Dissecting Lee Sin's Kit, GUIDE/TIPS FOR THE BLIND MONK, Future of Summoner's Rift

DISCLAIMER: I plan to put a decent amount of effort and thought into this post it's my first legitimate one on here, so bare with me if you decide to read through it all, which I encourage you to do and would really, really appreciate it. This took me a few hours to type up so I hope it starts some good, but civil discussion. All I see on the boards is the same bullshit. It'll be a nice change instead of the crap you see on the "what's hot" which is people whining about champs are OP cuz they got wrecked in a game right before by said "OP champ", or the kids just fishin' for upvotes which I'll never understand lol. That being said, I'm gonna feel like an idiot if I take a decent chunk of time to type this out and I get no feedback so GL me, if not GG surr 20.

DISCLAIMER #2: I'm on the boards, browsing info on Lee, etc. And I, like I'm sure you know, constantly see and hear about how he's the most hated champions in the game other than maybe riven due to his "extreme mobility, over the top damage, and an overloaded kit." Another goal of mine when I finish this post is to give some insight on a rational Lee fanatic and give them a different perspective on a champ that i've been playin for a long time.

MATH COMPARISONS/BREAKDOWNS/LOGISTICS AT BOTTOM OF PAGE; SUGGESTIONS FOR TWEAKS TO LEE SIN'S KIT/SMALL BUFFS TO ABILITIES

Some relevant background info on me: -Been maining Lee for I wanna say the past year, if not than a bit less/maybe a bit more -Probably have 700-800 games on Lee Sin alone, rough guesstimate -Peaked at G1 last season, if I had a few more hours I could of hit plat before the reset -Due to Lee's complex kit, I almost exclusively played Lee in all of my ranked matches, which I'll get into later -I have extreme game knowledge regarding League, especially the strategic decision making, objective oriented aspect of it, which greatly disappoints me due to the feeling that it's been gradually dissipating and becoming something different entirely. -To the point above, I've played a couple of games a month and you can just tell the atmosphere while playing is drastically altered, in the worst way possible -Should also mention that since S6 I've been rarely playing at all, partially because I'm a full time student now, honestly it's more of the state of the game and where it's been the past few months.

Reasons why I main and almost exclusively play Lee Sin: -His lore; I was always really intrigued by balance in things, so Lee's character was always intriguing to me -Straight up thought he was a bad ass, Muay Thai hnnnnnnnng best skin in League by far -Extremely difficult to play and not only that, but his kit is complex which shouldn't be confused with level of difficulty; two completely different areas -Generalist; Like I said before I wasn't playing when Lee Sin was released, but from what I've read and hear throughout the years of playing League, --Lee kind of started the whole generalist area of expertise which was really intriguing to me, I like to contribute to the whole team instead of just one specific area; that's always applied to anything I've done in life -All of abilities flow and line up with his lore in my opinion on another level from the majority of other champs, which I admit, 90% of league players don't care about, but it's shows the time and dedication put into this character, bringing them alive into their own persona which to be frank, is cool as hell to me. I've only ever heard of role palying, but I feel like it could be somewhat similar to it, the time and dedication, well thought out dialogue and voice acting that really helps you to completely throw yourself into the game.

Lee Sin's Kit Explained In-Depth by an Avid Lee Player:

Passive: Flurry - "After Lee Sin uses an ability, his next 2 basic attacks gains 40% attack speed and return 20/10 energy respectively."

NOTES/THOUGHTS ON FLURRY: Without the passive his clears would be absolute shit; definitely fits well and think they done gewd with this one, not overly quick clearing, especially early, but this is to be expected; he's a generalist. Also, gives him a bit of dueling powering throughout the game, but if a extremely strong 1 v 1'er is on the opposing team (Shyvana, Udyr, Warwick, etc.) be wary if you're thinking of invading their jungle. It's entirely possible to do it, it just takes knowledge of the match up, experience on the jungle routes to take, deciding whether you have the capability to duel cause you caught an early lead, where the enemy jungler is starting, etc.

SONIC WAVE (Q1): Lee Sin projects a discordant sound of wave to locate his enemies (true sight), dealing physical damage to the first enemy it encounters. If sonic wave hits, Lee Sin can cast resonating strike for the next 3 seconds.

NOTES/THOUGHTS ON SONIC WAVE: Again fits thematically with Lee known as the Blind Monk, providing true vision for the duration. Sonic Wave definitely got an indirect buff with the complete overhaul of vision, definitely not a game chander but was surely beneficial.

