Well, I just tried the new Kassadin in two co-op games. I went mid against Karthus in both, so testing was pretty silly. What I need to see is how Kassadin fares against Kha'Zix and such, not how easily he thrashes Karthus. My thoughts so far...
-The shield doesn't really do much. He probably won't counter AP carries any harder than he used to.
-His damage is nerfed, but it's mostly still acceptable. Force Pulse still hits hard enough to be adequate.
-New Nether Blade kind of sucks for fighting, but the mana restoration portion actually matters now.
-He still says ,"Silence" and his joke is still about trying to silence his mother. Really, Riot?
-Riftwalking more than twice in a row is is usually either impossible or empties my mana. But this is also, I find, an acceptable nerf.
-Rod of Ages is just so good. I hate the thought of putting it off over a stupid Tear. This could make ult-chaining impossible, but being able to take a hit without shattering instantly is too important.
-This isn't so ruinous as the Sivir rework. I could seem myself still playing Kassadin. I'll have to see if he can withstand AD opponents, since they were precarious (but beatable) before, and he lost tools against them without gaining anything to compensate.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
The Kassadin Rework
Because I haven't been paying attention, I didn't realize that there's a patch happening right now and that it involves a Kassadin "rework." I won't say "Kassadin is my main" but that has been pretty close, actually. I was undefeated in Ranked play with Kassadin last season, and I can't remember the last time I lost a Normal game with him either. I've done very, very well with Kassadin for a long time. I wouldn't hesitate to call him my second best champion, at least before today. I've been critical of Riot's changes to champions in the past, although not universally so. Some changes have been necessary. I'll preface my ranting with a few points of interest...
For me, the three biggest issues regarding champion changes have been a big Karthus nerf that happened in Season 2, the Sivir rework in Season 3, and the prospect of a Sion rework (which has yet to materialize). And now there's this Kassadin rework.
The Karthus change was a big hit to his Wall of Pain. Karthus had been my main in Season 2, but I relied heavily on the magic resistance reduction from that wall. The way I was playing him back then, I maxed Wall of Pain second for its power in teamfights, shredding enemy MR so that I could more easily kill everyone and also shredding armor so that my teammates could do more damage too. I also relied on the MR reduction, spell vamp, and Zhonya's Hourglass to kill fed AD carries, even when they had lifesteal to use against me. Previous nerfs to Karthus had left his kit generally intact, but this one made the way I'd been playing unviable. Karthus was my main. He still is, but after that nerf, I dropped him for the remainder of the season. I picked him up again in Season 3 because the advent of Liandry's Torment gave him more than what the nerf had taken away. I shifted to maxing my Defile second and made other adjustments, reconnecting with my favorite champion. I've never looked back. Karthus is still #1 for me, and I have no intention to change that.
Sivir had been my second most-played champion in Ranked, and was on track to replace Singed for that title in my Normal games, although I don't have statistics for those to confirm this. In Season 2, Sivir got me my first pentakill ever. The rework fundamentally ruined everything I liked about playing Sivir. I haven't touched her since. Sivir remains dead to me. I ranted about this last year.
Sion is one of my favorite champions, but I'm always hesitant to play him because it can take me too long to get going. I consider him too risky, but I'm a big fan and would like to make him one of my primary champions if I weren't so chicken about it. In my last Ranked game of Season 3, I launched myself into a promo series (which I never completed) by turning a losing game around with a glorious Sion pentakill. Even though I don't main Sion, I desperately want to, and I'd be irritated if a rework took away the things I like about him. He's supposedly going to be reworked, and his AP crap is a mess, so it makes sense, but I'm apprehensive: I'd rather have my awkward Sion with the things I like than lose them when he's reworked.
Back in August, I composed lists of all the champions I owned, sorted by how I planned to use them in the future, in preparation for Ranked play. Kassadin was in List A, the only other mid champ in my "use only in draft because you're good enough with this" list besides Karthus. And when I did use Kassadin in Ranked, like I said, I always won. I'm more comfortable with Karthus, of course, but I'd like to think I knew Kassadin pretty well. Based on my experience, I have to admit, he was a little too good. Unless opponents were careful, he could snowball quickly and inexorably. He was recently nerfed, and I was fine with that. It was called for.
