Name a champion and I'll tell you why they are unfun bullshit

BobaFlautist·Jul 18, 2017·59 votes·8,093 views

It's super popular to say "While x chanpion is overtuned, that's not the real problem. The real problem is that their kit is toxic, and unfun, and I don't like playing against them."

I'm not gonna argue that this never has any merit, hut I think every champion in the game has elements of their kit that feel like bullshit when they're strong, and usually the most bullshiitty-feeling part of their kit is a huge part of what makes them unique and fun to play.

So I challenge you to name any champion, and I will give you my honest, detailed, logical opinion about why it seems no-fair to play against them, strong or not.

Edit: Sorry for the gap in responses, my boss came to my desk and told me to get to work. Starting up again now.

288 Comments

BabyNaixJul 18, 201718 votes

Darius Super tanky, tons of damage, lots of sustain, good short trade burst combo, good sustained damage with stacks, can 1v2 when ahead.

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201740 votes

Wait, you did it for me...

BabyNaixJul 18, 201718 votes

Ya rip I didn't read your post properly :(

Sassmast3rJul 18, 201711 votes

Karma do it she's literal cancer and I main her

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201713 votes

Well let's see: Sivir was a popular pick in competitive play for a while because of her insanely strong ultimate, which allowed her team to gain positional advantages on a relatively short cooldown.

Karma has the same ability at level 1, except it has an aoe shield attached, the cooldown is SHORTER, she has better access to cdr, and the cooldown is reduced by using her abilities. Or autoattacking.

Her q is a generic, bland aoe poke ability that can hit you through minions, on a super low cooldown, with a fairly low Mana cost and respectable base damage. It's the main reason she can bully melee supports as obnoxiously hard as she does. If she empowers it, and has any how, it can chunk squishies for most of their hp, because heavy poke and helping her adc push are her niche.

Her w is a little more interesting. When it was stronger, it was strong enough to buoy up an entire toxic playstyle, in which the combination of cdr and tank stats made her unkillable. Right now, however, it's pretty balanced - for a point and click snare that prevents people from making use of bushes to avoid her.

Her empowered e we already touched, but her unempowered one is still ridiculous. At level one, it gives 5% less movespeed than master Yi's ultimate does at level 16, but 15% more than what it gives him at level 6. And it keeps going up. And she can give this to any ally, on a relatively short cooldown, with a pretty sturdy shield attached, because keeping her adc safe from danger and blocking damage is her niche.

It's just so hard to kill an adc protected by karma, her mantra e means her team always has the positioning advantage, and her q does pretty respectable damage on top of that.

CatastropJul 18, 20176 votes

Lissandra I'm actually looking forward to this.

BobaFlautistJul 19, 20174 votes

Midlane she seems pretty balanced except her powerful ranged waveclear, heavy cc, heavy damage, and crazy safety.

Toplane, on the other hand...She's a ranged top, with all that brings, but instead of being a normal ad ranged top, she's a mage, so she has aoe wave clear, which makes her even more safe, and means she scales better into teamfights.

Her Q is actually fairly short ranged, unless there's a minion wave present, and that never happens in the laning phase. It also has a high mana cost, so it's considered fair for it to have an incredibly low cooldown for a 0.7 ap ratio ability with a respectable slow to the primary target.

If a melee champion ever actually closes onto her, she presses W and then they don't. Also she gets another free q onto them. Probably another while they back away.

If she's facing Irelia, Renekton, or post six Akali or Kassadin, and pressing W does nothing but 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 40% AP) damage + 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 (+ 70% AP), she presses e, which is not only a ground targeted blink (really really strong for escaping) that can't be blocked or interrupted easily, but also benefits from Leblanc Syndrome thanks to the delay (which admittedly makes engaging harder for her).

