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Champs need meaningful weaknesses

Wirius·1/27/2015, 9:13:01 PM·19 votes·2,244 views

A lot of the same complaints about certain champs pop up over and over again, and I'm here to claim the reason why is that particular champs lack of a meaningful weakness.

Meaningful weakness-A weakness that a player of that champ must consider and actively play around to succeed.

Example: Thresh

Thresh has ranged harrass, an amazing amount of CC, can give one person a free flash that can be 3-4 times the distance of normal flash, scaling armor and AP. What is his meaningful weakness? He has none.

    • Mistake* Gathering souls is easy, because the other side cannot see the souls to prepare harrass.

(I looked this up before I posted and saw info that the enemy could only see his souls if they could see stealth. This is wrong, my mistake.)

  1. Thresh has no mobility, but he has a shield, scaling tankiness, and flay to knock back and slow enemy champions. Further, he has ranged harass! He doesn't need to get in range of being hit.

What Thresh lacks is mobility, but all of his abilities and play style mitigate the weakness to make it almost an afterthought. In other words, you don't have to think to mitigate it, its not meaningful. There's no choice, no risk versus reward.

Example: Lee Sin

God of the jungle for too many seasons to count, lets see why.

  1. His kit has sustain, damage, and incredible mobility.
  2. His ganks have a slow, amazing damage, and he can shield himself or get away if it fails.
  3. He can invade without fear, as he beats most champions one v one and can get away with a ward hop anytime.
  4. In teamfights, he gets to change his entire role to an amazing tanky initiatior.

So early game he's excellent, mid game, excellent, and late game, excellent. He has everything he needs to make great plays, and get away if he messes up.

Where is his meaningful weakness? You don't have to really think or play around any weakness of Lee Sin as the player. As an enemy of Lee Sin, there's really no meaningful weakness to abuse or counter him.

**Examples of champs with meaningful weaknesses that are effective: ** Janna-Squishy as hell. If caught in lane or alone, she explodes. Placement is a constant concern as a player for her. Leona-Incredibly effective if an engage is judged well, but her all in nature puts her at great risk for failure. Master Yi-Yi can be incredibly effective, but a good Yi needs outstanding timing on alpha strike, meditate, and must have excellent timing for team engages. CC and he blows up like a paper doll.

It is my argument that a champ can be even MORE fun to play and play against with a meaningful weakness, as it requires more engagement in gameplay. Examples like Thresh and Lee Sin can also still be very effective at their game, if a meaningful weakness is introduced. They would probably be more fun too!

For example: Thresh could have his early game hp nerfed a little bit, requiring more careful soul collection. If an enemy catches Thresh, he should blow up more quickly. As it is, he's just too safe.

Lee Sin could have just one role taken away. If you like his mobility, nerf his damage. Make him weak early game and easily abused, but scale great late game. Or switch it up. Make it so he can't just build tank and be effective late game. Force him into high damage, but meaningful engages. Make Lee Sin's have to think, and give players windows to abuse him.

TLDR: Meaningful weaknesses make the game deeper and more engaging but do not need to make a champion ineffective. Adding meaningful weaknesses to problem champs could make them more fun, while still retaining fun and effective gameplay.

41 Comments

Lumus Avatar1/27/2015, 9:16:26 PM16 votes

Enemies can see the Souls that Thresh wants to collect and can actively prevent him from getting to them. However, he can toss his lantern to safely collect them.

Narasimha1/28/2015, 12:33:35 AM13 votes

For the record, Lee Sin's greatest weakness is probably the player playing him. Seriously, everyone always thinks "Everyone complains about Lee, he MUST be OP. And obviously, being OP, I can use him and win games!" 10 minutes later.. "For the love of gods Lee, stop trying to dive!!!"

Though on a serious note, all he really needs is to have his spellvamp removed, and shift some power from his bases into his ratios.

JustMyBassCannon1/27/2015, 9:32:29 PM4 votes

"Thresh has ranged harass"

One 12-20 second CD spell apparently means ranged harass. He has ranged threat, because it's a stun, but his other offensive spells are shorter range than the average marksman's attack range. It has an obvious wind-up, and it's not difficult to avoid.

As for gathering souls being no risk for free reward, you can see them when they spawn. He either has to go and pick them up personally (making himself an easy, predictable target), or he has to throw his lantern on them (which costs him and his lane partner a shield and a potential escape). The risk is basically assuming that you're going to pose a threat to Thresh.

Orangesilk1/28/2015, 2:56:32 AM3 votes

Thresh is perfectly balanced, his skills are slow and telegraphed, his "range" is tiny, he's perfect poke fodder, specially since he either spends a lot of mana and wastes his most powerful skill to grab souls, or he gets out of position and harassed.

He has clear weaknesses that you can exploit so long as you're not a moron "OMG, Thresh is going to pick a soul, I'll move close to him, away from my minions and hope he doesn't hook me to harass him with autos", and even then, short range hooks are easily juked, flays are telegraphed by his movement since he has to walk funnily to land it.

Supports overall are well designed at this point, they all have a clear weakness you can exploit with the right champions, and right now botlane makes me very happy since it's more often than not, a matter of skill rather than a matter of matchup.

Stonington1/27/2015, 9:20:40 PM3 votes

I disagree. I like the direction Riot is taking champs in. All champs are decently strong all throughout a game. There are fewer Poppy's with weak as shit early game and strong as fuck late game. It makes the game a forgone conclusion.

AMYS GRAVE1/28/2015, 5:09:52 AM2 votes

you can see his souls as long as you can see thresh. i don't know where you got the idea that you couldn't.

TheUntitledKing1/28/2015, 1:30:12 AM1 votes

I've always found Thresh to be pretty balanced in his role; being a Jack-of-All-Trades in the support set of Champs.

Yeah he's got a great kit, but...

Leona Stuns/engages better.

Braum and Alistar Peel better, the former giving more in terms of shields.

Janna Janna's shield is better, as it also provides AD.

Yeah, his lantern is a godsend. Yes, his passive just makes him stronger as the game goes on.

But lantern is dependent on allies' skill as well, so a good Thresh can be rendered half as good by an incompetent teammate. His lack of armour-per-level hurts him early. His damage is wholly negligible if he is building to support. His ulti requires him to get right in the middle of the enemy team.

Also, you can consider that Thresh's meaningful weakness is the same as almost every other support; he's a support. Unless he's near a tower and/or teammate, he's pretty ignorable. On his own he's not a threat, not as much as pretty much any other teammate anyway.

junglerboy161/27/2015, 11:06:35 PM1 votes

You do know that the enemy CAN see the souls pop up if they have vision of thresh anywhere on the map? Thresh's souls got nerfed before to have a shorter duration until they disappear, which was good and all, but he needs an MS nerf.

Magma Lux Mid1/28/2015, 1:49:20 PM1 votes

Thresh weaknesses: Has a lower than average range for ranged champions. Loses all threat if he misses his hook. Relies on his team if he builds tank. Is still fairly squishy if he builds damage.

Lee Sin weaknesses: Relies on hitting his spells, especially q, for maximum damage (though can kill squishy targets without hitting it). If he builds full damage, he dies really easily. Late game he relies on skill to pull off a certain technique (the Insec play). This can be telegraphed. Almost relies on snowballing off kills to stay relevant. If he fails at ganking, he can fall behind.