Who is Correct About The Riot Phreak Situation?

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[@AgainPsychoX]

I still hate Phreak for "just type karthus ult" and whole ping changes, mute system, dodges, 4-1 surrender votes. Everything else is somewhat understandable.

[@wermslof3067]

Brother hes the front man of a whole team. Hating on just him is just simple minded.

[@ahab8991]

@@wermslof3067people really expect phreak to completely change the game on his own like a dictator

[@quentinfakailo8847]

You can ackowledge the misconduct but hating is kinda extreme. Ppl tend to be overly emotional, take some distance.

[@Bogdan-ll3fp]

The "just type karthus ult" stems from a rioter having bad experience in a game where he, no joke, was playing karthus and doing really badly, then he got spam pinged by the top laner on his team, and therefore the ping change was suggested. Why it went through is like beyond me, it just sucks lol

[@Berilith]

Is this internet hyperbole? Or do you actually mean “hate”?

[@lupeters213]

The problem with adding water to a oil fire is the water instantly boiling and vaporizing which creates a spray of airborne oil droplets which now have way more surface area and oxygen around them to properly burn.

[@joshuacox5817]

When there's so much code for a big game, perpetually making new champions is throwing in some magnesium.

[@fanOM1000]

if ur oil burns do nthng americans will bring your kitchen freedom

[@Matthew-yv4fg]

Defending himself is what made people actually hate on Phreak not the original mistakes. ‘I am right and you are wrong’ was not the way to phrase things.

[@Thalaranthey]

If he was right would be one thing but bro is he clueless. I wont go out of my way to flame him etc but he was toxic and negative influence on league and its community last few seasons

[@Riaining7]

Yeah, and this is partly where we get the "200 years" meme from. People hate ego and condescension, and today, people are more fragile than ever at the purport of being talked down to. Sensitivity is at an all-time high.

[@danielragsdale9849]

@@Riaining7 Idk about the sensitivity narrative, ego and condescension is annoying for a reason because there's no conversation to be had and no one has recourse to speak to you. It's just a bad way to communicate if that was your goal, objectively.

[@sanesanchezs]

I mean Phreak is probably on the spectrum. He talks really fast and has a fascination with numbers and game design. Every single person that I know who thinks they know better than others will conduct themselves this way and it takes great effort to try and change their mind, especially if they have in-house data to back up those claims.

[@YuYuYuna_]

It's not the fact he defended himself but HOW he did it. Most people don't have a problem with someone disagreeing with them and explaining their reasoning as to why. Phreak was just very condescending and snarky and it gives off a very arrogant and "im better than you, shut up and listen" attitude.

[@paulotremba4688]

He is a game dev but makes himself a social media manager and wonders why he gets so much hate. The "just type karthus ult" clip is the nail in the coffin. A horrible self centered response to something that should have never happened. I would also like to know who decided to buff lux this patch.

[@MajkaSrajka]

-"Yeah, like I see faker typing during MSI [instead of pinging]" Phreak: *Yes*

[@Traubenbecher]

take a sip every time Azzapp is credited as "Azzap" Challenge (Impossible)

[@Lodit24]

Also take a sip every time he says "shi-bang"

[@zeldafan9656]

I'm not particularly fond of Phreak, but comparing him to Bobby Kotick is an insane disservice to Phreak. Admittedly it is only hearsay, but everything I've ever heard from employees that work with/beneath them is that Phreak is actually a pretty good worker whereas Bobby is a nightmare. As an aside, I struggle to take anything that TheScoreEsports guy says seriously ever since he made that video complaining about SoloQ and calling for its removal.

[@therebelofchaos1674]

Yeah TheScoreEsports is literally just a copy+paste info from other channels and guides channel. Hard to take anything he says seriously, but calling for solo q's removal was just the nail in the coffin.

[@hinro]

wait someone wants soloq removed? You sure they didn't mean duoqing? That one would make sense but soloq?

[@zeldafan9656]

@@hinro yup, "Solo Queue Must Die" is the title iirc. The suggestion in that video is to remove soloq and have flexq be the only remaining ranked mode.

[@hasbrogaminghsbgaming4983]

Azzapp has to be the most diplomatic league streamer ever😭😭Blud is changing the whole community as a whole fr

[@adamszabo2874]

Azzapp isnt a big streamer, most of the community have no idea about who he is

[@clappedbyben5438]

@@adamszabo2874while he isnt a big streamer he is getting out there at the moment alot of people talk about him and the bausffs feature was also pretty big

[@dankmemes8254]

​@adamszabo2874 he did blow up recently beacuse the velkoz drama and the no FF mentality

[@MultiSneakerLover]

@@adamszabo2874bruh I don’t even play league and ik azzapp so I highly doubt you are in the “community” if you don’t know azzapp lmao

[@TheIncrediblyAverage]

Summoners rift Obama

[@netnooker]

Any respect, faith and confidence I had for Phreak as a dev completely plummeted when he released the Vel'Koz response. Not only did he prove himself incompetent by not being able to replicate a well known bug when even slowing the game down to 1/8th speed, but he didn't even put in any effort to see the good feedback that was given in regards to the state of thr champion, but all that could have been forgiven if he didn't have such a condescending, holier-than-thou, "Im right youre wrong" attitude whilst simultaneously being wrong, hence the hotfix released for Vel'Koz a few weeks later. The community is against him, his competence has been brought into question, and he's unable to even find the good feedback being given. I think he needs to be demoted, he simply does not belong in a leadership position.

