the strat are uninterested from this point. Point in case is bausff, he still plays ad sion, but he is one of the only ones. The reason is, that the builds cannot be abused any longer. In general riots lets ppl play offmeta and they are totally fine with gimmicky stuff in the game. Gamebreaking stuff on the other hand, they will nerf to the ground, and rightly so. The game should be fun, and one should not get two shotted by kaisa W.
I think gimmick builds that change a characters playstyle are one of the best things in league and should be encouraged. Playing a champion in your own way making your own build is one of the most interesting parts about league and is why I like the game. For unique builds that end up being viable then get nerfed in to the ground I find is dumb. Its fine if a build gets nerfed but I don't think they should be nerfed out of viability I think the more build variation the better.
I think theres another layer and one you're absolutely expecting, these off meta build too often put people in no gameplay scenarios. Ekkos so overloaded that he could build tank to take no damage and then stick to you. You cant outpace him, out damage him, evade him, or win even kill him, cuz he uas so many get off me tools that you're not allowed to win. His fragility is what 'justifies' his tools. The Adc ap artilery sisters were out performing the equivalent ap artilery at their jobs. They both had mobility for safety and did more damage from farther and with less action investment. Kaisa even has execute damage on hers while zeri had aoe. And you can already see the problems with leathality sion. We do not need a tryndamere that deals assasin damage, by dying, after being an assasin engage tank Champion identity matters, but I think its important to look at why certain champs arent allowed the play styles by asking if this would be acceptable as a stand alone champ. Would they be the type that would have to be nerfed till theyre not good?
I think it is more how oppressive+prevelant the builds become. Tank ekko became widely played while also impossible to deal with. Ap kaisa and zeri could safely deal tons of poke damage while still being able to rush you down with autos.
I fully agree. Especially tank ekko suffered from the overload in damage in modern league. If ahead, he was still able to pretty much burst squishy carries, while being nearly impossible to kill.
Why Riot keeps removing gimmick builds?? Because the moment players realized that they can win more games by cheesing builds and off meta lanes, they start abusing it for freelo. It no longer feels creative and unique. It's just annoying. Like Syndrome says in The Incredibles. "When everyone's super, no one will be."
@@ethanstyant9704 Well, for the AP Zeri/AP Kai'SA, all you need is am assassin while the team gets the attention of the rest for example. Not even impregnator Gragas is a freelo build. You just need to keep the guy far and in cc
i dont understand why ap shyvana seems to be an exception to this entire concept, ap shyvana significantly changes her playstyle and her strengths and weaknesses (i'd argue it's even pretty toxic to play against) and yet rito seems to be heavily encouraging the playstyle while nerfing a lot of other picks that don't even seem that problematic like sololane pyke, lethality yorick and ap malphite that combined with them recently pushing ad tf makes it seem like they just randomly decide that some picks are allowed and some arent
RiotAugust responded at some point to this subject, saying they promote off-meta builds as long as they don't create degenerate gameplay. As in, Kai'sa and zeri spamming w is uniteractive and unfun to play against, and probably a bit boring for the Zeri,Kai'sa too. It doesn't add value to the gameplay.
Champs should be allowed to have gimmick builds as long as they are not broken. What is the point of giving a champion some random ap/ad ratio in their kit if they will nerfed for trying to take advantage of it? I remember having lots of fun playing ap yi/tristana until Riot eventually got rid of those builds.
It's a longer way of saying "champion builds that exceed or approach the popularity of the intended build(s) design will be dissuaded. In some cases, said build is too strong because it abuses a particular mechanic with unforeseen consequences."
I'm surprised you didn't mention Kennen. We've seen AP Kennen, on-hit Kennen, ADC Kennen, tank Kennen and even support Kennen in pro play over the years. In fact he predated Neeko's AD top build and you can still see it getting build every now and then. Rekkles' AD Kennen even got featured in the Gods music video.
In the case of Kai and zeri, and a couple others, why is the ap ratio on long range abilities? They do this all the time with new charas, slapping ap ratios on AD champions in the most random spots and then going "we want build diversity" THEN NERFING IT WHEN IT DOESNT GO THEIR WAY INSTEAD OF FIXING IT. Why put the ap ratio on specific parts of the kit when an ap build endorses an unwanted playstyle? Either make it more consistent with the rest of the kit in another way, or don't out it there at all.
I have to disagree with Vars here, Udyr is my favorite champ and depending on the items I have it changes my playstyle which keeps the champ fresh. Locking a champ behind one playstyle would lead to the game feeling stale.
Feels bad tho, I was the only high elo AP Zeri player, talked to August myself to try to find a solution for her to work but never found success in it, main reason being W dealing magic damage was hard to play around in proplay according to him
In wild rift ap zeri never existed she does give ap damage sometimes on her q ~wild rift zeri have a normal aa while quer q is her version of powered up version of aa of pc~ but thats because the skill converts ad into ap just like corky on wr his strongest build is ad because he have aa dmg plus all his ad gets converted into ap when he uses his hab
@@DaviVolpi437 Her AA can auto lock, but its still a body blockable skillshot, you can even shot it when u want like in league PC, meaning you can hit a Teemo hiding in a brush etc.
@@PowerEd8 yeah thats why we use her q more often since is a small aoe and can hit both adc and sup if they are on top of each other her aa is still her main source of dmg ofc even if blockable
dont get me wrong meta is sign but VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE! it brings a new light to a champion! gives new and refreshing take to an "old dog." yeah it's annoying to be blasted by AP kaisa from a screen away but guessing and predicting what they build is still within the realm of being skillful! as long as the builds can be outplayed
i feel like a champ should have 1 main playstyle and any off meta styles that are chose should have diminished effects or not work as well as the main style. my favorite off meta style is pyke mid, while he is a support champ with the new prophane hydra giving him a form of wave clear pyke mid is doing really well. Hes still better as a support pick over all and playing him mid can result in a poor performance because you arent playing an assassin that can carry the game.
I think Riot's approach has been good. Many of the things taken away I'm happy with being gone. Kaisa being off screen and 1 or 2 hitting you doesn't have counter play. Tank Ekko (which was so fun) was so frustrating to play against because of you ever whittled him down low enough he could just ult out. That sounds like how he is now, but he can get one shot being squishy, so that window is small currently. As a tank he had tons of time to decide when to ult. I love off-meta stuff, but I agree that it can be unhealthy.
There is a pretty big difference, between off meta and hard/soft inting your team/trolling/trying to lose. I think off meta picks and playstyles is just as important as the meta ones. For the health of the game and players sanity if nothing else. I don't play League myself but playing the exact same build, every single game sounds awful. Sometimes players need something different to prevent the game from getting boring/stale. And sure your supposed to itemize for what the state of the game is, what your opponents are building, what champs your fighting but how often do most players even bother?
Because we can't have nice things. Shoutout to AP Kog'maw... that will likely be removed because Riot hates AP botlaners. But hey, please Riot, remove Tank Katarina, thank you.
I do think intoing sion in toerms of intong to kill towers was a bad idea, but i do believe that the ability to build him lethality whould stay as strong as his tank build. It makes him very feed or famine, and isnt very strong anyway. If anything its a little weak at the moment cause of successive Sion nerfs.
I love gimmick builds and think they are a necessary thing to keep the game interesting and fun. The more build variety the better and gimmick builds compared to meta builds can make 1 character feel like 2 different characters
Tank ekko didnt build iceborne. It was triforce into frozen mallet into sunfire. It was also the most fun offmeta build alongside tank fizz top(botrk sunfire)
Widly bullshit interpretation, the main reason they were nerfed is because it's widly unfun to face this off meta trash while them being extremely efficient. Kaisa ap gameplay is like a zoe, and when zoe was strong everyone complained.
I think gimmick builds are a good thing for the game , I don't mind having one month or two of weird but strong picks , it switches things up a little and it's fun (also you can just ban these champs if you really don't like them). But it has to be a temporary thing , I remember abusing fizz and ekko tank during the tank meta , had so much fun ! But i'm glad these builds aren't around anymore because it wasn't balanced and certainly not fun for the enemies
no champ should ever become too opressive, the reason why i dislike AP Kaisa and AP Zeri (before nerfs) is because you cant do anything unless youre a high mobile assassin they will poke you out of lane or a fight, then they will rush in to kill you, and even if you tried to engage, they will just run away, with their superior mobility i dont mind gimmick builds, they can be fun both ways, like movement speed WW is fun and hilarious to fight with and againts
I think there should also be exceptions like JakSho Yone where, all he had to do was buy Bork and get max CD Q and then go full tank. And because his base numbers were so insane, he could go full tank and still be a massive problem changing him from a one shot assassin to a 2 shot tank. At least if you caught him out with crit you could realistically hurt him as long as shield bow was off CD. But with full tank, he could stay in the fight for as long as he wanted and just delay and buy time for the carries to come help while he shielded non stop and still had insane CC. Also, the tank build gave him like 50 AH so his R was on only a 25 second CD allowing him so much mobility as a tank that could hold his own. Thankfully, jaksho doesn’t heal anymore and now he needs jaksho and unending despair to get the same results but the point still remains. Yone has too much base damage and cause of that, he was a max health shredding, AOE knock up, hard CC, assassin tank. I personally love the idea of champions building however the fuck they want. But you should have new weaknesses to counteract the fact your build changed. Example with Varus, if you go AD it’s harder to eliminate a backline but you have more sustainable damage. As with AP, if you miss that R WQ combo, you have nothing since you have 0 attack speed. With ap kaisa, if you missed W, it was harder to kill since all your damage was on W. With Yone, that didn’t matter. He was still one shotting, but now he was unkillable. Same applies to goredrinker blue Kayn.
