This "champions need blatant reasons to be picked over everything else" game design needs to stop

LiveYiOrDieHard·Jan 25, 2016·241 votes·8,263 views

PLEASE It's not fun. It's not interesting. And it's not healthy for the game.

Champions don't need to be blatantly OP when put in the right situations. Can't we just pick some champions because they're fun to play or we just like their style?

Why should we have to go through the list of 120 champions to find the one champion that would be most OP for our team? Why can't there be choices that are all equally viable?

And why must every new champion HARDHARDHARD counter certain other champions?

Tahm? Enemy assassin is now useless. Enemy burst champion is now useless. Enemy splitpusher is now useless. Kalista? All non-sticky melees are now useless. Azir? Get rekt all melee champions. Post-rework-pre-nerfing-into-oblivion Morde? Anything that lets him get into melee range = dead. Poke champion with thunderlords? Auto-lane-win against most melees.

It feels like you hardly even play league anymore. You play champion select and then the superior champion select team wins unless the other team massively outplays them. And the minion-buffing for the stronger team doesn't help. It just lets the winning team continue pushing more towers and keep getting an even bigger lead.

This is a game. Let us PLAY the game. Stop purposely changing the game to make champion select more and more of a deciding factor in the outcome of games. The most important part of the game shouldn't be "make sure you don't let the other team get the most OP champions".

This is especially frustrating when you can play this game for half a decade and still not own all of the champions or a set of runes for all the champions you want to play. When you can get into a game only have teammates jump down your throat because you don't own the most OP champion for whatever position you're in.

229 Comments

Meep ManJan 25, 201643 votes

They are looking for ideal situations, not blatant counter picking ALTHOUGH that is almost impossible to avoid.

Also, Im not sure if you are complaining about a champion being OP or too good at what they do. Champions being OP from time to time is the age old problem. It's been here for generations and is why patches to come out, besides to refresh the game with new things.

LiveYiOrDieHardJan 25, 201640 votes

[{quoted}](name=Inept Maverick,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NqB398n4,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2016-01-25T13:02:38.860+0000)

They are looking for ideal situations, not blatant counter picking ALTHOUGH that is almost impossible to avoid.

Also, Im not sure if you are complaining about a champion being OP or too good at what they do. Champions being OP from time to time is the age old problem. It's been here for generations and is why patches to come out, besides to refresh the game with new things.

The problem is pretty clearly getting worse. Games I've seen lately are basically decided by which team gets Mundo/Jax/Graves because one or more of them usually gets through bans due to OTHER champions that also need banned.

There's like 5-10 ridiculous champions right now. Maybe 20-30 that are pretty good in most situations. And then a whole nother 80 or so that are only decent in certain situations, easily counterpicked (often by those 20-30 that are pretty good in most situations), and simply have to hope they get a lucky matchup in champ select or they have a huge uphill battle.

alasarcherJan 25, 20162 votes

{quoted}

The problem is pretty clearly getting worse. Games I've seen lately are basically decided by which team gets Mundo/Jax/Graves because one or more of them usually gets through bans due to OTHER champions that also need banned.

There's like 5-10 ridiculous champions right now. Maybe 20-30 that are pretty good in most situations. And then a whole nother 80 or so that are only decent in certain situations, easily counterpicked (often by those 20-30 that are pretty good in most situations), and simply have to hope they get a lucky matchup in champ select or they have a huge uphill battle.

Tell me, if picking mundo, jax, graves is deciding factor, how come none of them go over 50% winrate? Or any of those "broken" champions u mention? If thats instant win, why arent they winning more than they lose? Why are they arround healthy 50%?

DrCyanideJan 25, 201616 votes

Might want to check Champion.gg before making that claim...

Graves has a 57% win rate Top, 55% win rate ADC, and 54% win rate Jungle, making him the Champion with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th highest win rates in the game.

Mundo also has a 54% win rate Top, 6th highest win rate in the game.

Jax's win rate is also above 50% for Jungle.

alasarcherJan 25, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Might want to check Champion.gg before making that claim...

Graves has a 57% win rate Top, 55% win rate ADC, and 54% win rate Jungle, making him the Champion with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th highest win rates in the game.

Mundo also has a 54% win rate Top, 6th highest win rate in the game.

Jax's win rate is also above 50% for Jungle.

Ok i am on OP. GG, and u are right. Graves has 55% overall winrate

Jax is on 50.03 Tahm is on 50.60 Azir is on 44% (remember he complained about azir too) Kalista is on 50.15 Mundo is 53% (which is fine for tank)

Now lets talk broken shall we?

