Boards›Gameplay

Overpowered Champs - Too loaded?

John C Mayer·8/2/2016, 1:52:59 AM·1 votes·1,106 views

What a lot of the the OP champs have is basically just too much or some of everything, or simply their kit synergrizes too well with, kinda everything. What results is they're either in the meta, being super strong, or being weak, because they've had to been nerfed to be fun to play against. Clarification here - I'm treating Broken champs as =/= OP champs. Broken=not FUN to play with, against, or as. Big examples right now are Malzahar, Yasuo, Azir video from Jeremy Gaming Curios Malzahar has pretty high AP ratios for what kind of champ he is, according to the LoL wiki; he's a mage/assassin, implying he can put out damage consistently, to some degree, while also being able to 1v1 a squishy and just kill them. What he has right now is:

  1. A short duration spellshield (passive)
  2. Silence (that lasts ~pretty long)
  3. Lockdown CC (makes him vulnerable, but his kit and build synergizes pretty well with his ult, making him a little less vulnerable then a typical mage would be just standing there.)
  4. Following on point #3, he's got 2 high-AP ratio spells in his kit, which allows him to burst someone down as well as
  5. Provide constant and considerable dps with voidlings. Malzahar's trading capabilities and his kill pressure make him pretty hard to deal with, and his passive seals the deal; dmg, and with two HP items, making him notsosquishy, his kit's kinda loaded, compared to someone like, say, Anivia, who's immobility makes her a fuckton more vulnerable considering she doesn't have Malz passive.

Yasuo's prettypronetogettingshittalkedrightnowsobandwagonay kit, being very loaded; I'm not going to talk as much about him because imlazy there's enough posts talking about Yasuo, but I'm going to say a few things:

  1. His passive, W, and E helps him out too much. One of Yasuo's major weaknesses is he is still melee; if you kite him, CC him, it's not that hard to blow him up. He's this huge dps monster with, depending on what you're building, capable of bursting a squishy, but he is still melee - UNLESS you forget he has a shield to help his squishiness, as well as a windwall (obvious why it helps.) His E makes targeted CC a lot harder to land, and overall his kiting potential, to overcome his squshiness and vulnerability as a melee champ, makes him kinda OP.
  2. His build path's too cheap; if you look at most 1st core items for midlaners, there's RoA, which is 2700G, and the components of it basically provide sustain and combat power. Morello's is 2900, and components take up 3 item slots, not to mention no HP sustain. SS, which is what most Yasuo's in mid rush, grants too much power to Yasuo after its initial buy; since most Yasuo's in mid start Doran's, you've already got lane sustain, and your passive makes your SS a lot more effective than most other starting items - not to mention it's 2600G (off the top of my head), which means you'll probably get it earlier or the same time as your laner. (This happens a lot with other champs too, an early spike, or mid game spike, like Renekton's Tiamat or Corki's Trinity respectively, but they've got times where they're vulnerable and weak.)
  3. Double the crit chance. That's it. "Double passive" is sometimes heard, and I'll agree with that.

Azir, there's been enough posts from Rioter's and other players - I forgot who said it (I wanna say Meddler off the top of my head but I might be wrong) agreed that either Azir needs to lose mobility and become a constant dps mage, or just become a flashy mage with the shurima shuffle, and nerfs/reworks on soldiers. But specifically looking at him right now, he's got a good early game, good late game, constant dps, enough burst with W(AA)-Q-(AA)+Thunderlords to either seriously chunk or, if you have Rylai's, potentially have enough to kill them.

Irelia's been strong for a while now, and she's also this hugely overloaded champ imo. She's tanky enough to be a fighter/bruiser, but she's got tenacity and massive dmg (true dmg), and mobility to get close; if you look at juggernauts, they're tanky and deal dmg, but they're clumsy. Fighters like Riven and Yasuo are High dmg and high mobility, but they're squishy and prone to just getting outright killed for diving; Irelia's got dmg, she's got tankiness and tenacity, and she has mobility. In the end, she ends up this comparatively weak champion when out of the meta, or super snowbally a strong in the meta.