There's something in League of Legends that I'm pretty comfortable calling a trap. Maybe it's even a newb trap, although that doesn't seem quite accurate, since experienced players fall into it a lot. The trap is called "Archangel's Staff." Karthus and Kassadin are two of my best champions and I always seem to hold my own with them. I rush Rod of Ages and don't go anywhere near Archangel's Staff in my item builds for them. I see other people do it all the time. And I see them do poorly, but they think they know what they're doing. They don't. They're bad and they should feel bad. Of course, the item isn't always a trap, but it's a very big trap when it is a trap, and people fall into it surprisingly often. Archangel's Staff is great on Ryze, who needs maximum mana for his damage output. I rush Tear of the Goddess (and eventually build it into Archangel's Staff) on Anivia all the time because she works best as a glass cannon that sits back and blasts enemies from behind her ult, so mana and AP are her biggest needs. Kassadin though? No.
I think that trap is partially responsible for my Kassadin success in the past, in a roundabout way. That's because Tear rushes on Kassadin were so popular that my opponents may have gotten used to them. Then, when they think because they're playing an AD champion and can counter Kassadin, they fail to account for the fact that my Catalyst rush is way more robust than a Tear rush. I faced champions like Talon, Zed, Kha'Zix, and Pantheon as a Kassadin mid, and I won lane against all of them. Talon can reliably silence Kassadin and hit him with his full combo before Kassadin can retaliate, but I won anyway. I usually started with a Sapphire Crystal so I'd have enough mana to play my spells, but I'd also get health potions and I'd keep a stock of health potions for the whole laning phase. I couldn't avoid the spells of enemy AD casters, so I'd wait until I had Force Pulse, then wade in and take those spells to the face, retaliating with my own. It would be a losing battle, but with my early emphasis on health potions, it became more of a stalemate. If enemies were cautious, I could farm. If they got greedy, which they almost always did, I killed them. And since Kassadin's AP scaling would eventually surpass the damage output of other assassins, I could afford to be cautious myself, because I knew I'd keep getting stronger.
Kassadin was the most banned champion in draft games. Riot was quick to point that out in addressing the need for this rework. But it's more complicated than that. Kassadin's sheer power and snowballing were only part of the reason he was banned so much. There was another reason, and I think it may have really been the more important reason. After all, I almost always banned Kassadin myself when I was captaining teams, and I knew exactly what my reason was. It wasn't because Kassadin was OP. It was because I wanted to play Karthus, and Kassadin counters the crap out of him. There are very few champions I hate facing as Karthus. Mordekaiser can push through me if my jungler doesn't help. Fiddlesticks forces me to push (and risk being ganked) or face a gradual, painful fate of being harassed to death under my on turret. Veigar punishes me for building AP and can outscale my damage. But none of those counter me outright because I know Karthus' capabilities too well. Kassadin's another story: I've said that I could get countered even by totally inferior players if they were piloting Kassadin. So yeah, I never picked Karthus in draft if Kassadin was open. It was a rule I made for myself that I never broke. Karthus might be an extreme case, but I'm not even sure about that. Kassadin is a hard counter to almost any true AP carry. If the mages that can do the most for teams are countered so badly by a champion, of course players are going to want to ban that champion!
With that out of the way, I'll examine what Riot has to say about the Kassadin rework...
For me, the three biggest issues regarding champion changes have been a big Karthus nerf that happened in Season 2, the Sivir rework in Season 3, and the prospect of a Sion rework (which has yet to materialize). And now there's this Kassadin rework.
The Karthus change was a big hit to his Wall of Pain. Karthus had been my main in Season 2, but I relied heavily on the magic resistance reduction from that wall. The way I was playing him back then, I maxed Wall of Pain second for its power in teamfights, shredding enemy MR so that I could more easily kill everyone and also shredding armor so that my teammates could do more damage too. I also relied on the MR reduction, spell vamp, and Zhonya's Hourglass to kill fed AD carries, even when they had lifesteal to use against me. Previous nerfs to Karthus had left his kit generally intact, but this one made the way I'd been playing unviable. Karthus was my main. He still is, but after that nerf, I dropped him for the remainder of the season. I picked him up again in Season 3 because the advent of Liandry's Torment gave him more than what the nerf had taken away. I shifted to maxing my Defile second and made other adjustments, reconnecting with my favorite champion. I've never looked back. Karthus is still #1 for me, and I have no intention to change that.
