Boards›Gameplay

Classifying Champions

Elliot·8/27/2015, 8:24:32 PM·10 votes·1,445 views

I think its becoming more obvious that riot is moving away from champions filling multiple niches and is separating champions with specific roles to increase diversity and to have champions have non-overlapping niches. This became evident with the juggernauts patch, and I'd like to elaborate on it.

Tanks and Fighters are likely going to be split among multiple roles they excel in to avoid overlapping problems like Diana, an assassin burst mage mobile fighter.

  • Juggernauts/Heavy Fightershave high damage, higher defences, low CC and no dashes (Darius, Skarner Morde)

  • Tanks have high CC, the best defences, low damage and reliable engages (Malphite, Zac, Nautilus)

  • Fighters and Bruisers have some CC, sustained damage and decent mobility (Irelia, Jax, J4, Trundle)

  • Supports have awful scaling for damage, but scale for utility. Items are not required to be effective. They themselves do not have much mobility, but can provide it via spells and items. (Sona, Blitz, Nami) ***imagine if blitz hook scaled for length and not damage

  • Marksmen have the highest damage at the cost of the lowest defences. They are ranged and have some sort of self peel whether it's CC or a mobility spell (Ashe, Lucian, Graves)

  • Duelists/Light Fighters are the melee equivalents of Marksmen. They have some of the highest damage output in exchange for low defences. Due to being melee, they have a defensive timing skill to counterbalance the innate weakness. (Fiora, Yasuo, Yi, Tryndamere) *** I'd put riven here if she did increased damage to single target and lower AoE, like Garens current Q

  • Assassins have the best single target damage. They have abilities to get in and out modrately safely. They also tend to have the best mobility in order to reach specific targets they have just enough CC to be able to stick to targets (Zed, Akali, Ahri)

  • Mages control the battlefield with steady damage, steady soft CC variety of utility due to itemization and a bit of hard CC (Anivia, Orianna, Viktor)

  • [clever name for nukers] These guys tend to have one hard CC spell to set up their burst combo and bring in the damage by having the most burst potential. They are not mobile. (Syndra, Veigar, Annie)

Juggernauts: Skarner, Darius, Garen, Mordekaiser, [Shyvana, Olaf, Nasus, Dr. Mundo, Volibear]

Tanks: Alistar, Amumu, Braum, [Cho'Gath], Galio, Gragas, Leona, Malphite, Maokai, Nautilus, Rammus, Sejuani, Sion, Mega Gnar, Zac

Fighters: [Diana], Mini Gnar, Gangplank, Hecarim, Irelia, Jarvan IV, Jayce, Lee Sin, [Pantheon], Rek'Sai, Renekton, Trundle, Udyr, Vi, Wukong, Xin Zhao

Supports: Bard, Blitzcrank, Janna, Morgana, Nami, Sona, Soraka, Thresh, Zilean

Marksmen: Ashe, Caitlyn, Corki, Draven, Ezreal, Graves, Jinx, Kog'Maw, Kalista, Lucian, Miss Fortune, Quinn, Sivir, Tristana,Twitch, Varus, Vayne

Duelists: Fiora, Master Yi, [Nocturne], [Riven], Tryndamere, Yasuo

Assassins: Ahri, Akali, Elise, Evelynn, Fizz, Kassadin, Kha'Zix, Katarina, LeBlanc, Nidalee, Rengar, Shaco, Talon, Zed

Mages: Anivia, Azir, Cassiopeia, Fiddlesticks, Heimerdinger, Karma, Karthus, Kennen, Lissandra, Malzahar, Orianna, Ryze, Swain, Twisted Fate, Vel'Koz, Viktor, Vladimir, Ziggs, Zyra

Nukers: Annie, [Brand], Lux, Syndra, Veigar, Xerath

[Bracketed Champions] mean there needs some tweaking to make it work

Undecided: Aatrox and Warwick - IDK where heal attackers place Jax - Historically a duelist, but Ult active doesnt make sense for a duelist Kayle - Marksman? Duelist? Mage? Lulu - can go to mage or support extremes Nunu - Support? Tank? Fighter? Poppy, Taric, Urgot and Yorick - Rework inc. Rumble - Mage skillset on a fighter playstyle Singed and Shen - beats me tbh. Teemo - Mage support marksman assassin

I think distinguishing Mages from Nukers is going to be difficult. Nukers should maybe be Combo DPS Glass Cannon mages

Now Junglers shouldn't be a class, and it looks like riot agrees. They appear to want to open the jungle up to a variety of champions and not discriminate by class. So far it's pretty much only marksmen and supports theyre against having in the jungle.

I dont think heal Autoattackers can work (Aatrox/Warwick). They potentially fall under two extremes being either heavy damage through itemization or heavy defences through their healing mechanic. I don't get paid by riot so i have no idea what to do with them.

