I would normally not bother to read a thread on the forums titled, “This game isent [sic] even worth playing anymore.” I obviously disagree. Despite the downfalls and recent design flaws (at least in my opinion), LoL is still a blast of a game, and I have a lot of fun queuing up with you guys and with my real-life friends. The thread in question, though, is now 34 pages long and caught an interesting response from Phreak.

I’ll leave you to read the original post, but the author, MoreCowbell, is basically bemoaning the overwheling presence of an AOE metagame and the limited champion selection that performs well in that metagame. He also decries characters with strong mechanics having no serious weaknesses. He doesn’t back a lot of things up, but he makes some good points (many of which I think I back up on this blog) and makes other interesting points.

I was particularly interested in this:

One of the biggest issues is that in riot’s design philosophy of making all characters equally viable all game, they would need to make all characters have the same power at all times. Characters like MF couldnt exist as they beat most other characters in a lane and late game. The reason that some characters absolutely dominate the lane in dota was because they were trash later.

That’s a spot-on observation and a lot of my problem with recent champion design. I would love to see the metagame shift away from the teamfight focus, but characters need to have different strengths at different stages of the game for that to be a real possibility. When a champion like Miss Fortune can 4-5 shot toons without health quints at almost any stage of the game, that kind of diversity can’t exist.

After 12 pages or so, Phreak dropped by to offer this:

We’re hitting a lot of the conventional “OP” champs this patch.

We will also be massively assessing all our AoE champions to ensure they’re not must-pick champions. As much as you say we’re making new champions which just eclipse old ones, we’re trying really hard to not have these super faceroll AoE ultimates since Sona (also: Sona nerfs this patch. And I’m not talking +10sec cd on the ultimate). While Swain and Lux have AoEs (even ultimates), I think we can all agree they’re much more reasonable than Idol of Durand.

If I read the original post correctly, this is the main complaint yes? That there are ~15 super OP champions that must be played, and everything else is below them?

We will assess them. Stay patient, beloved summoners. We like playing all of our champions as much as you guys do!

I haven’t been so (cautiously) excited about a patch in a long time. I’m hoping when he says “hitting” he means with a battering ram, not the tinkering hammer we see more often than not. I also like that he referenced Swain and Lux, two recently released and very underpowered champions, as having more “reasonable” AoE ults. I couldn’t agree more. I think Swain’s character design is really cool, and Lux could be a very fun toon with that short CD ultimate (and a much-needed damage buff for her base skills), but they just don’t stack up against the massive AoE pwnage in the game.

The simple fact that there are 34 pages of responses speaks to how big an issue the current design direction is to the LoL community. Players are definitely unhappy about the lack of diversity, which shouldn’t be all that shocking considering the underwhelming numbers we see on Twisted Treeline. I’m hopeful this week’s patch will be the start of some changes, but I’m aware it would take a lot of changes for things to be significantly different. We’ll find out on Tuesday.

I had a pretty stellar game this afternoon as Kog’Maw. Granted, that’s not so tough these days, but I was rocking a significantly positive K/D/A ratio (22/7/7) in spite of a team of four negative K/D/As. I was playing with a friend who actually said over Skype, “You are the sole reason we are winning this game.” That’s a pretty great feeling, and it doesn’t happen very often.

More often my “carry” games are more subtle, and tell a small part of what can only be considered a team victory. I have been trying to pick champions that allow me to contribute in a big way, lately, and I think it has helped my rating. The key, to me anyway, is to pick someone that can really dish out the love. I am great at ganking, so playing gank toons allows me to maximize that part of my playstyle. I really like Vlad because he farms minions well for the entire game and his ultimate is a boon to any team. Kog’Maw is great if you have the space to farm (i.e. not laning against good harassment/stuns) and a team to distract people. Ezreal is an amazing comeback toon if your team starts down. I also like to play characters like Xin Zhao and Shaco, who can close the gap without risking too much in the process. As you all know, I’ve also been playing a lot of Master Yi recently, though I rarely feel like I carry with him. He’s often more like an annoying swarm of hornets – it hurts like hell and you can never pin them down enough to stop the pain.

So who do you use when you want to carry? I know a couple of mean Udyr players who really seem to turn games, and it’s always fun to have a pro Zilean or Morgana on your team. Drop your best carries in the comments (with a fun story if you have one)!

PS – Thanks for the pic, Miku! Front page of Google Images for Kog’maw so I linked back to your post.