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Hard vs Easy Champions

DragonManSquid··3 votes·2,864 views

I've heard pieces of this argument throughout other posts so I thought I'd make a proper post out of it.

The argument for easy champions:

I've been told and seen other people say this quite a few times "Learn simple champions, you'll thank me later". As if playing hard champions was a weakness. Playing an easy champion is seen by some as an advantage because it allows you to focus on your macro play, and have better map awareness. You can spend more time learning the game, not a champion.

The argument for hard champions:

I'm sure your all familiar with this "Play a hard carry champion, its the best way to improve". In direct contradiction to what Garen mains would have you believe these summoners believe if you're not carrying you're not improving. The pro's of complex champions like Riven are in her ability to "outplay" almost any scenario. I've never hear a Yasuo main say "Yeah, there is nothing I can do here" and just give up. But while it may no bother most, you still have to live with the notoriety of your champion, because every summoner has had their fair share of salty tryhard players.

Please discuss your oppinion below, I'd love to hear what you guys think about this topic.

10 Comments

SEKAI7 votes

Hard champs are easy once you learn the in and out of them, as due to their nature they rarely run out of solutions and approaches for a given problem.

Easy champs are hard to actually perform in a higher caliber environment, because there, their straightforward kit becomes a handicap on the player.

..........

So in the highest level of skill and assuming no flat out broken OP shit flying around, "easy" champs are actually the hard ones and the "hard" champs are the easy ones, though the reverse is true for low elos.

Ralanr3 votes

It's funny with how much sense this makes.

Mysticman895 votes

A lot of learning league up until the very highest levels is more to do with decision making, map awareness, and teamwork; the particular champion you're using doesn't have much impact on those skills.

If you're at the highest levels where everyones decision making is roughly on par and everyone is playing their champs to near their full potentials, then the specific champions with their respective skill caps and kits is going to be a bigger deal, but for 99.99% of the player base thats not going to be the case. You can be playing garen (or any other 'simple') champion and focus primarily on decision making and you can climb up to diamond at least and your champ isn't going to hold you back (as evidenced by the <insert champ here> one tricks for that exist for pretty much every champ).

If you're a sub-diamond player, than trying to juggle figuring out decision making at the same time as mastering high skill cap champion mechanics might be more ambitious than most players will realistically achieve. You'll improve both at the same time, but perhaps slower and it's easy to tunnel on one thing and not improve on the other.

Ryumanyamana1 votes

{quoted}

A lot of learning league up until the very highest levels is more to do with decision making, map awareness, and teamwork; the particular champion you're using doesn't have much impact on those skills.

If you're at the highest levels where everyones decision making is roughly on par and everyone is playing their champs to near their full potentials, then the specific champions with their respective skill caps and kits is going to be a bigger deal, but for 99.99% of the player base thats not going to be the case. You can be playing garen (or any other 'simple') champion and focus primarily on decision making and you can climb up to diamond at least and your champ isn't going to hold you back (as evidenced by the <insert champ here> one tricks for that exist for pretty much every champ).

If you're a sub-diamond player, than trying to juggle figuring out decision making at the same time as mastering high skill cap champion mechanics might be more ambitious than most players will realistically achieve. You'll improve both at the same time, but perhaps slower and it's easy to tunnel on one thing and not improve on the other.

I didn't know that, thanks

Mordepool1 votes

Learn simple champions gives a good foundation for champion pool for ALL Roles. Learn difficult champions if you like playing them. Autofill can put me anywhere and I'll have a good chance for success. Unlike OTP who only play one role/ champion

Mecha MaIphite1 votes

"Hard" and "easy" champions aren't really accurate categories. I prefer "hard" and "soft" champions.

Hard: Malphite Rammus Nautilus Soft: Zac Teemo Gragas

DragonManSquid1 votes

You actually missed the category in between Firm: Alistar Taric Braum

Dolasaur1 votes

I was going to do something similar with MF and Ahri for easy champions...

Ryumanyamana1 votes

It depends on what you want to get done. Champions with much higher skill ceilings take a lot of mechanical practice to just be able to use properly. When people say focus on simple champions, it's assuming that you don't have the mechanical skills to be able to master champions like Riven. I would assume in high level play, the reason why high skill champions like Riven are there because they're already at top of their game; They're trying to maximize every advantage possible which would include picking a champion that rewards players who are able to harness the full power.

That said, I believe it depends on the ranking you're floating in. When people talk about playing "hard carry" champions, they probably don't fully understand that the champion's ability to "hard carry" doesn't mean squat if the player him/herself cannot utilize the full power because of their lacking mechanical skills. I suppose "tryhard" players have this consolidated belief that champions that take a lot of skill tend to have better carrying potential which isn't completely false. A champion with complex mechanics is capable of flexibility due to the amount of options their kits give them such as Riven's entire moveset.

I believe people who encourage playing champions like Garen are doing it because macro gameplay/the core fundamentals are much more critical than nuanced mechanics. A Riven with Gold/Plat level mechanics but silver decision making skills are going to find themselves at a loss compared to a Garen with silver mechanics with Gold/Plat decision making skills.

A good example of simplicity in gameplay would be taking a look at games like the smash brothers series. Characters with straightforward kits are not at all hard to play. Take Mario from SSB4 for example. While it doesn't take many brains to play him, actually trying to master him becomes hard as it requires the player to have a strong grasp on mix ups since it's very easy to start playing him in a predictable fashion. The simpler the character, the more straight forward their goals are for both you and your opponent to see.

This however comes with its advantages. Sometimes if a character is too complex for the players, while they may be able to execute more complex set of moves, the chances of messing up with them and losing it is higher. At the end, it's mostly up to preference and ability.

Dolasaur1 votes

I tend to agree with the "play easy champions" side's arguments, but from a different perspective. I more encourage people to ignore the general opinion of ease of use of a champion, and focus solely on how fun it is to play. I've had friends that played for a few weeks, a few months, for years, and some that started in season 1 and never stopped.

Choosing a champion because it's easy/hard is similar to choosing one that's "OP"/"UP"; it'll matter more in the short term (while the difficulty/OP-ness gets you to your appropriate MMR with that champion) than in the long term. (Short of near-the-very-top MMR, of course.) In my personal experience, the people that last the longest are the ones that play their favorite champs (whether OTP or a larger roster). Picking an easy champ doesn't help if you quit because you get bored, and picking a hard champ doesn't help if you rage when you fail to outplay someone.

If you want to climb, you'll do so faster in the long run if you don't have to worry about complex mechanics. But you have to actually keep playing the game :)

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