Talk:Soraka/@comment-4959312-20140927024805/@comment-6281696-20140928093317

Fast twitch plays I don't view as "skilled" or well more accuratly not as an interesting skill. I prefer stuff that requires you to think as opposed to just be the one to hammer the buttons the fastest. Now of course that is somewhat of an oversimplification and chaining together skill shots does requires some degree of skill, however it isn't increadibly impressive since there's very little going on in terms of dodging, parrying, blocking and counterattacking. By comparison look at an average fighting game (of real martial art), those require considerably more skill when it comes to just "hitting". The actual combat in LoL is just relativly simplistic and as such not that interesting.

The more interesting & skilled part lies in the higher level strategy, e.g. do I engage now or do I flee, do I push the wave or do I freeze it and so on, do I splitpush or do we go as a team, am I offensive or defensive. However, over the past few years the focus is moving more and more to flashy instant plays with big numbers and further away from interesting complex tactics, because the first in interesting for the masses to watch, the second is only interesting for people who have a clue what is going on and even half the player base probably doesn't given how idiotic some players behave. It's just devolving into whoever can manage to land his stuff first. Now of course the higher level strategies will always be present to a degree, however as the game gets a larger and larger focus on "plays" and burst these strategies becomes more and more irrelevant. Simply because these short moments in time completly define the game.

To give a clear example of when superiour higher level tactics end up being irrelevant thanks to the focus on "plays" and burst take the following. Let's say you've picked something that gives you a strategic advantage in lane allowing you control over the lane. For example, you've chosen a fast ranged character to deal with a slow melee opponent. Brilliant, you are now winning rather convincingly. However, the enemy jungler now shows up, and despite having placed a ward he's on top of you before you can react because the guy has multiple dashes. Sadly he now slows you down enough to allow your lane opponent to catch up and together they pummel you to dead. All in the course of 2-3 seconds. Great, the past 10 minutes in which you've absolutly dominated in lane by using a superiour strategy have just been completly negated in the past 3 seconds because of "plays".

Now the issue with the new Soraka is that this iteration is much more similar to sona/janna/nami and has a much bigger focus on "plays" than the previous version was. The higher level choice of going for a proper heal-bot/mana-battery no longer exists. It's just another flavor of a support with some CC & sustain. The previous iteration had its problems (Q didn't fit at all and the offensive aspect of E was just weird, and noone could properly deal with the infinite sustain), but it did give a different tactical approach. Now she just looks like one of many. Or at least I'm guessing this is one of the reasons why people dislike it.