Petition for Riot to completely remove the diversity in this game, tyvm. Every champs should played at exactly 1 and only 1 role and build certian items, nothing else.
"...if you're thinking of losing weight this year just like you intended to last year and the year before and the year before..." I feel personally attacked. But seriously, as a toplaner who suffered the wrath of a Baus Disciple running Sion, I permaban Sion every game because of it. However, that doesn't mean theBausFFS deserves to have his champion gutted and his playstyle removed. It hurts to say, but I think off meta builds should be encouraged and off-meta builds should be allowed to say. Being 'unintuitive' is one of the reasons off meta players run off meta. They enjoy catching people off guard.
I’ve also been into gimmicks, my favorite was Adc LB for over a decade which got fucked up bc of the reintroduction of shiv and they had to nuke her base stats to compensate for a now overnerfed item because they thought it was funny putting lich bane’s ap ratio on it and very high base damage and overtuned triforce which surprise surprise both got nerfed after butchering her while keeping her stats so low it’s actually unplayable for the first time ever, thanks Riot
13:09 btw varus can go AP and its much better then lethality or ofc crit nobody plays crits is garbage so ap is mostly on mid and its still not that great but there are so many hybrids with AP and AD onhit not a single lethality item ofc so before last kraken change you could buy KRAKEN and NASHORS and it would scales like nothing else because of kraken INSANE AP scaling AND varus ONHIT AA dmg so we could have 40% AP scaling to ONHIT AP dmg that was insane just nashors was giving you at least 55 AP dmg per AA + we can ad 120% scaling from AP on kraken and nashors get 100 ap so it was anouther 120 dmg after one proc of kraken max 240 so you could deal ~40AD dmg per AA ofc it was every 3rd but you know and could be 80AD dmg per AA from kraken but now i realised you can EASLY but liandry or better RIFT maker and combined it with jaksho because if you have at least 10 IQ you will buy almost every single game jaksho na varus its THAT FK GOOD and it is just must have so combining it with some healing and 10% bonus dmg because WHY NOT and HP it is really good
I love riot inconsistencies when it comes to off-meta builds. For example when Pyke was played in jungle mid and top they nerfed him to oblivion because they designed him to be a support. Same when Lucian was played on mid they gave him additional damage when he is empowered by ally spell so he would be played on adc. But in the same time they randomly buff Tahm Kench top serveral times or proceeds to randomly buff jungle clear for Brand, Morgana, Rumble or Zed.
It’s not really inconsistent though. When pyke is viable in other lanes he becomes too snowbally in solo queue. Brand, Morgana, zed and rumble got buffed for jungle because they got phased out of their old positions despite the fact that their numbers were fine.
@@vyyr Rumble was fine at top, Brand originally was a mid laner but Riot seems to forget and Zed is always viable pick on mid in soloq and meta never affects him that much so these changes are not making sense, same with Tahm top since before the first sets of his W buffs he performed very well as support but then they buffed him top and I think tahm kench top was the most annoying and unfair gimmick build to this day. Let's not forget recent random 20% ap Q scaling buff to Karma for no reason.
@@Seven646 "they got phased out of their old positions despite the fact that their numbers were fine." Atleast read what I wrote. Their numbers were fine but riot wanted them to have more traction, so instead of overbuffing them, they tried giving them option of playing in another role.
I feel like having the option for offmeta builds is essential to League. Smite has (or had) set item choices per champ back when I tried it and it ruined the game for me. I like variety and trying stuff out.
I haven't played smite in 3 years or so but back when I played there were definitely options. Do you know what Cabroken is? Cabrakan had nasty scaling for damage so people built him as a squishy one shot killing assassin basically for years. Maybe the game isnt the same now (it was kind of dying when I did play it before anyways) but I wish league corrected characters instead of always shifting the items. Some items are definitely overpowered and all but if only one build is an issue, change the character. Why punish every other player for the issues with one character? I'm sure riot has a plan and all but if you want to nerf a build, I'm confident you don't have to buff the other build and nerf two of the items they use.
As a masters player i would love for any off-meta to be viable since i mostly play mage apc, but riot and the community make it rather unpleasant to play, with the constant nerfs to mage botlane and the fact the if your team loses it is more likely than not your fault according to everyone in the lobby.
Well i really dont like apc personally the botlane was made for ADc dmg marksmen have a hard time to scale and all mages scale more easy its kinda unfair and not fun when you go as the game intend and you get sera lux botlane perma stun/insta ik since early game mages clean too well the wave scale harder if apc becomes the new meta there is no point for ADc to exist they really have nowhere to go and it is alredy pretty stressful to play as adc normally when is not the mage sup steal minion and kill its a mage botlane not allow you to play
@@DaviVolpi437 fair enough, the role used to be about a dmg dealer that could pump enough dmg to kill tanks and the game was centered around them being a win condition, but the game has changed throughout the years, ADc is no longer who deals more dmg, i would argue botlane has shifted towards more utility making APc who have better abilities like you said simply better in any case, adc do have other places to go for example kalista used to be meta in top lane, vayne rightnow is an insane top lane carry, and a few years ago lucian and tristana were incredible midlane early game champs, this off-meta/dual role strats were sadly nerfed, thats why i think off-meta works as long as people can keep an open mind and try to understand why it would or wouldnt work. Also yeah it is pretty stressful, having to play around your random sup vs a duo is very unfair in my opinion.
@@wuthraw4205 i really enjoy to play botlane if we ignore the stress and like you said the role did change a lot riot should do something for the role to be honest ofc we are not the main dps most cases but since most adc are made exclusive for dmg some times i feel like we dont have a place do go tank /bruisers go hard on top mid cc and ap takes place there and goes the burst thing sup when people go as intended tank or peel adc some times feel very useless bcs all the other roles do everything better dmg ? Jg mid top cc? Sup top jg mid tank? Jg top like i said some times i feel like we donr have a place in the game its pretty sad to be honest
@@DaviVolpi437 yeah i agree, the past year adc has felt very left out of the game, you dont have the roaminng potential of the jg, sup or mid, your splitpush is really bad when u lose 1 vs 1 against anyone in the game, but i think its a matter of the community rather than the game, in a perfect escenario you would love to have an adc with a peeling support in any teamfight, but lets be honest in solo queue you have a roaming yuumi duo with jg that refuses to help the adc, honestly its a sad state and i would recommend you to give the degenerate vayne top an honest try, it feels way better to have control of your own laning phase as a top laner, but if you want to still play bot i can only recommend ap mages like seraphine, swain, learning hwei or playing the 1 viable adc of the patch. For a change i would love to see lane exclusive summ spells, something like smite for every role would make every lane feel unique imo.
Honestly i think some gimmic builds work out though such as Thresh top as it allows him to lane by himself. However it does also deminish some of his team fight perks like not being as durable if he is jumped by an assassin
6:45 Please no i just forgot about this horror. I play since 2011 and have faced many off this Gimmik builds. But non of them where so frustrating to play against as Tank Ekko. It was just a unfair build. He still had good Burst on Squishys and Tanks, with good CC. But at the same time was unkillable, because of beeing a Tank, and having so much Mobility + Ult that just heals him and bring him back to save while still dealing good damage. This build was so unfair. I was celebrating when it finally got removed. Tank Akali (Old one) had a similar build.
I definitely agree tank Ekko was busted and a problem but i think they should have just tuned him for the role rather than remove it, his kit synergy with long term fights over burst in and out is so strong that even nowadays bruiser is still viable. They scaled him so far towards assassin that all he needs is one or two ap items then build tank after that
I’ve been an Ekko main through all his meta’s and Tankko was by far his most fun time to play, it also felt really intuitive as well, everything in his kit made sense for a sustained fight rather than an in and out engagement. Being able to fight your opponent and push them towards your W is far easier than trying to predict the near infinite amount of directions they could go and missing means you don’t get to fight. His ultimate has so much damage that ap Ekko uses mostly to save him from dying after or in the middle of a single engagement, Tankko could fight you until his ult was right where he wanted it. Right now they over tuned his scaling so all Ekko has to do is build one ap item then build tank and it’s bar none my favorite way to play him because ap Ekko just feels useless especially with the damage creep because Ekko could very well die before he could even finish getting his damage off or ult to safety with out doing anything because he couldn’t proc his passive which is basically where all his burst damage is.
pre-rework AP tristana was my favorite. That poke with the dot was just absolutely silly, and in teamfights you removed one enemy at the start no questions asked and then played like a diet kata with the resets.
One issue with gimmick builds is that the community wants the builds they like but not others. So i see why Riot just removes the off builds in general.
On a side note, I remember a couple seasons ago when I was able to play Pyke mid to great success before riot decided to nerf his laning phase almost completely out of existence. It just seems like nowadays they’re so against people not following the norm on how you’re supposed to play the game.