RESONATING STRIKE (Q2): (PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 50/80/110/140/170 (+ 90% bonus AD)): Lee Sin dashes to the enemy hit with sonic wave, dealing physical damage plus 8% of their missing health.

NOTES/THOUGHTS ON RESONATING STRIKE: Every time I skim through an article/page about Lee, it always kind of bugs me cause it reminds me that he has a flat 8% missing health cap on his Q. Sure the next question is, "but why?" I realize that it's not usually the best to compare two different champions kits, but parts of Elise's kit is somewhat similar so I feel like it's adequate to make a small comparison to get a better idea. I also want to bring up Elise due to the fact that she has by FAR a way more overloaded kit than Lee does, I'd almost go far as to say it's toxic (huehue), yet for some odd reason Lee's always the one getting called OP other than that month or two stint when Elise was ridiculous after the Runic Echoes buff; we'll get more into that later though, specifically the statistics and number comparisons). For people saying that Lee's base damages are too strong, they're not. They're decent and although his scalings are pretty damn ridiculous, they're just potential you 95/100 games won't be able to use unless you're stacking massive amounts of AD throughout your game which just isn't practical unless you've snowballed like a mofo super early.

Safeguard (W) SHIELD: 40/80/120/160/200(+ 80% AP): Lee Sin dashes to the target ally or friendly ward. If the ally is a champion, they and Lee Sin receive a shield that lasts 2 seconds and Safeguard's cooldown is halved.

NOTES/THOUGHTS ON SAFEGUARD/IRON WILL: With the new masteries, more complex and loaded kits, etc, in my humble opinion there's no reason for Lee to have an AP scaling shield, and this is obviously his "W" Safeguard I'm talking about. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, when people say Lee has "utility", this is the majority of what they're talking about; and this is getting to my thought process on some changes since we're rounding out this section of my ridiculously long but HIGHLY INFORMATIVE post. The first problem is people are maxing the shield last because it scales off AP, they're getting an 80 HP shield at level 14. Even at level 18, 200 hp shield that lasts 3 seconds just doesn't cut it, especially when it Lee's supposed to be somewhat of a front liner. He's a generalist I'll give Riot that you did a great job at giving him the tools necessary but he needs tweaks to certain numbers, and and in my opinion slight variations to some of his abilities, plat+ players with over 125 game on ANY champ should be breaking a 50% win rate... Back to Elise as well, no AD scaling's, all AP. I keep mentioning Elise and there's a reaosn for it,I'm gonna take a paragraph or two in a second and explain why she's relevant to what I've been talking about.

Tempest/Cripple: MAGIC DAMAGE: 60/95/130/165/200(+ 100% bonus AD) Lee Sin smashes the ground, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies and granting True Sight icon true sight of them for 4 seconds. If Tempest hits an enemy, Lee Sin can cast Cripple within the next 3 seconds.

NOTES/THOUGHTS ON TEMPEST/CRIPPLE: True sight again, awesome addition to stay consistent with the lore with Lee Sin being blind. The flat 10 second CD at all levels is way too high IMO. Lee has no on-hit enhancements for his autos, and his Q, even later in the game does considerable damage to squishies, it tickles anyone that's build basically any type of defenses and it's his only other damaging ability other than regular auto's. It's nice that it procs magic damage and you benefit from building AD but 10 second's is a long CD for a build path like Lee's where he's not in most cases picking up too much CDR.

Dragon's Rage: PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 200/400/600(+ 200% bonus AD) Lee Sin roundhouse kicks the target enemy champion, dealing physical damage and Airborne icon knocking them back over 1 second. Enemies hit by the projectile enemy receive bonus physical damage and are Airborne icon knocking up for 1 second.

NOTES/THOUGHTS ON DRAGON'S RAGE: Just wanna give a shout out to Riot on this ability, totally badass and again fits Lee Sin to a T. The timing, mechanical skill, quickness, and precision it takes to land a good kick on multiple enemy teammates is not only ridiculously difficult but one of the most satisfying experiences in League. The base damage is high but not overbearing, catering to his early-mid game presence. The high bonus AD ratio's give him some help when late game starts coming along. This is the only ability in Lee's kit that I don't have much to complain about, the design that went into this was pure genius, it requires quick thinking, strong communication with your teammates, mechanical ability to make the play happen, everything that encompasses intense, passionate game like League should be and how I REMEMBER it. Like I've said before I've like I wanna say close to 900 games of Lee Sin and any Lee Sin that can pull off a multi person kick deserved it, the shit is not easy and that is the type of strategic, mechanically intense game play that should be happening in League. Like I said though before, I feel like the damage is adequate the CD on his ultimate is low to compensate for his less than great late game. Now THAT'S good design.