Leblanc Syndrome occurs when an ability, such as Leblanc W, or Ryze Ulti, or Lissandra E, has a delayed, targeted blink. The player of the champion insists that the delay makes the ability harder to use, and in some cases, they are right. However, when escaping an enemy without heavy cc or sticking power, the ability says "Pick a location: Either the place I have telegraphed I can blink, or the place I am now. You are only one enemy, you can only chose one location. Ok, picked it? Wrong!". The player of the Leblanc Syndrome champion gets to feel super tricky and clever, often crowing about "THE JUUUUUKES!!!" while only the enemy champion knows that there was no real choice all along and no way for them to win.

Anyway, back to Lissandra. At level 6, she gets to chose between a targeted Sejuani Ultimate that has damage scaling with her primary stat, or a Zhonya's with damage scaling with her primary stat and hp gain.. No, no, not like Kayne or Kha'zix gets to chose, not at all. No, she gets to chose each time the ultimate is up. Whichever one she chooses actually further aids her ability to not have to pay attention to melee champions in the laning phase. In teamfights, she's a huge damage and cc threat with short cooldowns, and powerful utility, which doesn't sound that op until you compare her to the shivering, underfarmed wreck of a melee top that is her counterpart on the enemy team.

Tsa I FlyJul 19, 20175 votes

Janna. Janna

BobaFlautistJul 19, 20175 votes

A well played Janna doesn't let any melee champion EVER touch her adc. Her Q can single handedly negate powerful engages from the likes of Zac, Jarvan, and her ulti cleans up any leftover mess. You will never fight her, you can't dive her, and you will ALWAYS BE SLOWER THAN HER thanks to her w. Her passive rewards her for hiding behind her adc by letting them back out of fights more effectively, and her E is basically the reason that laning against Janna feels like laning against a less interactive soraka. Oh, except it also gives a ton of ad to the target, and can protect turrets for if you try to siege.

Report for WujuJul 18, 20174 votes

Udyr

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201733 votes

Oh Udyr's actually really easy to deal with, you just don't fight him in melee range

What do you mean you're a melee chanpion? How is that relevant. I said, don't fight him in melee range. Ever. No matter what.

See, if people play perfectly, Udyr should never get to touch a ranged chanpion because he doesn't have a dash or ranged cc. So it's only fair that you can't touch him if you're melee, that's why he has his Q: If You're Squishy You Die, his W: You Aren't Allowed To Do Damage To Me, his E: I Am Faster Than You And You Are Stunned, and his R: I Have Sustained Damage So Don't Bother Building Tanky. Oh, and of course his passive, I Get Stats From Pressing Buttons.

Oh and if you are ranged and he touches you, it's your fault and you should feel bad. You deserved it for letting the malzahar you were against reach level 6, you should have known better, and your death was easily preventable.

KengadengJul 18, 20174 votes

Urgot

TwitchInMyPantsJul 19, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Man this champion is so absurd if not constantly nerfed into the ground. I mean he's got this super spammy Q which is better than any tool a standard top or midlaner has, who decided he gets to take this thing from Ezreal? Oh, lets not mention that it has a FREE DEBUFF on it, so if you're an attack dependant champion who's not stacking AD you do basically 0 damage. And its sooooo spammy, a 2s CD are you crazy Riot? Soooo unfun.

That's not even mentioning you don't even need to aim it like Ezreal! E ever hits you for a half second Urgot literally hacks the game and can't miss you ever so you take 99999999999999999 damage per second especially if he builds CDR. What, you're running low on mana, Urgot too weak for you? Thats why you have item 3070 for days, WHY DOES THIS GUY EVEN HAVE MANA??? Its so OP it even makes his shield scale, he's basically invincible! Just stack tanky mana items and you do tons of damage, debuff AD, and can't miss! So fair :O

Also thats not even mentioning his super powerful Singed flip with FREE STATS!!!!1! Goes from 120-80s, why did you even give it a CD tahts so short! Man as if slowing you and debuffing you wasn't enough hes now putting you under tower, so OP.