I just like playing any champ any line and try if it works, Elise and Olaf suppor worked for me last season, so did Soraka mid lane. Just let people enjoy this off meta non troll builds and see how the game becomes more fun and with a better variety. Items changeing playstyles its what makes them fun, like talents on HotS
This is true, but only in sporadic bursts. Camille Support/JNG is completely cancerous because she gets the benefits of the Champion without needing any restrictions of having to scale. She can just launch into you and blow you up, denying a good experience in the lane. Arguing that, "it's fun so it should stay," is a fast way to make the game devolve. AP Poke Kai'Sa isn't the problem. It's that AP Kai'Sa does Xerath's job BETTER than Xerath. AP Zeri isn't a problem because she does a lot of damage. It's that there is no penalty for missing, since she can just E over a wall. Tank Ekko isn't a problem because he does Max HP Magic Damage and speeds up when near Champions (Singed). It's because his game plan warps the game around him, making the game devolve into how he gets have his, "fun," without there being any way to solve the issue.
So true, this why smite is better. You can actually do dumb stuff like full tank adc or full damage tank, mobility assassins etc and it actually can work. The characters are just the base for the items. Otherwise what is the point of items? Just to make your numbers go up but do the same thing? That's really boring. You can still do it to a degree in league, but it's still 90% just snowball, it doesn't matter how you build or how you play if someones fed. In smite you can be losing, but if you build smart you can still come out on top. My whole team can feed and it doesn't matter I can still 1 vs 5 because I didn't feed, that's how it should be.
When i think of gimmick builds that end up having legs, i think "non - mage / assassin with weirdly good AP ratios" or "non - tank / bruiser who offers a lot of control bruiser inherently". Way back - in - the - day AP Alistar had 1.0 AP ratios on W - Qs. So yes , assassin cow was a real thing. ADC Kennen is a classic. Was a very popular way to play him for awhile. Tank Karma was my favorite top laner in the game for awhile. It made sense. Lane bully, good base damages, useful to the team later on unlike a lot of top laners and great synergy with a lot of tank items. Gimmick builds are awesome for the game and only become a problem when a degenrate playstyle ala Sniper Kai'sa ends up being a real thing. Just full on cheese. Something like Tank echo should be encouraged though. Players realizing a kit works surpaingly well as a different class. It not like AP Kai'sa doing her best OG Nidalee impression. Its the same character choosing to build around the fact they he can become very difficult to kill while still providing reasonable damage.
neeko is neeko so she should be able to play as a mage, a marksman, a bruiser, a tank, an enchanter and an assassin. If you disagree, don't even talk to me
gimmick builds are just tough because items are balanced around champions and classes and when other classes start abusing them you can't adjust the item without affecting an entirely different set of champs imo
Its also about versatility. If you give a champion 3 builds that each radically change when they can do, You’ll create a champ who can be picked for all 3 positions
You are so far off on Kai'sa and Zeri and the reasons for their nerfs it's kinda comical actually. It has nothing to do with "riot doesn't intend them to play this way" but to illustrate this let me tell you about another champion. This champion had a long range "poke" tool that could potentially 1 shot someone. If you attempt to engage on them they have an escape and even if you get to do damage to them they can just negate it and keep poking you. If her poke doesn't one shot you than she can instantly gap close and finish you off with little to no counter play. No I'm not talking about Zeri or Kai'sa I'm talking about old school Nidalee. Her Q used to do just as much if not more damage than Kai'sa and Zeri's long range poke options and she had a shorter CD escape with her pounce and she could heal any damage you did to her. This isn't much different than Kai'sa poking you with her W then ulting in with a massive shield to negate any damage you do to her while finishing you with her Q, or Zeri following up with her ult and Q spam. The issue isn't if a champ has long range poke, Xerath/Vel'Koz/etc are fine, but notice how none of them have escapes or anything they can really do once someone jumps on them? That is why the playstyle works for them, if they keep you at range they win, if you close the gap you win. This doesn't apply with Kai'sa who can go invisible or reposition with a massive shield, or Zeri who can just jump over a wall while throwing a massive nuke at you for your efforts. Poke champions can't have escapes and personal survival tools like Kai'sa and Zeri do, they have to be fragile because their massive range is their survivable tool. You can either have those tools and play at close range, or not have them and play at range but you can't have both. Riot established this when they nerfed it for Nid so it's not a surprise Zeri and Kai'sa lost it as well.
I think it also have a lot to be related to counterplay and expected frustration. Zeri and kaisa were champs dealing a ton of damage from a distance you cant answer, with ekko, it was a champ with damage, survivability, movility (hi yone). While AP cho will die way faster than tank, AP twitch is a paper just like AD. Another example would be impregnator gragas. It was a build that would be hard to make it work, but when it worked, it had no counterplay
When Riot changed how Moonstone works in version 13.10, I got pretty annoyed, because it removed my Little Medic builds for Teemo and Twitch. Their DoT's would proc Moonstone constantly, which sometimes let me have higher healing numbers at the end of the game than a Soraka. Those builds were actually pretty fun and while probably not as useful as going AP, were decently viable (at least in low elo drafts with a 5-stack). Twitch was better for straight healing, letting you heal up to 500 hp over the DoT's duration, but Teemo had more utility with his blind and shrooms for disruption and intel. I really wish something like this would be possible again.
I think it just comes down to the gameplay health of the build. Ap zeri and kaisa were just uninteractive, doing most of your healthbar from further away than xerath can, and still having mobility on top of it
it would be really interesting if you made a video like this but on specialists specifically it's kind of an old video but this video reminded me of your specialists video "Specialists: The Class No One Plays | League of Legends"
12:20 Can you analyse the same theme but on the " famous " item collector ? its built by a lot of champs , but these champs can still be played without this item. my opinion is : if you have no skill , build it and you'll automaticly get fed. i think the execute line breaks entirely the game.
Honestly I just think they nerf the builds they don't like. 13 years ago they were a lot more open to unusual builds, most champion had AP scaling even if they were intended to be played AD. Now it's like they have a unique plan on how each champion should be played and if a build that goes against their vision becomes popular they nerf it to the ground.
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i will love to be it no works in my country
for me the worst example of this has to be AP shyvana, not just because riot abandoned her AD bruiser build (ya know, the way she was meant to be built) but kept buffing the AP build which consists of ulting, spamming E and 1shotting your entire team
I mean rn the strongest way is either sundered sky titanic or hybrid wirh liandrys shojin
shyv main here, her ad build was extremely strong in s13 and was for a time one of the best jg in the game. its still strong in s14 but not as prevalent probably because the ap build is significantly simpler to play. and thematically a dragon spitting fire and doing a bunch of damage makes sense within the confines of the character
@@lucascarra8938new ravenous changes are really good on her
oh and yknow, a complete inability to really dodge or stop it cause the impact radius is always at max size and not the projectile that spews out first before growing
@@lucascarra8938and the iceborn bork pta build was very good
remember when they said at the beginning of statikk shiv's revival that off meta builds like shiv veigar were fun gimmicks that werent that oppressive and will keep them as is but as time went on, they kept nerfing the AP ratio until eventually no more ratios
leblanc
Problem that Shiv was quite oppressive for a good while.
@@암캐고양이엉덩이 they really should have just nerfed her instead of nerfing shiv over and over again because she was overperforming with it
@@Nikolai0169but how do you nerf ad/on hit leblanc? Her kit has 0 incentive to build like that, she just do it because she has high mobility. Nerfing her mobility would also nerf her ap traditional build, which is not that great. So the only solution is to nerf items.
@@loupe500 Honestly, LB is one of the champ most deserving of a rework. Not that her kit doesn't work as it is but the flavor is completely absent
I have to say that in the case of Kaisa, her off meta builds are part of the champion identity to an extent. She was specifically marketed to be an adaptable champion with a variety of playstyles and builds, unlike say stuff like tank ekko/fizz, or bruiser Katarina.
Yup. That W literally has a "transformation" built in for if you build enough AP. It's blatant that she was intended to be able to build at least some AP. That upgrade also blatantly made it a poke tool. It was already baked into her kit. Especially considering all the other AP ratios in her kit.
this, the problem with AP kaisa artillery was that it had no counterplay. they would have to increase the visual clairity of her W to make that build stay in the game, so instead they nerfed it. Thankfully it did not nerfe kaisa being kalista with her passive build lol
Spoiler poke kaisa is still a thing in fact it comes online quicker than it used to item revamp
Kayne was the same too but he keeps getting nerf when you don't build the "correct item" for the "correct form"
A gimmick build should never be removed for being a gimmick. More playstyles means more fun for more people.
Anything that is winning too much should simply be nerfed numbers-wise.
There will, of course, be exceptions that need to be addressed. The rule, should be to embrace creativity, not stifle it.
Its really weird how riot is against such builds and nerfs them into oblivion but forces some into existence like bruiser or onhit kata and ad tf at the same time
Full tank katarina was allowed for a while thanks to titanic hydra and heartsteel
they cant possibly know enough about the entire playerbase's playstyle and preferences to balance the game well using lolalytics and angry reddit posts, but those are literally their only resources besides their internal numbers. by their choice.
