Talk:Nocturne/@comment-3238314-20110411100743/@comment-192.91.147.35-20110412212344

Evelynn, Malzahar, and Shaco snowball heavily at mid/low ELO, but Riot's leaving them where they are. In fact, Riot has explicitly said on many occasions that they balance champions around high-level play, not around low or mid-level play.

I think balance is more like a target that you shoot at. Some champions are at the bullseye; some are just a little off; and some are more unbalanced than others. Look at Rammus: two months ago, he was ridiculous (I'm not complaining; he is one of my favorites to play). Then they nerfed his ball curl. Then the cooldown on the taunt. then the slow %/duration of powerball. And finally, the speed boost from powerball. They were taking a champion that was far more powerful than average (many rings outside of the bullseye of balance), and slowly bringing him into the center, careful not to push him too far down. I think that you're definining overpowered as a champion that's extremely unbalanced, but overpowered really just means what the word describes: their power level is over the average. Thus, as they're pushing Nocturne's power level down, they're trying to bring him into the bullseye range of balance.

I don't think that he's as strong as post release Xin or LeBlanc, but it's also unfair and much more highly subjective to say that only champions who are far superior get the label "overpowered". Thus, I think that before this patch, his damage output was a little too high, his fear too difficult to escape, and his ability to escape too high (not that I want all three of these things nerfed, but the combination of them is a little much). Apparently Riot agrees with two of those three points, and is adjusting his power level, trying to get him towards the bullseye of balance.