What, you say he's immobile, has no range, you can dodge his E, and he can't start with tear? Don't let the community fool you, this guy is the most toxic design in the game, his E is literally a DoT and its the size of Lux E, and you know that thing is hyuuuuuuuuuuuge! His Q is better than his auto you never even need to right click, he's secretly a 1000 range champion, goodbye Caitlyn the real lane bully has arrived :OOO And even if you run out of mana all the AD from item 3042 means you keep doing damage forever, so unfair.

I mean hell, this guy debuffs you and barely has counterplay before that debuff, he should be so nerfed he can't be picked for 5 years, there's no way you'd have counterplay for a champ as broken as this man - and he was cut into pieces so he knows what broken feels like!

BobaFlautistJul 19, 20172 votes

I mean if you mean new Urgot I haven't really seen him yet, but I can't possibly see how a mid-ranged juggernaut with a fucking DASH is a good idea.

The whole point of juggernauts is that they have insane damage and massive defensive potential in return for being slow and melee, so I don't really understand how he's going to work.

Arsenic SulfurJul 19, 20175 votes

From someone who has played as and against him on PBE, here is a few things:

Being within dashing distance is asking to get assblasted. He will throw your ass away from your tower and play ring-around-the-rosie around ya while giving you a taste of some delicious shotgun knee. Oh and W has a shield
That ult? Yea that shit's range is massive. If Urgot sees it he can shoot at it. So if you're at 30%(Yeah it deals damage) and in vision range, you best be behind your tank because otherwise he will drag you in and use your ground-up corpse to feed starving children in Africa.
Good luck getting him out of lane, because he is just that inherently bulky and has massive kill pressure to boot.

ZeichiVosJul 19, 20174 votes

Alright, despite the memes there's a reason this guy was dumpstered by riot until they could rework his ugly mug.

His passive is %damage mitigation. You know, that thing that makes Phantom Dancer so balanced? It's even better then that though, because rather than being straight damage mitigation, it reduces their damage to EVERYONE. Good luck fighting him at 85% strength. Beat part is, he can apply this to multiple people, gimping multiple carries. Also, he can do it with unavoidable autos, or a high speed 900 range skillshot on a miniscule cooldown. Do both at the same time, and spread the pain around.

His q means that, barring a minion wave or tank to hide behind, he will massively outrange and bully his enemy melee top laner. There's almost no cooldown on his missiles, so his primary damage is basically always up.

So maybe you're tired of getting poked down by his endless stream of missiles every 2 seconds, and want to all in him. His w crushes your hopes of doing so, allowing him to slow you with his missiles and autos, kiting like a god and hard punishing you for disengaging from any trade with him without a dash. Whats that, you needed to use your dash to get through all the slows? Sucks to be you! And when you finally reach him, he has this massive shield that scales with all the mana he's building to missile spam you EVEN HARDER, which you'll struggle to break through even without your damage being reduced by his passive.

So remember how I said his q can be countered by standing behind some poor sod? I was lying, his e allows those missiles to lock on and increasing their range to absurd distances, rendering his damage even more braindead than a right clicking adc. Besides the lock on, it also takes the liberty of stripping off some of the armour you've been building to survive the constant barrage of intercontinental rockets you're being barraged with. It also deals physical damage in ticks, allowing him to stack his black cleaver to full penetration at ludicrous speeds.

The cherry on top is his point and click cc that displaces you harder than a blitz hook, shile also giving him a bunch of defensive stats. Whats that, you were standing within a screen of an enemy tower? Enjoy the free tower shots along with enough missiles to make the USA jealous as he lands a guaranteed e, activates his w so you can't run, applies his passive so you can't kill him through the damage reduction, shields, and defensive steroids, and annihilates your health bar. Whats that? You stayed close to your support/tank so they could bail you out? Nah, they're too busy being cc'd by the fear Urgot has on his ult for SOME REASON.

But no, please tell me more about how the unassailable point and click tanky ranged dps machine tank killer is so hard done by.

KitSun9Jul 18, 20173 votes

Taliyah Taliyah

Big LincolnJul 18, 201787 votes

throw another rock throw another rock throw another rock throw another rock throw another rock throw another rock

Sir FuzziJul 18, 20174 votes

I repeat it in silly voices in my head...