[@swe872]

for real, phreak nees to step a little bit down his ego and maybe stop being so public for a while

[@Nuvizzle]

To be honest, Phreak's sudden transition from being a purely community outreach role as a caster/youtube video narrator guy to the FACE of the design team in a shockingly short amount of time with seemingly no experience or qualification for that position beforehand never sat right with me. Can you blame every bad balance decision on Phreak specifically? No, of course not. But I think it speaks to a culture at Riot - one we already know exists because of, you know, the lawsuits - where your position at the company has little to do with merit or qualification and more to do with your clout with the higher-ups. Phreak has been with Riot for a long time so if he wants to suddenly go from the job he's been doing for years to a completely different, completely unrelated job he doesn't seem qualified for, he just gets to do that. And he gets to be promoted to the LEAD of that team in the blink of an eye, despite Riot being such a massive and profitable company they could hire basically any person in the gaming industry for that role. How else is the game being mismanaged behind the scenes? Phreak is the canary in the coal mine because he's such a community-facing person so his entire drastic shift from non-design-role to design lead was constantly broadcast to the public (and Phreak did a great job of painting a target on his back), but if Phreak can make such a dramatic career move that seems from the outside to be entirely undeserved it honestly explains why the game has felt like it's been so poorly managed for a long time.

[@SiMeGamer]

I think there is missing of some important context here: Phreak has been in direct communication with Riot balance and design the entire time. If you look at his KZbin channel, he has been doing overhaul to League systems for fun for many, many years. He does balance analysis for other games too (mainly Path of Exile). He has been a balance/designer for many years but not in an official capacity and he knows Riot's philosophy on balance very intimately. He does not transition from caster with zero balance experience to a balancer/designer and then promoted to lead out of nowhere. He has been doing it for longer than probably some of the members that have already been on the team. Another thing to note is that the absolute best balancers and designers are working on much bigger projects behind the scenes and simply approve changes. Phtoxzon doesn't work on "live" balance. He works on huge macro changes to the game. This whole season overhaul has been cooking for a year. And the closer it was to the end of the previous season, the less designer and live balance member were still working. I don't know if Phreak will ever get to move to these more influential positions. But him being promoted doesn't make him the pinnacle of the team. Lead of the "Live Pod" is not the lead of balance or design. There are still a few promotions he is missing and might never get. I've listened to Phreak for many years before he even became an official designer. His analysis didn't change much except to have a much more nuanced and deep understanding of the philosophy and application of changes. He is really fking good at his job as a designer. His only major flaw is that he never had spokesperson training, which makes his hobby (his KZbin channel is a hobby - not part of his job) hurt himself and Riot due to lack of skill in that department. But he has improved a lot since then. He still throws a little shade here and there at players - which I really don't find a problem because most players are fking ass at this game and don't understand much about game design. And he is honest which is what I value most. You can be rude; you can be an asshole; but what I care about the most is you being honest and he is very much that. He still has ways to go. But overall I think the game has become way better (been playing for about 12 years) and from what I gather a lot of it is thanks to him. I've become a game dev myself in the past year and I take a lot of insight from him and other Riot devs (and devs of other companies and games) and it has made me better at what I do substantially. I don't deny there might be nepotism of sorts in Riot. I have no clue. I haven't worked there or have I heard much about this being a thing. But regardless of that, I think Phreak fits the role he has been given.

[@henriquerodrigues7795]

I just wanna say, you quite literally can blame all bad decisions on him yes. Because he is the LEAD, simply put, everything bad that happens has gone through his "ok" and being the leader, everything is his fault.

[@ricardorodriguez8497]

@SiMeGamer You sure wrote a lot for not knowing much. Maybe everyone's opinion isn't actually valid after all?

[@SiMeGamer]

@@ricardorodriguez8497 great reply. I love how I know what I got wrong from this criticism. Truly makes me and others more knowledgeable. Keep it up!

[@CoffeeSipper555]

​@@SiMeGamerYou typed a word salad without meaning and expect others to take you seriously, not everyone is a 18- y/o person getting brainwashed by that crap you said. Try again.

[@mrjamezjc9845]

The way azzapp spoke about how the team should have spoken to phreak about how it sucks but you have to be at a higher standard was VERY well said

[@jamesburman9784]

10:04 "Unpopular opinion" proceeds to outline the entire process of what has happened in alarming detail.

[@joshuacox5817]

Armor runes went away which is a lethality buff

[@merchant_of_kek5697]

Literally disregard half the changes he made and then defended, fuck his attitude “just type@

[@billybobbobson3797]

ARmor runes went away at the same time they reverted an age old lethality change. It was ridiculous. @@joshuacox5817

[@agony3254]

Phreak should LEAN INTO the villan role. He SHOULD just completely troll and antagonize people. Just randomly tweet "I'm buffing Yusuo" with no further explanation. Make KZbin shorts declaring that he is changing things PURELY to keep you in gold. Full heel.

[@ThomasAtlus]

We already saw how disastrous that was with helldivers 2! I don’t think I could take it😂

[@netnooker]

He'd never do that, he has no balls.

[@Moonking7]

@@netnooker he put his balance team role out in the public for people to KNOW that he is the one with the power to change your main champ whenever he wants, thats plenty balls with how im lookin at that.

[@netnooker]

@@Moonking7 and then shortly after, full-muted IRL so he can only maintain one-way communication. No balls.

[@GeninGeo]

This is just a fix to his problem his problem is that he wants to give context but his context is ususally bad.

