Gimmick Builds: Why Riot Keeps Removing Them | League of Legends
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.พ. 2024
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Throughout history, champions have sometimes gone builds that deviate from what they're normally known for. Many of those builds have since been made defunct, and it's extremely rare for Riot to allow them to stay. Today we'll be discussing why Gimmick Builds keep getting removed from the game.
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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.
@@user-dr5hp9kz3p 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.
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
"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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
11:37 Basically what differentiates LoL from Dota 2.
off meta is the peak of league
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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)
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.
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)
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
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
look at kaisa, corki and smolder then ask this question again
Popularity certianly enhances the dislike. However I am again stressing the main point. How UNFUN it is to play against (correlated with counterplay).
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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
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
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
FACECHECKSKARNER MENTIONED RAAAAGH
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."
we need a part 2, i feel like AD ahri/leblanc, lethality udyr, and full AH (impregnator) gragas shouldve been talked about
I remember one of my favorite gimmick builds that actually worked was bruiser Akali before she got her rebuild, it was so brainded it was so fun to play lol
This season will be the season for off meta. Look at the crazy synergy between ingenious hunter and some tank/bruiser items. Everyone cooked up some insane build. From baus and his fimbulwinter+eclipse+ingenious j4 to xpetu with unending despair+titanic hydra+spirit visage+ingenuious shen. Even high korean challenger tops are playing perma shield insane heal voli. It seems like riot nerfed ability haste but added items with cooldowns and forgot to nerf item haste. But what riot's crackdown on these strategies will be we dont know yet
I dont really understand how this is supposed to be off meta. Active items are just normal items. Item haste is great too when you are going to build multipe cooldown items. And yeah there are a lot of items with cooldowns right now that can be purchased at the same time, but that is because Riot decided to remove Mythics which previously made you choose between the vast majority of active item choices. Even before mythics a lot of active items had shared cooldowns (Hydras and Hextech) but in cases of Unending Despair, Sundered Sky and Eclipse they don't limit your purchase choices like lifeline items for example and have cooldowns of around 6 seconds, which makes them very strong with item haste. Item haste is not really broken for items with higher cooldowns. Having said all that i actually find those builds fun and not at all something to be removed from the game, but if they ever go overboard Riot can just lock them behind unique passive so some of them can't be purchased together. Nerfing item haste would make the rune not worth it when you are interested in a particular item cooldown that works well with your champion rather than whole build full of coodlown items.
J4 build is not a Baus invention. Guy named kingniddhog played it last season with divine sunderer
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
I still do AS Neeko sometimes. Like, to goof. ARAM's or special game modes. I think it's a fun build.
There was a channel dedicated to those, Evelyn Sunfire, AP shaco (Long before was popular), and specially AP Caitlyn
Rip Nhipia
Man I miss playing AP zeri lol. The right click and r damage was so fun, and hitting all three after jumping a wall was satisfying af. I get why they nerfed it but I wish they could add a reset to her charged right click on her dash or smth because now she doesn’t have a full combo in AP
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
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.
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.
Playes themselves will hammer down on off meta strats (sometimes understandably)
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?
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
Just throwing it out there but full ad Sion that more threatening when dead is basically just fast zombie instead of slow zombie both kinda work
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.
Right now exploring off meta builds for Hwei. Kinda scary with some of them too. One of the funniest so far has been high mobility Hwei.
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
HAHAHA the Mordekaiser, i remember this moment 12:20
What are your thoughts on the new Ingenious Hunter tank builds? Like they seem strong but I like how the use items that riot has just kinda abandoned like Fimblewinter and Unending Despair
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
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 had decent success recently with onhit neeko lmao, and if you run hybrid with something like rageblade and nashors you absolutely wreck towers
What I do now in s14 is Protobelt on Morde. If the enemy isn't mainly frontline and it's more squishies like kindred, nami, caitlyn etc. I can just skip rift and build proto since it gives me a mini dash the rockets slow with Rylais combo. ALL OF THIS FOR ONLY 2500 GOLD BTW. It's basically old stridebreaker but for aps and weaker so I'd say it's balanced even on a stat checky juggernaut like Morde.