Sivir had been my second most-played champion in Ranked, and was on track to replace Singed for that title in my Normal games, although I don't have statistics for those to confirm this. In Season 2, Sivir got me my first pentakill ever. The rework fundamentally ruined everything I liked about playing Sivir. I haven't touched her since. Sivir remains dead to me. I ranted about this last year.
Sion is one of my favorite champions, but I'm always hesitant to play him because it can take me too long to get going. I consider him too risky, but I'm a big fan and would like to make him one of my primary champions if I weren't so chicken about it. In my last Ranked game of Season 3, I launched myself into a promo series (which I never completed) by turning a losing game around with a glorious Sion pentakill. Even though I don't main Sion, I desperately want to, and I'd be irritated if a rework took away the things I like about him. He's supposedly going to be reworked, and his AP crap is a mess, so it makes sense, but I'm apprehensive: I'd rather have my awkward Sion with the things I like than lose them when he's reworked.
Back in August, I composed lists of all the champions I owned, sorted by how I planned to use them in the future, in preparation for Ranked play. Kassadin was in List A, the only other mid champ in my "use only in draft because you're good enough with this" list besides Karthus. And when I did use Kassadin in Ranked, like I said, I always won. I'm more comfortable with Karthus, of course, but I'd like to think I knew Kassadin pretty well. Based on my experience, I have to admit, he was a little too good. Unless opponents were careful, he could snowball quickly and inexorably. He was recently nerfed, and I was fine with that. It was called for.
There's something in League of Legends that I'm pretty comfortable calling a trap. Maybe it's even a newb trap, although that doesn't seem quite accurate, since experienced players fall into it a lot. The trap is called "Archangel's Staff." Karthus and Kassadin are two of my best champions and I always seem to hold my own with them. I rush Rod of Ages and don't go anywhere near Archangel's Staff in my item builds for them. I see other people do it all the time. And I see them do poorly, but they think they know what they're doing. They don't. They're bad and they should feel bad. Of course, the item isn't always a trap, but it's a very big trap when it is a trap, and people fall into it surprisingly often. Archangel's Staff is great on Ryze, who needs maximum mana for his damage output. I rush Tear of the Goddess (and eventually build it into Archangel's Staff) on Anivia all the time because she works best as a glass cannon that sits back and blasts enemies from behind her ult, so mana and AP are her biggest needs. Kassadin though? No.
I think that trap is partially responsible for my Kassadin success in the past, in a roundabout way. That's because Tear rushes on Kassadin were so popular that my opponents may have gotten used to them. Then, when they think because they're playing an AD champion and can counter Kassadin, they fail to account for the fact that my Catalyst rush is way more robust than a Tear rush. I faced champions like Talon, Zed, Kha'Zix, and Pantheon as a Kassadin mid, and I won lane against all of them. Talon can reliably silence Kassadin and hit him with his full combo before Kassadin can retaliate, but I won anyway. I usually started with a Sapphire Crystal so I'd have enough mana to play my spells, but I'd also get health potions and I'd keep a stock of health potions for the whole laning phase. I couldn't avoid the spells of enemy AD casters, so I'd wait until I had Force Pulse, then wade in and take those spells to the face, retaliating with my own. It would be a losing battle, but with my early emphasis on health potions, it became more of a stalemate. If enemies were cautious, I could farm. If they got greedy, which they almost always did, I killed them. And since Kassadin's AP scaling would eventually surpass the damage output of other assassins, I could afford to be cautious myself, because I knew I'd keep getting stronger.