The thing about "Ad tf" was that they never really intended it it feels like. They added some ad ratios, and most importantly crit convertions to him, because over the years TF players figured out that RFC is basically his best item, even though it costs him a lot of dmg and stunts his power a lot, simply because 5 sec CD on click stun is broken. So instead of going for big dmg, which usually takes few items to really become threatening unless super ahead, they decided to go full ham on pick aspect of the champ, and get ahead this way instead.
And it feels like riot wanted to smooth that curve on AP TF by giving him convertions so that AP build is not inted by RFC.
Of course however they did not think that through very well, and suprise suprise, that build is stronger than AP in every stage of the game, starting at first recall.
"Play the way you want unless we say so" - Riot
Limitless possibilities yet enforcing roleplaying.
How many champions do you think are just off-meta builds they nerfed into the ground but wanted to have a more appropriate character doing them. I don't play LoL, but Nilah as "the first real Melee ADC" could be an example.
"Specially YOU supports!"
@@theflyingtoaster7414 eh, samira would be the first real melee adc. sure, she has ranged autoattacks but to use her abilities, she needs to get in melee range and her W, E and R are specifically built to be used while in the middle of the enemy team
"Or until you guys complain because you got too wild and decided to try something "fun". Either way, it's our fault anyway"
If I got to decide at riot, I would make it so that all champs that aren't designed to be in bot lane got minus 50% stats from being in bot lane before the ten min mark. Yasuo has no business being a viable adc.
Sometimes "gimmick" builds also become so entrenched that they become the new default for the champion. Gragas was originally a tank, but the AP gimmick became so common that now it's all he's known for.
Gragas was always AP. His rework was better as a tank, but they wanted to preserve his AP playstyle option, so they've made changes to push its viability.
@@GlacialScionhe was originally designed as a tank, that was the intention, but back in season 1 they just kinda went hard with random AP ratios (see sion for another example)
The kog treatment
Also nunu
Yup. Many "lost" their original identity due to items. Tanks becoming full damage and vice versa. Gragas, Galio Nunu, Malphite, Well the latter two still have their tank builds. And assassin's becoming tanks or fighters (Katarina, Akali, Nocturne, Diana). Reworks also push champs into completely different roles. I always like to remind that Swain was a top laner, Camille a jungler, Taliyah a midlaner etc.
I remember when Riot actually bragged about not forcing a META and letting things happen organically. Nowadays they try their hardest to force everyone to play a specific way.
Yeah but after mythics a lot of players quit so they tone down on that
They may have bragged about it but they were always against it for the most part. They deleted ap master yi and ap sion when they reworked them
I remember them pretty specifically giving up on that when the discussion around allocated roles in ranked happened. They put that off because they didn't want to embed the lane meta but were convinced when realistically nobody played any other way, in ranked at least.
They should be allowed to a certain degree.
Unless it's game breaking, removing this kind of things only reduces variety of the game.
A good example is allowing Karthus becoming mainly a jungler despite being made as a mid in the first place.
A bad example is how they got rid of Nilah jungle (Wild Rift) despite being only played in the jungle and not being that opressive. Now absolutely no one plays her nor as adc or jg.
Just to show how different the design philosophy of old vs new league is, in the old days basically every champ was made to have an ad or ap build, now we have to have the discussion as to whether we should even allow off meta builds at all.
I didn't play until a few years ago but as far as I understand, items were made to be utility instead of being the entire gamplan too. I think changing from items being useful into the current characters being able to use the right items is a big part of the issue
I think you are almost correct in these conclusions, in my opinion.
What I feel is: It is not that some off-meta builds are removed because they go against what is expected of the champion, but that some of these off-meta builds ruin interactivity. And so yes if interaction is expected in the game it goes against what is expected of that champion.
Interactivity can be a little vague but generally speaking players should be able to fight one another, having clear strengths and weaknesses; either in micro-combat, or macro strategy. Some of these builds lower interactivity, either literally where the off-meta champ can simply never be approached or put in danger but is still highly effective (Think of AP Poke Zeri/Kaisa at long range). Or as a team strategy the enemy can't overcome the off-meta champion's team due to their superior tactic for whatever reason (think of Inting Sion before all of the nerfs and changes Riot attempted to stop Baus, or things like funneling Taric/Yi.) Or maybe their off-meta build supersedes the original intention of the champion's playstyle, which then shows Riot more they failed in their design more than them punishing the players (like ADC Neeko being just better than her Mage intention on release, or AP assassin Galio when Riot overdid his ratios not expecting players to build him full AP.) Some off-meta builds still exist and are doing quiet well, the only thing stopping them is peer-pressure as mentioned in the video, but as far as I am aware these off-meta picks are still able to be interacted with? For example, AP Kog'ma is still a fragile back-line damage dealer, just like crit/on-hit Kog'ma is....still a fragile back-line damage dealer.
Why do you want interactivity? Well because its a video game, ultimately made for enjoyment even if it is a competitive e-sport. It would make for a pretty poor experience for everyone involved if there was no interactions, no cool fights and instead someone uncovered some mystical tactic where you can destroy the Nexus with the push of a button. This is a hyperbole.
Yep. This is it.
Riot is fine with AP Malphite, AP Nunu. Both are meant to be tanks, but use AP to explode you. They are not fine with AP Maokai. What is the difference? Well Nunu and Malphite expose themselves to one shot you - interact with you - AP Maokai covered the map in saplings and chunked you with 0 counterplay.
Another example is champs not meant to be tanky being tanky, but still doing damage. Ekko has enough safety tools, he doesn't need to do damage while being impossible to kill on top of that
They are fine with On-Hit Yi melting an entire team, but not fine with lethality yi doing the same thing but while going invisible and perma Qing.
To me there are 2 main factors, interactivity and proplay visibility. Riot might be ok with some of these wonky stuff existing if it doesn't take over proplay. But as it happens, pro loves low risk, low interactivity strategies that win you games at the highest level, so when these show up they will go to the surface.
I think both of you took interesting and point on takes on the subject. Thanks, I enjoyed reading those :)
There is 1 champion who counters this argument. Singed doesn't seek interaction.
@@skozy3 i think singed is a special category. Along with AP shaco, heimerdinger, Illaoi. Maybe teemo (though he skirts the limit, because he benefits the most from not interacting at all from that list). They are champions that want interaction, but only in their terms. They basically want you to play into them, but they don't really have tools to force you to play into them. So they kinda force this by creating pressure or controlling zones you will be forced to go into.
There is some overlap, but I think there are some distinctions. The key is if you have to opt-into interacting with them, for them to kill you
AP Maokai and AP Kaisa and teemo, dont need you to opt into fighting them. They do so regardless of that. Meanwhile, something like heimerdinger or Illaoi or Singed won't kill you if you avoid them, but they will have a big advantage is they force you to fight them on their terms - if they force interaction on those terms they win. So in a way, they are interactive. They look to interact where they are strong and go avoid interaction where they are weak. This is different from AP Maokai that wants to interact never (and if you ever manage to do so, he can use his 3 remaining abilities to stop you and go back to not interacting
@0 For ur tanky point tho, nearly every tank can do nutty damage thru their items or max health damage, so, especially when ahead, there is 0 counterplay. Ekko was good becuase he utiliesd meta trinity item really well, exerted lots of sidelane pressure and could always r back to lane, used fervour of battle, had better up-front damage (didnt scale as well before changes) etc He had a lot going for him and that made it strong. But when i think about his playstyle, zac today is veryy similar.
Because sometimes they are better than the normal ones,like the manamune into ludens kaisa top,or the eclipse and nashor and berserker boots kaisa top that have all 3 evo,or the ap kaisa mid,or double marksmen kaisa support,or just lethality kaisa with all 3 evo and duskblade,or just kaisa kaisa
It kinda reminds me of that one old lee sin April fools spotlight
Another issue with alot of builds is how the kits of the champions can make a playstyle unbalanced. Like for example kaisa w was designed to give her some long ranged poke mostly to ult onto a champ but when it had its full AP scalings it basically became a single target jinx rocket that could hit someone from 2-3screens away which has no counter play except dodge a ability coming from fog of war and 3 screens away
Ap twitch was not just allowed to stay, it was purposefully put into the game, i remember the patch when riot just added ap ratios to twitch ablities that were not there before.
thats because it plays exactly like normal adc twitch but rather than your autos killing them, its hoping your max stacks E will burst them down
@@lillyie yeah it's actually kind of cool how the champion is designed like that. i wish more champions allowed for a similar choice
His e always had an ap ratio adding one to his passive gave him just enough for it to be viable
A good example I always think of when talking about gimmick builds is old AD Sol before his rework.
For those new to League, Aruelion Sol's old kit involved stars that orbited him as part of his passive that did small amounts of damage when they made contact with an enemy, and his W expanded the range of these stars and increased the speed of their orbit to let them hit harder and more often. His Q and R were built around this larger orbit, with his Q growing in size so long as it stayed in this outer orbit, exploding once it was out of it or Sol manually detonated the skill to stun every enemy inside of it, while his R would blow enemies in a rectangle shape towards this outer orbit, setting them up for the Q and W.
