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How Lee reveals a deeper problem in champion design

MasterVidallis·12/2/2015, 9:05:13 PM·64 votes·4,320 views

I hate playing against or with Lee mainly because I see him so much. Often I'll queue for 5 matches and 4 will have a Lee in it. So I think, something needs to be done. Does he need a nerf? Not really, not in terms of overall power budget. As I think about him I realize his problem is not unique to him, and it has to do with focus, identity and excessive flexibility.

Riot has declared a goal of them is for every match to feel unique, I agree with that, it's key to the longevity of the game, to leverage the large champion pool so matches don't get repetitive and stale.

I'm a jun main and each match I think about our comp and theirs before I pick a jungler:

Strong early ganks to stop snowballer picks. Great duelists who can 1v1 hard if you think you'll be invaded or they have strong duelists. Good team fight engagers who can go tanky if lanes are packing a lot of damage. Someone who can power farm if enemy pick hard to gank champs.

And here is what's wrong with Lee, while he doesn't do all of that great, he does all of that pretty well because of how many tools and options he has, so if you play jungle Lee and get good at him, you can just skip that whole thinking and just spam him. Regardless of what anyone picked in either team, and you'll be fine. Which is what people do.

Thresh has a similarly suffocating effect as a support for similar reasons, good at everything you need from a support with no salient weaknesses. Yasuo has a similar issues in the mid lane, he has AOE, sustained damage, burst, mobility, anti poke, damage denial, CC. Riven is a great example for top. These champions win rates will fluctuate with their raw power budget. They're not always "OP". The problem is this: what's Yasuo's main weakness and strength? Thresh'? Lee's? Riven's? Coming up blank? That's why their design is fundamentally flawed and they're in every other fucking match, whenever their numbers are decent. Riot likes to hit "outliers" in power budget but I wish they would start also reworking champs that just lack focus and are too versatile, regardless of their win rate. These champions are simply not fun to play against. Specially when they're in every match.

101 Comments

Goosetard12/2/2015, 9:09:00 PM27 votes

I like where you're going with this, but I don't think every champ needs to have well-defined weaknesses. Generalists are OK and valuable to learn for the reasons you've stated... it's just when those generalists start to have some high strengths in some areas without any well-defined weaknesses that we run into problems.

Helltoken12/2/2015, 11:01:03 PM7 votes

I like the points you bring up, but there are counterplay to every single champion:

Lee sin is a high risk, high reward. I always keep my flash for when Lee has ultimate. cause if he misses his Q or i adjust myself to his ward jump, he has flash to secure too. Lee sin is a jungler who has massive early pressure, but falls off late. He's not the greatest in teamfights, cause if he tries to frontline, everything he does can be counters by lcosing in on him. If he tries to sideline, he has to be relatively close to use ultimate. If he succeeds, then he's strong, but there's counterplay to him.

Yasuo is mobile when there are minions and when youre grouped up. Do not fight him in a minion wave, and lock him down when he tries to go in on you. Malzahar is super safe, cause he farms quite easily, all his abilities dodge the wall, and he's ranged, so he can pop the shield.

Riven is in a balanced state now. She's strong, sure, she's a champ with skill. But she's high risk, high reward, as well as hard to master. I think fiora is dumber than riven atm, cause riven can be stopped with CC and not being clumped up, while fiora can pretty much free poke, deal crit, and both juke CC and damage AND stun/slow multiple enemies, and she has a stupid ult.

Thresh counter is that he is a pick champion, so he grabs someone who'se out of position. He's got engage, but early game has high mana costs and cooldowns, and is squishy, and he pretty much relies on hitting his skill shots as well as having everything available at the right time.

Another thing you mention is the last line: every match. what I know is that riven is your classic solo queue champion, because she can carry games single handedly, and with skill kill everyone one by one. however, if she doesn't get to the snowball state, you're much less useful. Also, if champions are in every single match, shouldn't you have so much experience that you know what works and doesn't work against these champions? tryndamere is a growing trend as well, and he's braindead right click and just press ult. crit for sustain and Q for sustain. Since he will trend, practice playing against tryndamere's and find what works and what doesn't.