Kassadin was the most banned champion in draft games. Riot was quick to point that out in addressing the need for this rework. But it's more complicated than that. Kassadin's sheer power and snowballing were only part of the reason he was banned so much. There was another reason, and I think it may have really been the more important reason. After all, I almost always banned Kassadin myself when I was captaining teams, and I knew exactly what my reason was. It wasn't because Kassadin was OP. It was because I wanted to play Karthus, and Kassadin counters the crap out of him. There are very few champions I hate facing as Karthus. Mordekaiser can push through me if my jungler doesn't help. Fiddlesticks forces me to push (and risk being ganked) or face a gradual, painful fate of being harassed to death under my on turret. Veigar punishes me for building AP and can outscale my damage. But none of those counter me outright because I know Karthus' capabilities too well. Kassadin's another story: I've said that I could get countered even by totally inferior players if they were piloting Kassadin. So yeah, I never picked Karthus in draft if Kassadin was open. It was a rule I made for myself that I never broke. Karthus might be an extreme case, but I'm not even sure about that. Kassadin is a hard counter to almost any true AP carry. If the mages that can do the most for teams are countered so badly by a champion, of course players are going to want to ban that champion!
With that out of the way, I'll examine what Riot has to say about the Kassadin rework...
I agree that there was a problem, but I don't agree that this describes it. For one thing, he didn't have "strong disables." He had silence and a moderate slow. The slow was useful to secure kills, but wasn't as extreme as other slows in the game. His mobility (and burst damage) did make counterplay problematic, but nonexistent "strong disables" weren't a factor. It's completely inaccurate to say that "increasing his cooldowns means he just needs to wait longer before blowing somebody up." That's stupid. It's not how cooldowns work, not on anyone. In Kassadin's case, the main limitations were the cooldown on his ult and the need to charge Force Pulse. Increasing either of those wouldn't let him just "wait" and then blow enemies up. That's not how the game works. Waiting means that they escape. He's an assassin. People aren't going to stand still while he waits for his spells to cool down.
Old Kassadin's combination of high mobility, strong disables and high burst damage left his victims with very few to no options against him (other than banning him in every single ranked game), especially when he snowballed ahead. Our focus here is to introduce more counterplay to Kassadin's kit, something we couldn't do with number tweaks alone. For example, lowering Kass's damage doesn't make for an interesting gameplay interaction (it just means you can turn around and smash him in the face if you survive the burst), while increasing his cooldowns means he just needs to wait longer before blowing somebody up.
In the end, we opted for a full-on kit rework to reinforce his core theme as an anti-magic assassin with unrivaled mobility. These changes mean Kassadin must rely on his mobility to pick fights while finding opportunities to dive in and out of combat to take out targets. It's worth stressing: these changes are to make Kassadin less of a "blow someone up when you can" champion and more of a mobile attacker who wants to get in to fight while using Riftwalk to stay safe. Obviously, this is a significant change, so we'll be watching his performance very closely.
So now he's an assassin that can't kill people? I play pretty conservatively. Ask anyone who's ever played with me. I prefer to stay safe and let opponents overextend, rather than going all-in on kill attempts. And yet, I can say that diving in and going for the throat was the whole thing that made Kassadin rewarding. One doesn't "get in to fight while using Riftwalk to stay safe." Kassadin is a freaking assassin. He kills people. He gets kills. That's what makes him fun. There are other assassins. They can do that too. If Kassadin is just a "mobile attacker" and not someone that kills people, players will just switch to using a different assassin because a "mobile attacker" that doesn't kill is not a viable concept.
I'll skip the next paragraph, which just summarizes the changes, and get to the details of the rework.
Attack Range increased from 125 to 150
I guess that makes Nether Blade a bit better, but it's not a big deal.
Void Stone now has Kassadin ignore unit collision, but loses its attack speed boost
This is also pretty minor. It makes Nether Blade a bit worse, but the attack speed increase was negligible anyway. Ignoring unit collision is also not a big deal for Kassadin, since he's ulting to move over everything anyway. So far, this is fine, but uninteresting.
Null Sphere loses some of the flat portion of its damage. Down from 80/110/140/170/200 + 0.7 AP to 80/105/130/155/180 + 0.7 AP
Well, that doesn't hurt his bad early game and doesn't cripple him later on, so I'm fine with this.