AD Sol would eschew this by just flat out ignoring the stars and just build Sol like he was a Marksman, sometimes even taking him into the Jungle like Kindred (since his E, which would become his W, was practically the same as it is now with how it worked). His Q was more relied upon since it was an AoE stun that worked well in getting in more poke, and his R was a helpful self-peel that could be used to turn around a tower dive. The stars were practically ignored outside of the rare instance that they actually secured a kill.
Frankly, and this is just speculation on my part, AD Sol was the main reason Sol's Rework went the way it did, so that he would have to be played as a Mage and not a Marksman, and by extension the development of Smolder being to make a new psudo-AD Sol without the stars but still having some of new Sol's mechanics.
interesting info and theory
I've been having a blast with AD Neeko lately, a very different playstyle but she still has some big weaknesses akin to her usual playstyle (squishy, low mobility, not a ton of range) so I'm hoping Riot doesn't decide to nerf it into the ground
I don't think AD Neeko would go anywhere, since it is a very niche build.
Now that AD Twisted Fate is a thing, I believe Riot would allow for more diversity.
- Been an AD Neeko main ever since returning to League.
I don't want another ADC in my team, especially if it could go become a Burst Mage
theory crafting builds is so fun. I main Kalista and have 1 official theory crafted glass cannon build. Two other builds im still testing. Metas get boring really fast.
11:37 Basically what differentiates LoL from Dota 2.
It also limits you in the way you can play the game and makes draft more important where league players are notoriously draft illiterate. Such as in league if you are full ad you will suffer against armour stackers or if you are too low range you will suffer against hard to catch heroes
As someone who is always trying all the gimmick builds on marksmen champions, the reason why most of the builds get nerfed is that the popular ones are usually exploiting design oversights to make certain abilities more effective than originally designed. There are a lot of builds that people try that never get any kind of mainstream popularity that are just a little bit better than the average build so nothing happens. Right now there's an Ice gauntlet Vayne top build being experimented with that hasn't received much attention yet, but could get the champ or the items nerfed if enough people start to spam it.
This vayne build is not new is just being revisited all the way back from the tank meta
I believe one of the main reasons League is such a good game in concept is being able to have your own unique playstyle, which includes gimmick or off-meta builds. Example being; "Hi I'm so-and-so and I play ___ champ, in ___ role, with ___ summoner spells, with ___ runes, and with ___ build" out of 5 variables theres so many ways to have your own way of playing the game.
What makes some of them bad is simply if the off-meta or gimmick build is uninteractive or just overpowered, likely the ladder, as you said when most people see a champ they expect the meta build and so on and so forth, and when it isn't that, its unexpected and can/usually does give the person playing the off-meta a advantage from them knowing the limits of what they can do and the enemy doesent.
The thing is that if its uninteractive like a lot of the examples in this video: AP Kai'sa, AP Zeri, Tank Ekko, etc, everything else i mentioned gets thrown out of the window for game balance, cause Kai'sa chucking a singular ability off the screen that does a quarter or more of someone's HP bar is surprisingly not interactive gameplay or fun to play against, or AS for that matter, I doubt the AP Kai'sa player is having fun after a while after the high of the gimmick wearing off and your just spamming one singular ability and R'ing in every once in a while to assassinate someone.
In-general, unless the specific playstyle is toxic, uninteractive, not-fun, OP, etc, i think alternative playstyles to champions are fine and beyond that, should be encouraged, again unless its inherently toxic.
Like you said, certain champions should not be allowed to venture away from their core, because most of the times the "gimmick build" covers too many weaknesses and gets straight up cancer to deal with.
I think there are 4 archetypes of builds:
Tank
AD
AP
On hit
If a champion normally builds 1 of these archetype, but goes a different one, then the champion should feel different to play as and against.
AD TF plays different then AP TF, good.
AD Sion plays different then Tank Sion, good.
AD Varus plays different then On hit Varus, good.
On hit Kata does not play different from AP kata, bad.
AD Mastery yi does not play different from On hit Yi, bad.
The thing why a build should be removed for example AP Kai'sa, is when a playstyle is toxic/unhealth, same thing for inting sion where you bash your head into the tower etc.
Or maybe better said, when a build/playstyle changes how the enemy must play. AP Kai'sa bullet hell, int Sion tower defence, Jana top farming simulator that is when Riot does not like the build and tries to change/remove it.
So that means that pyke mid is completly legal since the playstyle of cc the enemy with the grey screen stays the same.
That also means all builds are legal since they all involve the playstyle of not cumming whenever you see Zoe.
Riot designed Pyke to be a catcher-assassin but wanted to make sure that he remains in the realm of being balanced as a gold-generating support, thus they gutted his waveclear and regeneration for solo lanes and jungle-caging him in botlane. Orrrrr, at least when Pyke players aren't building the new Profane Hydra along with other Lethality items+some resistances to allow for solo laning.
i think every champion that can, should be allow to have "gimmick" builds, the problem is when their design and the build makes it so they can circumvent their weaknesses or the weakness of the build, like tank ekko, not fair for a tank to have that level of sticking potential, kaisa's issue was the safety of W spam, very apparent in aram.
a build i like to use is straight up tank janna support, her kit has the CC already so making her harder to kill is as valuable as going full utility
I agree that champs should be able to have gimmick builds but I personally don't agree that its an issue if they circumvent their weaknesses. I think everyone can agree that riot isn't very good with designing character kits. Every new release is either unplayable or unbeatable and most of the common characters have some sort of absurd unbalance to them that makes them appealing for competitive play. The reason why their weaknesses go away with different builds isn't because of the builds themselves, its because of unbalanced kits. Think about the tank ekko he showed. It only worked because they gave him max hp damage for free as long as they are around half hp. Without that, it isn't possible. Why does a character with that much damage need free percent health damage added on top? In the end, I think they should always fix the character instead of destroying an item. It just ruins the build for several other characters in order to avoid correcting the actual issue
Vainglory did the two build paths so well. One of the champs I played was kestral. A marksman who shot you with a bow. She looked a lot like Ashe.
Ap, was a mix of long range artillery with her arrows exploding in a long rectangle behind their target or just their max range and setting up a trap in players paths as they tried to get on top of you, only for you to blow them up, go invisible and repeat the process. But if you took any damage your invisibility/trap would go on cooldown so you had to sneak around an area before a fight, place a trap and get out. The invisibility duration and trap damage scaled with AP.
Ad your arrows granted you armor pen so instead of bombarding the back line you crushed the front line. Your trap/invisibility no longer went on cooldown if you took damage and it granted you a big burst of movespeed when activated.
Damn i dont remember the champs name but i played the mech with laser ult, with possible focus on just the ult ap scaling with the ult reset item or ad bruiser build not relying on ult. The game was so much fun back when it was only 3v3
And then there are champs with 3 separate builds like Adagio & Baptiste
AD Adagio was a menace of an ADC until every other champ's range was buffed for 5v5
AP Adagio now being the burst carry that 3-4 shots you with just normal attacks (my personal favourite)
HP Adagio being the standard healer the devs originally intended for him
@@s1rand0mUr thinking of joule
-off meta lance player (with irdis too)
off meta is the peak of league
Neeko can still go whatever she wants, i've seen so manny builds for her, 3 ap neeko builds, 1 crit build, 1 on hit build, 2 tank builds, 1 hybrid bruiser build, 1dot build and 1 support build, i honestly think the comunity just got used to it, especially since this is a rare thing, and she still goes one of the 3 ap builds most of the games. Also, i think it makes a lot of sense thematically for her to have so manny diferite builds
I REALLY miss AP Zeri.
Back when she was viable I used to spam her mid, bot, top, jg, and support.
She instantly clicked with me, and even though now I have more LP, I would sacrifice the elo I’ve gained just to play her again in her peak…
When they gutted her, a piece of my heart went away with her
Amusing you didn't bring up Shyvana when talking about champs with many types of builds. Since there's here Ap focused build and then the AD type. Also missed opportunity as it is the year of the dragon.
ad build is a joke now
@@wade2589 Bro what. It's been strong several times the last few years
@@elih6087 by strong you mean nobody in the entire world can manage to climb past master with it? got nerfed to the ground 2 patches after it is buffed?
Dunno what you mean by that, AP shyvana pretty good at blowing up a squishy and is one of the worse champs to not keep an eye on and be left alone to split push. But I don't play rank for the sake of my sanity so eh, what do I know?
@@Juria1987 ap shyv is viable ad is not(in higher elo)
I think the biggest aspect about weather a build stays or not is agency. AP Kaisa was toxic to play against because playing against it didn't give you any agency. Same with AP Tryndamere. Where as something like AP Cho or AP twitch, you still have agency versing them.
As much hate as Shaco gets from the community, i'm very happy he can still just build whatever and work, and has multiple playstyles in one champion's kit.
interesting that you didn't speak about Twisted Fate too being able to either go full AD or full AP
Especially with the recent AD and crit buffs
Riots need to obliterate any and all playstyles that are different from the meta is what pushed me into Dota2, it feels terrible to find a playstyle you enjoy just for Riot to come in and gut it for not conforming to what it believes the game should look like everytime.