Kuroi8612/3/2015, 8:15:26 PM6 votes

Generalist is the term you're looking for, it applies to LeeSin Thresh and Zed Though Riot has taken a few small steps to push Zed out of the generalist category, he still needs a little work.

As for why Riot won't go ahead and give Lee and Thresh the shove they need into a more focused area? At one point Riot had a small rework planned for Lee Sin to replace a lot of his power and push him out of his generalist status, but the community erupted with so much hatred for it that Riot did something I don't remember them doing before or since. They gave into community pressure and let a problematic champion remain as he is instead of fixing him.

Slamurai Jack12/3/2015, 1:07:50 AM4 votes

If you can't come up with Lee's, Riven's. Yasuo's, and Thresh's main weaknesses and strengths, you're just not thinking hard enough. Try asking the mains of those champions; I'm sure they could easily give you some.

Papa Slothy12/3/2015, 3:43:43 AM3 votes

[deleted]

Naag One12/3/2015, 8:14:22 AM2 votes

If they have no weakness, they're OP. I mean they have to be OP if they have no weakness, right?

But you yourself said, "They're not always OP"

wut? wtf u smoking?

elon wątroba12/3/2015, 1:41:35 PM2 votes

They all have weakness, but can mitigate them:

lee sin is squishy unless build tanky
thresh has no sustain and can be poked down in lane
riven hasn't great teamfight presence and is squishy
yasuo is easy bullied by melee tanky laners

JedenVojak12/3/2015, 8:01:14 AM1 votes

{quoted}

The problem is this: what's Yasuo's main weakness and strength?

Yasuo's main strengths are his mobility and high sustained physical damage, with some burst defenses. His main weakness is sustained damage, particularly sustained melee damage from a fighter - someone who doesn't instantly die to him will wreck his face off and won't care about his wind wall.

Thresh'?

Thresh's main strengths come in the form of skillshot CC and hard engage, with some peel and the ability to grant mobility to an ally - especially usefull for immobile allies. His main weaknesses are low base defenses, mobile carries (think Kalista and Vayne) and tank/disengage supports: these types of champs will cock block his engages pretty well by either taking the hit (like Braum) or cancelling it out entirely (think Janna ult).

Lee's?

Lee Sin has a good mix of some mobility, some tankyness, some CC, and some damage without super excelling in any area; he is the quintessential fighter. Lee Sin suffers from 2 significant weaknesses - the first is, since he is such a jack of all trades, he has to try to build and commit to doing one thing to contribute later game usually by building defenses to be more of a tank or by building damage to play more as an assassin: the issue with this is, because he's not fully intended for either role, he will not perform the jobs as well as a specialist in either field. His other weakness is very long ranged champions; despite having 2 mobility spells on separate cooldowns, neither of them are truely "free" mobility and a ranged opponent who can dodge his Q's can harass him down quite effectively.

Riven's?

As a physical damage mage, Riven's strengths are in her spells, with decent damage after building some AD, along with good mobility and a strong shield. Her weaknesses are actually rather pronounced - she is very squishy with no sustain, and has to engage in melee range to do the majority of her damage. Anyone who can harass her at range and CC her to punish her for getting close will make Riven fold like origami. A bruiser similarly wrecks her simply by surviving her spell casts and then eating her.

manbearswine12/3/2015, 12:21:39 PM1 votes

I disagree,lee sin is just a high skillcap,niche,overpowered pick.

His skillcap is high,a bad lee will still be useful,but not as much as a bad amumu,or even a bad sejuani.

He is niche because as much as people love to call him overloaded,and as much as his kit is heavy,his early game is a lot stronger than his late(not that his late is particularly weak though,he is overpowered for a reason).

But lee sin is not the only offender on this regard,early game junglers are generally overpowered lee sin just often spearheads them,but they are niche picks,yet there are enough of them so you can't ban them all,so the meta adapts around them-everyone who they counter-immobile/vunerable champs,they just disappear,it is no coincidence that when cinderhulk was overpowered,instead of creating a stale meta focused around the overpowered item,it instead brought more diversity,because as overpowered and suffocating as old cinderhulk was,lee and his early jungler fellas are far worse as far as oppressing picks go,he is OVERPOWERED,pick phase just revolves around him,which causes a faint illusion of balance,as he is "balanced" as long as all picks are made with the assumption that he will be picked.