Null Sphere now grants Kassadin a shield for 1.5 seconds that absorbs 40/70/100/130/160 (+0.3 Ability Power) magic damage
So now he'll counter AP mages even harder! I thought lack of counterplay was the problem we were trying to solve here, but I guess not.
No longer silences, instead it interrupts channel spells
And now his Q is useless against AD casters. His passive was already useless against them and their kits usually let them harass him a lot. They took away the part of his Q that was useful against AD opponents, and gave him something that's even stronger against AP opponents. That's not counterplay; it's just a crappy counterpicking game where Kassadin beats AP and loses to AD by default.
New version of Nether Blade. Its has a passive portion that adds 20 + 0.1 AP magic damage to autoattacks. Its active costs no mana, has a 6-second cooldown, and makes Kassadin's next basic attack deal 40/65/90/115/140 + 0.6 AP magic damage and restore a percentage of his missing mana (4/5/6/7/8% normally and 20/25/30/35/40% against champions). It also resets his autoattack.
A bit worse than his old W, really. It might make farming minions a bit easier at some point, but I'm not sure. Not a big deal, either way.
Flat damage on Force Pulse has been reduced. It's down from 80/120/160/200/240 + 0.7 AP to 80/105/130/155/180 + 0.7 AP
This one makes his terrible laning phase even worse. I always, always, always maxed my E first, so I could have some decent damage before I built up enough gold to buy Rod of Ages and Rabadon's Deathcap. This is a pretty severe nerf even by itself.
Riftwalk loses its freaking AP ratio and gets a maximum mana ratio instead (2% of maximum mana instead of 0.8 AP)
No! Dammit. He's Kassadin, not Ryze. Why would he get mana scaling? This encourages building Archangel's Staff on him, and that was the stupid trap people were falling into already. I hate this.
Riftwalk's stacking damage is changed from 50/55/60 to 40/50/60 and the 0.1 AP ratio is replaced with 1% of maximum mana
The flat damage change is consistent with changes to make it harder for him to snowball the middle of the game, but the mana scaling crap is horrible. Give me back my AP scaling, you monsters!
Riftwalk stacks four times instead of ten
This makes some sense. Being able to ult on my way to a fight, during the fight, and then while chasing someone down so that my fully stacked ult obliterated them was kind of silly and needed to be stopped. I'm fine with this, although in conjunction with the other nerfs, it does weaken Kassadin too much.
Riftwalk now doubles its mana cost with each stack instead of increasing by 100 mana
That sounds harsh by itself, but it fits with the previous change and the change to Kassadin's W. Fair enough.
Riftwalk no longer refunds mana on hitting enemy champions
A nerf, but a reasonable one. To be honest, this doesn't matter much either way. Most Kassadin ults don't hit enemy champions and I wouldn't rely on mana reimbursement anyway. I forgot this was even a thing.
Riftwalk starting mana cost reduced from 100 to 75
Well, since it doubles with each stack up to four times, that helps. It's still going to cost 1,200 when fully stacked, though. That's a lot. He might really need Archangel's Staff, and I hate that.
Riftwalk stack duration increased from 8 seconds to 12
I interpret this part as a buff, not a nerf. It can make him mana-hungrier, but if his ult still does damage, stacking it in fights is important for his damage output.
Riftwalk cooldown decreased from 7/6/5 seconds to 7/5/3
Wow. Um, that does make him more mobile. They weren't kidding about that part.
I'll know more once I've tried the post-rework Kassadin, but right now I'm unhappy about these nerfs, especially the part where Null Sphere has no utility against champions using physical damage. Potentially forcing Kassadin into building Tear of the Goddess while also taking away his silence seems like it will make him every AD mid's bitch.
And how can you take away Kassadin's silence, anyway? It's part of his identity. He tried to silence his mother once!
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Team Builder takes forever
I'm still playing League of Legends, but Team The Eschaton is on an indefinite hiatus. Nick is too busy for now and I haven't been playing Ranked games at all, hence the lack of Going for the Gold updates. Landing in Bronze V for the beginning of the season has probably only played a minor part here. I wouldn't be playing much Ranked even if I'd landed in Silver. I said I'm still playing League of Legends, but really, I'm pursuing other interests for now, so I haven't even been getting one game in per day, which is almost a record low of inactivity for me. Mostly, I've been getting first win of the day against bots.
