Riots current balance philosophy and how it can be improved upon

I may be mistaken but time and again I have seen riot post on the boards with replies to balance complaints with “we balance around plat+” however I have not seen any one expound on or explain any additional broad philosophies by which they balance.

I would like to propose an additional philosophy that should also be taken into account when considering balance decisions.

First and foremost one thing that should be on the mind of the balance team is a champions ratio of skill required to amount of reward. There have been numerous changes that have been extremely questionable made throughout leagues lifetime. An example I would like to draw to mind is a poor change made not too long ago when dr.mundo became meta after receiving a substantial buff that no one asked for. The reason this was a poor decision is because mundo requires very little skill to play correctly and this contributed to the problem for two reasons.

1. It feels bad to play a champion requiring substantial skill only to lose to a “braindead” champion despite the fact that you played objectively better.
2. Champions with low skill kits are generally speaking less interactive and when uninteractive champions are very good victory is basically decided strictly by whether your champions/build counter theirs which is of course poor and unfun game design.

A current example of a champion who has a reward that is too high compared to the amount of skill required to play him Master Yi. Whether or not Master Yi wins or loses his play style is largely the same. When he wins it feels impossible to beat him because his kit is uninteractive and thus in a scenario where your fighting a fed Yi it is basically impossible to outplay him. When he loses there is little the Yi could have done differently to get a different outcome because all of Master Yi’s potential has already been realized regardless of whether or not the Yi had more skill it wouldn’t have made a difference because there’s nothing in Master Yi’s kit to make use of that skill.

This is the nature of champions that require little skill which is why champions like these should never be viable in anything above bronze or silver because if they are they not only make for boring and uninteractive fights at their highest viable elo but they will ruin the game for lower elo players. They should exist for the sole purpose of being training wheels for players who are new to the game or for players who want to be able to focus on the macro aspects of the game knowing that they will be at a disadvantage in the micro aspect but can overcome this with superior macro play.

This of course holds true for the other side of the coin with champions like Azir. Due to the incredible amount of skill required to unlock the full potential of Azirs kit if he were viable in Elo’s where players could do well with him without tapping into his full power then he becomes a menace in higher elo’s when in the hands of players who can use him to his full potential.