League players are now complaining that there’s too much damage in the game

League of Legends players banded together yesterday on a post in the game’s Reddit community. The post hit the front page of the subreddit with over 6,400 upvotes, and the poster was gifted Reddit Gold—the site’s premium membership—twice for it.

The writer complains that champions in League deal too much damage in the current meta, and they wish the game could return to seasons three and four, when, apparently, people didn’t die as much.

There’s a lot to unpack here. This is, well, it’s a rough one. We’ve seen our fair share of League subreddit dumpster fires over the years, like “Bleh, the new runes are stupid!” and “Bleh, Riot hates supports!” followed shortly by, “Bleh, supports can carry too much!”

There have been dozens—if not hundreds—of random complaint posts hitting the front page just over the last couple of years, with players who claim to love League raising their torches to say, “Yeah, Riot hates us! League sucks!” This is one of those times, and it’s one of the worst.

Let’s break it down.

Claim number one: Zed

The first point the poster uses in defense of their claim is that Zed used to have to “tear you down” with shurikens before being able to all-in you at level six. Uh… that’s what he does now. Up until Zed hits six, all he has in lane to trade damage with ranged mages is, in fact, his shurikens, so he needs to wear them down or risk losing before he has a chance to fight.

But when he gets the proper tool, his ult, he now has the capability of going all-in with an ultimate and Ignite.

This person then claims that back in seasons three and four, Zed couldn’t kill you with an all-in at level six. We’re not sure what game they were playing, because that’s always been the entire point of Zed. He’s always gone in at level six for a kill, because he’s always been hindered until level six against ranged laners. That’s the whole point of playing him, and it always has been.

Claim number two: Darius

The second claim is almost even worse than the first. No, actually, it’s definitely worse. The poster goes on to say that a bruiser or tank used to be able to reach the back line without dying, so they could then deal damage to the carries. They then use Darius as an example, saying he’ll get “shredded to pieces” before he finally reaches the back line.

What.

We’re starting to think this might be a bot that’s never actually played League, because once again, Darius has always had trouble making it to the back line. He’s never had any mobility, and he’s always been punished for poor positioning and for monkeying through the enemy front line to reach the carries.

The key here is poor positioning, which we have a feeling the poster may not realize. Darius is extremely powerful, and deals a lot of damage up-close. That’s always been the case, just like Zed. But, unless he’s obscenely fed, he’s always had to wait for fights to start so he can maneuver around the front line or flank the team to pull off some damage. He’s literally never been able to just bumble straight through the team, because that would be stupid. That would be so, so stupid.

The video above is of 100 Thieves using Darius in 2018. With great awareness of the fight and movements around the Taliyah ultimate, Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho gets a great flank off on Cho’Gath for the catch and kill. See, Reddit? When played properly, Darius can actually enter big fights and not get blown up. The key word is “properly.”

If life was so terrible for bruisers and juggernauts, Garen and Yorick probably wouldn’t be two of the best top laners in the game right now, according to stats site Champion.gg, would they? No, probably not.

Claim number three: Wombo combos

The third and final point that this post (which has earned Reddit gold twice in case you’ve forgotten) makes, is that wombo combos are pointless.

Why are they pointless, you ask? Because if you try to stack a big wombo combo with Orianna, Miss Fortune, Leona, and Jarvan, everyone is dead before the combo even starts.

So, first, we’re going to pick apart this particular combination of champions, and then we’ll get into why this is a bad argument in all other cases, too. I don’t know what Leona you’re playing, but her ultimate definitely isn’t killing anyone from full health. If you’re playing Jarvan for the purpose of setting up wombo combos, which means you’re not building him as an assassin and instead as a tank, he’s not killing anyone, either.

That means you’re left with Orianna and Miss Fortune—two damage dealers hoping that their ultimates can combine to kill an enemy team. The Reddit poster is arguing that this concept is pointless, because one of them could do it on their own.

So, first of all, uh, no. The point of Orianna’s ultimate isn’t to deal damage, it’s to clump enemies together so they’re easier to hit. Sure, it deals a decent chunk of damage, but its AP scaling is only 70 percent, and its base damage at max rank is 300. That means, best case scenario, she can shred about a third of a carry’s health pool with it late-game as long as she’s not obscenely fed. But again, that’s fine, because the purpose of the ult is to clump people, not to kill them by itself.

Miss Fortune’s ultimate, on the other hand, is meant to kill people. It’s a damage-over-time ultimate with enough firepower to kill an entire team, and we’re sure you already know where we’re going with this, but it always has been.

That’s fine, though, because in order to kill an entire team with MF’s ult, they have to sit inside her entire ultimate, hence the Jarvan and the Ori and the Leona, who are there to do just that. So sure, her ult can wipe the entire team before the wombo starts, because that’s what the ultimate is supposed to do. The other abilities are just there to help out, and that’s always been the case.

For other wombo combo team comps, that’s exactly what you want to do. You only want one one or two champions that have a game-ending ability, and the others should be there to line up the fight for them. If the damage dealers just so happen to kill everyone before the wombo combo can really get going, that’s great, that just means they either made a great play or the enemy team is really bad, and now the other champions can save their big abilities for other fights.

The ending

The post ends on an extremely melodramatic “I miss old League,” which is funny for a couple reasons. First, no you don’t. You might be romanticizing old League because that’s what nostalgia does. But we promise, we absolutely promise, that you would’ve complained just as much back then on the forums, or Reddit, or wherever, because that’s what people do.

League was clunkier and uglier in 2014. The meta was staler and less balanced, more champions had shoddy identities, and support was still a ward bot. It was, for all intents and purposes, a worse game. Back then, we didn’t know that, because we didn’t realize the extent to which it could improve. Now that it has, though, hooboy, we don’t want to go back.

To us, this Reddit post makes it sound very much like someone had a shitty game on Darius or against a Zed where they got really behind and died a bunch, so they decided to blame it on “damage,” which is mind-boggling in itself. Then, the Reddit community did what it does best, and they joined in the mob and upvoted away. “Yeah, that’s why I’ve been stuck in Silver for four years! The damage! Definitely not because I have difficulty identifying where I can improve!”

All in all, complaining about League isn’t a bad thing. In fact, we do it all the time. It’s a sign that you’re passionate about the game still, and that you care. Usually. In some cases, and we truly think this is what’s happening here, some players have developed a relationship with the game where they only know how to complain. Their entire experience with the game is now playing it to come up with reasons that make their gameplay worse.

Maybe it’s a subconscious defense mechanism that helps them cope with losing games, or there could be something personal going on in the background. Either way, we doubt this post in particular is going to lead to any change at all within the game. But hey, you never know.