[2021] Riot refusing to address hecarim/udyr meta for so long really puts me off being excited for MSI

FWIW, Hecarim and Udyr each received several nerfs in addition to Chemtank being nerfed.

I know Reddit likes to complain about "triple nerfing" something, but sometimes that doesn't do enough.

Hecarim's nerfs weren't in for the LCS playoffs, though he was still #1 pick/ban in the 11.6 playoffs regions.

Hecarim's second nerf, Udyr's third nerf, and Chemtank's nerf were all in 11.7, which were all put in after Riot reacted to the 11.5 second round of Udyr nerfs not lowering his priority enough.

I think a third hit on Hecarim in 11.8 is warranted, but it's not like Riot didn't continually tap them down.

Plus, let's not act like pros are good at reacting to changes on time. You say "months ago" as though people whose literal job it is to pick the strongest champions didn't fail to identify them.

11.2 had Chemtank's big buffs where it got much cheaper. Hecarim's presence: 28%. Udyr's was 74%

11.3, where Udyr was specifically nerfed and Hecarim was unchanged: Hecarim to 41% and Udyr shot up to 91%.

11.4, pro teams still catching up: Hecarim to 61%, Udyr still at 92%

11.5, pro teams still catching up (and the second round of Udyr nerfs): Hecarim to 97% and Udyr falling to 84%

11.6, the first Hecarim nerf of the year since his pro presence had been pretty low up until recently: Hecarim 95%, Udyr 80%

And we don't have pro play on 11.7 yet, which has further nerfs to both Udyr and Hecarim as well as Chemtank.

So what did we observe today? Hecarim in his strongest state took a full two months for pros to react. Udyr still had a couple patches of lag for all teams to catch on. What makes you think they're going to be any better at this on the way down?

Udyr's presence is already declining after the (edit) second nerf he received. It's reasonable to assume the further nerfs in 11.7 are going to take him off of his pedestal. The champion's solo queue win rate is completely reasonable and at this point a high ban rate is people being unwilling to accept that he's fine now and they should just deal with the fact that he kinda jungles fast.

"I think a third hit on Hecarim in 11.8 is warranted, but it's not like Riot didn't continually tap them down."

Literally in the post, bro.

And I can understand that, but let's be really specific about what happened:

Riot nerfed Udyr in the 11.5/6 playoff patch and Hecarim was only at 61% presence the last time Riot had a chance to react to pro play metrics for 11.6.

I really don't think Riot should get in the habit of roller coaster champion balance. It'll feel sh*tty for players and it'll feel sh*tty for pros just playing whack-a-mole with champion select.

You don't really have to, though. Whether or not you're level 4, the team with lane priority is the one who's getting the crab. It's not unreasonable to do 5 camps and just take the other one instead.

And those champions got nerfs every time they set off the solo queue flags. It's not like Riot was like, "Nah, let's just ignore the oracle data this time."

How exactly do you find nerfs to Phoenix Udyr's clear speed and Chemtank's movement speed "indirect"?

To be clear about something, Riot cannot react to pro play the immediate patch before. Not only is there a minimum 8 day lag between a patch hitting live and pros playing on it, the number is greater than that because, let's be clear, a single bo3 between T1 and NS is not a good source of data.

So Riot is necessarily one full skipped patch behind pro play. There just isn't another way to do it. 11.7 can look at 11.5 pro play and 11.8 can look at 11.6 pro play... just not all of it, since those are playoff patches, but you at least get enough of a look.

Hecarim's most recent pro-facing nerf was 11.6, yes, meaning 11.8 could have had more pro-reactive nerfs. However, it's reasonable to conclude a large reason for his prevalence is from Chemtank, which also got nerfed in 11.7. For further reference, his win rates on non-Chemtank are pretty reasonable, leading to a fair conclusion that a Chemtank-focused nerf would be fair, combined with a lighter nerf on his E.

Could Riot have looked at 11.7 solo queue data and said "Let's keep going?" Sure. But combining the "pros take time to fully react" lag and the 11.7 double nerf, it's also fair to take a break on strict nerfs and continue observing instead.