I was looking for advice when I landed in Bronze V, and the only person who offered any told me that I should start trying to climb the ladder right away, rather than taking a break. I guess I rejected that advice, although in other circumstances it may have been good advice and may have worked out. I'm not giving up, but I'm also not actively working on this right now. I play League of Legends for three different reasons, and even though they're mutually compatible, they're almost never simultaneously aligned. My reasons:
It's not that I'm burned out. Not at all. It's that I've had other priorities. Beta-testing The Elder Scrolls Online, something that cut into time I'd normally have spent partially on League of Legends, reminded me of the cool things I wanted to do in Skyrim. So I started playing Skyrim more again. I also got some Magic cards for Christmas and bought myself some more in January, and I've been more focused on Magic lately, even though I don't have a playgroup. More importantly, I've had to step up my job search. After however many months it's been, I've received exactly one rejection letter and heard nothing whatsoever regarding other jobs I've applied for. It's frustrating, but I have to keep at it. Finally, the biggest contributor of all has been that I've gotten more addicted to reading fiction again. A lot of the times when I might have played League of Legends, I've been reading a book instead. Given all this, when I do think I'd like to play a match or two, it's usually co-op games because I just want to have fun and don't care about improving my skills (they're rusty) or advancing my rank.
I haven't given up on PvP matches, but I have cut back on them. Actually, despite being rusty, most of my Normal games have gone quite well. And today, I checked out the Beta version of Team Builder that's available (until tomorrow morning). As the title says, it takes forever. But it did get me doing something I haven't been doing lately: I played three Normal games today. I've long thought League of Legends needs something like Team Builder, but I'm not convinced they're taking the right approach for it. The main problem in my sampling of the system is that, well, it takes forever.
Blind pick and draft pick modes have their own issues. Team Builder potentially addresses some of the issues in Blind pick, but at too steep a cost. I don't want to pick a champion, lock in, and then have some moron type, "mid" into the chat and whine about having called it. That's annoying, but how much am I willing to pay to avoid it? Is the answer ten minutes? Fifteen? I don't think it would be. And that's, apparently, what Team Builder demands. While the team is being set up, I can't leave my computer to do other things. I have to be ready because I might get kicked or the team might get assembled and I'll need to click a button. So I have to sit at my computer the whole time, waiting. Oh, and I'm not exaggerating. I tried Team Builder three times today and I think all three had wait times over ten minutes. That's too long. And this was Beta testing, so the mode had novelty. That won't sustain itself. If the mode goes live like this, people will lose interest and the wait times will become even longer, which will cause even more loss of interest and the whole thing spiral out of control.
I did win all three games, so that was nice. I got fed in all three, actually, first as Karthus, then as Kassadin, then finally as Karthus again. I joined games for the first two, but opted to initiate team-building myself for the last one. It occurs to me that having those two things as separate options for solo queue players is just weird. There are ways to make it so that this isn't the case. Anyway, despite my reservations and annoyance at the ridiculous wait times, I'm hopeful. And the reason for this is quite weird, but to state why it's weird, I need to explain something else first...
When people ask me what role I want, I'm quick to defer or fill. "Oh, I can play any role," I tell them. I say that I don't really care. And I think I mean it. After all, I have practice in every role. I'm adaptable. I'd rather have other people on the team take the roles they're best at than be greedy and make them play where they might do worse. Maybe in some sense I think I'm being magnanimous about this. In reality, I do know that not all roles are equal for me...
I was looking for advice when I landed in Bronze V, and the only person who offered any told me that I should start trying to climb the ladder right away, rather than taking a break. I guess I rejected that advice, although in other circumstances it may have been good advice and may have worked out. I'm not giving up, but I'm also not actively working on this right now. I play League of Legends for three different reasons, and even though they're mutually compatible, they're almost never simultaneously aligned. My reasons:
- For fun.
- As a social experience if I have friends that play, generally chatting with them on Skype while we play, sometimes about things that have nothing to do with the game.