Throw another rock, maybe you'll land all 5 this time, Bullseye.

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201721 votes

Heavy poke and waveclear from level 1

Her ult does no damage so she's given the ability to fight with basic abilities, 1 qwe combo chunks super hard.

Her passive is "I get to roam faster than you" and then her ultimate is one of the most powerful roaming tools in the game, transporting her across the map and blocking the enemy in an unfavorable position.

Seriously, how do you play against someone that gets to constantly push you in for free and then be bot the second they try to be aggressive?

TEA Nietzsche Jul 18, 201712 votes

Damn so many mistakes..

"her ult does no damage" - don't mention that.

"super hard" - insane FREE DAMAGE WITHOUT COUNTERPLAY

roaming = TF + CORKI COMBINED

insant burst while also having SPAMMABLE DPS

SPAMMABLE SLOW, DPS, FREE MS, KNOCKUP/KNOCKBACK + another KNOCKBACK UHHHHhhhh

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201712 votes

Well sure, I'm going for the Good Faith Complaint method, rather than the traditional Gonzo Bias style (which is also fun and has merit). But feel free to do the rest in your style too, I think it would add to the thread.

KnightOfEloHellJul 18, 20173 votes

Mordekiaser and Godlaf

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201712 votes

Do you mean "You Aren't Allowed To Fight Me In Melee Range V2" and "I Win All Early Allins, Poke Harder Than Pantheon In Lane, And No Force On Summoner's Right Can Prevent Me From Murdering Your Adc Every Fight Until They Have The Four Items Required To Kill Me Before I Reach Them"?

I mean I can go into more detail if you need me to, but do you?

KnightOfEloHellJul 18, 20171 votes

LOL

IDK WAT V2 MEANS THO

BobaFlautistJul 19, 20176 votes

Well I did the Udyr one before Morde, and basically had the same complaint, so it seemed only fair to mention that he was the New and Improved Version™, now with less cc, less mobility, and more damage and sustain, buy one get one full price, void where prohibited.

DrCyanideJul 18, 20172 votes

Karthus

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201722 votes

Karthus has some of the highest pre-6 damage in the game, if you can land skittleshots. "Just dodge the dots" yeah it's easy enough to dodge a few, but they're constant and it's just not reasonable to be expected to try to last hit, not to mention fight, while constantly sidestepping. It's the same concept as Ziggs.

And it's not even necessary to be able to hit Q on him, it just makes you into a lanebully who outduels any chanpion in the game with summoner 3 . If you prefer, you can very easily waveclear without trying by pressing e and spamming a few qs, and since his e gives Mana back on minion kill (brilliant as usual, riot) just a dorans ring is enough to ensure you never run oom.

His W actually provides massive utility with a huge, ranged slow and mr reduce, though most Karthus players just use it when they want to actually land a Q or two.

His ultimate is...honestly overrated, early game. It's usually best for sneaking in free assists, though it often influence other lanes without even trying - when you're laning against riven, a quarter of your house can make a massive difference.

But late game...late game, it's a nearly unavoidable 2/3 of every Carry's hp, ON TOP of the rest of his kit chunking everyone

Add in a zhonya's to prevent you from turning in him, and his passive which heavily punishes your team for killing him and there really isn't that much you can do to win against a Karthus late-game.

Keep in mind this is the insanely threatening lane bully with mindless waveclear, brainless map influence, and arbitrary mana sustain we're taking about.

TEA Nietzsche Jul 18, 20172 votes

Gnar

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201713 votes

Ok, ranged top is already toxic, but there's more than that. So, so much more.

Not only is he ranged, meaning he can just auto attack melees for their impudence of trying to farm, but his q provides him with MANALESS AOE POKE at massive range and in a very short cooldown if you have the two braincells required to catch it.

His Hyper (don't remember which button) gives you a big steroid and gives you heavy %hp magic damage, so you can't even itemise against him properly - build some armor and it will do half your hp, plus he rushes black cleaver anyway.

