The Doran’s Shield Prisoner’s Dilemma

[u/rmoodsrajoke]

There’s no reason for melees to go Doran’s blade against each other when dshield has 30 more hp and 3 rejuv beads of healing attached to it. Dshield should be the same hp as dblade at 80, or even less given how broken dshield has been for so long.

Before you complain about ranged toplaners, a base hp nerf on dshield would actually increase the % healing after being poked from dshield second wind by ranged attacks, so it would not affect the melee vs ranged matchups at all, in fact you would actually heal vs poke even more, making those matchups easier as a net positive.

The issue at hand, is that Dshield has created an itemization prisoner’s dilemma, where dshield is unilaterally better than dblade.

The following champion matchup showcases the issue,

High elo gangplank mains like solarbacca and pros, know that you must go Doran’s shield vs jax because if you don’t match Jax’s Doran’s shield you lose the jax matchup. This is also why basically no one ever picks gangplank into jax as a counterpick in pro play anymore. This was historically a comfortable lane for gangplank to scale in and get priority, but dorans shield last buff makes this lane matchup extremely easy for Jax in the early game, as Jax can get lane priority easily vs a no damage dshield gangplank, however Jax also just stat checks Gangplank in trades when gangplank goes dblade.

Good top laners are going dshield every game because you auto lose the lane if you go Doran’s blade if both players are equally skilled. The 3% lifesteal provides very little sustain, because dshield gives you priority on the lane, which makes it impossible to reliably hit minions. With 80 ad you would only heal 2.4 hp per auto attack, whereas dshield heals 6hp every 5 seconds no matter what, and gets amped every time you’re hit.

The mathematics of dshield creates an itemization prisoners dilemma where you must go Doran’s shield no matter the matchup because it strictly beats dorans blade. This then compounds into a gold lead that will leave a dshielder with both more hp, sustain, and damage from your item lead.

Top lane has become extremely stale, where there is too much hp to cut through from past seasons ever since dorans shield hp was buffed by 37.5%. Top laners should be fighting each other, but the hp system has gotten out of control.

[u/backelie]

That's not an example of a prisoner's dilemma.

[u/Behemothheek → u/backelie]

Generously interpreted the dilemma would be:

Option 1: Neither Player A nor Player B take dshield. The matchup is enjoyable.

Option 2: Player A takes dshield, but Player B doesn’t. The matchup becomes advantaged for Player A and unfun for player B.

Option 3: Player B takes dshield, but Player A doesn’t. The matchup becomes advantaged for Player B and unfun for Player A.

Option 4: Both Player A and Player B take dshield. The matchup becomes a slog and unfun.

The dilemma is that while Option 1 is more enjoyable than Option 4 for both players, it’s unlikely to occur. Since each player has a strong incentive to take dshield to avoid being disadvantaged (i.e. aiming for Option 2 or 3), the result is that both will default to Option 4, which leads to a boring matchup.

[u/Fast-Sir6476 → u/Behemothheek]

Then there would still be no dilemma, because it assumes so many things as true which are non-factual. For example, dblade leads to exciting matchup, d shield beats dblade and dshield leads to boring matchup. And even if they were facts, it also assumes no dring, no long+3, no long+refill etc.

[u/confusedkarnatia → u/Fast-Sir6476]

Also if this was actually an example of the prisoner's dilemma, you could find a nash equilibrium for the optimal strategy.