User blog comment:BIA-Kaboose/The Problem Behind Balance/@comment-13944607-20131211174748

This reminds me of my old SC2 days, and the complains about balance there as well. Here's the fact of the matter: If balance was PERFECT, the game would be incredibly boring. The only games that can have perfect balance and still be fun are games that require VERY little to NO strategical thinking, and more of extreme mechanical skill (such as Quake). Any game that revolves around strategy, such as LoL or SC2, can NOT have perfect balance and still be fun to play, because the variety would be gone. Everyone would do basically the same thing under different names/animations, as thats the only way for the game to be perfectly balanced between 2 different champions.

Every champion in this game, and i mean EVERY champion, has a part of their kit that is exploitable, and a part of their kit that exploits your own. No champions are universally strong, and no champions are universally weak. That is how it should be, for that is where the variety, the thing that ultimately makes this game fun, comes in.You can pick any champion into any champion, and do just fine. It might be frustrating at points, but if you play it well, and exploit the exploitable and don't let yourself get taken advantage of, you'll win. You mention Shaco, and talk about how useless he is late game. However far from the truth that is, considering he's an immensely strong split pusher, which wins games later on, lets pretend that it IS true that he's worthless late game. The thing about Shaco is that his early-mid game power is immense. The whole idea of him is to destroy anything and everything you see early on, get fed, and snowball the game for your team from there. If you play for the late game with him, and just try and farm up, you're likely to lose, because that's not how he works. I think we've all seen a Shaco carry the shit out of our game because he picked up so many kills/objectives/buffs early on. You just have to play him with the right ideal in mind, and that goes for every champion.

That general idea aside, to address your 3 points.

1st point: It's a GOOD THING that people can try out new things and have them work. That's a VERY good thing, i think some of the most fun i've had with this game has been with coming up with builds and ideas to play a champion in a way i've never seen, i've done a few of these such as bruiser Ahri, bruiser Evelynn, Zyra jungle (though i've heard that one is relatively common) Brand jungle (same with that one), and so on. They don't deserve nerfs, because these builds aren't necessarily STRONG (with the exception of bruiser Ahri, Eve, that shit is amazing), they are simply unexpected, and people aren't sure what to do versus you when you play them. Nothing to do with balance, more to do with theorycrafting and strategy, which is a highly enjoyable part of the game.

2nd point: Item changes are good, it adds variety and keeps the game fresh. BotRK would be a poor substitute for the old Bloodrazor, if it didn't have the lifesteal, and it's active effect. It's not a stronger item, it's not a weaker item, it's a DIFFERENT item. It's funny that you would mention that it "left assassins hanging out to dry." Considering that i believe it was you whose last post was all about how this is the League of Assassins. Forgive me if i'm wrong, and that was someone else. Also, it's not an assassin's job to deal strong AoE damage, so those changes were a good thing as well.

3rd point: If a champion you're playing a lot is being ignored by Riot, you should be jumping for joy. A good player with one of the 10 champions you've mentioned in his hands is absolutely terrifying, there is a lot of strength in each of their kits. With that in mind, always remember that these champions are underplayed, therefore few people know how to play against them, and even fewer know how to stop them once they get fed. They aren't WEAK, they just aren't popular. Take advantage of that while you can, before people realize how strong they are and complain to Riot so much asking for a nerf that Riot is forced to, even if unjustified. (that's happened a lot.)