- When I'm really into it. That is, playing the game becomes an end unto itself and I'm focused on improving my skills and picking up wins.
It's not that I'm burned out. Not at all. It's that I've had other priorities. Beta-testing The Elder Scrolls Online, something that cut into time I'd normally have spent partially on League of Legends, reminded me of the cool things I wanted to do in Skyrim. So I started playing Skyrim more again. I also got some Magic cards for Christmas and bought myself some more in January, and I've been more focused on Magic lately, even though I don't have a playgroup. More importantly, I've had to step up my job search. After however many months it's been, I've received exactly one rejection letter and heard nothing whatsoever regarding other jobs I've applied for. It's frustrating, but I have to keep at it. Finally, the biggest contributor of all has been that I've gotten more addicted to reading fiction again. A lot of the times when I might have played League of Legends, I've been reading a book instead. Given all this, when I do think I'd like to play a match or two, it's usually co-op games because I just want to have fun and don't care about improving my skills (they're rusty) or advancing my rank.
I haven't given up on PvP matches, but I have cut back on them. Actually, despite being rusty, most of my Normal games have gone quite well. And today, I checked out the Beta version of Team Builder that's available (until tomorrow morning). As the title says, it takes forever. But it did get me doing something I haven't been doing lately: I played three Normal games today. I've long thought League of Legends needs something like Team Builder, but I'm not convinced they're taking the right approach for it. The main problem in my sampling of the system is that, well, it takes forever.
Blind pick and draft pick modes have their own issues. Team Builder potentially addresses some of the issues in Blind pick, but at too steep a cost. I don't want to pick a champion, lock in, and then have some moron type, "mid" into the chat and whine about having called it. That's annoying, but how much am I willing to pay to avoid it? Is the answer ten minutes? Fifteen? I don't think it would be. And that's, apparently, what Team Builder demands. While the team is being set up, I can't leave my computer to do other things. I have to be ready because I might get kicked or the team might get assembled and I'll need to click a button. So I have to sit at my computer the whole time, waiting. Oh, and I'm not exaggerating. I tried Team Builder three times today and I think all three had wait times over ten minutes. That's too long. And this was Beta testing, so the mode had novelty. That won't sustain itself. If the mode goes live like this, people will lose interest and the wait times will become even longer, which will cause even more loss of interest and the whole thing spiral out of control.
I did win all three games, so that was nice. I got fed in all three, actually, first as Karthus, then as Kassadin, then finally as Karthus again. I joined games for the first two, but opted to initiate team-building myself for the last one. It occurs to me that having those two things as separate options for solo queue players is just weird. There are ways to make it so that this isn't the case. Anyway, despite my reservations and annoyance at the ridiculous wait times, I'm hopeful. And the reason for this is quite weird, but to state why it's weird, I need to explain something else first...
When people ask me what role I want, I'm quick to defer or fill. "Oh, I can play any role," I tell them. I say that I don't really care. And I think I mean it. After all, I have practice in every role. I'm adaptable. I'd rather have other people on the team take the roles they're best at than be greedy and make them play where they might do worse. Maybe in some sense I think I'm being magnanimous about this. In reality, I do know that not all roles are equal for me...
- I have less practice as a solo top and I have few champions that I can play adequately in that role. I tend to get too isolated from the overall flow of the game if I go solo top. There are also some champions I'm not comfortable laning against up there.
- I'm too conservative as a jungler and tend to fall behind. I'm not the worst jungler, but it's never been my strong suit. I prefer to lane and only jungle if I have to.
- I have a very methodical approach to playing as an ADC, and sometimes it takes too long to reach fruition. If the game is one where my playing passively will work out, then that's fine, but not every game is like that and I sometimes think that my passive play is making things hard on my lane partner.
- When I support, I feel like I'm relying on my teammates to do what I think they should do. I've made great plays as a support and it's cool when that happens, but I've also gotten really frustrated when my lane partner made a stupid move and fed. Coordinating in a duo lane isn't my favorite way to play the game anyway.
- I have some mid champions that I'm very experienced with, and I almost always hold my own in mid.
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