Most Offmeta builds which are being gutted have the problem that they use absolut unfair interactions in the game which the designers did not account for. After these interactions are commonly known, they get nerfed and the metaslaves who abused the strat are uninterested from this point. Point in case is bausff, he still plays ad sion, but he is one of the only ones. The reason is, that the builds cannot be abused any longer. In general riots lets ppl play offmeta and they are totally fine with gimmicky stuff in the game. Gamebreaking stuff on the other hand, they will nerf to the ground, and rightly so. The game should be fun, and one should not get two shotted by kaisa W.
I think gimmick builds that change a characters playstyle are one of the best things in league and should be encouraged. Playing a champion in your own way making your own build is one of the most interesting parts about league and is why I like the game. For unique builds that end up being viable then get nerfed in to the ground I find is dumb. Its fine if a build gets nerfed but I don't think they should be nerfed out of viability I think the more build variation the better.
I think theres another layer and one you're absolutely expecting, these off meta build too often put people in no gameplay scenarios. Ekkos so overloaded that he could build tank to take no damage and then stick to you. You cant outpace him, out damage him, evade him, or win even kill him, cuz he uas so many get off me tools that you're not allowed to win. His fragility is what 'justifies' his tools.
The Adc ap artilery sisters were out performing the equivalent ap artilery at their jobs. They both had mobility for safety and did more damage from farther and with less action investment. Kaisa even has execute damage on hers while zeri had aoe.
And you can already see the problems with leathality sion. We do not need a tryndamere that deals assasin damage, by dying, after being an assasin engage tank
Champion identity matters, but I think its important to look at why certain champs arent allowed the play styles by asking if this would be acceptable as a stand alone champ. Would they be the type that would have to be nerfed till theyre not good?
I think it is more how oppressive+prevelant the builds become. Tank ekko became widely played while also impossible to deal with. Ap kaisa and zeri could safely deal tons of poke damage while still being able to rush you down with autos.
I fully agree. Especially tank ekko suffered from the overload in damage in modern league.
If ahead, he was still able to pretty much burst squishy carries, while being nearly impossible to kill.
Sometimes gimmick builds are just uninteractive, "just dodge lol" where's the interaction? When do you get to fight back against AP Kaisa, or AP Shyv?
People who say "just dodge" ap Kaisa have never had to deal with that monstrosity of a W hitbox
At least with shyv she has to be on screen
Why Riot keeps removing gimmick builds??
Because the moment players realized that they can win more games by cheesing builds and off meta lanes, they start abusing it for freelo. It no longer feels creative and unique. It's just annoying.
Like Syndrome says in The Incredibles. "When everyone's super, no one will be."
Yes, however you can develop counterstrategies against such builds, thus they become a regular build instead of a freelo build.
@@akekesiyeti4525yeah but the counter strats are almost always unfun or uninteractive
@@ethanstyant9704 Well, for the AP Zeri/AP Kai'SA, all you need is am assassin while the team gets the attention of the rest for example. Not even impregnator Gragas is a freelo build. You just need to keep the guy far and in cc
@@akekesiyeti4525 like I said. Unfun or uninteractive
Popularity certianly enhances the dislike. However I am again stressing the main point. How UNFUN it is to play against (correlated with counterplay).
i dont understand why ap shyvana seems to be an exception to this entire concept, ap shyvana significantly changes her playstyle and her strengths and weaknesses (i'd argue it's even pretty toxic to play against) and yet rito seems to be heavily encouraging the playstyle while nerfing a lot of other picks that don't even seem that problematic like sololane pyke, lethality yorick and ap malphite
that combined with them recently pushing ad tf makes it seem like they just randomly decide that some picks are allowed and some arent
RiotAugust responded at some point to this subject, saying they promote off-meta builds as long as they don't create degenerate gameplay. As in, Kai'sa and zeri spamming w is uniteractive and unfun to play against, and probably a bit boring for the Zeri,Kai'sa too. It doesn't add value to the gameplay.
makes you wonder if he actually thinks that while ap shyv is still in the game
Champs should be allowed to have gimmick builds as long as they are not broken. What is the point of giving a champion some random ap/ad ratio in their kit if they will nerfed for trying to take advantage of it? I remember having lots of fun playing ap yi/tristana until Riot eventually got rid of those builds.
You leave AD neeko alone you monster.
It's a longer way of saying "champion builds that exceed or approach the popularity of the intended build(s) design will be dissuaded. In some cases, said build is too strong because it abuses a particular mechanic with unforeseen consequences."
I'm surprised you didn't mention Kennen. We've seen AP Kennen, on-hit Kennen, ADC Kennen, tank Kennen and even support Kennen in pro play over the years. In fact he predated Neeko's AD top build and you can still see it getting build every now and then. Rekkles' AD Kennen even got featured in the Gods music video.
In the case of Kai and zeri, and a couple others, why is the ap ratio on long range abilities? They do this all the time with new charas, slapping ap ratios on AD champions in the most random spots and then going "we want build diversity" THEN NERFING IT WHEN IT DOESNT GO THEIR WAY INSTEAD OF FIXING IT. Why put the ap ratio on specific parts of the kit when an ap build endorses an unwanted playstyle? Either make it more consistent with the rest of the kit in another way, or don't out it there at all.
I have to disagree with Vars here, Udyr is my favorite champ and depending on the items I have it changes my playstyle which keeps the champ fresh. Locking a champ behind one playstyle would lead to the game feeling stale.
Feels bad tho, I was the only high elo AP Zeri player, talked to August myself to try to find a solution for her to work but never found success in it, main reason being W dealing magic damage was hard to play around in proplay according to him
In wild rift ap zeri never existed she does give ap damage sometimes on her q ~wild rift zeri have a normal aa while quer q is her version of powered up version of aa of pc~ but thats because the skill converts ad into ap just like corky on wr his strongest build is ad because he have aa dmg plus all his ad gets converted into ap when he uses his hab
@@DaviVolpi437 Her AA can auto lock, but its still a body blockable skillshot, you can even shot it when u want like in league PC, meaning you can hit a Teemo hiding in a brush etc.
@@PowerEd8 yeah thats why we use her q more often since is a small aoe and can hit both adc and sup if they are on top of each other her aa is still her main source of dmg ofc even if blockable
dont get me wrong meta is sign but VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE! it brings a new light to a champion! gives new and refreshing take to an "old dog." yeah it's annoying to be blasted by AP kaisa from a screen away but guessing and predicting what they build is still within the realm of being skillful! as long as the builds can be outplayed
i feel like a champ should have 1 main playstyle and any off meta styles that are chose should have diminished effects or not work as well as the main style. my favorite off meta style is pyke mid, while he is a support champ with the new prophane hydra giving him a form of wave clear pyke mid is doing really well. Hes still better as a support pick over all and playing him mid can result in a poor performance because you arent playing an assassin that can carry the game.
Playes themselves will hammer down on off meta strats (sometimes understandably)
I think Riot's approach has been good. Many of the things taken away I'm happy with being gone. Kaisa being off screen and 1 or 2 hitting you doesn't have counter play. Tank Ekko (which was so fun) was so frustrating to play against because of you ever whittled him down low enough he could just ult out. That sounds like how he is now, but he can get one shot being squishy, so that window is small currently. As a tank he had tons of time to decide when to ult.
I love off-meta stuff, but I agree that it can be unhealthy.
I actually love off Meta and gimmicky things, At thiss point of playing Lol for more then 10 years it's ounly interesting thing left in lol
There is a pretty big difference, between off meta and hard/soft inting your team/trolling/trying to lose. I think off meta picks and playstyles is just as important as the meta ones. For the health of the game and players sanity if nothing else. I don't play League myself but playing the exact same build, every single game sounds awful. Sometimes players need something different to prevent the game from getting boring/stale. And sure your supposed to itemize for what the state of the game is, what your opponents are building, what champs your fighting but how often do most players even bother?
Because we can't have nice things.
Shoutout to AP Kog'maw... that will likely be removed because Riot hates AP botlaners. But hey, please Riot, remove Tank Katarina, thank you.
I do think intoing sion in toerms of intong to kill towers was a bad idea, but i do believe that the ability to build him lethality whould stay as strong as his tank build. It makes him very feed or famine, and isnt very strong anyway. If anything its a little weak at the moment cause of successive Sion nerfs.
Since you talked about AD Neeko, you probably should've also talked about AD TF and what allowed him to stay, as he even got a buff recently.
Ad tf is so oppressive if he's not behind
I love gimmick builds and think they are a necessary thing to keep the game interesting and fun. The more build variety the better and gimmick builds compared to meta builds can make 1 character feel like 2 different characters
FACECHECKSKARNER MENTIONED RAAAAGH
How dare people have fun in their esports money machine
Tank ekko didnt build iceborne. It was triforce into frozen mallet into sunfire. It was also the most fun offmeta build alongside tank fizz top(botrk sunfire)
Aaaay! Tank fizz was some of the most fun I had in this game. I am still sad it was so short lived.
@@heathencaerus4046 a man of culture
Widly bullshit interpretation, the main reason they were nerfed is because it's widly unfun to face this off meta trash while them being extremely efficient. Kaisa ap gameplay is like a zoe, and when zoe was strong everyone complained.