Outside of Alistar and Rell, I'd argue that there's a lot of space in support when looking at the whole year. It's heavily engage tanks because of the first two and the next few who trail them, but Senna, TK, Seraphine, and Gragas occasionally built full AP make for some decent variety.

Mid is really just dominated by Orianna Azir Syndra Viktor Zoe TF, mostly the first three. I think Riot did a good job of getting Sylas into a playable spot and we saw some Lucian/Trist, which was also cool, but yeah I think the Orianna changes came too late.

Right, yeah, pro-facing nerf. I'll fix the post.

No apologies needed. I worded my post poorly and you caught it. Thanks! :)

1-2 years ago Karma was perma pick/ban. This was after the Ardent Censer meta.

I agree I'd like a much healthier mix of tanks and enchanters. For whatever reasons, pros seem to just go 100-0 on one side of it. Even in the Ardent Censer year, we went up until Worlds with whatever champion just building Redemption with Censer just sitting there unpicked for the whole season.

<3

Champions that appear to do well against Hecarim: Ivern, Skarner, Dr. Mundo, Nunu, Volibear, Rek'Sai, Trundle, Jarvan. So, mostly champions who fill the role of beefy frontliners while likely being able to out-duel him.

Good against Udyr: Ivern, Lillia, Zac, Sejuani, Taliyah, Kindred, Mundo. So, champions who make it difficult for Udyr to get past them (CC from Ivern/Taliyah) or just kite exceptionally well (Lillia, Taliyah, Kindred).

To be clear, there are two distinct things going on:

An Udyr nerf, with a follow up that seems to be giving a real decline to Udyr pick/banrate, to the point where I expect with no further changes, he'd be sub-80, which tends to be the cutoff point. Still, he had another small nerf in 11.7. The round 2 nerf probably could have come in sooner, though.

And Hecarim, who did not cross pro play thresholds until the 11.6 nerf, which was a pretty substantial 0-20 damage off of Q. That is generally not what you'd consider a love tap on a low cooldown primary damage ability.

Hecarim's E speed doesn't scale on rank. The scaling movement speed is just how E functions. It's an all-game change.

Hecarim's first nerf was to Q damage.

Kinda disingenuous to call any of those things "not clear speed"

Compensation buffs exist when you aren't trying to rapidly solve a pro play problem. Anything like that is automatically a larger project and one you have to keep up with. Yorick is a good example of this.

If your goal is to nerf a champion to lower its pro priority (Orianna, Udyr, Hecarim) you just nerf them. At some other point down the line they can stop to figure out if pros are just being change-averse (this happens a lot) or if there's actual fenagling that needs to happen, like with Azir or Ryze.

Udyr actually has some of the steepest champion mastery in the game. Turns out that when you have no gap closers or escapes and can only use one ability at a time, knowing when to go in, leave, or choose among damage/durability/disables is pretty skillful.

Yeah if we make up numbers anything can be true! Taliyah does over 9000 damage and just oneshots the poor guy!

Sure there is. Void Staff exists as do all sorts of ways to slow him down or stop him in his tracks.

I think Chemtank dominating both pro play and solo queue win rates would indicate Chemtank is more the problem. At least it got nerfed two weeks ago. It's possible that the cheaper tank mythics were just not a good idea since it heavily pushes junglers, who have slightly less gold income than most roles in pro, to just play for the cheaper mythics and move forward.

I don't think Phase Rush is that meta warping. If anything it's pushing back on melee run-at-you junglers since Orianna and Cassiopeia can just run away from them with their keystone.

Your smite dealing 30 damage is not going to make up for the 500 health and flash you lost because Viktor roamed first and you can't 1v2 in front of a full health scuttle. Good players use wards and just shepherd the crab out of smite range.

A lot of it is also that he just doesn't get anything done against Kindred ultimate. You're not oneshotting, even with help, with Flash Bear Slap so after Lamb's Respite you're just a 20% health Udyr in front of a team. It's not terribly successful. Jumping walls also lets them get away reasonably well.

Kindred aren't in a great spot in overall power, but the Udyr matchup is very winrate positive.

I bet if Hecarim Q dealt 12 base damage he'd be unplayable. Wanna take me up on it?