Why win rate for a champion doesn't mean anything...

Fiddlestićks·1/5/2016, 10:59:25 PM·5 votes·1,093 views

When a champion is doing slightly better than others they seem to have a high win rate for a period. Once it becomes clear that the champion is "OP" many others try him out hoping for a "free" win. However when they don't practice him at all then the win rate goes back down.

Also, in ranked if one OP is not banned then someone usually tries to choose that champ, even if they have never played the champ before.

Therefore, the win rate means nothing because unskilled players of the "OP" champs can always tank the win rate.

4 Comments

Dominick Destine1/5/2016, 11:02:06 PM4 votes

The win rate argument is utter nonsense.

It can only be useful in edge cases (ultra high win rate with high pick rate, ultra low win rate, etc.).... or in conjunction with many other statistics are the same time to make for a cluster of data rather than a single (meaningless) data point.

Anyone that uses win rate in isolation does not know what they're talking about and are invariably bronzies.

Pika3101/6/2016, 1:54:41 AM3 votes

What you say is true, but those are only a few on a long list of reasons why winrates don't directly correlate with viability. To mention a few others: item choices, mastery choices, even runes. Then you have lane matchups and team comps. I could keep going, but I've made my point.

The Sword Saint1/5/2016, 11:04:47 PM2 votes

It's all about what data you use. The winrate of a champion in the most recent patch taken from plat+ games where players have 50+ games of experience is going to be more useful then some more general winrate statistic of course.

Aeolian Melodies1/6/2016, 1:26:17 AM2 votes

Win rate alone means very little (except if it's way off charts ofc, anyone with a 75% win rate for instance is clearly overtuned), but combined with pick rate and ban rate, now you have something.

If a champion has a very high ban rate, is picked nearly every time he's left open, and has a very high win rate to boot, it's probably time to take a look at said champion balance-wise.

Low pick rate, low ban rate and high win rate means the champion has a niche he's picked for and does well in said niche, therefore not automatically too strong.

On the opposite, a win rate slightly below 50% does not automatically mean the champion isn't too strong; if said champion has a high play rate too, then it is likely people who are inexperienced with him are playing him a lot too and lowering his win rate.

You also have to look at the game as a whole, sometimes items and other external factors are to blame more than the champion. This is very true for bot laners where champion synergy is important; Sona+MF currently has a high win rate, because Sona+MF has always had good synergy, and MF is currently very strong. Does Sona need nerfs atm? Unlikely. MF? Most likely.