FINAL NOTES/THOUGHTS/SUGGESTIONS : Lee's supposed to be a generalist, correct? That means he should be average at everything but excelling at nothing. Come late game Lee, and yes I realize he's supposed to fall off late game, but any champ that is as useless as Lee past 40 mins is unhealthy for the game itself. Any individual who spends 125+ games on 1 champion and is above plat elo that can't even win half of their games means there's a problem. -Lee is a generalist, sure, that's a great thing and one of the mains reasons I like him. But he needs an identity throughout late game. He becomes a kick/safeguard bot and nothing more, other than on occasion if you can pull off an insec and get a carry. The truth of the matter though is Lee's kit doesn't enable him to have nearly any impact whatsoever when defenses are built on the carries, the front line is beefy as shit, he has no place.

@RIOT: You've described Lee Sin a generalist. I'm gonna run through a couple things, let's say we just dropped down at the platform lvl 1.

-People used to say he was king of the jungle and that was his niche, extremely strong early game and aggressive ganker due to high mobility (I agree with this) and transitioning into an off-tank. The problems lie within the fact that after multiple champion buffs across the boards, item changed that benefited other champions a lot more, Lee was kind of dismissed as the alpha early jungler; Many, many meta junglers can outduo him easily. -Give Lee a little help transitioning from fighter to off-tank/bruiser. Don't quote me on this I've been typing for hours, but instead of safeguard scaling 40/80/120/160/200, you could slightly lower the base amounts, swap the 80% AP scaling for and much lower AD scaling, and in return would help him transition throughout mid game to late to take more an off-tank role. Lee doesn't have the tools, damage or utility to act as an "off-tank" like people call him, he's a fighter/assassin that builds damage items but THAT RIGHT THERE, is why he's having problems. He contributes absolutely nothing to late game team fight except a good kick, and maybe a couple double Q's to clean up the squishies. Too squishy to be in the front line and doesn't bring enough damage to the table to be in the back line; again, this is I believe his design is somewhat flawed and needs to be addressed. Giving him the scaling's of an assassin and not only that but LABEL him as a secondary assassin but not intending his kit to be assassin-esque in any way, shape or form; at least I don't see it.

NON-THOUGHT OUT IDEAS: (Off the top of my head, not given much thought)

-Change his ratios from bonus AD to total AD, but balance it where he's doing around the same damage. This will give him incentive to do more consistent damage in team fights and have the ability to actually join the frontline because they'll be able to invest in more damage items. This is literally the exact reason why Lee struggles, people say he transitions from an assassin/high damage dealer to an off tank when he's not at all, he's a fighter that bought defensive items. The only defensive utility he has is a worthless shield when you're pushing 30-35 minutes.

-Like I mentioned above, get rid of the AP scaling on shield and drastically reduce it but swap it to AD to help him be a bit beefier going into late game while retaining a meaningful amount of damage.

ANOTHER DISCLAIMER ABOUT CLAIMING LEE IS OP: Lee is weak, whether you want to it admit it or not. He's always been horrendously weak because he has an identity complex when it hits a certain amount of time in a game and there lies the problem right there. It's great that Lees know as the play maker and I love it, it's sick as hell pulling off awesome plays but when a champion has to solely rely on that because he can't do consistent damage and isn't bulky enough to hold his own in the front line, that's a problem. Not even Lee specifically, the game's foundation and balance needs to be addressed; this is just an example and I thought I'd bring it to your guys attention cuz he's my favorite champ and I'd love to see him in a healthier state in the game.

ELISE VS LEE SIN QUICK STATS COMPARISON

ELISE: -Surrrounded by spiderlings that conveniently block skill shots for you -Has full kit at level 3 -Magic damage %current health damage that scales w/ AP Magic damage %current missing health damage that scales w/ AP -140% bonus attack speed buff for 3 seconds, spiderlings 25% (Resets auto attack timer) -1600 speed 1075 range web that stuns, also grants vision (1.6-2.2) -Untargetable for up to 2 seconds, in the air or land on enemy after 1 second (On hit bonus damage and healing from spiderlings are increased up to 100% -Spider form gains instant 25 MS, spiderlings permanently do on hit bonus damage and heal Elise

LEE SIN: -Sonic blast grants true sight, dash to enemy for same damage +8% missing health (No scaling) -Dash to friendly objects with safeguard, max 200 hp shield (Only last 2 seconds) -Life steal and spell vamp on 2nd proc of safeguard (4 seconds) -AOE Magic damage nuke that provides true sight, scales off AD -2nd cast of cripple slows enemies MS, recovers over time -High base high scaling point and click nuke, multiple targets able to collide for additional damage based on bonus hp of enemy kicked

Elise's kit is far superior to Lee's, especially due to the fact that she has 1.6 second hard cc at lvl 3. Like I said though for you aspiring Lee players out there I'll throw out some couple tips, PM me if you wanna get serious about it.

