Why Caitlyn is actually balanced

Tl;dr at bottom, although i HIGHLY encourage you to try to read it all, as my point gets across way better

Caitlyn seems to be the most **hated** Attack Damage Carry in League at this moment. This is unfounded if you look at all the facts. She is indeed a strong Attack Damage Carry, which is why she is meta now that Crit ADCs are viable again. The fact that she is strong is often confused for her being what truly makes a champion overpowered and unbalanced, and I will attempt to explain why she is the former and not the latter. On the other hand, her weaknesses can be abused easily. This leads to her consistent win rate. Caitlyn is balanced because she has clearly defined strengths, weaknesses, and has a reasonable win rate across ELOs.

Firstly, Caitlyn has clearly defined strengths. Caitlyn is able to poke and trade successfully, which comes with the perk of her hugely outranging champions like Vayne, to barely outranging champions like Ashe. One of the main things that people must think is annoying about Caitlyn, is she gets the luxury of deciding her playstyle. She is easily able to switch between aggressive, where she can place traps, poke you out of lane, and do massive damage with her headshots. On the other side, she can easily play safely with her range, her net, and placing traps to stop progressing enemies. Overall, Caitlyn's range and kit make her an absolute lane bully. This may make her strong opponent.

Next, Caitlyn also has definite weaknesses. Caitlyn has poor survivability. Once her abilities go on cooldown, she is extremely vulnerable for a significant period of time and has few options to deal with any enemies going on her. While she has that peel, it is easily wasted (But seriously who peels in sub-plat ELO anyway lmao). To add onto this, her mobility is is frustratingly poor. If she's jumped on, she has little to no ability to answer back. I probably don't have to elaborate as you all know the struggles of ADC in 2k17 (lul). The next major weakness she has, is that her mid game, contrary to what some believe, is very mediocre, unless she got ahead early enough. Her base stats and kit make it so she is able to get ahead, but its punishing if she does not. If she does not get ahead, shes utterly useless until she hits her late game power spike. Building on that, She needs around three items or more to actually hit a relevant power spike, which is _USUALLY_ around Rapid Firecannon or Phantom Dancer. Her last major weakness is her traps are pretty much useless in open spaces like mid lane. Caitlyn can put a line of traps, which is about four, but lets do some math. Her traps cost twenty mana; thats a lot. so if you multiply twenty times four, that costs her one hundred mana. This would also leave her no traps for her to use later. Another thing about open spaces, is that you will see them, and no one but a boosted monkey would step on a trap surrounded by 3000+ units of open space in a mid lane teamfight. As with all champions, she has weaknesses that are easily exploitable to go along with her strengths.

As many of you are probably thinking at this point, "You filthy biased Piltie, shes still OP!" Look at it this way, is Caitlyn overpowered for excelling at sieging, zoning, and that she has great range and attack power? But this also asks, what makes a champion overpowered? Well an overpowered champion usually has a couple distinct qualities. They usually have little to no exploitable weaknesses, and are way too good at way too many things compared to what they give up with their weaknesses, making it feel completely unfair to play against them. Strong champions may be challenging, but definitely not impossible to beat because their weaknesses are there for players who know how to exploit them. Players can still find strong champions to be unfair, but this is only if they do not capitalize on that champion's weakness and play around that champion's strength. So if you look back and Caitlyn's strengths and weaknesses i presented to you earlier, you will see that she fits right into the strong champion category. Although she is above the curve of power, she is not so high up that she is absolutely unmanageable and in need of toning down.

To support my assertion that Caitlyn is not a problematic nor overpowered champion, I thought I'd compare her statistics to actually overpowered champions like Ivern right now. WAIT, before you call bs on me, let me get out the stats. Ivern is at a **57% winrate**right now, and its been steady ALL season so far. in platinum+. His lowest winrate so far has been 55.5% this season (in silver+ his winrate is still insane). Now for comparing, Caitlyn has had an unsteady winrate this season so far, her lowest being 49%. Were seeing her highest winrate now at around 51/52%. Comparing their kits now (Note: Im going to do my best to analyze this, anyone who knows Ivern well can correct me if im wrong with any of this.), Ivern can give his teammates FREE red and blue buffs which is an INSANE advantage, especially in lane. He also has a stun, AND bring let his whole team dash to the stunned target, also putting them at their attack range! Ivern can also block of your vision, which is a complete GAME changer, as youre forced to waste a couple wards, or facecheck the bush. His E also heals which doing damage to nearby enemies. Lastly, hes also able to summon a minion, Daisy, which can be used as a temporary, no punishment tank. Whether its to soak up turret shots, engage, anything a tank could do. His kit honestly seems overloaded, at least a bit. Now Caitlyn is a whole different story. Her only utility is her traps and her net, which the root/slow doesnt even last too long. Caitlyn is pure damage and safety with her kit. Now for weaknesses, i already went through Caitlyns, now Ivern doesnt seem to have too many weaknesses. Ivern can just stay in the backlines until his abilities are off cooldowns, and youll have to target him to get rid of his massive utility. Now his jungling is a bit complicated, but his passive also lets him gank a lot. once you work around his jungling though, he can be very overpowered. It just doesnt seem like he gives up enough for his strengths. Now Caitlyn over here has many weaknesses that are easy to abuse to your liking. Compared to other champions like Ivern, Caitlyns stats show that she is in a snugly balanced spot at the moment, and that changing her any would drastically hurt her.

All in all, Caitlyn has distinct strengths, weaknesses, and has a reasonable winrate across all ELOs. Shes a balanced champion, and i dont think shes in need of any buffs or nerfs at this moment.

TL;DR: Caitlyn is an overall balanced champion if you consider her definite Strengths(Her sieging, her zoning, her range, she can play passive or aggressive) and weaknesses(Poor survivability, cant do anything if she wastes her abilities, her mid game is mediocre if she cant get ahead, she needs 3+ items to hit a relevant power spike, her traps are useless in open spaces). This is proven by her consistent winrate across ALL ELOs right now(her winrate is about 51%m ivern is about 57%).


~Thank you for taking time to read this! I spent a lot of time on this and hope i brought something new to the table! Also, if i made a mistake, PLEASE correct me in the comments!~

*[slayer-jinx-wink]*