Why "bloated" champions are good for game health

Ignoring bad releases like Camille. Champions like Jhin, Bard and new Fiora are far better designs than outdated champions like Garen, Annie and Mordekaiser.

See Linear champions aren't weak because of numbers.

They are weak because they are linear. They lack options, likewise when they do get ahead they lack counterplay. I find it amazing the number of people who complain about easy to use unavoidable damage on one champion but then complain about high skill cap champions with avoidable damage being the problem with League.

The reason Ahri for example can be balanced across most tiers with minimum number tuning is because while her kit is simple and powerful it also has options to be viable in high tier play and her CC and primary nuke is avoidable giving her counterplay. She takes some skill to play and a lot to master. But not too much to initially pick up. A similar case is Fiora. Both can be tuned by changing numbers without destroying them.

On the other side we have champions like Annie or Garen who due to only having 1-2 specific cheeses and their counterplay being "don't go near them when they have x stats" makes them too limited to see much top tier play without insane number buffs that would make them busted below a certain level. If you make them un-busted in those tiers they are worthless in high tier.

The good thing about champions having multiple complex/difficult mechanics, or kits with a lot of tools that include avoidable damage and counterplay. In low tiers people may not know how to play against them but playing as them is also more challenging and requires more thinking. Meaning it balances them out.

While playing in high tiers people may know how to play against them but also know how to play as them. Meaning it balances them out.

You can tune numbers without making them useless because their strategy isn't "have more numbers while being in X range". It is "Play better than you, outwit you and my number advantage is a slight boost because I farmed more."

This is why the rework was mostly/entirely a success.

While the and reworks were hard failures.

I can now dodge Darius Q, play around his stacks, dodge his pull and still of course count our stats. But Darius players know this and account for it in their own play. That is successful design even if you consider him over/undertuned at any particular point.

And dare I forget probably the healthiest rework so far.