Gimmick Builds: Why Riot Keeps Removing Them | League of Legends

Throughout history, champions have sometimes gone builds that deviate from what they're normally known for. Many of those builds have since been made defunct, and it's extremely rare for Riot to allow them to stay. Today we'll be discussing why Gimmick Builds keep getting removed from the game.

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#Meta #LoL #LeagueofLegends

[JMMSM]

for me the worst example of this has to be AP shyvana, not just because riot abandoned her AD bruiser build (ya know, the way she was meant to be built) but kept buffing the AP build which consists of ulting, spamming E and 1shotting your entire team

[lillyie]

remember when they said at the beginning of statikk shiv's revival that off meta builds like shiv veigar were fun gimmicks that werent that oppressive and will keep them as is but as time went on, they kept nerfing the AP ratio until eventually no more ratios

[Ryogogen]

I remember when Riot actually bragged about not forcing a META and letting things happen organically. Nowadays they try their hardest to force everyone to play a specific way.

[a-fvs]

I have to say that in the case of Kaisa, her off meta builds are part of the champion identity to an extent. She was specifically marketed to be an adaptable champion with a variety of playstyles and builds, unlike say stuff like tank ekko/fizz, or bruiser Katarina.

[benpoke]

"Play the way you want unless we say so" - Riot

[marvinbange]

Its really weird how riot is against such builds and nerfs them into oblivion but forces some into existence like bruiser or onhit kata and ad tf at the same time

[KingUnKaged]

Sometimes "gimmick" builds also become so entrenched that they become the new default for the champion. Gragas was originally a tank, but the AP gimmick became so common that now it's all he's known for.

[JustAViewer]

They should be allowed to a certain degree.
Unless it's game breaking, removing this kind of things only reduces variety of the game.

A good example is allowing Karthus becoming mainly a jungler despite being made as a mid in the first place.

A bad example is how they got rid of Nilah jungle (Wild Rift) despite being only played in the jungle and not being that opressive. Now absolutely no one plays her nor as adc or jg.

[boldisordorin]

Ap twitch was not just allowed to stay, it was purposefully put into the game, i remember the patch when riot just added ap ratios to twitch ablities that were not there before.

[ThePoltageist]

Just to show how different the design philosophy of old vs new league is, in the old days basically every champ was made to have an ad or ap build, now we have to have the discussion as to whether we should even allow off meta builds at all.

[Liger-Inuzuka]

I think you are almost correct in these conclusions, in my opinion.

What I feel is: It is not that some off-meta builds are removed because they go against what is expected of the champion, but that some of these off-meta builds ruin interactivity. And so yes if interaction is expected in the game it goes against what is expected of that champion.

Interactivity can be a little vague but generally speaking players should be able to fight one another, having clear strengths and weaknesses; either in micro-combat, or macro strategy. Some of these builds lower interactivity, either literally where the off-meta champ can simply never be approached or put in danger but is still highly effective (Think of AP Poke Zeri/Kaisa at long range). Or as a team strategy the enemy can't overcome the off-meta champion's team due to their superior tactic for whatever reason (think of Inting Sion before all of the nerfs and changes Riot attempted to stop Baus, or things like funneling Taric/Yi.) Or maybe their off-meta build supersedes the original intention of the champion's playstyle, which then shows Riot more they failed in their design more than them punishing the players (like ADC Neeko being just better than her Mage intention on release, or AP assassin Galio when Riot overdid his ratios not expecting players to build him full AP.) Some off-meta builds still exist and are doing quiet well, the only thing stopping them is peer-pressure as mentioned in the video, but as far as I am aware these off-meta picks are still able to be interacted with? For example, AP Kog'ma is still a fragile back-line damage dealer, just like crit/on-hit Kog'ma is....still a fragile back-line damage dealer.

Why do you want interactivity? Well because its a video game, ultimately made for enjoyment even if it is a competitive e-sport. It would make for a pretty poor experience for everyone involved if there was no interactions, no cool fights and instead someone uncovered some mystical tactic where you can destroy the Nexus with the push of a button. This is a hyperbole.

[amaeo]

A good example I always think of when talking about gimmick builds is old AD Sol before his rework.

For those new to League, Aruelion Sol's old kit involved stars that orbited him as part of his passive that did small amounts of damage when they made contact with an enemy, and his W expanded the range of these stars and increased the speed of their orbit to let them hit harder and more often. His Q and R were built around this larger orbit, with his Q growing in size so long as it stayed in this outer orbit, exploding once it was out of it or Sol manually detonated the skill to stun every enemy inside of it, while his R would blow enemies in a rectangle shape towards this outer orbit, setting them up for the Q and W.

