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What makes a champion "hard to play"?

IP Masquerena··7 votes·5,653 views

That's a question I that I was thinking to make a thread on for quite a while, but today, a certain Zed main on the boards really pissed me off so I decided to actually make the thread.

How do we define a champion as "hard to play"? Normally by quite the low win rates in the hands of bad players and most especially in lower elos seems to be the general consensus for "hard to play". Some are hard to play because they are macro dependent, others are micro, some are both (looking at you blind dude who doesn't see the balance list). Some may be hard to play at higher elos because their binary kit can be countered with smart play, so there's a lot of things that make champions hard to play, different elos, different metas (yolo que meta and high elo meta [d3+] are different).

So let's evaluate some champs, both AD and AP and see how a hard to play champion should look in terms on win rate, pick rate and ban rate across different elos, and to make things easier, each will have the stats taken from their best role, so no "ADC Nidalee" interfering with the stats. Let's start with everyone's favorite edge lord:

(Note 1: The stats will be in the following order for everyone: win rate, pick rate, ban rate, stats are taken from U.GG right now, no older stats, right now. Also, since some are played both Top and Mid, I'll just write for their most played in each rank, unless the win rate difference is higher by around 2% and pick rate is in a 2% margin, then I'll give both, why 2%? It's significant enough. If the win rate is higher by say 0.5% yet the pick rate is lower by 4%, then there's no point in showing that stat. If the difference is way too big, then the role will be written next to the name, as example Zed has a nearly 54% win rate top in Iron, but the pick rate is just 0.5%, so no point in putting it)

Zed M:

  • Iron: 50.33%, 15.5%, 42.1%
  • Bronze: 50.08%, 16.3%, 47.7%
  • Silver: 50.5%, 14.5%, 51.9%
  • Gold: 51.15%, 13.1%, 51.6%
  • Platinum: 51.33%, 12.3%, 46.1%
  • Diamond: 52.28%, 11.4%, 34.3%
  • Master: 48.05%, 9.6%, 20.3%
  • Grandmaster: 52.76%, 9.7%, 18%
  • Challenger: 51.33%, 8.4%, 9.2%

According to the boards, most especially the Zed mains, Zed is weak, easy to counter and very hard to play. So if those stats are for a champion who's very hard to play, who's so very weak and all the yada yada, then I wonder what would the stats for the following champions mean:

Azir M:

  • Iron: 44.7%, 1.7%, 0.8%
  • Bronze: 46.82%, 1.4%, 0.6%
  • Silver: 47.13%, 1.7%, 0.4%
  • Gold: 47.7%, 2%, 0.3%
  • Platinum: 48.44%, 2.3%, 0.3%
  • Diamond: 48.75%, 2.7%, 0.4%
  • Master: 49.67%, 3.3%, 1.1%
  • Grandmaster: 43.11%, 3.3%, 1.1%
  • Challenger: 40.52%, 3.7%, 2.5%

Riven T:

  • Iron: 48.19%, 5.1%, 1.9%
  • Bronze: 45.91%, 5.3%, 2.2%
  • Silver: 48.02%, 6.4%, 3.1%
  • Gold: 49.79%, 7.8%, 4.5%
  • Platinum: 51.2%, 9.6%, 7.1%
  • Diamond: 53.45%, 10.7%, 11.8%
  • Master: 52.77%, 10.5%, 15.8%
  • Grandmaster: 54.53%, 9.4%, 17%
  • Challenger: 53.07%, 9.8%, 17.5%

(Note 2: I find it funny, even tho Riven is clearly better than Zed at the higher ranks [I'll talk about this a bit later], people still find Zed more worthy of a ban than her, because except for Challenger, he is banned more than her everywhere)

Akali:

  • Iron M: 39.68%, 6%, 6.9%
  • Bronze M: 40.68%, 5.6%, 7%
  • Silver M: 42.26%, 4.6%, 8.3%
  • Gold: M - 42.57%, 4%, 9.9% / T - 44.73%, 2.1%, 9.9%
  • Platinum: M - 43.67%, 3.6%, 11% / T - 45.52%, 2.3%, 11%
  • Diamond: M - 45.94%, 3.7%, 12% / T - 46.87%, 2.6%, 12%
  • Master T: 56.35%, 2.8%, 13.4% (win rate is much lower mid, so I'll just give top from here, as the pick rate is almost identic)
  • Grandmaster T: 43.97%, 3.4%, 13.9%
  • Challenger T: 45.32%, 4.4%, 13.7%

Irelia: (will do the same as with Akali if needed)

  • Iron T: 46.81%, 3.6%, 4.9%
  • Bronze M: 45.51%, 4.1%, 5.6%
  • Silver M: 46.1%, 4.3%, 8.5%
  • Gold M: 45.22%, 4.6%, 11.8%
  • Platinum T: 45.74%, 7.1%, 14.3%
  • Diamond T: 46.83%, 8.6%, 17.7%
  • Master T: 47.49%, 9.6%, 24.5%
  • Grandmaster T: 45.82%, 10.8%, 26.3%
  • Challenger T: 51.07%, 12.5%, 31%

Nidalee JG:

  • Iron: 42.86%, 1.2%, 0.2%
  • Bronze: 43.1%, 1.5%, 0.2%
  • Silver: 45.49%, 1.8%, 0.2%
  • Gold: 46.97%, 2.2%, 0.3%
  • Platinum: 49.67%, 2.5%, 0.7%
  • Diamond: 51.6%, 3.8%, 1.4%
  • Master: 51.02%, 5.4%, 3.6%
  • Grandmaster: 47.19%, 4.4%, 3.9%
  • Challenger: 57.14%, 3.8%, 6.6%

Lee Sin JG:

  • Iron: 45.54%, 10.4%, 10.7%
  • Bronze: 46.71%, 12.4%, 12%
  • Silver: 46.97%, 15.9%, 14%
  • Gold: 47.61%, 19.1%, 13.9%
  • Platinum: 47.77%, 20.3%, 11.9%
  • Diamond: 48.35%, 20.6%, 8.9%
  • Master: 47.01%, 20.2%, 5.7%
  • Grandmaster: 50.44%, 19.9%, 6%
  • Challenger: 50.07%, 21.8%, 5.3%

(Note 3: 1 more and we're done, and trust me, I probably waited to finish this more than you)

Yasuo M: (the 2nd edge lord)

  • Iron: 53.27%, 19.4%, 46.6%
  • Bronze: 51.58%, 19.4%, 48.1%
  • Silver: 50.02%, 16.8%, 49.2%
  • Gold: 48.81%, 14.2%, 48.3%
  • Platinum: 48.25%, 12.7%, 43.8%
  • Diamond: 48.26%, 11.4%, 34.7%
  • Master: 51.65%, 10.4%, 20%
  • Grandmaster: 50.06%, 10.6%, 21.3%
  • Challenger: 51.8%, 9.9%, 13.9%

Now, as you can see in the stats, there's 1 inconsistency, the one I left for last, weeblord himself, the "Bronze is like the wind, always by my side", and well, apparently, Bronze Yasuos are better in their own ranks than Diamond Yasuos. His inconsistency is easy to explain, he's doing so well in the lower ranks not because the players are so much better at the champ than their peers and higher elos, Mobalytics made a video about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0N7Lq9Tzf8

So although lower elo Yasuo players are worse than the higher ones, his higher win rate comes from the fact that most low elo players don't know how to play against him, which allows those bad Yasuos to win more by simply being Yasuo, while it goes higher in the elos, have a heavy drop in win rate and pick rate. Almost 5% win and play rate drop, because in those elos, the mistakes those low elo players make are punished, and such they lose and drop Yasuo. Many may be super good at their mechanics, they have those sick laning stages, then they lose, as they don't know how to end the game. That doesn't matter in Iron, because the opponents will int into you, but in higher elos, that doesn't happen as often, while in the highest of elos, the mechanics on the good Yasuos coupled with knowing how to end the game will grant them a better win rate, but as you can see, it's still a way lower win rate at a way lower play rate, thus for Yasuo it's basically like this:

  • Low Elo: Bad Yasuo + Bad Enemies = Yasuo wins
  • Mid Elo: Bad Yasuo + Good Enemies = Yasuo feeds
  • High Elo: Good Yasuo + Good Enemies = Balanced games (Tho favoring Yasuo a tad more, but still, I mean, GM has it at a 50%)

Now, about Riven, I said I'd talk about her. Riven is Riven, she's strong when mastered, but what do we see? Lower elos are chain feeding, there's no way around it, they don't win, but the better players get at her and the game, they will climb better. And as with Yasuo, even if lower elos can play Riven's lane perfectly, their lack of knowledge how to end the game will lose the game. Riven and Lee show based on win rate how it should be for actually harder to play champions, low win rates low elo no matter how you look at it (except Yasuo, but was already talked), while the higher you go, the better those champions are, same with Nidalee, she's the highest win rate in Challenge, I mean, wow, she's broken there.

And there we have the edge lord #1, Zed. He breaks this pattern if we consider him as hard to play, because unlike Yasuo, he doesn't drop in win rate, he doesn't have that U curve, he actually (except that drop in Masters, no idea, last time I checked, the drop was in challenger and Masters had his highest, but hey....) increases in win rate the higher you go, and as I said, compared to Riven, who's someone we see as "REEEEEEEEEEE OMFGBBQBROKENOP" if we look at the boards, Zed is still considered more dangerous as his ban is higher. On the other hand, his stats would make sense if we look at him as not that hard to play. Now, I'm not saying you'll master Zed after 10 games, you still need a lot of games to master Zed, but, you don't need to master the champion to win, which unlike every other champion listed (bar Yasuo in low ranks, but that's not on the Yasuo player but his opponents), you don't need to master Zed in order to win. Zed's current skill requirement to pick up and play is not as high as it once was, there's no arguing against those stats. No U curve as Yasuo, no climb once mastered as Riven, he's a winner almost from the get go.

Now, before someone goes "bah, just another Zed hate thread", it's true in a way, this is ment to show that certain champions like Zed have become much easier to play than they once where even if they kept their high skill cap to master.

And such, we come back to the title question: What makes a champion hard to play?

One thing I left out of the 1st set of question: can we consider a champion that's easy to pick up but hard to master as hard to play? Why or why not?

We can consider things as in why do Zed mains see Zed as hard to play and weak but wins only because players don't know to play against him while he doesn't have Yasuo's U curve? What's the difference? What makes him much easier to play than the rest of his "hard to play" peers? Or the other way around, what makes those champions much harder to play than Zed? We have both laners and junglers, so it's not a case of "oh well, those are junglers so they rely on the team more, Zed doesn't".

I mention Zed a lot because he seems a good benchmark currently, he's called hard to play, but his stats show otherwise, he's called weak, but he wins quite too much, so comparing him to other hard to play champions, it makes it easier to determine differences.

42 Comments

bronze smurf693 votes

No such thing as "hard to play".

Pick a champion, practice practice practice, as well as understand understand understand (by that i mean your champ's weaknesses, decision making, etc), and then finish. This goes to literally any champion even with very basic kits like Garen or Annie.

Hell, one can 1st time a champion and go 10/0 and the next can go 0/10.

Whatever argument you got with that zed main, just ignore them. They say zed mains are delusional. I mean, look at that fucker's kit. His ulti should require him to land most to all his combos to earn a kill, but thanks to lethality, all he needs is a single q along with an aa and ignite and finish. The champion's ulti is literally designed to land everything and now it's not fulfilling its purpose.

IP Masquerena1 votes

The argument was related to Zed's passive and him being melee.