[@quanghieulee238]

People forget that what is lead is, whether you behind the change or not, it is your responsibility. The problem is he as the voice and the head of the team have so terrible communication that the community can't not be annoyed by him.

[@amvnee2336]

phreak is suicidal or something ? arguing with so many asylum's patients at once no wonder he got flamed so much.

[@villjess77]

To have someone so eloquent in the ways of communicating giving advice to someone about how to communicate and not have it listened to is absurd. You're level of cognitive flexibility is a breath of fresh air in media (social or main). Being able to maintain multiple concepts simultaneously is a sign of a healthy brain and in turn makes it enjoyable for myself to watch (and I'm sure many others) Please, keep intelligent in your insights and stay happy/healthy! Cheers Mate!

[@RavenAurion]

"He's not the monarch of league of legends". No, but he is the lead of the rift balance team. That means the final call is up to him. He can direct people on the team on what to work on. There are not "a lot of people" that get called in to make the decision. There are patches every 2 weeks, they are not having interdepartmental meetings over these changes. There is also the fact that he has seniority over pretty much everyone else. He also has super nepotism because of him being an original, which WILL stop people from speaking out against changes he wants to do. Humans are often followers and will just do as they are told rather than create waves that could cost them their job. Lethality is a great example of poor leadership for changes. Bruisers are building lethality -> lets make bruisers do magic damage to make lethality less effective. Marksman are building lethality -> let's buff crit items. The problem is lethality being too strong, but they continue to balance around the problem instead of addressing the problem. That's a leadership problem.

[@BrianMcKee]

The problem with your analysis is that if lethality is too strong then lethality's core users are broken. Fact of the matter is this isn't true. Snuffing out edge cases like Briar with changes to the kit is much better than nerfing dozens of champions at once with direct item nerfs. And to your point about nepotism, what valid criticism do you have for this? Is Phreak somehow less qualified than other lead designers Riot has had? I think whether or not you agree with his analysis on things, he has his own thorough methodologies and obviously isn't out of his depth. I don't agree with everything Phreak has done either, but there has been seldom a league lead designer that I HAVE agreed with. Just they have never been as out in the open and communicative as Phreak is.

[@RavenAurion]

@@BrianMcKee The champions themselves don't need to be broken for the stat to be broken. Lethality Yorick is unhealthy, Lethality Aatrox is unhealthy, Lethality Briar is unhealthy. MOST bruisers opt to go for 1shot builds over building bruiser items. This isn't because bruiser items are weak it's because lethality is too strong. Marksman building lethatlity wasn't because crit was weak, it's because lethality is too potent. Lethality being too strong is also why PLAYING a marksman feels bad because it leads to everything 1shotting them. They need to nerf lethality as a whole and buff assassins on a case by case basis where necessary, the stat itself is in an abuse-able state. Making bruisers deal magic damage is not a solution as then that makes things like black cleaver less efficient as well.

[@joshuacox5817]

​@@BrianMcKee You forgot that they also got rid of armor and magic resist runes, which is a buff for lethality

[@Bogdan-ll3fp]

​@@RavenAurion i play lethality yorick and sadly, the bruiser playstyle and build for yorick suck. Sure, he is stronger in lower elo but in high elo he is WEAK, theres not many people who climb with him up high, and those who do are really good at the game and deserve to be up there, like slogdog, and much other high ranking yoricks. Simple to say that once yorick falls behind he is useless the entire rest of the game as long as hes kept in check. He is also the most vulnerable champ to get ganked, so in the future if you are a top player, tell your jungler that yorick is a easy gank

[@RavenAurion]

@@Bogdan-ll3fp I am a Yorick main. Lethality Yorick isn't healthy. I play it too, but it's really not the playstyle a juggernaut should have.

[@yuspicy2675]

I didn't even know any of these dramas happened in S13, but now I finally understood why I quit sup main and started learning top. Playing sup in S13 traumatized me.

[@slimshaneyy]

That's a shame cause the role is sicko rn

[@humbertvongikkingen8752]

I already found him cringe and self centered as a caster. Quite curious that Riot, being pretty full corporate in their communications elsewhere, has such a blind spot on the problematic communications from him. Nobody deserves death threats, but it was pretty foreseeable given the negative parts of the LoL community.

[@zelcadin]

Yep never liked phreak, still think people might be taking things a bit far

[@ozymandias8523]

He actually is one of the best NA casters, probably top 3

[@GeninGeo]

the several times i watched lcs id mute casters most of the time. especially if i hear this guy his conclusions are so stupid and it continued in his patch rundowns. I watched his patch rundowns so i can see the reasoning for the asinine changes i saw in the game. years of changes basiclly boils down to attentionspan short burst good unless you burst me the ranged champion then burst not good.

[@prunejuice9032]

​@@ozymandias8523 i used to keep count of how many stupid, incorrect analyses he made every game. It was almost always more than 10. Just blatantly incorrect things.

[@kaurxkaru]

Nah, totally deserved. Snowlfakes deserve that for trying to deafen everyone, who doesn't agree with their methods. LoL is a fucking videogame, not a social justice platform (it sure feels like that tho).

