Another excellent community post has been floating on or near the front page for a little more than a week, this time with regard to the relative power of ranged carries versus melee DPS and mages, and the way that Exhaust and Banshee’s Veil augment that disparity. Again, I’ll let you read through the post on your own, but I’ll cover some of the major points.

The basic idea behind the post is that by late game, almost every carry in the game will have a Banshee’s Veil, dramatically reducing the opponent’s chance at killing that carry. Because ranged toons can already kite other toons, giving them a free CC block or blocking one spell in a rotation from a mage means that character will probably remain free to stand back and wreak havoc. I think it’s a really good point, and I like the solution he offers: make BV block one CC spell, but no damage. It can still increase your magic resistance, but don’t allow it to completely nullify a spell.

The author also points to exhaust as a big problem for melee DPS, mostly because it has too small a range to get on your average Flash/Ghost-equipped carry. When players can’t reach the carry, they exhaust the melee DPS, slowing those characters and negating their auto attacks when those champions don’t have a way to get out of the mix.

I think it’s interesting to note that ranged carries are often the characters with skills to break Banshee’s Veil from ranged. Ashe’s volley breaks it. Ezreal has three low-cooldown spells to pop it. I’m pretty sure Tristana’s explosive shot proc from killing a minion will pop it. Obviously Corki has skills to pop it. MF can use Double Up. Kog’Maw, enough said. All of these characters can break veils from range, allowing them to deal magic and physical damage and exposing enemy tanks and melee DPS to their own tanks and mages.

In short, I would love to see some mechanics altered to increase the prevalence of melee DPS. I love a lot of the melee characters, but without getting overfarmed or unique use of Flash (enemy players don’t have it), melee DPS is woefully susceptible to control mechanics and kiting.