Buzz
Head of LoL champion design team - Riot August recently shared some highly notable insights regarding champion power adjustments.
Despite not many changes to champions and items, the Pre-Season 2022 still generated some highly imbalanced gameplay. Most notably, players abusing the Bonus Gold system and taking Support champions to solo lanes to bolster their remaining teammates. Not to mention the Akali Turbocharged Armor strategy, leading Riot to nerf these strategies recently.
The question here is why these strategies weren't nerfed earlier to prevent their proliferation? In response, head of LoL champion design team - Riot August revealed that they were aware of these strategies beforehand. However, Riot couldn't nerf them earlier as it would stifle player creativity and make LoL extremely dull.
Riot August: 'You often ask me when to buff champion A, nerf champion B... but the decision-making process is incredibly complex. We need to carefully consider before tweaking a champion because it could lead to highly imbalanced and abused gameplay.'
To be honest, I'm well aware of many powerful strategies existing in LoL, yet we refrain from nerfing due to their low pick rates. If we mechanically nerf champions like that, it will make the game extremely dull, furthermore, it will diminish player creativity. If that happens, Kled would have been nerfed 10 times in a row as he's an extremely strong Mid Lane champion. We've made this mistake with Aurelion Sol before and won't let it happen again.'
Truly, when it comes to creativity and 'out-of-the-box' thinking, LoL players have come up with numerous incredibly unique strategies. Just in patch 12.3 alone, some have considered using Top Lane Viktor, equipped with Immortal Shieldbow, building Serrated Dirk to stack up health and scale stronger towards late game. Some even go as far as using Diana with Sunfire Aegis or Irelia with Turbocharged Armor to climb the ranks.
On the side of Riot Games, they have all the data on these strategies, but reducing the power of those with extremely low pick rates is unnecessary. Even the Janna Top strategy with Ignite remains untouched despite its inception in the preseason of 2022. Only when this strategy is excessively abused and its pick rate skyrockets does Riot Games tone down its power.