Tl;dr: overloaded kits are prone to being OP, with examples right now being Azir, Yasuo, and Malz. Thoughts? (I am not, by the way, calling for nerfs. If anything, these champions are more in need of a rework than a nerf, or just straight up removal of parts of their kit. Also not raging at any champs.)

8 Comments

Astôlfo8/2/2016, 2:06:30 AM3 votes

Uh yeah except... Malzahar's passive nerfs hurt him a lot and now he's just okay-ish/good with a reasonable skillcurve increase. Yasuo is balanced generally despite his kit in terms of actual performance and has a good winrate to experience curve. And Azir is literal trash for anyone who's not LCS level or extremely incredibly dedicated and proficient with him.

Erockandroll8/2/2016, 3:38:31 AM2 votes

So I watched that video, And I really didn't particularly like their description of Overloaded. Particularly when describing dual form champions. Given That most dual form champions pretty much don't have a true ultimate, with the exception of Gnar and Shyvana, and in their case, their second form is more of a temporary powerup. Even though a Dual for is another level of complexity.

But to a certain extend, Riot is going to need complex champions along with the simple ones, in order to make a game that appeals to everyone. In order to appeal to newcomers, as well as enthusiasts, Riot needs to vary the skill curve. And since they already have a hundred something champions, Riot can't really afford to limit their possibility space.

But as for overloaded kits being unmanageable, or without weakness. Each bit of utility should highlight the champions role. Take Irelia for example, She's pretty much going to be a Diver. Her main gig is going to be her ability to jump on you, knock out a squishy, But unlike an Assassin, she does it with a bit more defenses and a lot less finesse. So if you needed to Adjust her kit, Start with the items that arn't her being a diver. (A good candidate might be the sustain on her W, as it's more of a Duelist mechanic.)

As for the three specific champs OP mentioned. It's hard for me to have an opinion on Malzahar, Since I haven't got use to the rework. Riot decided they wanted to support the Voidlings in a way that was made famous by his AD off build, Which may have muddled his kit, But I don't think his new passive is that bad. (At least after the recent nerf) Blocking an instant of Damage/CC isn't really different from a spell shield, such as the one given from Banshee's veil.

Yasuo is Probably fine in my opinion. As a skirmisher, He's go a bit more Defenses than Ranged Glass cannons. But those defenses are a lot more situational. His passive shield is okay, His windwall, could potentially have a shorter duration. Forcing it to be more of a reactive tool than a proactive one. And his Synergy with Knockups, gives him a niche for teams to be built around. Which does affect his ability to win, But I feel it does so in a fair way.

now AZIR, is a major pain. He has what I would call "the Kayle problem." In the sense that he's a DPS mage, who scales with AS. Now DPS mages in general are a pain to balance, since they don't have the turret taking power of an ADC. It's pretty much Kill or be killed. Giving them a knifes edge to balance on. And since Azir Scales so well with AS, and is so auto centric, Mana doesn't ever become a good lever for balancing him. And I don't think Riot had the different sub classes in mind when they made Azir, so they have no idea what he's suppose to be.

Here's what I fear for Azir. If Riot Decides to remove more of his Utility, (Such as his Shurima shuffle) He will eventually end up being more of a knife's edge to balance as he would only have his Damage left. (More like Kayle) And if he's loses too much damage, He can't carry himself with the utility alone. (Unlike a Utility mage, who has scaling utility) I think the first step, would be Riot deciding what role he fills, and what kind of Strategic niche he can offer.

YurÌ on Ice8/2/2016, 7:48:34 AM2 votes

Azir is overloaded boys

http://champion.gg/champion/Azir/Middle

40% winrate all aboard the shuriman freelo train

Healz Please8/2/2016, 2:14:08 AM1 votes

Malz was nerfed hard though. And Yasuo, in my opinion, isn't op. He's just annoying and played far too often. Azir is shit tier for unskilled players.

A champion I think is really strong right now (not op, but very strong) is Sona.