AD Sol would eschew this by just flat out ignoring the stars and just build Sol like he was a Marksman, sometimes even taking him into the Jungle like Kindred (since his E, which would become his W, was practically the same as it is now with how it worked). His Q was more relied upon since it was an AoE stun that worked well in getting in more poke, and his R was a helpful self-peel that could be used to turn around a tower dive. The stars were practically ignored outside of the rare instance that they actually secured a kill.

Frankly, and this is just speculation on my part, AD Sol was the main reason Sol's Rework went the way it did, so that he would have to be played as a Mage and not a Marksman, and by extension the development of Smolder being to make a new psudo-AD Sol without the stars but still having some of new Sol's mechanics.

[calebowen]

Another issue with alot of builds is how the kits of the champions can make a playstyle unbalanced. Like for example kaisa w was designed to give her some long ranged poke mostly to ult onto a champ but when it had its full AP scalings it basically became a single target jinx rocket that could hit someone from 2-3screens away which has no counter play except dodge a ability coming from fog of war and 3 screens away

[zombiecow]

I've been having a blast with AD Neeko lately, a very different playstyle but she still has some big weaknesses akin to her usual playstyle (squishy, low mobility, not a ton of range) so I'm hoping Riot doesn't decide to nerf it into the ground

[ibrahim]

Because sometimes they are better than the normal ones, like the manamune into ludens kaisa top, or the eclipse and nashor and berserker boots kaisa top that have all 3 evo, or the ap kaisa mid, or double marksmen kaisa support, or just lethality kaisa with all 3 evo and duskblade, or just kaisa kaisa

[Dexuz]

11:37 Basically what differentiates LoL from Dota 2.

[gideongodnuts]

I believe one of the main reasons League is such a good game in concept is being able to have your own unique playstyle, which includes gimmick or off-meta builds. Example being; "Hi I'm so-and-so and I play ___ champ, in ___ role, with ___ summoner spells, with ___ runes, and with ___ build" out of 5 variables theres so many ways to have your own way of playing the game.
What makes some of them bad is simply if the off-meta or gimmick build is uninteractive or just overpowered, likely the ladder, as you said when most people see a champ they expect the meta build and so on and so forth, and when it isn't that, its unexpected and can/usually does give the person playing the off-meta a advantage from them knowing the limits of what they can do and the enemy doesent.
The thing is that if its uninteractive like a lot of the examples in this video: AP Kai'sa, AP Zeri, Tank Ekko, etc, everything else i mentioned gets thrown out of the window for game balance, cause Kai'sa chucking a singular ability off the screen that does a quarter or more of someone's HP bar is surprisingly not interactive gameplay or fun to play against, or AS for that matter, I doubt the AP Kai'sa player is having fun after a while after the high of the gimmick wearing off and your just spamming one singular ability and R'ing in every once in a while to assassinate someone.

In-general, unless the specific playstyle is toxic, uninteractive, not-fun, OP, etc, i think alternative playstyles to champions are fine and beyond that, should be encouraged, again unless its inherently toxic.

[harambe]

theory crafting builds is so fun. I main Kalista and have 1 official theory crafted glass cannon build. Two other builds im still testing. Metas get boring really fast.

[coolbrotherf]

As someone who is always trying all the gimmick builds on marksmen champions, the reason why most of the builds get nerfed is that the popular ones are usually exploiting design oversights to make certain abilities more effective than originally designed. There are a lot of builds that people try that never get any kind of mainstream popularity that are just a little bit better than the average build so nothing happens. Right now there's an Ice gauntlet Vayne top build being experimented with that hasn't received much attention yet, but could get the champ or the items nerfed if enough people start to spam it.

[Hymn]

Vainglory did the two build paths so well. One of the champs I played was kestral. A marksman who shot you with a bow. She looked a lot like Ashe.

Ap, was a mix of long range artillery with her arrows exploding in a long rectangle behind their target or just their max range and setting up a trap in players paths as they tried to get on top of you, only for you to blow them up, go invisible and repeat the process. But if you took any damage your invisibility/trap would go on cooldown so you had to sneak around an area before a fight, place a trap and get out. The invisibility duration and trap damage scaled with AP.

Ad your arrows granted you armor pen so instead of bombarding the back line you crushed the front line. Your trap/invisibility no longer went on cooldown if you took damage and it granted you a big burst of movespeed when activated.