I say that his passive shouldn't work on creeps, plain and simple. Let's look at level 1 stats:

Zed's passive: 6% of target's maximum health as magic damage once they are bellow 50% max hp, cd 10s/target.

Melee minion: 477 hp @lvl 1 Caster minion: 296 hp @lvl 1

Zed's passive vs: Melee minion: 6% of 477 = 28.62 Caster minion: 6% of 296 = 17.76

That's too much damage for doing nothing, and that's just level 1. Fizz has to time his W, if he doesn't last hit with it, it goes on a decent cooldown and he can't use, everyone else needs to set the wave or use abilities to be able to last hit under tower, Zed can do it freely from level 1. Everyone: Caster - Champ AA > Tower AA > Champ LH Zed: Caster - Tower AA > Zed LH

His "reasoning" for why Zed needs his last hit assistant is "because he's very weak and hard to play and he's also melee, so he needs something to be able to farm", but at least in my opinion, Zed's so easy to pick up currently specifically because of his passive.

Lethality, just as you say, makes him require less combos to kill someone, and that would technically be ok (don't get me wrong, it's not ok, but it would be ok according to the current LoL standards) if not for his passive. He farms was too easy for how safe he is, and because he's both safe and has easy access to farm, he gets his power spikes much easier than he should, thus his lower skill requirement.

In my opinion, if he wouldn't have such an easy access to farm, the lower gold gain would raise his skill floor because it wouldn't be as easy to get to his power spike items, making bad Zeds much easier to punish.

bronze smurf692 votes

{quoted}

The argument was related to Zed's passive and him being melee.

I say that his passive shouldn't work on creeps, plain and simple. Let's look at level 1 stats:

Zed's passive: 6% of target's maximum health as magic damage once they are bellow 50% max hp, cd 10s/target.

Melee minion: 477 hp @lvl 1 Caster minion: 296 hp @lvl 1

Zed's passive vs: Melee minion: 6% of 477 = 28.62 Caster minion: 6% of 296 = 17.76

That's too much damage for doing nothing, and that's just level 1. Fizz has to time his W, if he doesn't last hit with it, it goes on a decent cooldown and he can't use, everyone else needs to set the wave or use abilities to be able to last hit under tower, Zed can do it freely from level 1. Everyone: Caster - Champ AA > Tower AA > Champ LH Zed: Caster - Tower AA > Zed LH

His "reasoning" for why Zed needs his last hit assistant is "because he's very weak and hard to play and he's also melee, so he needs something to be able to farm", but at least in my opinion, Zed's so easy to pick up currently specifically because of his passive.

Lethality, just as you say, makes him require less combos to kill someone, and that would technically be ok (don't get me wrong, it's not ok, but it would be ok according to the current LoL standards) if not for his passive. He farms was too easy for how safe he is, and because he's both safe and has easy access to farm, he gets his power spikes much easier than he should, thus his lower skill requirement.

In my opinion, if he wouldn't have such an easy access to farm, the lower gold gain would raise his skill floor because it wouldn't be as easy to get to his power spike items, making bad Zeds much easier to punish.

Like i said...it is said that zed mains are delusional.

Last time i played zed was like season 4 and i think only once (can't remember). I can remember that missing half your own combo didn't result you in any rewards.

But now, the champ's already a middle finger to what fairness and game health and if riot gets enough brain cells to fix him up, i wouldn't be surprised if boards gets overloaded with zed complaints even worse than the nightblue bullshit.

Now that's something worth sitting for with popcorn and pepsi.

IP Masquerena1 votes

When and if it happens, you bring the food, I bring the drinks, Zed mains bring the salt.

bronze smurf691 votes

{quoted}

When and if it happens, you bring the food, I bring the drinks, Zed mains bring the salt.

Some hummus with bread would be nice. Along with popcorn, nachos and ah....ice cream?

IP Masquerena1 votes

I'm game, just don't forget the chocolate, I love chocolate.

Chocolate icecream doesn't sound bad either.

bronze smurf692 votes

{quoted}

I'm game, just don't forget the chocolate, I love chocolate.

