A look at reliability among classes and how I think it should be handled

This originally was meant to be a post about supports/enchanters but I think it'd be good to talk about every class, especially with the upcoming updates of tanks and then presumably divers. I'm going to talk about other classes before the supports, though, to sort of lead up to the main point, and I'm going to say 'reliably.' A lot.

The way I see it, these class updates and larger reworks like VGUs have been doing two things; trying to establish a specific purpose for that champion, and introducing degrees of unreliability to individual champions through things like delays, skillshots.. delayed skillshots.. We can see that in some of the assassin reworks, new Darius, mage update, and most of the newer champions too, where they have a 'condition' to work towards rather than having all of their value being frontloaded. Stuff like Taliyah's Q requiring you to be able to land multiple hits, Aurelion's passive, Jhin, Illaoi.. It seems to be the direction League is headed, since Riot has noted their distaste for 'stat check' champions of old, or for being too reliable to the point that they become too difficult to balance. I think, as far as most mages go, Riot's been pretty good about making them a little more skill-based; they're a little too versatile to not make me a little annoyed, but I can live with them for the most part.

This isn't to say reliability is a bad thing; it should be considered a strength to balance around, but IMO a 100% reliable champion is a poorly designed one, and I do think some champions are too close to being at that point. But there's also the other extreme, where a champion has no options in one scenario, but is completely overwhelming in another. This is probably the most noticeable in a lot of juggernaut designs; namely, Garen, Mundo, Skarner, Udyr etc. Mainly the really old champions who haven't been changed very much, or if they were changed like Skarner was repeatedly, never got these problems addressed. These are probably the biggest 'stat-checks' in the game; people who either get to run at you and beat you with their advantage, or they can't and you're wondering why you picked them. Some people seem to think that this should be what happens; they just cannot reach the back line ever, and then these are the same people who'll go on to say that they're an inherently toxic or unbalanceable class. My opinion; they should have the tools to reach a target, or otherwise be able to exert influence on them (Illaoi does this with her Vessel mechanic), but they should be unreliable tools that require good play. No dashing, or instant blinks, but some way to stop a ranged champion from kiting them IF they play correctly; Yorick, Darius, and Olaf do this very well and for the most part are reasonably fair about it. Illaoi isn't supposed to be diving into fights anyway, so she's more or less exempt. The rest? Not really, and this is what I think Riot should keep in mind if they ever rework more juggernauts as a group; reliable-ish damage (because they're melee and immobile), but they are unreliable in regards to reaching targets.

Divers are just as guilty, for different reasons; the majority of the class can both reliably reach their targets and can reliably apply damage. Most of them are Triforce enthusiasts with a penchant for empowered auto attacks, and in addition to their mostly unavoidable burst or DPS they're often provided with the means to CC you during it, too (and reliably; Vi ult, Hecarim E/R, Xin Q, Wukong ult etc). Riot's acknowledged this before, but I'll repeat that Divers, pretty much all do the same thing. I don't feel like Riot learned anything with the release of Camille either; she was released long AFTER this acknowledgement, and yet she still suffers all the same problems; she can reliably close the gap, most of her damage is unavoidable and amplified by Triforce, and she has strong lockdown to make it even harder to avoid her. So Divers are pretty much entirely viable based on whether or not their items or champion stats are good, since they're pretty much a Swiss army knife between assassin-level damage and sometimes tank-level CC, and they've fluctuated from being worthless as a class to too strong. In my opinion, Divers should contrast Juggernauts; they should be able to reach their targets easier, but offer more opportunity for being outplayed once they are in their range. Short-ranged skillshot attacks that hit hard but can be avoided and juked, or if they're AA reliant some different condition rather than "AA them three times for extra damage"

And making damage more unreliable is fine and dandy, but now that I've addressed those classes, I want to talk about reliable defense. Namely, shields, heals, and champions that are usually regarded as being anti-assassin, anti-diver, etc. I believe that shielding and healing supports are just as big a stat-check as the above mentioned; most of them have instant, targeted shields/heals that are often on a low cooldown, and there are basically two outcomes when an assassin or a diver jumps the protected ally; 1.) They're ahead enough that the shield or heal does nothing to save them and they die anyway, or 2.) It's good enough to keep them alive, and the attacker is made worthless by something that wasn't much in their control. This is kind of made worse by Locket, given that it's a massive shield on top of any shields you have innately.

Now, you can say 'just wait the shield out,' but that's not really going to happen for most people you actually use the shields against since you're either forced to try retreat after blowing your cooldowns to get in range in the first place, or you're dead. By late game, Janna, Lulu, Karma have their shields back up almost immediately after they expire, and Soraka will just spam-heal everything back if you weren't able to kill them in the first rotation. I think this is what makes some of them hard to balance; Soraka especially in this context, since she has to be kept reined in by Grievous Wounds due to her targeted, spammy heal. One shield mechanic I'm particularly fond of is Lux's; ignoring the nerfs, the mechanic of it is unique to her among support or support/mage champions and I'd like to see more of this; the ability to miss those life-saving abilities. I think that this sort of direction would be the best way to go; introducing more unreliability to traditional supports, or making some unreliable to differentiate them as being harder to play but numerically stronger than reliable counterparts, who might have unreliability elsewhere in their kit to compensate for it. It also gives them more ways to balance those spells, as well as making it feel all the better when you DO pull off that clutch save for a teammate.

I'd like to address Marksmen for this issue, too, given that most of them are rightclicking machines and I think that Jhin and Draven are the only ones who are well-designed, but I think those kinds of changes require overhauls of more than just the individual champions given the existence of crit as it is in League.

Let me know what you think.

tl;dr Juggernauts should have a hard time getting to targets but be fairly straightforward when they're in that range, Divers should be the opposite, and supports should be able to fuck up those shield/heal saves.