[@JfkNeedsWindWall]

It's not really that oil density makes it go above the water. It's that the water added, will flash boil below the oil and cause the flaming oil to explode out by the expanded steam

[@adcyuumi]

Yuumi lost 50 base health, 50 range, 5 base AD, almost half of her heal/shield power, her only cc, her only good trade mechanic (other than launch the occasional Q), and her mana sustain. In exchange, she got a better more reliable slow on Q. The new kit is HORRIBLE. Most people hate playing as/with/against against the new Yuumi kit much more than they did as/with/against the old Yuumi kit - players were liking the direction of the old Yuumi kit, it was slowly getting to a healthy place. She needed to detach often to be fully effective, she had lots of effective play-styles, and the only real issue was Yuumi's synergy with the mythic item Moonstone Renewer that now doesn't even exist anymore. (It let her be effective while remaining attached, since she could heal with Q instead of E and never run out of mana.) Then I hear RIOT employees saying dumb things like "Yuumi's auto-attacks were too impactful in team fights" in the same breath they defend buffing Yone. Phreak is THE worst offender, when it comes to saying just the dumbest most out of touch BS. But that one... that one made me permanently lose all respect for his competency. I hope that he retires and we get fresh thinking in his place, because he is missing the mark on every single thing these days.

[@WHAT_TAHW]

Wow its almost as if the champ was completely disgusting if the player was good at yuumi and absolutely terrible if they weren't It's a good thing they (intentionally) killed the champ so they can eventually rework her properly Also crying about yone XD?XD?

[@yaoitiddieexpert1486]

@@WHAT_TAHW Me when i read 1 in 3 words and then get angry about it

[@dramamine755]

I agree with your points but I suggest not playing yuumi. 0 skill 0 fun.

[@Nuvizzle]

Yuumi's design is just toxic dogass. The problem is no Yuumi player ever played Dawngate so they don't understand how well designed a backpack champion can actually be compared to the trash that is Yuumi.

[@Thalaranthey]

​@dramamine755 fun is subjective, i've had fun playing yuumi from time to time, especially while duo with some hyper carry. I cant for the life of mine see what people find fun about renekton, orn and dozen other champions tho but i wont go around telling them its not fun xd

[@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz]

I mean, when you're the design lead all the stupid game design decisions ARE your responsibility. even if they weren't your decisions. as the leader it's your job to prevent your team from doing stupid things. (excluding the things that aren't done by his team at all)

[@katanaz7124]

Never knew phreak until he decided to come into the spotlight and got shit on. I really still believe if august was in his place it would have been very different

[@EmptyTenementSpirit]

People shit on August constantly in much the same way, but they didn't quite coin "AugustSzn" during this period of time.

[@uwuDezzyuwu]

⁠@@EmptyTenementSpirit August is transparent and respectful when he speaks to the community, so he’ll always have more respect than Phreak. Bottom line.

[@EmptyTenementSpirit]

@@uwuDezzyuwu This is true, though even August has limits to his patience and he will be angry in response occasionally, though I can't exactly blame him. I also can't blame Phreak most of the time because he gets shit on for stuff that most of the time doesn't have anything to do with him, but he should still have more decorum than he has.

[@uwuDezzyuwu]

​@@EmptyTenementSpirit Highly Agree. We're all human, so emotional responses are definitely a thing that happens. But, imo Phreak should've never been a LEAD because of the immaturity he showed when he was just a small part of the team. Even as a lead the amount of total control he has is completely disproportionate to the hate he receives. But, I feel like both his lack of decorum on many occasions combined with Riot's decision to make him a lead made the community have something to latch onto and hate extremely easily. (Edit: Pressed enter early lmao)

[@EmptyTenementSpirit]

@@uwuDezzyuwu Yeah his position definitely compromises itself due to who he is as a person and either his unwillingness or inability to act more professionally. It could also be an adjustment for him since he's so used to being relatively candid. But yeah, it's definitely a problem because it gives him a lot of hate in excess of what he might truly deserve. I don't envy his position lmao.

[@Ronan-ht6jc]

Video forgot to mention Maokai being giga busted for 3 months and coincidently only getting nerfed once Phreak got to grandmaster otping me, AND bragging about it on shitter. Pretty big thing that happened, especially since he did the exact same thing last season with Janna.

[@JoyfulSeal-sh9cw]

Maokai was giga busted before that, in fact he was giga busted for the entire year before that but no one played him.

[@Frozenanimeskelett]

What do you mean? I mute myself as a jungler always. Because somehow everyone knows how to play jungle better than me and every lane wants ganks I should take all objectives and if I ever get counter jungled god forbid they help me for once.

[@TheOddessayyy]

Because it defeats the whole purpose of a competitive game Let's say I'm mid Veigar and you're my jungler, i ping you alive > on my way ping > and my E CD basically meaning let's engage together when my E is up / Gank when my E is up etc. but since you self muted you're not hearing/seeing that you basically destroyed a part of the game and this is just one example. How much sense would it make if in basketball your teammates closed their ears and just focused on their own perspective? Would you really be successful compared to a team who's communicating? You're playing a 5v5 multiplayer game you're going to get flamed, it's in the nature of it instead of turning the game into a single player game go and actually play a single player game or just tough it out and mute whoever flames you individually instead of closing your ears min 1

[@bilkari8753]

So you play the team oriented role while being mute and deaf. Good.

[@adamszabo2874]

You must be as bad as Targamas then lol

[@poom323]

​​@@TheOddessayyy communication is op, it's op enough to be able to make silver team able to win against random challenger team. That why I really hate /mute all mindset and league nowadays that full of people with this mindset who try to convert other people to have this mindset.