Chocolate icecream doesn't sound bad either.

Now I want some Baskin Robins now...

IP Masquerena2 votes

Back to topic tho, I'm surprised no Zed main has dropped in yet to tell us how we're wrong and just don't know to play against him because he's weak and easy to counter.

bronze smurf691 votes

{quoted}

Back to topic tho, I'm surprised no Zed main has dropped in yet to tell us how we're wrong and just don't know to play against him because he's weak and easy to counter.

Hey, would you rather have a brain dead argument? Or lolololol convo?

IP Masquerena1 votes

I'm all for chocolate and sweets, but what I mean is that I'm surprised, normally you can't say a thing about Zed without having his cult defend him.

Then again, he was so weak he had to seek forbidden power Now his cult fights his battles while he hides like a coward.

bronze smurf691 votes

{quoted}

I'm all for chocolate and sweets, but what I mean is that I'm surprised, normally you can't say a thing about Zed without having his cult defend him.

Then again, he was so weak he had to seek forbidden power Now his cult fights his battles while he hides like a coward.

If you ask me, you should be glad nothing happened yet. I've had my fair share of arguments with people with such a dumbass thought before. I wouldn't want to get involved in that again and lose more brain cells.

IP Masquerena1 votes

Don't get me wrong, I want them here as much as you do, after all, like this we can have a normal discussion.

What I'm saying is that I wonder what keeps them away, what sort of spell did I manage to cast to keep Zed's cult away? Normally when you talk about Zed being strong and easy to play, they jump on you like a pack of hungry hienas, yet now they are nowhere to be found. Might be the fact that all those stats being written in the OP is something they can't deny no matter what and they don't want to agree but also have nothing to disagree with.

bronze smurf691 votes

{quoted}

Don't get me wrong, I want them here as much as you do, after all, like this we can have a normal discussion.

What I'm saying is that I wonder what keeps them away, what sort of spell did I manage to cast to keep Zed's cult away? Normally when you talk about Zed being strong and easy to play, they jump on you like a pack of hungry hienas, yet now they are nowhere to be found. Might be the fact that all those stats being written in the OP is something they can't deny no matter what and they don't want to agree but also have nothing to disagree with.

Maybe they're not bothered? Maybe school or uni or work? Maybe too lazy? Maybe they finally managed to grow some brain cells and simply ignore?

IP Masquerena1 votes

You know as well as I do that the last one is just wishful thinking.

Let's wait and see how things will go, hopefully stay peaceful.

bronze smurf691 votes

{quoted}

You know as well as I do that the last one is just wishful thinking.

Let's wait and see how things will go, hopefully stay peaceful.

Now this is where you have to be fair here man... Some people main a champion and don't give 2 shits if people complain (whether they acknowledge they're busted or if not, depends who like zed) but don't bother arguing with anyone.

Millions of players in this game, not even 1 is such thing?

IP Masquerena1 votes

That was a joke. I know some Zed mains are cool people and some even acknowledge Zed is on the strong side and similar to some Akali mains, they'd like Zed to get some actual nerfs just so they can play their champ reliably instead of only every 2-3 games due to either him being banned or picked by the enemy team.

bronze smurf691 votes

{quoted}

That was a joke. I know some Zed mains are cool people and some even acknowledge Zed is on the strong side and similar to some Akali mains, they'd like Zed to get some actual nerfs just so they can play their champ reliably instead of only every 2-3 games due to either him being banned or picked by the enemy team.

You know funny enough, i feel sorry for a champion rather than hating the champion. Even if it's a Yasuo.

Ever since the 10 bans got introduced, Yasuo's ban rate sky rocketed that it was sad rather than funny.

IP Masquerena2 votes

Zed is edge lord incarnate, so I don't really feel bad for the champion, but for Yasuo for example, lore-wise he's a cool guy, and such, seeing him have the playerbase he has makes me feel like he wants to die.

