[2023] Is toplane going to be stuck in a gigabuff into nerf loop?

Let me shoot part of your claim down real quick:

1. We want carry tops to be relevant. This is the true part of your claim. For example, there were tentative Sion nerfs in the patch because K'Sante changes weren't ready for 13.14 and we want to hit a 2:1 ratio of carries to non-carries in top in pro play. There are no individual favorites, just a general goal for the shape of pro play.
2. The goal for Aatrox was +1.5% win rate. Personally, I like to skew changes toward flatting out win rate by MMR and also want to skew top lane changes toward fewer kills early game (lane is thus less snowbally and thus over after first blood or a good gank) and stronger late-game carry potential. Either way, the goal was 1.5% win rate. What we got, averaged out across all ranks, was like 3.5%. As designers we have oversight from the rest of the team and GAT (Gameplay Analysis Team, a group of largely Masters/GM/ex-pro players) who also help validate magnitudes and direction. For what it's worth, the changes weren't far from 1.5% win rate in elite MMR last I checked, so in their own skill bracket, that's pretty much exactly accurate. However, the buff was much larger in sub-Masters since the changes largely take off in the late game.

You're right that players often won't react quickly to things being buffed up to viable. Items especially have a strong lag here. The story of Aatrox being 98% presence at Worlds was basically that the durability update happened, then a bit of his omnivamp was shifted to health growth instead and then his presence just slowly climbed from 20% to 90%+ without any other direct changes. Was he always this good? Was he always this good after the durability update? Was he that good by the time playoffs rolled around? Because it was really only Worlds where he became high priority.

It's interesting because despite Reddit claiming Aatrox is giga-busted, he was in 1 of 9 LCS playoff games this week and there isn't a single minor league on the patch that has him at 100% presence. He's certainly strong, of course. And maybe that slow climb would happen and we'd see him reach 100% in the span of two months.

Either way, want to clarify that while we may have goals for the game systemically, it's not "actually just make the thing OP." We'd much rather land on target exactly than overshoot and pull back, even if that means it takes longer for players to understand the impact of our changes.

To clarify:

You're overstating the gulf in late-game somewhat. There are some top laners that still express their late game leads as game victory better than even the most snowbally bot laners (Kayle and Tryndamere are the biggest standouts). You're correct that the overall trend does shift toward bot lane as games go later.

My belief is that every role should have both solid early snowball and late game carry options. Darius and Kayle don't need to have the same agency curves as one another. That likely means reigning in some things as well as buffing others.

Sion isn't perfectly balanced. When planning changes on 13.14 his win rate was well within reason for calling for a nerf in anywhere except the top ~1% of players. But that's discretionary. We don't balance the game purely by numbers, we are merely informed by them. We've stated that we'll nerf something if it reaches some threshold and we hold to that. The rest is our choice. For example, Kai'Sa only just barely qualifies as a data-driven nerf because she was 80% present in top leagues over 13.12 and 13.13. If she had 8% lower pro presence in 13.12 she wouldn't qualify. But even outside of that we'd have acted anyway.

Also, K'Sante hasn't qualified as a data-driven pro nerf since the 13.12 nerf. There's no data in any level of play that says he should be a nerf target. Nothing indicates he's "problematic" from a solo queue win rate, ban rate, or pro presence stance. This doesn't mean he shouldn't receive changes.

Plenty of reasons. A few:

• Side lane 1v1s are cool
• This is a role with a dedicated source of gold/xp income. Players of the role should be able to use it.
• Every role should be able to carry but you shouldn't have to every game.

Tank vs. tank top lanes are generally low excitement and tends to actually pan out as just waiting around to fight around whichever bot lane wins. That said, tanks are good for League of Legends. They should be viable in many roles so that teams always have access to a strong tank in champ select across a variety of roles.

Yeah absolutely. However, a huge portion of the game is driven by pro play. I'm not talking about our changes in reaction, I'm talking about actual regular player behavior. Azir's play rate spiked when he got buffed in 13.11. It then spiked again (at a somewhat similar magnitude) because he got picked in pro. Like, the act of Faker picking him almost had as much impact as 2% win rate of buffs.

So when the pro play meta was Jinx vs. Aphelios every game and a snoozefest tank vs. tank in top lane, it's incredibly easy for players to say, "See? The game is just all about whichever bot lane wins, top is useless." And while certainly that is directionally accurate, the degree to which that's true isn't. But from what I've seen of playoffs so far, the carriability of each role seems a lot more fair. And I expect that to trickle down to other players.

Outside of that, pro is also a decent indication of the game overall. It's certainly not identical to the game we all play at home. These players are more individually skilled and more coordinated. They also play a slower-paced game. But if they identify that investing in their top laner to carry is worth it when they weren't earlier in the year, it means we've made meaningful gains in that direction. It's certainly far, far better than feedback we can get anywhere else. If you wipe my memory force me to make changes based on what I can see in one day's research, I take pro play VoDs over Reddit and Twitter posts every time.

It’s like 51-52% at every skill bracket. That is well within the charts.

My pleasure. My challenge now is to have better emotional control and not let the frequent antagonism get to me.

Lolalytics win rates are fake. Look in the top right corner. See where it says "Average Emerald+ Win Rate: 52.xx%"? Yeah, you have to subtract that. That's the baseline for any champion at that tier for that website.

The vast majority of "but look at the win rate!" posts make this mistake.

I think punishing a champion for being popular is a very silly approach.