Every 14 days, Riot Games releases a new patch update in League of Legends. These update does not only fix bugs and improve client, but also bring changes for some champions’ strength – specifically through buff or nerf the stats or skills of champions that they aim to “balance” the game.
Buff/Nerf is a way for Riot Games to balance in League of Legends
However, everyone knows that the purpose of most updates is to nerf some OP champions, sometimes in an extreme way. Besides, some champions are being buffed still not become significantly stronger. So, why doesn’t Riot buff all weak champions to make them equally strong but just always nerf the strong champions?
If you need an example for a strong champion that has been nerfed once and Riot Games still think that wasn’t enough? Akali will illustrate for you to understand. From a normal champion, after the remake she became a whole lot stronger… and then eventually turned into a crab no more and no less!
To take it seriously, buffing all weak champions in LoL will create a whole lot of fun for all players, even the One Trick Ponies. First, after all the weak champions are buffed, almost every champions in League will be equally strong, which mean there will no longer be any champion that is considered as weak or troll pick.
“Stop nerfing those guys, just buff me. Please, Riot! ” – Skarner – The most rejected champion of League of Legends cries out in tears.
And if all champions are equally strong, players will always be interested in all of them. League of Legends will no longer be boring since it won’t be tied up with certain strong champions and metas. Now, you can play any champion without worrying about being too weak as before.
Although Zac is not too weak, but he is not strong enough and the gameplay is quite boring so very few players decide to pick him.
Weak champions often has certain build and playstyle. And when there are no champion that is weak that also means there are no playstyle or build that is considered weak, too. That will open many opportunities for creating new playstyle and builds even extremely bizarre things can also be strong or at least, works. The gameplay in the game will then become much more interesting and much more unpredictable.
Ivern is a great example that buffing champions will make their playstyle more diverse. Especially, buff (small changes) on his passive gave Ivern a chance to appear on Top lane. Before that, Ivern was quite weak and often appeared only in the Jungle and build buff items for the team.
But perhaps, buffing all weak champions will be a hard thing that can come true. Although it may help the game better – but to do that properly will be a big problem. As a matter of fact, after buffing all champions, there will certainly create some champions that become “over power” among all those “strong” champions. And again, Riot will need to continues balancing to make them equally strong.
Talking about the hardest case to balance, Azir deserves a gold medal. There were times when he was too strong in Mid lane and after a few patchs with nerfs, he disappeared for a very long period of time. After then, just another small buff gives him a comeback as a force at mid lane again.
And the most important thing is that nerfing some strong champions will be easier than buffing hundred of champions left. It is not crazy that Riot’s team (with more than 200 years of experience) must spend years to buff all champions that they can’t be sure if those will be balanced again.
Riot dared give Irelia a small buff and now she is crushing top and mid again!
Therefore, buffing weak champions instead of nerfing strong champions is impossible. Instead, Riot Games opted for a “smarter” way: occasionally sending out a new champion or reworking some of the outdated champions and turning them into a “monster”, then spending tons of patch to nerf them until they “run out of strength”.