Maybe that's why Yasuo dies so much, the champion itself works against the players just so he can end his own suffering, even if it's just for a short time

bronze smurf691 votes

{quoted}

Zed is edge lord incarnate, so I don't really feel bad for the champion, but for Yasuo for example, lore-wise he's a cool guy, and such, seeing him have the playerbase he has makes me feel like he wants to die.

Maybe that's why Yasuo dies so much, the champion itself works against the players just so he can end his own suffering, even if it's just for a short time

This just made my day even more depressing after reading this...

Holy shit man... Like...holy shit...

Spicy Rice1 votes

As a Yasuo main, im offended you didn't ask us to bring the salt

IP Masquerena1 votes

You guys usually bring the feeding, I mean food, and we already decided that Ayre brings the food.

Tho if you want to bring some more, not sure how many of us will be at the gathering, and there's no such things as too much food, especially if you bring cake.

ZephyrDrake2 votes

{quoted}

No such thing as "hard to play".

Pick a champion, practice practice practice, as well as understand understand understand (by that i mean your champ's weaknesses, decision making, etc), and then finish. This goes to literally any champion even with very basic kits like Garen or Annie.

Hell, one can 1st time a champion and go 10/0 and the next can go 0/10.

Whatever argument you got with that zed main, just ignore them. They say zed mains are delusional. I mean, look at that fucker's kit. His ulti should require him to land most to all his combos to earn a kill, but thanks to lethality, all he needs is a single q along with an aa and ignite and finish. The champion's ulti is literally designed to land everything and now it's not fulfilling its purpose.

You know that can be applied to literally everything in life? "Nothing is hard just practice it a bunch and understand what you are doing!"

If people put actual time and effort into something then nothing will appear hard... unless they half-ass it in which case they have no one but themselves to blame.

bronze smurf691 votes

{quoted}

You know that can be applied to literally everything in life? "Nothing is hard just practice it a bunch and understand what you are doing!"

If people put actual time and effort into something then nothing will appear hard... unless they half-ass it in which case they have no one but themselves to blame.

Eh. Pretty much that.

Sir Saltarin3 votes

For me "hard to play" means basically nothing and it's a bad term, I care about these two:

Skill Floor and Skill Ceilling

You have champs like Aurelion Sol that have one of the highest Skill Floors on the entire roster but contrary to common believe once you have learned his basics he's a normal champ in terms of Skill Ceilling, nothing special in that aspect.

Luther King Jr V1 votes

it's not a bad term? floor and ceiling dont even describe the difficulty of a champ but just the amount of experience u need to do well or average with them

u can call riven or any x champ low skill floor high skill ceiling still shes hard to play so if someone wonders whether they want to pick up riven or not the terms u used are useless to them

Voluug133 votes

Its a macro vs micro thing.

But really? If we are speaking about Zed, pretending he is hard to play is pure delusion. He is the safest midlane assassin out there, quite literally designed to always have the upper hand in lane (be it farming, pushing, killing, zoning, sustain, itemization, safety, etc) (unlike most assassins) and point&click target access (unlike Fizz), and no scaling issues at all (unlike Talon).

LordRedStone Nr12 votes

Interestingly enough, this shows the current state of "Gameplay". While this is a well thought-out thread that would be a candidate for Gameplay+ actually, it already received a downvote, probably because you "just are a silver scrub, get gud lol".

SuicidePlank1 votes

[{quoted}](name=LordRedStone Nr1,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5gAEQAU6,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2019-06-17T19:32:44.857+0000)

Interestingly enough, this shows the current state of "Gameplay". While this is a well thought-out thread that would be a candidate for Gameplay+ actually, it already received a downvote, probably because you "just are a silver scrub, get gud lol".

Who cares about Up- or Downvotes?

IP Masquerena2 votes

Or probably a Zed main who doesn't like being told that R-E-AA-Ign doesn't take skill.