I think gimmick builds are a good thing for the game , I don't mind having one month or two of weird but strong picks , it switches things up a little and it's fun (also you can just ban these champs if you really don't like them). But it has to be a temporary thing , I remember abusing fizz and ekko tank during the tank meta , had so much fun ! But i'm glad these builds aren't around anymore because it wasn't balanced and certainly not fun for the enemies
no champ should ever become too opressive, the reason why i dislike AP Kaisa and AP Zeri (before nerfs) is because you cant do anything unless youre a high mobile assassin
they will poke you out of lane or a fight, then they will rush in to kill you, and even if you tried to engage, they will just run away, with their superior mobility
i dont mind gimmick builds, they can be fun both ways, like movement speed WW is fun and hilarious to fight with and againts
I think there should also be exceptions like JakSho Yone where, all he had to do was buy Bork and get max CD Q and then go full tank. And because his base numbers were so insane, he could go full tank and still be a massive problem changing him from a one shot assassin to a 2 shot tank.
At least if you caught him out with crit you could realistically hurt him as long as shield bow was off CD. But with full tank, he could stay in the fight for as long as he wanted and just delay and buy time for the carries to come help while he shielded non stop and still had insane CC.
Also, the tank build gave him like 50 AH so his R was on only a 25 second CD allowing him so much mobility as a tank that could hold his own.
Thankfully, jaksho doesn’t heal anymore and now he needs jaksho and unending despair to get the same results but the point still remains. Yone has too much base damage and cause of that, he was a max health shredding, AOE knock up, hard CC, assassin tank.
I personally love the idea of champions building however the fuck they want. But you should have new weaknesses to counteract the fact your build changed.
Example with Varus, if you go AD it’s harder to eliminate a backline but you have more sustainable damage. As with AP, if you miss that R WQ combo, you have nothing since you have 0 attack speed.
With ap kaisa, if you missed W, it was harder to kill since all your damage was on W. With Yone, that didn’t matter. He was still one shotting, but now he was unkillable.
Same applies to goredrinker blue Kayn.
Kha'zix was a poke W champ on release because his passive damage after going invis or into fog of war applied on his W before the nerfs
Petition for Riot to completely remove the diversity in this game, tyvm. Every champs should played at exactly 1 and only 1 role and build certian items, nothing else.
Vars would love that, he likes homogenous champs
Isn't rito the same ppl that said we want to encourage build diversity?
"...if you're thinking of losing weight this year just like you intended to last year and the year before and the year before..."
I feel personally attacked.
But seriously, as a toplaner who suffered the wrath of a Baus Disciple running Sion, I permaban Sion every game because of it. However, that doesn't mean theBausFFS deserves to have his champion gutted and his playstyle removed. It hurts to say, but I think off meta builds should be encouraged and off-meta builds should be allowed to say. Being 'unintuitive' is one of the reasons off meta players run off meta. They enjoy catching people off guard.
I’ve also been into gimmicks, my favorite was Adc LB for over a decade which got fucked up bc of the reintroduction of shiv and they had to nuke her base stats to compensate for a now overnerfed item because they thought it was funny putting lich bane’s ap ratio on it and very high base damage and overtuned triforce which surprise surprise both got nerfed after butchering her while keeping her stats so low it’s actually unplayable for the first time ever, thanks Riot
13:09 btw varus can go AP and its much better then lethality or ofc crit nobody plays crits is garbage
so ap is mostly on mid and its still not that great
but there are so many hybrids with AP and AD onhit not a single lethality item ofc
so before last kraken change you could buy KRAKEN and NASHORS and it would scales like nothing else because of kraken INSANE AP scaling AND varus ONHIT AA dmg
so we could have 40% AP scaling to ONHIT AP dmg that was insane just nashors was giving you at least 55 AP dmg per AA + we can ad 120% scaling from AP on kraken and nashors get 100 ap so it was anouther 120 dmg after one proc of kraken max 240 so you could deal ~40AD dmg per AA ofc it was every 3rd but you know and could be 80AD dmg per AA from kraken
but now i realised you can EASLY but liandry or better RIFT maker and combined it with jaksho because if you have at least 10 IQ you will buy almost every single game jaksho na varus its THAT FK GOOD and it is just must have
so combining it with some healing and 10% bonus dmg because WHY NOT and HP it is really good
HAHAHA the Mordekaiser, i remember this moment 12:20
I love riot inconsistencies when it comes to off-meta builds. For example when Pyke was played in jungle mid and top they nerfed him to oblivion because they designed him to be a support. Same when Lucian was played on mid they gave him additional damage when he is empowered by ally spell so he would be played on adc. But in the same time they randomly buff Tahm Kench top serveral times or proceeds to randomly buff jungle clear for Brand, Morgana, Rumble or Zed.
i want pyke midlane back, give me aoe and dmg back, embrace pyke mid rather then supress him
tahm kench is a top laner bud, he was meant to be one but players started with this supp bs
It’s not really inconsistent though. When pyke is viable in other lanes he becomes too snowbally in solo queue.
Brand, Morgana, zed and rumble got buffed for jungle because they got phased out of their old positions despite the fact that their numbers were fine.
@@vyyr Rumble was fine at top, Brand originally was a mid laner but Riot seems to forget and Zed is always viable pick on mid in soloq and meta never affects him that much so these changes are not making sense, same with Tahm top since before the first sets of his W buffs he performed very well as support but then they buffed him top and I think tahm kench top was the most annoying and unfair gimmick build to this day. Let's not forget recent random 20% ap Q scaling buff to Karma for no reason.
@@Seven646 "they got phased out of their old positions despite the fact that their numbers were fine."
Atleast read what I wrote.
Their numbers were fine but riot wanted them to have more traction, so instead of overbuffing them, they tried giving them option of playing in another role.
I feel like having the option for offmeta builds is essential to League. Smite has (or had) set item choices per champ back when I tried it and it ruined the game for me. I like variety and trying stuff out.
I haven't played smite in 3 years or so but back when I played there were definitely options. Do you know what Cabroken is? Cabrakan had nasty scaling for damage so people built him as a squishy one shot killing assassin basically for years. Maybe the game isnt the same now (it was kind of dying when I did play it before anyways) but I wish league corrected characters instead of always shifting the items. Some items are definitely overpowered and all but if only one build is an issue, change the character. Why punish every other player for the issues with one character? I'm sure riot has a plan and all but if you want to nerf a build, I'm confident you don't have to buff the other build and nerf two of the items they use.
As a masters player i would love for any off-meta to be viable since i mostly play mage apc, but riot and the community make it rather unpleasant to play, with the constant nerfs to mage botlane and the fact the if your team loses it is more likely than not your fault according to everyone in the lobby.
Well i really dont like apc personally the botlane was made for ADc dmg marksmen have a hard time to scale and all mages scale more easy its kinda unfair and not fun when you go as the game intend and you get sera lux botlane perma stun/insta ik since early game mages clean too well the wave scale harder if apc becomes the new meta there is no point for ADc to exist they really have nowhere to go and it is alredy pretty stressful to play as adc normally when is not the mage sup steal minion and kill its a mage botlane not allow you to play
@@DaviVolpi437 fair enough, the role used to be about a dmg dealer that could pump enough dmg to kill tanks and the game was centered around them being a win condition, but the game has changed throughout the years, ADc is no longer who deals more dmg, i would argue botlane has shifted towards more utility making APc who have better abilities like you said simply better in any case, adc do have other places to go for example kalista used to be meta in top lane, vayne rightnow is an insane top lane carry, and a few years ago lucian and tristana were incredible midlane early game champs, this off-meta/dual role strats were sadly nerfed, thats why i think off-meta works as long as people can keep an open mind and try to understand why it would or wouldnt work.
Also yeah it is pretty stressful, having to play around your random sup vs a duo is very unfair in my opinion.
@@wuthraw4205 i really enjoy to play botlane if we ignore the stress and like you said the role did change a lot riot should do something for the role to be honest ofc we are not the main dps most cases but since most adc are made exclusive for dmg some times i feel like we dont have a place do go tank /bruisers go hard on top mid cc and ap takes place there and goes the burst thing sup when people go as intended tank or peel adc some times feel very useless bcs all the other roles do everything better dmg ? Jg mid top cc? Sup top jg mid tank? Jg top like i said some times i feel like we donr have a place in the game its pretty sad to be honest
@@DaviVolpi437 yeah i agree, the past year adc has felt very left out of the game, you dont have the roaminng potential of the jg, sup or mid, your splitpush is really bad when u lose 1 vs 1 against anyone in the game, but i think its a matter of the community rather than the game, in a perfect escenario you would love to have an adc with a peeling support in any teamfight, but lets be honest in solo queue you have a roaming yuumi duo with jg that refuses to help the adc, honestly its a sad state and i would recommend you to give the degenerate vayne top an honest try, it feels way better to have control of your own laning phase as a top laner, but if you want to still play bot i can only recommend ap mages like seraphine, swain, learning hwei or playing the 1 viable adc of the patch.
For a change i would love to see lane exclusive summ spells, something like smite for every role would make every lane feel unique imo.
Basically, Riot police player fun arbitrarily.