LEE TIPS: -Before you ranked, practice your q's and practice your ward hopping. Not being able to fluently ward hop as lee...you'll just be useless. -Saw a video and it said, you're a jungler first, a lee sin main second. Extremely true, know the best routers to take, analyze your comp vs. theirs, try and get deep wards in to see what buff they're starting, etc. That's especially important due to the potential of an easy first blood if it's a slow clearer. Don't be that guy that sits at the platform for 55 seconds then walks nonchalantly to lane, increase your map awareness and attentiveness of what's going on around the map and you drastically improve your chances of winning. -Don't be a hero. Unless you're almost 100% you can get an insec off on a carry, just let your frontline take care of that and stick close to your carries. -I used to swear by 2 damage items no matter how far behind I was, I mean I was never super far behind but still, now I almost always just go warriors into hex drinker. Then you grab your boots, after that depending on how you're doing start working on your main defensive items like randuin's/deadman's, super AP heavy and you're doing decent you could finish the maw. Just depends on the situation -As a jungler, especially as a lee sin jungler, you need to stay in contact with your lane. I haven't been playing because I've been so busy but I can't even count how many times that my team was starting on blue side, I tell em even before the minions come out, im coming bot after red dont shove. Easy summoners, and if they're stupid you can just make another circle and pick up a double or even better your AD could. -I've seen a lot of different pathing for Lee but when I play Lee I like to be as active on the map as possible as early as possible. Regardless of what side you're on, start golems. Youdon't need a super heavy leash just a few autos and you should be good. Next, SKIP red and go to raptors. Kill the small ones first, then the big one. Now you go to red, smite the red and get that 15% max HP back for early ganks. I clear red side with 1 pot and smiting red and I'm good to go to mid or top/bot depending on what side we started on. -Build accordingly. If you have an enemy team w/ full AD dont pick up a maw, vice versa. If you're not doin too hard start transitioning into a beefier build earlier and get your lanes fed. -Use your high mobility to your advantage. If you can see all lanes are where they're supposed to be, pop your head up in the enemy jungle and see what's going on, either grab the buff, wait for them to come and counter jungle, or last resort just get the timer so you know the next time it spawns. -Another tip for the previous one, if you plan on re invading say, their red again, take the whole camp and get the timer. If not, leave a minion there to delay their buff as much as possible.somewhat self explanatory but non jungler mains don't realize how much of a different these little things can make. -If your lane fed the shit out of the enemy laner, go to other laners and help them get fed. Let the 1st tower drop, and tell him to turtle under 2nd tier until other lanes/you can roam. -As Lee Sin, you have a pretty nice advantage securing objectives with your Q. It's pretty simple but you smite and q at the same time and you can drop the dragon/baron from like 1.2k -BUY WARDS, can't stress this enough, vision wins games and I'm still pissed Riot removed green wards for absolutely no reason. Pinks are only 75 g, should always be 5 out on the map at all times. -Tracker's knife is basically a necessity on lee, vision control is important especially early and use your trinket wards for ward hopping.

To end this ridiculously long post, got 2 more things I wanna do. Just to clarify, I mean yeah this is obviously a thread about Lee Sin but it's more what Riot's doing the game to a whole. They're losing focus and it's a sad sight to see, I hope they can find their way back to what they were doin a couple years back. Not move so fast and think things through carefully before just releasing, changing, and taking about a bunch of shit completely out of the blue. If you don't agree with me that's fine, I just ask that you be respectful, not that I really care, I just wanna get some real feedback and get some good discussions going on this thread. Last think is I'm gonna throw out some tips for those aspiring Lee Sin players that are tryin to git gud, if you're gone one of them too come share ya story down here! If you read my whole post, I'm seriously grateful for taking proly like 3 hours LOL, honestly though I know it's a lot but I've read through it a couple times and I feel like it's pretty damn informative. I was just sick of people bitchin about Lee Sin on the boards when 70% of them probably haven't even played him more than twice.

Lotta info here, drop a reply below and tell me what you think