LoL players agree Riot’s new approach to balancing ARAM is the way forward

Unlike Summoner’s Rift where you have to go above and beyond in optimizing even the smallest things in your gameplay like jungle pathing and tempo, your success in ARAM mainly depends on the teamcomp you’ll put together during champion select. That being said, there are big outliers in ARAM that require changes, and League of Legends players think Riot Games’ latest approach to ARAM balancing might be the best they’ve had so far.

League Patch 13.7 was an opportunity for Riot devs to experiment with ARAM balancing changes as they didn’t take their usual approach where they either add or reduce damage taken and damage dealt. Instead, the devs started manually tweaking the champion’s abilities. For example, Karthus’ passive duration got decreased from seven seconds to five seconds and Veigar’s Event Horizon will have a longer cooldown.

Seeing that these changes could put ARAM in a way healthier state, players decisively agreed this is the way to approach balancing in a post on League’s subreddit on April 5.

“The 5% nerfs or buffs were fun but yeah it’s gotten too much. When you’re a nerfed champ vs a buffed champ it’s worse than a permanent exhaust. It makes no sense,” explained a League player.

To help Riot devs, League players brainstormed a couple of ideas about what could be addressed next.

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“With the Shaco only having 6 boxes they need to limit Teemo shrooms,” one League player said.

“They can finally triple Ashe W CD and buff her Q damage,” another added. 

By tweaking spells in ARAM and not straightforwardly nerfing champions’ damage dealt by 10 percent or more, this mode could become more balanced. The biggest problem in ARAM games isn’t just the damage numbers, it’s the champions’ kits themselves.