I think hybrids between two classes is good as long as it favours in one direction and not equal along the middle. An example would be Gnar: mostly tank, sometimes fighter. Or Vayne. A marksman wiith the qualities of a duelist.

What do you think?

12 Comments

Chaotic Reks8/28/2015, 3:41:43 AM2 votes

Supports have awful scaling for damage

you ever see full AP Nami?

Critmaster Garen8/27/2015, 9:01:32 PM1 votes

duellists sounds weird. technically jax is a duellist, but he isnt a melee adc.

tryn, yi, gangplank, pre rework sion (now tank), fiora, yasuo. adc was the original category for these champions. i think the closest description ive seen with the new seperation in marksmen and fighters would be "light fighter"

and "juggernaut" isnt a seperate category. its just something they came up with to describe the 4 fighters they reworked. technically they would be better described as "heavy fighters".

with riots new more general classification they all fall into the same category.

you also put diana in as a fighter. shes clearly an assassin.

annie, lux, veigar, syndra are just mages. some mages just go more into the damage heavy side (brand), and some are utility mages that double as supports (lux, orianna).

it really depends how you want to define a class. technically you could call garen, riven, renekton, pantheon and similar champs also mages since they deal almost all of their damage with their spells. (hence why theyre often referred to as ad casters).

the line just blurs in many cases.

TacoTheKitten8/27/2015, 9:23:25 PM1 votes

Ahri plays a bit more like a mage after they changed her a while ago so you no longer deal bonus damage if you charm them. Otherwise the rest of the list seems pretty accurate.

Jungle Lux God8/27/2015, 11:36:27 PM1 votes

I feel like some of these distinctions are kind of weird. Other have weird names.

Riot already stated the distinction between the three different kinds of fighters: juggernauts, divers, and light fighters. Juggernauts have high damage and defenses, but low mobility. Divers have a good mix of mobility, damage, and defenses. Light Fighters have high amounts of sustained damage and a good amount of mobility, but have relatively low defenses except for innate defensive mechanics build into their kit.

The categories you made for mages need a better distinction. I see there being two kinds of mages: burst mages that focus on dealing tons of damage over CC or other forms of utility (eg. Brand, Veigar, or Malzahar) and utility/control mages that exchange some damage for CC and utility (such as Lux, Anivia, or Zyra). Your lists focus more on their playstyles and build path than their overarching qualities.

Angry Monster8/27/2015, 11:38:05 PM1 votes

I have a problem with assassins and duelists. They tend to do the exact same thing ( delete people)

an example of this is fio she just as easily fill the definition of an assassin.

SEKAI8/28/2015, 2:53:11 AM1 votes

My problem with this,

  • Fighters shouldn't include mobility as a part of the categorisation.
  • Where are bruisers?
  • Riven is not a duelist, but an assassin, or fighter at best. And should probably change the "Duelist" title to "Melee ADC" (or not).

EDIT: aside from those, this seems a fairly complete and detailed thread, nicely done.

FluxBound8/28/2015, 3:39:12 AM1 votes

The "nukers" are often called Burst Mages. You have a point, but at the beginning of season 5, I took their "strategic diversity" a different way. I expected that to mean they would add more items to allow more champs into more roles (but they did with jungle items). I thought this was their attempt to break the meta so anything was viable. This is my view, and you actually give a good point. Both of our descriptions are strategic diversity in a different way.

PL Ordaricc8/27/2015, 8:33:09 PM1 votes

Aatrox and WW are both independant, meaning they can both be either fighters or duelist, or even tanks due to their kit. I'd mark them as "undefined". Btw, great job!

EDIT: Kayle is included too, maybe even Jax (fighter/duelist)

LankPants8/28/2015, 7:47:59 AM1 votes

[clever name for nukers]

It's burst mage

Tanks have high CC, the best defences, low damage and reliable engages (Malphite, Zac, Nautilus)

You might want to look at spiting this, because there's two fundamental classes of tanks, support tanks and bruiser tanks.

They basically split where you'd expect. The bruiser tanks usually have less durability and a little less CC but have actual damage on their kit while support tanks truly lack damage and generally get large defensive steroids in exchange.

Bruiser tanks: Amumu, [Cho'Gath], Galio, Gragas, Malphite, Sejuani, Mega Gnar, Zac

Support tanks: Alistar, Braum, Leona, Maokai, Nautilus, Rammus, Sion

Nunu - Support? Tank? Fighter?

Support Tank

Singed and Shen - beats me tbh.

Singed is a bruiser tank. Shen's kind of a hybrid fighter tank, he'd either be bruiser tank or a weird sub division of juggernaut.