Jokes aside, yea, if possible, I would've placed in G+, but that discontinued to the repeat cry that people can't downvote something they don't agree with without posting a reason, similar to the Zed main who downvoted my thread.

I'm Silver because I just don't really enjoy ranked. Some of the champions I play simply require a bit more team work than others, and I think that can be easily shown by my streaks with Vi and Kayn compared to Evelynn. I love Evelynn, I really do, but in my games, I really can't do much when either I get hard invaded because her early game isn't too good or my team goes 0-20 before I can get my ult. Yes, I made a lot of comebacks with, both pentakills I got this season were on her, yet I still lost those games because I can't do jack while my team engages without me and they all stay and die in Anivia R and I'm left 1v5. I make mistakes and bad plays as everyone else, but that doesn't mean I can't climb or that I'm a bad player, I'd rather just stay silver than using "the meta" to climb.

And before some Bronze goes with "well, if you're good enough you can 1v9 with anything", well, I'm not Diamond, I can't 1v9, Evelynn is not Lanaya, I could 1v9 any game if I had Lanaya in LoL, but she's not, nor is old Akali here anymore, and my steaks with Vi and Kayn should show that I'm capable of making stuff happen and climb if I put my ass into gear, I just don't feel like it.

Makarakarn2 votes

I personally define "hard to play" literally. I take it at face value, quite actually meaning when a champion's optimal play is difficult to execute in all situations. Now let me clarify: Just because a champion may be "hard to play" in most situations, doesn't mean they are hard to play in EVERY situation. If you had a "difficult champion" who's 20/0, they probably don't take much skill to get kills at that point. For example, Azir, in the majority of situations, is hard to execute properly without practice or understanding. Sure, there are some instances where doing things with him doesn't take as much, but in the majority of situations it challenges the player. Now look at Garen, very much more simple. He's got a much more simple and forgiving playstyle. Can a garen PLAYER express skill at the game through decision making? Yes. Does that make Garen himself have any sort of skill require to play? No. And what makes it more complicated is that because certain playstyles mesh with players differently, some champions considered "hard to play" might come easy to some, and some "easy" champions may be hard to find success with to someone else. It's only objective up to a point, then it becomes subjective.

Poop Jelly2 votes

Up to your interpretation. It could be ones where it's mechanically more challenging. It could be fall-outta-meta challenging. It could be people-will-refuse-to-cooperate-because-im-playing-yasuo-vayne-or-yuumi challenging.

Various reasonings, really.

SuperLuigiLXIV1 votes

Personally, I think difficulty of play is tied specifically to a lack of options.

What most people consider a champion that takes skill, like Yasuo, I would argue actually only takes practice to learn. Champions take practice, the game takes skill. And it takes more skill to do well when you have fewer or less reliable options. And the things that give you the most options in the game are mobility and range. Those two stats triple-dip as offensive, defensive, and utility stats.

So no, I personally don't consider Zed to be a particularly high skill champion, I just think he needs a lot more practice compared to other champions.

IP Masquerena1 votes

I agree with you, and I did mention something similar when talking about Riven and Yasuo, on how they can have those godly laning stages because they have the mechanics down, but don't know how to end the game.

Champion skill can be a thing worth taking into consideration, and I guess what I mean with the thread is "what defines a champion as requiring lots of practice?"

Zed's the main example because he does require good practice to master, but his skill floor is too low right now, meaning you don't need too much practice to be decent on him, and Zed is the only one in the whole list I placed (baring Yasuo's caviat), and even among other champs I didn't post like Ryze, A-Sol and others, with whom being decent is enough to win, the rest require you to be good, not perfect, but quite good just so you start winning reliably.

Rıots Bad Client1 votes

singed isnt a "Difficult" champions. but requires the big brains.

Glory971 votes

Hard to play = Outplay potential of the champion + The Player's Delusion about their "skill" + the resulting need to comfort their own ego.

preternatural1 votes

I can't play yasuo or cass because my ping is too high for it. so for me it just means that a champ is ping gated or not.

other than that there are no "difficult to play" champions, just champions the reward you for learning how to not outplay yourself.

