Skill Floor Vs. Skill Cap

This is a topic that I see across a lot of games.  I took a pretty comprehensive look at it originally in regards to World of Warcraft.  These terms aren't officially sanctioned in either WoW or LoL as far as I am aware, but their meaning is important whether it be in the form of these words or others that are close.

First we have what I like to call the Skill Floor.  The Skill Floor is the level of ability that you need to play, in LoL's case, a champion at a reasonable level.  This means that were you to play with an average group of the populace, you would have at least average if not above average results in general.

Second we have what I call the Skill Cap, or to some the Skill Ceiling.  This is in regards to the amount of player skill one needs to essentially master a champion.  Obviously complete mastery is impossible because of the human factor, but the Skill Cap refers to the challenge it takes to play a champion at the highest level of competition.  In LoL that would be Diamond - Challenger levels and the professional scene as well.

A champion with a low Skill Floor is easy to pick up.  Soraka and Sona are good examples of this.  They have pretty simple mechanics, you press a bunch of buttons.  Sona has her stun but it's pretty huge and hard to miss at a basic level.  Soraka has to choose between giving mana or using her silence but both options aren't challenging.

However, as we've all seen at LCS, being a good Sona isn't simple.  Sona at competitive play levels is always in danger because of how squishy she is.  The other team understands she has her massive AoE stun and landing a good one against them can be challenging (just ask Rhux and Elementz).  So while Sona's Skill Floor is quite low, her Skill Cap isn't necessarily low as well.

Why are these terms important?

They're important because communication is important.  When we are all talking about this game we love, when the people who balance the game are discussing changes, we should make sure that we all understand each other.  Proper change is so much more challenging when we can't communicate effectively.  Also, I enjoy explaining these things in clear terms.

Volibear - Max Rank Q

I propose that this change be added to Volibear's Q:

At max rank, this spells activation allows Volibear to ignore unit collision for the duration of Rolling Thunder.

This is a change that I've been thinking about for a while.  It's not so much that I think Volibear needs a buff or that it's a pure QoL change, but I think it would be interesting to add to his kit, especially because it will make Volibear players think more seriously about maxing Q anything but last.  One thing I like to see in LoL is maxing different abilities at different times based on the enemy team.  I think it's cool when a champion's spells are close enough together in relative strength that situation A has you maxing spell A and situation B has you maxing spell B.

Essentially this would make Volibear choose between maxing CC, Mobility or Damage.  E, Q and W respectively.

Solo Lane Nunu

So as a few people have no doubt seen, laning Nunu is quite silly.  He has ranged, high damage, non skill shot harass on his E.  Mobility in his W.  Mana sustain in his passive.  Crazy health sustain in his Q.  Now while I don't want to take away his strong laning phase, since late game AP Nunu isn't all that scary to a lot of teams, especially ones with any kind of AoE hard CC,  I do believe that as of now he is too strong in lane and needs a change.

It's not abnormal to have twice to three times as much CS as the person you are laning against because of how hard it is to handle AP Nunu in lane.  ( I see this disparity fairly consistently in regards to AP Nunu vs. most mids).

So I propose two changes that should curtail the problem somewhat.

1 - Increase the mana cost of his Consume.

2 - Increase the CD of Consume.

What will this do?  Well, for the first, it will make Nunu rely on his passive more heavily in order to avoid going oom.  Since his consume will cost more mana, if he is using it on CD along with his snowball, in order to keep up the pace he will need to use Visionary.  In order to use Visionary, he will need to AA more.  By AA-ing more, he will push his lane and put him into a position to be ganked.

In other words, it changes his kit such that he will be put into more danger to get CS and will therefore have another weakness that can be exploited in lane.

The second change to increase the CD of consume, will make it so that Nunu can ignore less harass than he can as of now.  While Consume isn't a short CD, it isn't overly long either.  He can use it fairly often and that early in the game most champions don't have enough damage to get through the constant healing without playing much much better than him.  Which I think is a problematic design, that one has to play that much better than the person you are against to beat him.

Item Prices - Changes to Encourage New Starting Items

While I like what Riot has done as of now with the potion and red elixir change, I feel there are some adjustments that could be made still that would bring more options with starting items.

I would like to propose the following price changes:

Amplifying Tome - 400g

Boots of Speed- 300g

Null-Magic Mantle - 300g

Why?  Well, let's start with the Amp Tome.

As of now if you want an item that builds into core items, gives offensive power(AD or AP) and can be bought on the standard 475g starting limit, your option for AD is Long Sword and your option for AP is Amplifying Tome.  Long Sword is 400g, and allows you to buy two potions.  Amp Tome is 435 and only allows you to buy one.

