It seems to me people stick to winrates as proof of OP or UPness. Obviously something like an 80% winrate would be huge, but I see numbers like 54,56? Why is that absurd? What's wrong with winning a little over half the games you are in? How is that a representation of too much power?
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It's the first thing you notice and if you have enough information, it helps you puzzle things together.
If I told you nidalee has a 47% win rate that might not mean much. If I told you lane nidalee has a 37% win rate and jungle nidalee has a 50% win rate, that paints a completely different picture.
On its own, it isn't proof of the overpowered, underpowered, or balanced state of champ. It's merely one of many indicators. When we are talking about thousands of players playing a champ, if they are all succeeding more than they are failing by more than a few percentage points that often correlates with that champ being overpowered. Ultimately other factors have to be considered as well, but long stretches of 55%+ win rates with a champ across all levels of play probably means that champ is overpowered, especially if they are a popular pick. Less popular champs can often have higher win rates than normal due to being predominantly played by mains of that champ or only being used as counterpicks.
If a coin lands on head 56% of the time after 300 000 tries, then something is wrong with the coin. It's all about sample. If a champion with a high popularity also has a high winrate, that champ is just stronger than others. On top of this, high popularity means that the champ is probably being picked up BECAUSE of its power by players who don't have a clue how to play them because they're not dedicated to them which lowers the winrate. If the winrate is still high, it means their actual power is even higher! Also, low winrate often means that the champ is usually played as a counterpick only.
For example: Trundle has the highest winrate of all supports. Is he OP? No. He's played in only 0.48% of the games. Blitzcrank and Janna have a slightly lower winrate, but they're played 16% and 21% of the time respectively. This difference in popularity can mean 3 things.
In the meanwhile, the most popular support champ is Thresh, while his winrate is only 49%. Does this mean he's bad? Well, the same thing that counted for janna and blitz count even more for thresh: Lot's of people just play him because "thresh OP rite?" who lower the succesrate of the champion. However, Winrate still does matter. The fact that Thresh is only at 49% opposed to 53+% is a big deal. A difference of 4% winrate over the course of 20k games is a difference of 800 games won. If you as a player have 54% winrate over the course of 20k games in one season, you're #1 challenger.