The Chillin1 votes

Fun fact, ahri's winrate and banrate are both higher than zed's above plat.

IP Masquerena1 votes

Win rate, perhaps, but her pick and ban aren't that close/different.

You said above plat, so I'll use the current stats for Diamond and above

Diamond (same order as in the op, win, pick, ban)

  • Ahri: 51.83%, 10.7%, 6.1%
  • Zed: 51.91%, 11.3%, 34%

Masters

  • Ahri: 56.74%, 9.2%, 3.4%
  • Zed: 49.78%, 10.1%, 18.9%

Grandmasters

  • Ahri: 52.35%, 8.6%, 2.9%
  • Zed: 51.87%, 9.2%, 17.4%

Challenger

  • Ahri: 55.67%, 6.2%, 2.3%
  • Zed: 54.69%, 9.1%, 9.5%

Stats from U.GG, check them yourself if you don't believe them.

She does have a tad better win rate than Zed, but she's not "higher ban rate", nowhere even close to Zed, or you plan to say that 6.1 > 34 or 2.3 > 9.5?

Tho for Masters....that place is one weird rank....I mean, check Akali's stats from the OP, she's at best almost 47% as her highest, then in Masters only she has nearly 57%, a lot of champions seem to have weird win win rates that are like, totally opposite to their avg of every other rank in there, so....can't really point a reason for that.

Daddy Ants1 votes

Oh look a Mage player complaining about Zed,

I haven't seen this before!

and No I'm not a Zed main.

IP Masquerena1 votes

I'm sorry, but where's the cry in the thread?

Just because I'm calling Zed easy to play doesn't mean I call him OP. The only busted thing on him is his passive working on creeps.

If you actually read the thread, you'd realise what this is about. Zed is called hard to play, weak,etc, yet his stats show the exact opposite, showing that he's neither weak nor hard to play. So comparing his stats with the stats of other hard to play champs proves that he is far easier than he should be, so I'm asking what makes a champ "hard to play"? I even stated this at the end of the OP, using Zed as the baseline, what makes him easier to play than the others? Or the opposite, what makes them harder to play than him?

If Zed is truly weak and hard to play, explain his stats. If he isn't hard to play, then stop calling him as such

Jarring1 votes

"hard to play champions" are the same in every moba. They might take awhile to get used to, but after gotten used to, it becomes easier to win with these "hard champs" than with "easy to play champs". Or rather, they are more consistent. Ultimately, all this means is that they are harder to counter.

In the original moba, we didn't have Q W E and R to activate every skill for every champion in the game. Each and every different hero had a different letter allocated to its skill, so learning a new champion actually meant something. Just think what this meant for Invoker.

Anyways, for the hardest champions, the more time you spend away from them, the less used to them you'll become, and even if you were the best Invoker or Meepo on the planet at one time, if you haven't played them in over 100 games, you're probably not going to play them very well when/if you pick them back up again. Instead, most of your time is going to be spent relearning the muscle memory required to executing their kit optimally. It's like that for every moba. If you play a lot of different champions in general, all the time, and have learned all the kits extensively, it's a lot easier to jump from champion to champion, playing literally all the different hard champions to their maximum potential. I was doing this in 2004-2006 in DotA Allstars. I'm old. Could pubstomp with Meepo one game, and go win a game with something like QoP, SF, or Lesh as solo mid in clan TDA the very next. Won't say it didn't matter what I picked, cuz it certainly mattered.

But ultimately, all that "hard champions" mean, is that they take awhile to learn, but it should be easier to win with them because of their overloaded kits. You got something with a lot of resets and dashes? yeah it's a lot of buttons to press, but those buttons are opportunities to not only dodge skill shots, but opportunities to put yourself in a better position to land skill shots that would be easily juked otherwise.

Basically what I'm saying is that "hard champions" = hard to learn, but easy to win with.

How it's always been and how it should always be tbh.

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