Honestly i think some gimmic builds work out though such as Thresh top as it allows him to lane by himself. However it does also deminish some of his team fight perks like not being as durable if he is jumped by an assassin
6:45 Please no i just forgot about this horror. I play since 2011 and have faced many off this Gimmik builds. But non of them where so frustrating to play against as Tank Ekko. It was just a unfair build.
He still had good Burst on Squishys and Tanks, with good CC. But at the same time was unkillable, because of beeing a Tank, and having so much Mobility + Ult that just heals him and bring him back to save while still dealing good damage. This build was so unfair. I was celebrating when it finally got removed. Tank Akali (Old one) had a similar build.
I definitely agree tank Ekko was busted and a problem but i think they should have just tuned him for the role rather than remove it, his kit synergy with long term fights over burst in and out is so strong that even nowadays bruiser is still viable. They scaled him so far towards assassin that all he needs is one or two ap items then build tank after that
we need a part 2, i feel like AD ahri/leblanc, lethality udyr, and full AH (impregnator) gragas shouldve been talked about
I’ve been an Ekko main through all his meta’s and Tankko was by far his most fun time to play, it also felt really intuitive as well, everything in his kit made sense for a sustained fight rather than an in and out engagement. Being able to fight your opponent and push them towards your W is far easier than trying to predict the near infinite amount of directions they could go and missing means you don’t get to fight. His ultimate has so much damage that ap Ekko uses mostly to save him from dying after or in the middle of a single engagement, Tankko could fight you until his ult was right where he wanted it. Right now they over tuned his scaling so all Ekko has to do is build one ap item then build tank and it’s bar none my favorite way to play him because ap Ekko just feels useless especially with the damage creep because Ekko could very well die before he could even finish getting his damage off or ult to safety with out doing anything because he couldn’t proc his passive which is basically where all his burst damage is.
pre-rework AP tristana was my favorite. That poke with the dot was just absolutely silly, and in teamfights you removed one enemy at the start no questions asked and then played like a diet kata with the resets.
One issue with gimmick builds is that the community wants the builds they like but not others. So i see why Riot just removes the off builds in general.
On a side note, I remember a couple seasons ago when I was able to play Pyke mid to great success before riot decided to nerf his laning phase almost completely out of existence. It just seems like nowadays they’re so against people not following the norm on how you’re supposed to play the game.
I just like playing any champ any line and try if it works, Elise and Olaf suppor worked for me last season, so did Soraka mid lane. Just let people enjoy this off meta non troll builds and see how the game becomes more fun and with a better variety. Items changeing playstyles its what makes them fun, like talents on HotS
This is true, but only in sporadic bursts. Camille Support/JNG is completely cancerous because she gets the benefits of the Champion without needing any restrictions of having to scale. She can just launch into you and blow you up, denying a good experience in the lane.
Arguing that, "it's fun so it should stay," is a fast way to make the game devolve. AP Poke Kai'Sa isn't the problem. It's that AP Kai'Sa does Xerath's job BETTER than Xerath. AP Zeri isn't a problem because she does a lot of damage. It's that there is no penalty for missing, since she can just E over a wall. Tank Ekko isn't a problem because he does Max HP Magic Damage and speeds up when near Champions (Singed). It's because his game plan warps the game around him, making the game devolve into how he gets have his, "fun," without there being any way to solve the issue.
So true, this why smite is better. You can actually do dumb stuff like full tank adc or full damage tank, mobility assassins etc and it actually can work. The characters are just the base for the items. Otherwise what is the point of items? Just to make your numbers go up but do the same thing? That's really boring. You can still do it to a degree in league, but it's still 90% just snowball, it doesn't matter how you build or how you play if someones fed. In smite you can be losing, but if you build smart you can still come out on top. My whole team can feed and it doesn't matter I can still 1 vs 5 because I didn't feed, that's how it should be.
@@Pax_Mayn3ah yeah that's how league should be the ennemy team is far better than my team but I should be able to 1v5
@@baptistecochennec5956 If youre better than the enemy team, yep, exactly.
@@Pax_Mayn3 you are not far better if you we'rent capable of being fed urself
There was a channel dedicated to those, Evelyn Sunfire, AP shaco (Long before was popular), and specially AP Caitlyn
Rip Nhipia
As someone who plays off meta (and gimmick builds) more than not, if they remove it they would take out a huge part of the fun in league.
When i think of gimmick builds that end up having legs, i think "non - mage / assassin with weirdly good AP ratios" or "non - tank / bruiser who offers a lot of control bruiser inherently".
Way back - in - the - day AP Alistar had 1.0 AP ratios on W - Qs. So yes , assassin cow was a real thing.
ADC Kennen is a classic. Was a very popular way to play him for awhile.
Tank Karma was my favorite top laner in the game for awhile. It made sense. Lane bully, good base damages, useful to the team later on unlike a lot of top laners and great synergy with a lot of tank items.
Gimmick builds are awesome for the game and only become a problem when a degenrate playstyle ala Sniper Kai'sa ends up being a real thing. Just full on cheese.
Something like Tank echo should be encouraged though. Players realizing a kit works surpaingly well as a different class. It not like AP Kai'sa doing her best OG Nidalee impression. Its the same character choosing to build around the fact they he can become very difficult to kill while still providing reasonable damage.
There is no way that you imply tank karma toplane terrorism was acceptable
Klepto top karma! That was my favorite way to do it. I miss that rune.
I still do AS Neeko sometimes. Like, to goof. ARAM's or special game modes. I think it's a fun build.
neeko is neeko so she should be able to play as a mage, a marksman, a bruiser, a tank, an enchanter and an assassin. If you disagree, don't even talk to me
Basically some of these comments lol
gimmick builds are just tough because items are balanced around champions and classes and when other classes start abusing them you can't adjust the item without affecting an entirely different set of champs imo
So, cringebow Yone.
Its also about versatility. If you give a champion 3 builds that each radically change when they can do, You’ll create a champ who can be picked for all 3 positions
You are so far off on Kai'sa and Zeri and the reasons for their nerfs it's kinda comical actually. It has nothing to do with "riot doesn't intend them to play this way" but to illustrate this let me tell you about another champion.
This champion had a long range "poke" tool that could potentially 1 shot someone. If you attempt to engage on them they have an escape and even if you get to do damage to them they can just negate it and keep poking you. If her poke doesn't one shot you than she can instantly gap close and finish you off with little to no counter play.
No I'm not talking about Zeri or Kai'sa I'm talking about old school Nidalee. Her Q used to do just as much if not more damage than Kai'sa and Zeri's long range poke options and she had a shorter CD escape with her pounce and she could heal any damage you did to her. This isn't much different than Kai'sa poking you with her W then ulting in with a massive shield to negate any damage you do to her while finishing you with her Q, or Zeri following up with her ult and Q spam. The issue isn't if a champ has long range poke, Xerath/Vel'Koz/etc are fine, but notice how none of them have escapes or anything they can really do once someone jumps on them? That is why the playstyle works for them, if they keep you at range they win, if you close the gap you win. This doesn't apply with Kai'sa who can go invisible or reposition with a massive shield, or Zeri who can just jump over a wall while throwing a massive nuke at you for your efforts.
Poke champions can't have escapes and personal survival tools like Kai'sa and Zeri do, they have to be fragile because their massive range is their survivable tool. You can either have those tools and play at close range, or not have them and play at range but you can't have both. Riot established this when they nerfed it for Nid so it's not a surprise Zeri and Kai'sa lost it as well.
I've been destroying ARAM and URF games with AP Zeri
I think it also have a lot to be related to counterplay and expected frustration. Zeri and kaisa were champs dealing a ton of damage from a distance you cant answer, with ekko, it was a champ with damage, survivability, movility (hi yone). While AP cho will die way faster than tank, AP twitch is a paper just like AD. Another example would be impregnator gragas. It was a build that would be hard to make it work, but when it worked, it had no counterplay
When Riot changed how Moonstone works in version 13.10, I got pretty annoyed, because it removed my Little Medic builds for Teemo and Twitch. Their DoT's would proc Moonstone constantly, which sometimes let me have higher healing numbers at the end of the game than a Soraka. Those builds were actually pretty fun and while probably not as useful as going AP, were decently viable (at least in low elo drafts with a 5-stack). Twitch was better for straight healing, letting you heal up to 500 hp over the DoT's duration, but Teemo had more utility with his blind and shrooms for disruption and intel. I really wish something like this would be possible again.
I think it just comes down to the gameplay health of the build. Ap zeri and kaisa were just uninteractive, doing most of your healthbar from further away than xerath can, and still having mobility on top of it
Where was teemo but at the same time he’s a specialist
it would be really interesting if you made a video like this but on specialists specifically
it's kind of an old video but this video reminded me of your specialists video "Specialists: The Class No One Plays | League of Legends"
12:20 Can you analyse the same theme but on the " famous " item collector ? its built by a lot of champs , but these champs can still be played without this item. my opinion is : if you have no skill , build it and you'll automaticly get fed. i think the execute line breaks entirely the game.
Honestly I just think they nerf the builds they don't like. 13 years ago they were a lot more open to unusual builds, most champion had AP scaling even if they were intended to be played AD. Now it's like they have a unique plan on how each champion should be played and if a build that goes against their vision becomes popular they nerf it to the ground.