I think I know why Riot is having so much trouble coming up with Marksmen subclasses

Rebonack·Jan 22, 2017·1 votes·574 views

It's because 'Marksmen' isn't a thing.

As per the various champ archetypes, most champions currently labeled 'Marksmen' are all ranged Skirmishers of some flavor or another. Rather than getting access to damage-avoiding skills like Yi's Q or Yassy's Windwall, they use range and good positioning to avoid damage.

So Ez would be a Skirmisher/Artillery champ. Vayne would be Skirmisher/Assassin. Same with Twitch. Ashe is a Skirmisher/Controller. Graves is a Skirmisher/Diver as is Quinn. And so on and so forth.

7 Comments

Variks the LoyalJan 22, 20173 votes

Rather than getting access to damage-avoiding skills like Yi's Q or Yassy's Windwall, they use range and good positioning to avoid damage.

And that is exactly what makes them Marksman.

bleufromageJan 22, 20171 votes

Why is everyone so hung up on words to describe a champion. What does it change when u apply a label onto a champ? I get why developers use these to create themes but the community is obsessed with categorization for no reason I can see.

Valor BotJan 22, 20171 votes

Creating different classes and subclasses helps foster a better understanding of each Champion and what their individual strengths and weaknesses should be.

bleufromageJan 23, 20171 votes

And that makes sense for a developer who went to school for game design or something similar. I don't get why every Tom Dick and harry thinks that their job is to create these subclasses that they have no ability to affect. Riot made the post about classes and subclasses to help communicate to the community their design/rework philosopyies. Riot could call a class a poopstomper and explain what that is. The point is they control what they make and the words they use to convey meaning. Words are just words unless they have meaning and some sort of agency to back up those meanings. Riot has agency Tom Dick and harry have no agency to back up they words, and so I feel its pointless to try and classify champions and there is no reason anyone would care about titles that people want to give to specific classes.

Valor BotJan 23, 20171 votes

Because Riot has shown that they listen to player feedback. Besides, it can be fun to come up with ideas for classes and subclasses of your own, even if chances are low that League will actually adopt them. I see nothing wrong with thinking about high-level game design -- those sorts of conversations shouldn't be stymied just because we don't work for Riot ourselves or have little to no say in the matter.

bleufromageJan 24, 20171 votes

fair enough i suppose

Umbral RegentJan 22, 20171 votes

Marksmen is a thing, and it's pretty inane that you think it feasible to just re-word every Champion in the Marksman class as Skirmishers. Especially since Skirmishers are defined here as part of the Slayer Class - "Fragile, agile, damage-focused melee Champions", with the Skirmisher Subclass being defined by high-survivability, few reliable gap-closers, and being intent to shred anything within reach.

So, do the vast majority of Marksmen have few good gap-closers? Sort of - barring Lucian's Relentless Pursuit, Graves' Quickdraw, Vayne's Tumble, and other such instances of dashes, the majority of Marksmen don't have great access to dive on priority targets.

Do they have good survivability tools? Largely: No.

Are they melee? No. Not a single one of them.

Also, the definition of a marksman in the real world is "a person skilled in shooting, especially with a pistol or rifle." - and wouldn't you know? All Marksmen in League of Legends have some form of ranged weapon, whether it's a bow, a gun, or some abstract launching mechanism like what Urgot has.

Riot has trouble coming up with Marksman Subclasses because a wide variety of Marksmen touch on different subclasses. There's Artillery Marksmen like Kog'Maw or Varus, Snipers like Jhin, Hyper-Marksmen like Kog'Maw and Jinx, Siege Specialists like Caitlyn or Tristana, pseudo-tanks like Urgot and Graves, there's just so many flavors of Marksman that it's really hard to nail a specific few subclasses that define small groups of them well.