User blog comment:Zilverdael/Seperate itemsets and why they are good/@comment-1330314-20140617111554/@comment-1330314-20140617180437

I agree that drawbacks do not prevent a champion from being toxic, but the features you listed as part of AP Tryndamere's supposed toxicity (high heals and burst -- the latter of which is untrue, considering he has only one damage-to-AP scaling) are themselves not actually toxic. Suppose that he were, and that we were to remove his AP ratios entirely. It is irrelevant whether or not people would complain that it would be bad, especially since Riot has made initially unpopular decisions before ('s rework, for example) that were ultimately beneficial to the game. If it is genuinely a nerf (as would be the lessened interaction with, which is not a main pick on Trynd anyway), then it would still be possible to buff his power elsewhere in a healthy way. None of this involves itemization in any way, and changing itemization around his AP playstyle would still not prevent his core playstyle from being purportedly toxic.

The point to tanks is that their strong bases already make their damage relevant. However, a typical tank build will typically not feature damage items, whereas bruisers itemize for damage. It only makes sense for a bruiser with damage items to outdamage a tank. If you really want to deal more damage, buy damage items. The point to tanks is that they're not supposed to deal large amounts of damage, which is why they have terrible damage scalings, but rather that they disrupt the enemy team and draw their attention for as long as possible. It's not a role you're going to pick if you want to deal tons of damage, nor should it be. You're not supposed to solo as a tank or support, you're supposed to work in tandem with your team so that they can supplement your tankiness and CC with damage of their own. If you want autonomy, pick an assassin, bruiser or mage. The reason supports like Leona aren't getting buffs to their ratios is because they bring enough to the table already to not need any additional damage. Bruisers get to scale with damage items because they're made to do so. They're also made to do well with tanky items, but not as well as tanks, even in the current situation. If a bruiser scales too well with a mixture of damage and tankiness, that's still a question of champion balancing and not itemization. You think it's always going to alternate between excessively good or excessively poor scalings, but the gradual nature of scalings and bases points to the opposite. Simply reducing the scalings on a champion and/or reducing their bases would bring their power level down more reasonably.

The complaints you're lodging against support items run contrary to the state of supports in the game, who are doing quite well. The items you mentioned are also not made to provide great personal bonuses, particularly as that's the very opposite of what you're trying to achieve as a support. The entire point of a support is that they're focusing their power on team-oriented bonuses, which is why the items they pick trade in stats for great utility. If you decided to buff the personal bonuses of support items, supports would simply become too strong, and that's not counting the possibility of non-supports picking support items just for the stats and then treading on their toes with the utility the items bring. The issue you bring up of utility not getting a chance to shine in the space of 5 seconds is ridiculous, as any support can lay down all of their utility within that timeframe. The strongest support abilities tend to be clutch playmaking ultimates, all of which can singlehandedly change the course of a fight. If you're not getting a chance to use your utility properly over the course of a fight, you're playing your support wrong.

The thing about absolute freedom is that, in the current framework, whatever you do has consequences. If you want to go AP Vayne, that's up to you, and if you do horribly that's also on you. If you do good, then that's fine. If you do too well, then that's up to the balance team to identify the problem and fix it. The very existence of a meta in LoL shows that there are optimal builds and decisions, and the constant stream of patches is evidence that the game is constantly evolving and that its flaws are being identified and remedied. The fact that people find abuse cases is a good thing, since it allows those cases to be fixed and the game to be improved. Abuse cases will also spring up in the hypothetical system you propose, no matter how hard you try to balance items around a certain class, so there's no real point in making the switch: despite having literally every item in the game available to you, you're only going to be using a small set of those items on each champion, and this will happen regardless of item restrictions. Riot just prefers to treat their players like grown-ups and let them figure out the best builds for themselves, rather than hold them by the hand and tell them what to do.

Another issue you don't seem to understand quite well is the concept of tradeoffs: if, as an assassin, you buy a high-end tanky item, that's one item slot less for damage. If you have enough damage, that's a good choice to make, but if you don't have good damage, you're not going to do your job as well. Most damage-dealers are designed to incorporate at least one tanky item into their build, so the spike in tankiness you're mentioning is both intended and perfectly fine (one tanky item, even a Randuin's/Warmog's/Guardian Angel, won't prevent your opponents from killing you unless you're far, far ahead). If you were to go ahead and actually limit itemization for everyone, it would become obvious that you'd actually need a high-end defensive item available to damage dealers for them to function in the late game. You suggest that Riot will never be able to maintain perfect balance, and while you're likely right, the system you're proposing is likely to make the game even less balanced, as well as a lot more confusing and limiting. Your system deliberately avoids balance issues related to champions and messes up itemization to compensate. Not only would this not actually balance the game in any way, it would make creating new items and champions an absolute nightmare. It's also a fundamentally wrong design philosophy, since you're attempting to make massive changes for problems that would be solved a lot better on a smaller scale.