And of course he has a fucking target agnostic dash, which makes him gank-immune and makes it impossible to ever close to him if your a melee chanpion not named post-it kassadin. And for some reason it gives him attack speed, because a free isn't enough

And then we get into his passive and his ultimate: he pokes you down constantly in ranged form, and then if you actually ever close to him despite his jump, he turns melee and gets massive base stats, a ton of free damage, and TWO AOE HARD CCs.

It's like if you combined Quinn with a better Jarvan. And, yes, managing the forms takes some skill, but that's no excuse for having no real answer to a champion's kit

AhristocatsJul 18, 20172 votes

Alistar ?

BobaFlautistJul 18, 20178 votes

I mean if you're melee he literally makes it impossible to ever touch his adc (Unless you're Olaf, see above).

He also has Malphite ultimate on a <10 second cd.

And his ultimate is basically a Tryndamere ultimate that keeps him at full hp instead of 1 hp.

Plus he has a heal in case you were planning to poke him, and he has high enough base damages that if he lands a wqe on a squishies it's super easy to finish them off, while they sit their hammering on their f key, desperately hoping for a brief break in the cc.

LõyaltyJul 18, 20172 votes

Time to stump ya. Heres Taric Ill explain why he isn't op first.

His q has charges so it can't be spammed.
His w is only armor making him and his ADC vulnerable to true and magic damage.
His E has a delay
His R has a delay -His passive damage falls off and really doesn't do much -Hes 2 fabulous to be "Unfun bullshit"

ChaosThiefJul 18, 20177 votes

Well I guess it varies on perspective.

His passive does sizeable damage over time, especially versus physical damage heavy opponents. Because of the recent buff to his Q, fighting him in melee range is pretty suicidal, since he gains a Q charge every time he lands a passive auto, and his Q gives him his passive repeatedly. He can also protect a marksmen quite well, since his stun can be aimed from them if he shields them, protecting his carry from divers and assassins if timed well.

His ult mainly has the delay to counteract the fact that his entire team can become invincible for the duration. He, with a dive heavy team, can essentially force initiations against pretty much any enemy team because of this.

Yes, he has weaknesses, but he still can be pretty scary.

panexinJul 18, 20172 votes

Could I please get a review for Lux ?! Lux Lux Lux

The Ginger NingaJul 18, 201710 votes

E is practically impossible to dodge in lane unless you outrange her, and late game her combo can instantly kill 2 people.

Also, her laugh. And her ult that is always up.

Forhonor321Jul 18, 20172 votes

Shyvana genuinely curious about what you say about her

BobaFlautistJul 19, 20174 votes

I don't remember the specifics, but there was the very quoteable description of her game plan which went something like "Shyvana just basically tries to farm up a bag of gold and hit you over the head with it".

Obviously some changes have been made since then, but they've mostly been about making her shittier at getting that bag of gold and not as able to hit you over the head with it, Shyvana has never really been properly balanced around having a normal power curve.

Either she's allowed to farm up a bag of gold, and she hits you over the head with it until you catch up to her, or she isn't allowed to, and she either days half way through her ulti dash or she becomes a tank without cc or meaningful durability.

Or, to make it simpler:

Things she's good at include doing a ton of damage and being unkillable when she's ahead of you, and being ahead of you.

Things she's bad at: everything when she isn't ahead of you.

When she fits the meta, and is allowed to play her game, you get to play against someone that's just always stronger than you, faster than you, and tankier than you.

Oh, and when she ulties she gets to do all of the above but in aoe.

BobaFlautistJul 19, 20178 votes

Actually, here's another, better metaphor.

Playing against Shyvana is a lot like fighting a Dragon Ball Z Villain. She pops up out of nowhere and starts causing trouble, so you try to fight her, but she's destroying you. So you team up with all your buddies and unleash all your special abilities that you have been saving for such an occasion, driving her back into a huge cloud of smoke.

You smirk in triumph, when she steps forth from the smoke, more or less unharmed, chuckling. She proceeds to transform and jump at you, tearing you to shreds. There's nothing you can do.