My favorite off-meta build was lethality cait, and literally one shot an adc or supp with R from 2 screens away, but it was nerfed :c
I've been destroying ARAM and URF games with AP Zeri
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 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
What about shyvana? From a close range fighter(AD/Bruiser) to a mid range poking fire breathing dragon(AP), two different playstyles/two different builds, is it allowed just to keep the "fire dragon fantasy" alive?
You should do a video on "pro play champs" champs that suck on solo q but are gods in pro play
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?
heart steel hydra kayle. def a wild build.
you become pretty much unkillable (pretty much)
wen a champ that averages 2k health, has 6k, you are literally 3 times harder to kill.
When you talked about khazix W I immediately had flash backs to Kha midland with old brutalizer 😢
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.
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
I like the options to play a champ 2 or 3 other ways, the issue is balance. And learning to counter play/pick/build.
Everyday i miss my healer Ashe with echoes of helia, that was the time that I had the most fun in the game and it just makes me wonder when are they going to release a marksman thats not around damage, but around healing.
Not like senna, her healing is more of a plus than the whole champion's identity
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
"u know what else u can cook up? hello fresh!" okay take my sub funny guy
I have all the characyers in the video on SS. Should I attempt going for SSS Luna or Plume? Or don't bother and go for SS on older frames so they are more usable?
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 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'm a firm believer in taking sejuani in either top or mid. She does a surprising amount of dmg and if she goes rod of ages or titanic she clears waves really well
My fav one had to be chemtank akali, it was fun for 1 patch
I remember when Karthus Jungle used to be an off meta pick and now its the only lane you see him in
and even in jungle, its really rare to see a karthus in general, the champion itself has a design that attracts some players being a lich/undead mage, but his gameplay is so weird and anti-interactive that he should have a rework because its always:-
Karthus is so strong that he takes half your teams health with one R, and even if you kill him, he is stills able to dish out tons of damage
or he is so weak that he is only able to secure/steal one kill here and there
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.
AP sivir was OP back in the day, AP with CD reduction, she could kill tanks with just her Q, or kite them with ult, while throwing her Q. As AD sivir and crit sivir was useless back then.
I'd sometimes love to see in League some of the Dota balancing shenanigans, like having a consumable of measly 50g that gives invisibility to your whole team for 45 seconds that bypasses control wards, and you get detected while near an enemy champion.
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.
Alex Ich playing AP Master Yi. I'll never forget that.
I’ve always been a big fan off meta builds, for me it all started in the beta, I remember all the hate I got when I played teemo as AP instead of ad or when I played alistair as ap instead of tank or Malphite as ap instead of tank or blitz as ap instead of tank… wait I’m noticing a pattern here…
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
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.
For me, I think another aspect for "good" and "bad" off-meta build is the different between, Neat and Niche but effective, and The pure oversight overpowered.
For example, Full AP Kai'sa dealt Ton of damage on one basic skill that happen to have a ton of AP scaling, which also got low CD (which even lower if hit), with very long range, when AP scaling was accounted for Mixed ADAP build or On-hit with some AP. While for Cho'gath, AP scaling is high, but it's hard to hit, has ok range, and Tank Build is more consistence, also, Full AP Cho'gath is something that's expected too.
Also another aspect is probably how fair to fight against, as Tank Ekko and Fizz can deal a lot of damage, stick on top of target, and tank a lot of damage, while AP Twitch, you can jump on him and just kill him.
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.
Still dreaming of the day they give teemo an ad scaling on something, even if it's just the attack speed on his passive or the move speed on w
Waiting on the day for ad kennen to have more as ratios… make no sense for champs to be apart of several classes and can’t really play like that class.
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.
I still remember AP Tristana before her rework. She was so damn fun.
Where was teemo but at the same time he’s a specialist
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
Neekos On-Hit build is literally Dev-approved as they mentioned on reddit they wanted to maintain that playstyle.
On hit neeko still works !