[@danielli9046]

this is why you're hardstuck gold @frozenanimeskelett

[@noobstrodamus8881]

I never liked phreak because of his casting. He could never take it seriously and cared more about people thinking he was funny than hyping up the action

[@animagamer2]

It's crazy to me how Azzapp will question everything the video says, but then soft-defend Dantes playing it up and blaming Phreak for every little thing. Bro, that's literally the whole point! When streamers attribute everything to Phreak and bleeds downstream to their audience. Azzapp is too smart to be unable to understand this, at this point there must be some motivated reasoning happening.

[@snakeking5009]

Calling Phreak a fan favorite caster is like saying Captain Flowers is known for his hatred of the NA league scene.

[@MrDylanAndrew]

I mean, depending on how long you have been watching the pro scene, it's not an entirely inaccurate statement.

[@motre39]

Yoo Azzapp, great video! This style suits you very well

[@jaykebrwn]

azzapp with a good take as usual, this season is objectively very good, phreak just needs to shut his mouth and stop painting a target on his back lol

[@TylerAyyy]

as a jungler i can't ping my laners R before I get to the lane to indicate that i want them to start the gank with R. or flash. Have lost many games from this miscoordination. at higher elos these may be obvious calls but in gold-emerald where i play this is 100% a factor in the ganks/game going in our favor

[@cursedy49]

Dearest Karthus, I hope this finds you well. We seem to have found ourselves in a dire situation at the bottom lane. Please consider casting your ultimate ability to assist us as i do believe Lee sin has come to dive our tower. Sincerely, Your bottom lane

[@koko2001malti]

OMFG when you mentioned mark yetter I had so many flashbacks lol

[@ivanbar47]

A great breakdown once again Azzapp, keep it up =]

[@hungryguy560]

I acctualy fell intro lava in minecraft and said DAMN YOU PHREAK I was in call and i said it to friends a lot as a joke it become normal to me XD

[@Shavaaa]

man.. it sucks that they let quickshot go

[@MariusNinjai]

all my homies hate goldborg why did that idiot post it...

[@mattlluviaaguilar8070]

That guy needs to get canned, he's so obnoxious et disrespectful, Riot is still a company and professionalism is not his thing

[@MajkaSrajka]

-"He shouldn't talk back to the internet" -"It is add fuel to the fire? Shut up chat" 🤣

[@JaredSwift-oj6ee]

To be fair about the not fighting the community or addressing things it's a lose lose situation from the start. If he just ignores completely then the community hatred will grow from not being "seen" ESPECIALLY because of the precedent he set with his communication. If he addresses it then people will find anything in what he says and figure out how to attack it. Impossible job for him and he's been doing a pretty solid job given that.

[@austinzobel4613]

Phreak aint the scapegoat... he just acted like the lead gaslighter and called a whole community wrong. Azzapp you communicated perfectly during that whole shehbang. You kept it simple and precise... the problem was that you did it right and it DIDNT MATTER Phreak was an ass because the whole community brought valid communications and he told us that we DIDN'T. He DID do that. The scapegoating bs just confuses things. Its just making people unable to communicate without being categorized as aggressive Though at this point, wouldn't be surprised if Riot just had an army of people attacking Phreak just to make good in the community look aggressive to shutdown disagreed on opinions

[@mikoajciemiega8018]

Now honestly we know thats not how it works but its still funny to joke "why is this champion op? Because Phreak wants to climb out of gold"

[@umbranocturna6342]

What i hate about phreak is his patch videos. Most of the time when he lists the reasons for a champ to be buffed/nerfed he seems to misunderstand the reasons why. For example he gave darius a buff due to cleaver nerfs, when that never was the reason the champ struggeled early this season. Its just infuriating to see how clueless he is.

[@declancampbell1277]

i've yet to watch the video, i'll update this with an edit if i need to, but i'll give my thoughts on phreak before hand and see if the video changes my mind for anyone that cares to read. I dont think phreak is the be all and end all of everything wrong with riot balancing, but i think he rightly gets a lot of flak from the community because he comes across as so incredibly toxic and condescending whenever he disagrees with the community on certain issues. Im almost certain he was one of the ones saying that velkoz mains had no idea what they were talking about and that they didnt give any real feedback to balance off of. Thats just one of many many things that phreak is not only wrong about, but also acts like an ass while he's wrong. When you have that behaviour expect a lot of backlash. Not saying he deserved the death threats or anything, i never approve of that sort of thing, but i mean what did he expect with an attitude like that? this is the lol community, as a whole we see toxicity and throw it back 100 times worse, thats just how it works unfortunately. And i DO get that he gets a lot of idiots in his chats that can provoke irritation with their dog takes, but he's not just a caster now. He's supposed to be a professional face of the company, if he cant control his emotions when interacting with the community then he doesnt deserve the role he's been given. Either that or he should just step back from streaming, its not a good look for riot, the company already has a terrible reputation.

[@HashNtheBox]

How he didn't get fired in that scandal blows my mind. No way he wasn't apart of the harassment.

[@Argonist]

All I have to say is that Phreak hit master playing Janna, meanwhile, that champion is STILL sitting at 52%+ wr with no nerfs in sight. Also the fact that Phreak was super inflammatory and treated the community like idiots (with shit like "just type karthus ult") made him super unlikeable.

[@timluo6120]

Janna is always good, best solo q support most of the time since pre s1. Putting this on Phreak is laughable

[@arionell]

Because there is just no reason to touch Janna. No one really sees Janna and tells to themselves "Well its a Janna, we've lost." She isn't unfair by herself nor unfun to play against.