You beat her by just dying and training for a really long time, after which point she never does anything interesting ever again.

The fun part about playing shyvana is when you get to jump on people and they use everything at their disposal and still die. The frustrating part about playing against shyvana is when she jumps on you and you use everything at your disposal and still die.

Tails9016Jul 19, 20172 votes

Ahem Velkoz

BobaFlautistJul 19, 20175 votes

He's basically Ziggs, who bullies you to tears pre-6 and refuses to get closer than 1000 units post 6.

He makes up for not having an escape like ziggs by having his damage be much more reliable, having a meaningful slow on his basic poke, and having a ton of true damage.

Like, the reason he was such a solid pick in doombots was because no matter how bullshit-strong they were they couldn't ever actually use any of their abilities on him, and they couldn't even push to his tower.

He wins lane by never having to be in range of anything you're able to do, and the range and low CDs of his poke means you'll always be low hp anyway. Fun and interact gameplay.

AptestJul 18, 20171 votes

alright,

Viktor

BobaFlautistJul 18, 20177 votes

Honestly, Viktor seems fair. He's really good at that.

But his early trading is ridiculous, his q might as well not have a cool down for how often it's up and it gives him a shield on top of the heavy damage. His e becomes brainless waveclear the second he has any meaningful amount of AP, and his w is a "Get out of ganks/mispositioning free". His ulti does a ton of damage, and you can't fight it, can't run from it, can't really avoid it...

Plus his synergy with lich bane is insane.

So to recap, his early game is constant heavy poke with a fucking shield attached, midgame even if he can't 100-0 you with one rotation (which he can) his e gives massive, long ranged poke as well as free waveclear so you can't even trade back, and even if you DO get on top of him long enough to pose a threat, he picks you right off with w. As well as the rest of your team with you.

And late game he just instabursts squishies, kites and peels any sort of bruiser or tank without trying, and has massive teamfight potential. Feels fair.

Big LincolnJul 18, 20171 votes

get stumped Jayce

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201710 votes

Wait are you serious? Early game he just automatically wins duels because he gets double the abilities of anyone else and they're all good. I can't tell you how many times I've seen challenger streamers get first blood off of a level 1 or 2 cheese, and that's at high levels!

Once he gets some damage he insta-clears your minion wave with his aoe, fast-projectile nid spears that also chunk you for 2/3 of your hp. If you close into him, he out trades you with his extra abilities and then USES A POINT AND CLICK AD-SCALING %HP KNOCKBACK TO DISENGAGE. Unless he uses it to interrupt your gap closer, in which case you never get to hit him in the first place

He's basically a higher scaling, longer ranged pantheon with more burst, much more do over time, and an aoe speedup for his team because he needs the utility, apparently.

rework trundleJul 18, 20171 votes

Aatrox

BobaFlautistJul 18, 201710 votes

Draintank with a ton of damage and a revive?

Oh and the basically resourceless ranged poke with a hefty slow (giving Aatrox health costs is like going WW health costs, what's the point?), not to mention the huge steroid his ulti gives...

Honestly there's a reason Riot leans away from resourceless sustain, and Aatrox is a huge part of it. Either he can trade and fight people, in which case he just heals up for free and you can't do anything to him, or he can't trade or fight people, and he just loses every game on account of being useless. Either his heals keep him alive and his revive is useless because you can't ever kill him anyway, or his heals don't keep him alive, and he just dies twice.

Like imagine if Kled had free healing on autoattacks built into his kit. That's the kinda bullshit Aatrox is.

rework trundleJul 18, 20178 votes

Wow, you have a talent.

AirKingNeoJul 19, 20171 votes

Actually doesn't matter. His items suck and his base stats suck.

BobaFlautistJul 19, 20175 votes

The point isn't whether or not a champion is strong, it's whether or not they're bullshit irrelevant to their power.

And, in fact, the point is that what I just said is thrown around way too often and every champion in the game can be considered bullshit based on their kit.