I don't particularly see the reason for this.  The difference between two potions and one potion might not seem like a lot, but it really is.  It's double the lane sustain.  It's reasonably to lane for a good period of time and avoid enough damage to only need two potions before backing for items.  It isn't nearly as possible with only one.

By making Amp Tome only 400g, AP champions can buy early damage and enough sustain to reasonably stay in lane for a proper amount of time.  It would put them on par with AD champions who can already do this with a Long Sword.

Next is Boots of Speed.

Honestly, I feel as if the nerd to Boots without any change in price was a little harsh.  You can only get 3 potions with your boots and it isn't really that much MS at all.

If Boots were only 300g and you could start with 5 potions just like if you were running cloth armor to handle AD lanes, I feel as if it would see a lot more activity in games.  It would also be bought earlier in general since as of now boots are so often not bought until quite late on many champions.

Finally we have Null-Magic Mantle.  

The idea for this change is somewhat similar to the reason for the Amp Tome change, balance between AP and AD.  I believe that it should be on the same level as cloth armor, that starting defensive allows you to get 5 potions.  This would give resourceless champions more starting defensive items not to mention anyone in lane against a high magic damage dealer.

Recipes could easily be altered to keep prices for bigger items the same in all of these cases.

Overall I believe these changes should be made because balance between AD and AP helps to keep both sides being used in games.   It also gives more options, viable options, for starting builds so that summoners can run their early game in different and interesting ways.

The "Normal Game Who Cares" Philosophy

Pretty sure everyone has said or heard some version of "Who cares, it's a normal."  It's quite a widespread idea in the league community although it has a bunch of different versions and purposes.

Some people use it as an excuse to troll normals, not just try something new, but to excuse their own bad behavior in the game.  Others use it as an excuse to try new things that aren't meta.  Some people use it to explain why they want to end a game, to surrender.

Some of these reasons can have at least some realistic purpose.  Others do not.  Some of them I can see having clear logical bases that should be taken into consideration and others are simply a player's way of trying to shift blame.

Feeding - Just a Normal

This is not ok.  Being outplayed, getting dove, being camped, these are ok.  These things happen.  Death is a part of LoL and everyone dies.  Feeding is not these things.  Feeding is going into situations that you know you'll die in without caring.  It's suiciding without a purpose.  Going into the enemy team with intent to die and then saying it's just a normal does not make it ok.

Non Meta - Just a Normal

This refers to players who are playing a champion in an odd way or in a role they aren't really designed for.  Right off the bat, this is fine.  For one thing, doing non meta things in ranked is fine, there is no rule saying you must follow the meta.  So, doing it in a normal is completely ok.  As long as you truly attempt to win with the build you are using in the lane you are in, there is nothing wrong with trying out weird things, especially in normals

Surrender - Just a Normal

This is where we start seeing shades of gray and less black and white.  Surrender is something that can be realistic considering the circumstances or unrealistic for the same reason.  If your entire team lost their lanes and for the most part your late game is inferior and you aren't ahead in objectives, it's kind of logical to want to get into a new game when losing the game you're in has no real consequences.
However if one person got dunked in lane by a weak late game hero and everyone else is doing fine, that's not so reasonable to expect a surrender.  Yes, it's somewhat reasonable to initiate it and see if everyone else wants to end the game as well, but bringing out the "Just a normal" argument is pretty weak in cases like these.

At the end of the day when you break it down, there are arguments that work with the idea of Just a Normal and ones that don't.  It comes down to whether or not your justification is reasonable or whether it's only selfish.

Towers - Change Their Damage

I think that at the moment tower damage is somewhere close to where it should be.  It's high but manageable early on if you position yourself well and juggle keeping aggro.  It's somewhat lackluster late game but if it wasn't there would be more problems with turtling than there are.

There is one thing that's kind of bugged me about towers though since I started playing LoL.  And that's that MR has nothing to do with how much damage towers do.

I understand that the damage turrets do are considered the tower's basic attacks and do increasing physical damage.  However I don't see why they can't be changed such that MR matters both so that MR helps with towers and that you can't only stack armor and ignore turrets.

I other words, while I do like that resistance can make turret damage negligible, I think that it should be resistances not armor alone.  MR is already hard to get at the moment, not having a high MR iconic item and having somewhat awkward secondary stats/effects that don't work for everyone.  This change would make MR items more desirable despite their odd stats.

An example change might be to make tower attacks do half physical and half magic damage and use the same penetration for both types of damage.  They would do the same amount of damage overall to someone with more balanced resistances but would do more damage to someone who only stacks armor but less damage to someone who only stacks MR as of now.

How Top Lane Works

A flow chart that I created of a typical top lane.