[@popeofpreecum6586]

azzapp have you seen phreak talk about wanting to make malzahars ult imune to qss and same with WW ult just like the mordekaiser changes

[@bshr1nk3yk1d]

Not gonna lie Phreak was one of my favorite casters a when Jatt left he was probably my favorite, they’ve gotten better tho, Azeal prolly the best rn

[@muffinman1628]

Not a criticism but it was very funny finding out live time that Azaap is not a physicist despite his big brain velkoz plays

[@dylansmith6078]

nah there is no way there are some champions that stay op for 4-5 patches and it just so happens the man in charge of "balancing" the game has those same champions spammed for the entire season and also having their counter picks.... nerfed to the ground. I mean it not even conspiracy if the shoe fits with evidence

[@lucaxtshotting2378]

I think the issue is that riot acts like they don't know their game is a simulation. OP champs get to have 50ish % winrate because things don't have impact, not because they are not op, because it deosn't matter if they are, not because they are not I'd assume this nature of the game is good for it, but I'm not sure why the community ignores it. Probably too busy queuing up again.

[@usurpererenyeagar4587]

i came here too fast

[@tohmo8576]

New commenter build Op challenger Elo? Full speed

[@wingofshu]

That's why she's disappointed

[@EllaEllaAudios]

many such cases

[@jeanismael1753]

You should see a doctor about that

[@Portos_O_1os]

7:29 sounds like the story of the guy in valve who deranked from global elite and had to find a quick way to rank up again, but he didnt have time to become better so he copied the exact same stats of the AWP to a revolver and just removed the scope and made is 3900$ cheaper than AWP

[@brianlefevre9624]

Its an interesting approach to appoint someone with such a toxic attitude to address the public. Most companies have some shill who puts on a fake smile and is meant to calm the public. Its very Dana White-esque, where the big public figure is disliked and he just absorbs all the hate of the community. Having someone to tank the hate and complaints frees up some of the pressure on the rest of the company. People hate Phreak but he likely has very little power. They are gonna put patches out at a set time, so they have an extremely forced timeline. They want to sell skins, so they are gonna force poorly balanced/designed champions to be released. I seriously doubt Phreak has any significant impact on these things, those are just the constraints that are given to the balance team

[@user-jy8fz9xv9j]

Im a wildrift and tft mobile player. So is phreak kinda like a lol mortdog?

[@WHAT_TAHW]

yes, except he gets 10x the amount of hate Imo the game is way better but they nerf things too slow (instead of over-nerfing/overbuffing 24/7), the biggest problem is matchmaking which I dont think Phreak has any control over lol

[@josuevc7593]

Yes

[@Nuvizzle]

Yes except Mortdog is much more humble and understanding about players frustrations with design changes and balance issues. He also takes responsibility for those mistakes as the team lead and doesn't respond to all criticism with "Uhhh but guys I didn't PERSONALLY make this change even though I'm the guy in charge so I should be overseeing all changes"

[@daluven]

Mortdog is liked compared to phreak

[@ozymandias8523]

Yes, if everything goes wrong the hate is funneling into them.

[@teamsmatkinsmith]

I love all of the well deserved attention you've been recently getting

[@IceWraith101]

Phreak is the typical toxic lol player..... given actual power in the game.

[@duobizarrobizarro]

Nah man, Phreak is amazing actually; all the changes to pings and new ff stuff made me finally drop the game; literally didn't play 1 ranked this season yet. It's sad he isn't breaking it a bit more so others can also get cured of this C-word of game.

[@Moonking7]

be a man and type the damn word, if the game is cancer then why still follow content solely about the game and drama surrounding the GAME. It's not bad at all if u are genuinely trying to have fun and not be an asshat for anyone who doesnt agree with your worldview

[@xDuWuTang]

Love how those first KZbin comments had a Maokai complaint. Classic.

[@MikeAsbestos]

Was that Joe "Please don't call me Joe 'Joe Miller' Miller" Miller?

[@Bartzol]

Looking forward to the Azzapp season (with 2 p).

[@Oruk-Orup]

I think one major issue is some people confuse tired and annoyed with condesending

[@glenndiddy]

As a jungler I only have party chat enabled. I have 0 interest in what my team is typing. Anytime anything goes wrong the only thing showing up in chat is. JG DIFF, this boosted dog is farming krugs when the enemy jungler ganks, report this braindead jungle, FF jungle ruined my lane. There is so little useful communication towards junglers that I'd rather just use only pings. You can be 5-0-3 against the enemy jungle 0-2-2 and you will still get flamed by the 1 losing lane. I'll stick to pings and mute my entire team every game.

[@organicsatanic]

I'm not even a jungler and I do this. lol players can be such entitled babies. for every positive experience I've had in chat I've had 5 toxic experiences. it's just not worth risking tilting me out of the game to have chat enabled.

[@lordmatz3435]

damn bro with the insane positive chatting ratio

[@ArguablyTheWorst]

I really don't know man, when I play this game no one cries in chat about how dogshit I am... if this happens to you often you might just be dogshit I don't know what to tell you

[@iplayfifasadge]

I know what to tell you. You are worse than dogshit.​@@ArguablyTheWorst

[@iplayfifasadge]

I know what to tell you. You are worse than dogshit​@@ArguablyTheWorst

[@Chr0n1c_2]

27:53 Well i woud argue with the transparency being unparallel to other games, check out what the rust devs are doing. And they've being doing it for such a ling time

[@DrkNinja_]

Been playing since late S2 watching LCS since S3, Phreak has always been one of my favorites.

