A Thought On Broken Champions

TehNACHO··1 votes·430 views

So I think we can all agree on at least this basic concept:

Tankiness beats Burst Burst beats DPS DPS beats Tanks

Now of course this is more of a "generally is" pattern than it is a hard rule - a fed Assassin can probably hold their ground against an underfed Fighter or Tank - but this concept does help identify the good and the bad champions who follow or break this pattern.

Off note, being broken does not necessarily have to do with how OP a champion is. Poppy's a relatively broken champion in a lot of respects, for example, but unless someone fed her/she got to her late game, it's very rare for anyone to see her more overwhelming side.

Back to the main point though. For many champions, you'll notice that a lot that defines a champion's given role in the game tend to follow these guidelines. But what about the champions who break this pattern?

Tryndamere is a fun example I like to point at for this argument. Ignoring early level cheese, as a Crit and Attack Speed building Melee Carry, I think we can all agree that Tryndamere mostly falls under one area: DPS. Naturally, we should expect his biggest weakness to be related to this trait; if he gets bursted down hard, he's going to have trouble fighting back. Tryndamere breaks this rule rather hard however with his Undying Rage, as the 5 second invincibility shuts down forms of damage (including burst) while not really doing anything to help him fight Tanks. Luckily, Tryndamere has a host of problems that keeps him from being op despite his ultimate essentially making him broken, but it's still rather interesting how his DPS Carry kit is supplemented with a simple button-press ability to negate a DPS Carry's major weakness while not really doing anything to accent his strengths.

I wanted to see what you guys thought on the matter. Any "Broken" Champions you guys can think of, even if they are not necessarily OP, based on the Tank>Burst>DPS triangle I mentioned earlier? What do you think should be done with them? Maybe if they received a rework, should their kits be totally reworked to fit their broken part of the kit (maybe making Tryndamere a more Tank based DPS champ instead of a full damage melee carry) or should these elements be totally removed rework (Tryndamere's ult instead grants him life steal based on how much health he is missing, for example). I just think it would be an interesting thought experiment about these kinds of champs.

3 Comments

Ghiefelstein1 votes

Triangle balance can be a bit oversimplifying. Supports used to have the "sustain>poke>all in" triangle. But now most support champions do multiple things from that triangle and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. Breaking the rules can bring variety in a complex game like LoL.

TehNACHO1 votes

True, but it does help give generalized patterns that don't hurt to be followed.

The counter to a champion that scales on time for example (DPS) should obviously be to give them no time to operate optimally (Burst them, CC them, etc.). Therefore, in a game that prizes counter play like LoL does, it makes sense not to give a DPS champion too many tools to counter the likes of CC or Burst.

Epilogue of Life1 votes

The thing is, late game, DPS and burst champions kind of become one, since ADCs start to crit for 1k+ dmg and champions like Zed would get lifesteal and attack speed to compliment his high AD.

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