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What defines a badly designed champion?

King Lego·1/28/2019, 1:21:42 PM·6 votes·6,077 views

To my perspective, I think if frustrating to play against, regardless if you stomp them or not, being unfun to play against is what I call a bad design.

And it's funny enough how certain mechanics can simply make a champion toxic even if it's meta or not. Even if it's just 1 mechanic.

However, one can argue that a champion overloaded with too any things can count as a bad design. Which I somewhat agree. I ain't gonna give examples about which champ is which but I'll leave that to you and say if I agree on it or not. Give valid enough reasons of course.

Curious as it is, I sometimes ask myself "if a Rioter designed a champion that's very frustrating to play against, does it really mean it's a success or not? And does it also mean the champion should be removed due to customer feedback all the while the Rioter that designed it deserves to be fired solely for this?"

It's a curious topic really, would like to hear or in this case read other opinions about this.

98 Comments

ODiiiiiN1/28/2019, 1:33:31 PM7 votes

Pyke. That's what defines it.

Akali is SO HOT1/28/2019, 6:59:31 PM4 votes

Anything gameplay loses to

Fraggleroc1/28/2019, 4:01:43 PM3 votes

I know for sure CertainlyT didn't design Sylas because I can actually lane vs him. edit: without pulling my hair out.

Serge THE GREAT1/28/2019, 2:02:28 PM2 votes

Udyr He is the most binary champion in the entire game. All he can do is auto attack and he has to be right next to you to deal any damage. And unless he gets hyper fed (which is very difficult considering a gigantic portion of the champion pool counters him through all stages of the game) he is worthless. And even if he does get fed, he still wouldn't be performing as good as other fighters. With no reliable gap closers and lack luster ways to resist incoming damage he is a joke of a champion and I am disappointed that Riot did not announce him for a rework on their roadmap.

Syrile1/28/2019, 2:25:23 PM2 votes

Champions that make the game unfun. Kits that allow very little counterplay, are super safe, with too much damage to contend with and that have a disproportionate amount of influence on a game. Akali, Aatrox, Tristana, Lux (at times), Ahri, most assassins (Talon especially but Katarina is up there as is Kha'Zix and Rengar [especially]). Yasuo and Yi are good examples as well. Brand is a problem also, but at least he allows for counterplay. His burst is much too high though when he is not required to land a skill shot but just point and click death. Level of skill required does matter to some degree. If the skill floor is abysmal and you can hyper-carry or at least make it almost impossible to play against them with no effort, imagine truly skilled people on the same champion.

Meredith Stout1/28/2019, 1:24:02 PM2 votes

Definitely Malphite . Beside one shooting people in ARAM building full ap this champion is 0 fun and require zero to minimal skill to play.

hrooza dota 1/30/2019, 6:19:17 PM1 votes

champions who have things that have nothing to do with their identity

for example Sylas imo should be more focused on his ulti but right now his normal kit pretty much carry him imo

Akali is getting nerfs in what make her Akali which is imo bad design choice as healing is big part of what she is

5or6stores1/28/2019, 5:36:43 PM1 votes

IMO, primarily champs who are so linear and do the same thing every time, so they're just literal statchecks. Essentially no skill expression, or minimal "outplay" potential. Malphite Jax Volibear MasterYi Nasus Udyr Tristana. Vayne has some outplay potential, but is one of the worst because she just right clicks you with %max hp - there's seriously no way to mitigate her damage unless you have a point and click CC, because it's so easy for her to dodge ranged skillshots.

I only ban Riven1/29/2019, 11:03:33 AM1 votes

It's called Riven and it's abilities are Riven's.

ValyrianBlade1/30/2019, 1:36:59 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=King Lego,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MqQQUxEK,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-01-28T13:21:42.757+0000)

To my perspective, I think if frustrating to play against, regardless if you stomp them or not, being unfun to play against is what I call a bad design.

And it's funny enough how certain mechanics can simply make a champion toxic even if it's meta or not. Even if it's just 1 mechanic.

However, one can argue that a champion overloaded with too any things can count as a bad design. Which I somewhat agree. I ain't gonna give examples about which champ is which but I'll leave that to you and say if I agree on it or not. Give valid enough reasons of course.

Curious as it is, I sometimes ask myself "if a Rioter designed a champion that's very frustrating to play against, does it really mean it's a success or not? And does it also mean the champion should be removed due to customer feedback all the while the Rioter that designed it deserves to be fired solely for this?"

It's a curious topic really, would like to hear or in this case read other opinions about this.

I think I agree almost entirely with you - the one exception being that "even if it's just one mechanic". I don't think just one thing about a champion can make them a bad design. For example, the single worst thing in all of League in my opinion is Yasuo's windwall - I think it's completely bogus that he gets to deny all ranged abilities so easily. However, if Yasuo had been designed and balanced as a support with the windwall ability, I don't think anyone would have had a problem with it - I mean, that's pretty close to Braum and everyone is fine with him. No, it's the fact that Yasuo has a lot of damage, free stats (crit), a shield, no resource costs, hard cc and the ability to self-chain it, and then most importantly loads of dashes/mobility AND Windwall.

So, my definition of what I think is bad design: I agree entirely it involves something being unfun to play against. I think more specifically, it revolves around having too many of the following things in a kit: Full value: Low cooldown Dashes, Easy to land hard CC, Resets, Stealth, 100-0 Burst Damage against Squishies with even a small lead, Innate tankiness/shields, Huge Range AOE damage, then specific abilities that don't really go into a group (Zilean R, Ekko R, Yasuo Windwall, etc...) Half value: Low cooldown Non-dash mobility (e.g. significant MS boosts), Easy to land strong soft CC (e.g. Nasus' wither) / medium to land hard CC.