[@antoineboucher5391]

I will say this rn cuz i need to complain abt that lmao. But people in low elo thinks that all the team can telepathically comunicate with them im bronze and my last game, i got flamed for not engagin on a fight i had a skarner on my team that just 3 people ult and i didnt rly see it i saw him engage but nothing else, meanwhile i was getting ulted by both a oriana and a zyra and was trying to escape both ult (which i did!!!l) and because i didnt ult the 3 peop (i was hwei SUP) and because of that the rest of thw game i got blamed for everything even if during the whole game the only pings i saw were the spams of questionmarks after someone dies.

[@Inscipio]

24:30 If Shaclone says you have gone too far with toxicity, then you need to step back and assess all of your life choices.

[@darklordgrif]

I can't see why phreak would respond, like he just should have said, "Yeah bro I wanted to climb." I would have just laughed, it's kind of ridiculous.

[@ryanrodgers3099]

It's truly wild how Phreak either has been given 0 PR training/advice, or just disregards it all. Certainly once he became balance lead, Riot should have been taking the tack like: While he is the team lead, it is a *team* that ultimately makes the decisions and executes on them. The balance team has a diverse level of actual play skill and role interest, the game is (attempted to be) balanced around creating a good experience for the whole player base and an interesting, exciting, pro scene. Certain changes may look like role/champ favoritism in the short term, but are a part of a long term strategy for the health of the game. We (Riot), do not always get it right on the first attempt, but we will continue to work to improve in our changes and communication. etc. etc. Idk, just having Phreak go to bat for every change *like they were his unanimous decisions* doesn't help dispel the notion that he's your "arch nemesis at Riot" for people. Of course, I think that managers and department heads should be held accountable for stupid decisions made by the team, but you shouldn't be pretending like you made them on your own to either take credit, or shield people from criticism. Sometimes he may have been defending his team, in his own weird way, but the combative and dismissiveness is terrible PR and communication. If you're gonna do the patch run-downs, stop doing them live if you can't handle people harassing you. Or pay balance team members/moderators to answer questions in chat while you have it OFF. I get it, if you genuinely believe that you've played the game and casted the game for so long and been so involved in it that you might actually think you know better than the player base, but you can't just shit on your players - your *customers* - every time they disagree with your decisions on something.

[@jonathanjudenberger613]

So many kids in the comment section bashing phreak. I'm a dev myself (albeit not a game one) and usually these decisions come from more than one person or atleast its from a higher up. Yes Phreak could have had his hand in this decision but then again its his job lol if adc is weak buff adc. Doesn't matter what Phreak does in his spare time.

[@eijitoh6252]

stfu Phreak. go back to ur balancing team.

[@ShyWhy96]

seeing the chat would be nice on these reactionary contents

[@George_Rakkas]

ADD VOIP TO LEAGUE I dont understand how they have avoided doing this the past 14 years...

[@OjiVince]

I would agree Phreak was a fan favorite back in these days

[@ThotianaGrande]

Idk his Seraphine changes really really soured him for me

[@theeyetriangle]

I fucking love it when the team ffs at minute 15 but only when it's the enemy team doing it xd, but otherwise seeing the ff vote doesn't take me out of the game at all at this point, I've already been completely wired to click no instantly just hoping the enemy threw somewhere

[@mercerwing1458]

Phreak hate is completely reasonable imo. The first adc changes that could have had nothing to do with him sure. But the defence of the ping changes, dodges, ff, pings. Maokai being at like 55% wr for 4 patches even tho Phreak and is playing that champion non-stop(and many other champions that have ridiculous wr and br without nerfs). I just can't trace Phreak to any positive gameplay change.

[@igorlopesribeiro8781]

Tbh League has been really enjoyable since last august, both in a competitive sense and a casual one as well, i wont ever miss Mythic Items though, so glad they took those out (just wanted to throw that in there lol)

[@dankmemes8254]

There is some bittersweetness in that statement league became fun beacuse they removed systems not add or improve

[@Notllamalord]

The games has been gradually decaying with all these anti toxicity changes that no one wants

[@dankmemes8254]

@@Notllamalord all what anti toxicity chnages did is make it so you need to type less becuase you genuinely get banned for nothing

[@Cynsham]

@@Notllamalord maybe you wouldn't get banned if you weren't toxic. crazy idea i know, league players can't understand such a simple concept.

[@fobinc]

The key to this whole situation is just go into every season blind. I don't read patch notes, I pick random champs to play every season. Goal of gaming is have fun...

[@MelonJoose]

I appreciate phreak, I've appreciated his patch notes for a long time and I can see that he has reasonable takes. He sometimes takes a while to come around on things, but I think his transparency and no bullshit on issues is welcome. I am still pissed about type karthus R, but that change didn't come from him, we know who is responsible. I do think he is a bit of a dick about some things, but tbh i would be too. All in all I think he's the best lead they've had in years, and I don't want to see him go

[@Vaestus]

Azzapp hard no's the idea that phreak is boosting himself with the balance changes, but its 100% my tinfoil hat theory. Dude has been hardstuck for many years, suddenly to hit GM abusing the absolute disgusting balance decisions on Janna and Maokai. We knew Maokai was going to be broken the instant the buffs come though, but yet Maokai dodged nerfs patch after patch after patch and Phreak just kept playing it, and playing it, and playing it, when magically he hit GM for the first time after years of stucker status. Is it likely? No. But it certainly feels like he's kept some overpowered things in the game for longer than they should be just so he could play it.

