Draft of a Letter to HiRezKelly Regarding ADCs and Snowballing, Up for Editing

So did I understand this correctly?
You got ahead (started to snowball), then AMC manged to get back and actually outfarm you for so much that he started snowballing. And that made you feel that snowballing is a problem, why didn't you snowball out of control like the AMC did? :P

To me it just seems like your team got the short end of the stick, because of mishaps. I am not saying that I never lose or anything like that, but when I lose it is my own fault for not being good enough (and I know it is ****ing frustrating). It is not the games fault or because this and that god is OP etc. (but seriously AMC is OP, stupid poke damage and insane sustain).

For instance if you had a good Loki he should have no problem to shut down AMC, Loki is great at shutting down ppl. It is basically the only thing he can do.

@bestminion.. Its really losing the plot when trying to find fault with what I have written , and concluding that it is ought to be biased towards me. The whole idea of these talks atleast from my side is to be as honest as possible.

We never got a chance to snowball at all, yes we made a few mishaps in the game and that is why we lost. I also was the culprit and would have been a different story if I did things differently but that's how we learn from mistakes.

U missed the whole point by over simplifying the argument as if the person who is writing has made a terrible mistake in analysis and is hiding his faults and blaming others.

The whole tread is about how snowballing is bad, and if it was as bad as it to me sounds like it is put in the letter. One kill = a snowball out of control and there is nothing that can be done about it.

And your scenario is a pretty good example on how this is not the chase IMO.

That was basically all I meant to point out (the part about gods being OP etc just came from all the other posts here and on reddit). And everyone does mistakes, I can easily go 1-10 if I have a bad game. But then the enemy adc is not snowballing because the game mechanic is broken, it is my fault that he gets out of hand.

Here is another example:
https://account.hirezstudios.com/smitegame/match-details.aspx?match=47843425

Our Xbalaque is 0-5 when Neith is 9-1 (snowball) at 22 min and Neith is almost 7k player damage ahead of the Xbalanque. And it ends at 10-5 for Xbalanque and 10-6 for Neith (a puddle of water) and Xbalanque just ahead of Neith in player damage.

I gotta say that I rather lost interest in support in recent times. Look at my profile, and you'll see just how much mastery I have in supports. Guan was easily my favourite god before his rework, and has my most worshippers. When laning with his magic version before roaming was a big thing, me and my buddy would rack up a bunch of kills out of agressive laning play, and both of us would snowball rather well. It's a shame that this agressive laning style that used to be downright un-counterable when I played it is now a mere shadow when compared to roaming.

TLDR; I used to be amazing at support but roaming killed it.

@BMO and Aji7: I think you guys have the wrong impression of a support. You like playing them as a secondary jungler, but that isn't what a support should do. That is what a jungler should do.

Also, this is kind of getting off topic here. I've made a thingy about increasing the viability of tanks in other lanes/jungle, if you are really sick of babysitting the ADC.

Firstly, you picked the god most likely to support your case: Artemis, the only god who relies on her ultimate for such things, while ignoring the others which can force trades with their basic abilities. Also, if you burn your ultimate specifically to counter another ultimate, your ultimate is going to be wasted. You are going to lose that damage trade even if you immediately disengage, putting you another step behind.

Didn't I just say that the CC was what made it bad? It was colored in white and everything.

Yes, it is a bad thing, because forcing players to rely on their team limits player autonomy, which is always a bad thing. There should be a balance between relying on your team and relying on yourself, but you shouldn't always be forced to do it. There should be some room for "outplaying" the enemy in a duel, but CC limits that.

Is this a joke?

Supports are needed not to juke, but to mix things up. I said that ADCs can give uncounterable damage with their CC, and that's true for the ADC, but the support CAN counter it. Supports drastically affect the dynamics of a lane just by being there.

Last hitting isn't the end-all, be-all solution to pushing. If they last hit only, it limits how far they can push in the event of a kill. In the early game, it is even possible for on ADC to return to lane before the waves reset (also partly due to the insane strength of the minions in the early game). If they push instead, that comes with it's own consequences. More choices = good, yes?

Oh, gee, I dunno, maybe you would jungle? Maybe counterjungle? Gank? Push? Camp a lane? Get some map objectives? Give a buff or two to your team?

I think you misunderstand what a support did back then. I never shrinked from playing support, back in the day, because I felt like I was doing things. Getting your ADC kills is certainly doing your team a favor, and it feels good to outplay the enemy support (Because he is your archnemesis).

Also, you seem to fall under the impression that removing Midas Boots would destroy roaming. Well, back then, I roamed. I didn't stay stuck in my lane. I helped other lanes besides Duo. I wasn't some kind of paralyzed weakling stuck in lane, I was a contributor.

If you want to play jungler or roaming solo, then play those roles, and don't shove them into the tank-support and expect him to do it. It's like Aphrodite. We tried to think of ways to make her more viable, but then Raventhor said that the problem wasn't with her, it was with the meta, the need for a tank to play support. We were trying to make her a tank, trying to turn her into something she shouldn't be.

It's not as simple as you say it is. You can't just look at numbers and determine who did what in a match. That's why I've never been a fan of posting match reports.

For example, considering how Neith falls off quite a bit in the late game, compared to Xbalanque's Branching Bola + Deathbringer + Dead of Night, I'd say that Neith did a hell of an impressive job.

I once had a match in Ranked when our Ymir tried the same thing. He failed miserably. Despite us getting two kills in five minutes, the roaming support kept securing the mid camps, putting both her, their He Bo, and their Mercury ahead, while putting him and our jungle and our mid behind.

It is unfair how putting hard pressure on a lane is no longer viable, even if you score a few kills out of it. (Note: I said viable, not the best possible option)

My hate for those mid camps burns hotter than the sun.

This whole thread seems pretty surrealistic to me. Of course I happened to be worse than enemy ADC and fed like hell but... well that was my fault. As a jungler I've never experienced the feeling that enemy ADC is too safe. Of course its harder to gank duo lane because it's usually warded better and ADC usually have a tank to help him but still it's possible to get a kill or even double kill. Sorry but I can't understand why snowballing is a problem for You as well as I can't understand how ADC's are too safe now because I don't have that feeling at all.

@Subzero - Who said that support/tank shouldn't roam so much? Who said that he can't be kinda second jungler...? There are some hmmm rules about what a certain class should do...? Things changes due to META changes, sometimes You like that, sometimes You don't. Rotating to mid harpies and sometimes even ganking is the most efficient way to play support/tank now and many people like it. It increases pace of the game and forces regular engagements.

From what You wrote I can assume You just don't like current META (at least things that applies to snowballing and role of support) and it's totally ok, You can have Your opinion but it doesn't mean that things are wrong. Many people (like me and BestMinionEver) likes things as they are now.

I wasn't going to reply to Sub because it wasn't a big deal and I wasn't contributing much to the letter critique anyways, but I'm glad you addressed it =)