[@shaddoww1136]

The biggest problem with him getting flak for the awful buffs they do at times is they are damn near always around characters he has been spamming nonstop in ranked. Maioki was absolutely dominate for a while, community asking for nerfs very vocally. Then we get a Maioki buff that buffs the abilities that are directly problematic for support and nerfs the one role he was weakest. Then you look at phreak's history and he had been spamming Maoiki supp damn near since the season began, and continued to play him at an even higher pickrate than before after buffs went live. I dont care what game it is, this looks sus AT BEST. I mean what do you honestly expect people to do when the lead clearly sees a pick feels overwhelmingly strong (so much so that he is picking it quite often), and we know he hears the very vocal (sometimes to vocal) community begging for a nerf, and they still choose collectively to buff it. We know he listens because of the very patch rundowns and tweets we used to appreciate, but now he uses them more to justify the collective bad decisions of HIS team than to actually run anything down. If there werent multiple instances of this happenening the intense flame behind the words of him manipulating ptches would simmer down eventually. He directly adds fuel to the flame, stokes the fire, then shouts at the fire, and is confused why the fire has griwn so large and burns more than before. There is no defending him. At BEST he is negligent or tonedeaf, and at worst he is malisciously manipulating, and he set himself up for everything he recieves. Except death threats of course. Still quite a low point if what he said is true.

[@jrodgers674]

Shokz is the face/voice of LoL for me, always had been. I am not even EU, but for me thats the person i think of first when thinking of people associated with LoL.

[@sonvay1006]

I'm playing since s4, I never had any issues with the balance changes but I'm more annoyed by all the bugs that this game has for years and they just never fix them. Also I could even script up to challenger and riot wouldn't ban me if I wouldn't overuse my script, but they don't ever care giving back your LP if you lose against a scripter.

[@Soulprison3r]

They still won't remove yummi from her weird spot

[@poly2081]

Phreak should watch some videos Jeff Kaplan did and take some notes. Jeff was really loved by the overwatch community.

[@snowwitch1752]

i just love the aspect of players coming out to flame Phreak on what is broken which mostly are true because we played the game and Riot just balancing based on numbers of winrate and somehow someway it's entirely on Phreak xD poor guy.

[@AgainPsychoX]

Azzap with one P is the goat.

[@minidays960]

He seems like a great dude ngl I kinda feel bad thinking about him messing up a bit and feeling sad :(

[@VeeZzz123]

Phreak is truly a league player lmao He can't help reading, tilting, and typing back. . He keeps getting into stupid fights, and the reality is, it's not inevitable. You can't control millions of people, but you can control yourself, which avoids unnecessary escalation.

[@wor2xfs250]

Thanks for being one of the most reasonable league personalities.

[@PlebCentre]

Doesn't mean much to LoL players, but this channel recently defended Leffen, and fuck that guy, go make another video about BigBird and AngryBird cause they deserve it.

[@lunaw2174]

if no one is going to understand then it would make a lot of sense to explain, at least simply, who Leffen is and why defending them is bad

[@commandersheepherd437]

RIOT should employ Azzapp. Seriously... the game would be so much better for it.

[@gregrussell1787]

Phreak may be wrong some times. But to think that means the "community" is right? Hahahaha. The "LoL Community"... right? As in... correct? The same community that people talk about muting all the time? Same community that for every loss says "[everyone but me] diff" and for every victory says "I carried"?

[@Stajdify]

Nah dude, the mythic item change should not be defended. Did they do their "best" to put out something that worked, maybe so... but the game before the mythic items were released was nowhere close to perfect in terms of champion balance as it was.... but yet the decision to introduce a potential game breaking overhaul of items was plain stupid. Same with the runes re-work when that happened. Riot just keeps adding changes that nobody asks for.... Tyler 1 went over all of this in previous videos.

[@EmrysMerlin8807]

Dude received actual death threats and your response is "Well, if you weren't so condescending..." Holy shit that's some world class victim blaming.

[@Beenini4444]

Personally i don't really care about phreak being on the balance team, i just really dislike the way he talks to the players, prime example being the karthus r thing or vel'koz buff "no feedback"

[@esdraslionwhyte]

The current dev team is actually good and transparent about the changes and future plans. Phrox and August are good examples of that. They are super cool people, and while a lot of people complain to them about everything, they still keep the chill atitude, which is amazing! I've liked Phreak since the old caster days but, but the "dev Phreak" is not good. He clearly doesn't know how to deal with criticism...

[@mikoajciemiega8018]

You can type guys

[@renkuria]

my main issue is he refuses to hit champions he plays even if they are objectively stronger and unfun to play vs the champions he nerfed, he hit several supports but then left janna untouched despite being way stronger then the champions he was nerfing, to this day janna needs nerfs yet gets none. They need someone on the team who only balances the champions phreak plays and is not beholden to phreak given his position.

[@tylerdavisson355]

As someone who has played League since 2012 and had a massive friend group within it. Phreak definitely seemed like a fan favorite in my view. Crazy to hear someone say he was never a fan favorite.

[@Ed-hq1ze]

I had no issue with phreak until he started acting all high and mighty, and refusing to listen to most feedback. He has made himself look like an absolute shitter. And i have absolutely 0 respect for the man.

[@RagingRevine]

ADCs normally get the shit end of the stick every season. They get dominated by the solo roles filled with champds that are outright better...so they finally get a season and people are complaining about it? I've played this game for YEARS. Botlane is even easier to gank now.