On juggernaut release Darius spiked to 61% winrate. Garen 59%. On Warlords Bloodlust release Yasuo and Trynda all went to 60% winrate. Release Xin had over 60% winrate. Those were truly broken stats. Look it might seem that way, that some champions are "broken", but it always comes down to skill. Just because better player beat the shit out of u with Jax, doesnt mean he wouldnt with other champion. And can any of you here claim, that you didnt beat Jax lately? I have, multiple times. I have beaten Mundo, Jax, Graves, Miss Fortune. And i can bet most of you did too. Why? Because u were better player than that guy. So why is it so hard for your ego to admit, that you lost to better player, not to better champion?

LiveYiOrDieHardJan 25, 201614 votes

{quoted}

Azir is on 44% (remember he complained about azir too)

Azir is a horribly designed champion, he's simply been nerfed to the point he can't really function anymore. That doesn't change the fact that his kit is second to only Mordekaiser in a list of things I can't believe Riot put into the game. He's not one of the champions dominating games, not even close, but his kit is a good example of a champion who's designed to specifically hard counter a good portion of the champion pool.

Ariel the CruelJan 25, 20165 votes

Azir is a horribly designed champion, he's simply been nerfed to the point he can't really function anymore.

It's worse when you consider how they nerfed him. They wanted him to be the AP "marksman". They called his poke problematic. So they . . . Nerfed his DPS Nerfed his durability Nerfed his tower chunking Took away half his CC. buffed his Q poke.

Logic is hard.

ForeverLaxxJan 25, 20162 votes

That's just what Riot does. They detail what the problem is, then make changes that don't address those problems or makes them worse.

Sir YamazukiJan 25, 201610 votes

{quoted}

Ok i am on OP. GG, and u are right. Graves has 55% overall winrate

Jax is on 50.03 Tahm is on 50.60 Azir is on 44% (remember he complained about azir too) Kalista is on 50.15 Mundo is 53% (which is fine for tank)

Now lets talk broken shall we?

On juggernaut release Darius spiked to 61% winrate. Garen 59%. On Warlords Bloodlust release Yasuo and Trynda all went to 60% winrate. Release Xin had over 60% winrate. Those were truly broken stats. Look it might seem that way, that some champions are "broken", but it always comes down to skill. Just because better player beat the shit out of u with Jax, doesnt mean he wouldnt with other champion. And can any of you here claim, that you didnt beat Jax lately? I have, multiple times. I have beaten Mundo, Jax, Graves, Miss Fortune. And i can bet most of you did too. Why? Because u were better player than that guy. So why is it so hard for your ego to admit, that you lost to better player, not to better champion?

because you don't balance a game under the assumption the person playing the better champion is worse than their opponent. I don't want to go against a Graves and hope they suck. I myself played Graves jungle and won most of them, even the match where I had 2 lucidity boots for half the game because I'm retarded and didn't notice until the enemy jungler pointed it out.

Sir YamazukiJan 25, 201640 votes

{quoted}

Tell me, if picking mundo, jax, graves is deciding factor, how come none of them go over 50% winrate? Or any of those "broken" champions u mention? If thats instant win, why arent they winning more than they lose? Why are they arround healthy 50%?

What are you talking about? Graves has the highest win rate for 3 positions and Mundo is at like a 53% average win rate, which means he is winning much more when played well. Sure, if we were talking about S5 where Mundo was the lowest win rate top and jungler, but ever since preseason he's been a monster.

alasarcherJan 25, 20164 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lord Yamazuki,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NqB398n4,comment-id=0000000000000001,timestamp=2016-01-25T13:30:13.089+0000)

What are you talking about? Graves has the highest win rate for 3 positions and Mundo is at like a 53% average win rate, which means he is winning much more when played well. Sure, if we were talking about S5 where Mundo was the lowest win rate top and jungler, but ever since preseason he's been a monster.

53% isnt anything to worry about. Amumu and Janna have 54%. About Graves, i dont really know, i find Graves easy to beat, maybe some people struggle. But tell me this: What changed about Mundo since preseason? He wasnt buffed at all, 300 hp stacking mastery couldnt make him "broken". Old masteries were even better. HP items got nerfed. Mundo is like Veigar 1 month ago. Veigar wasnt played, everyone forgot about him. Froggen picked him on stream and owned, and suddenly cries of bronzes started how Veigar is OP. Now Mundo, Dyrus picked him on his stream and beat 4 people alone 1v4. Suddenly "MUNDO OP NERF MUNDO"

LiveYiOrDieHardJan 25, 201625 votes

{quoted}

53% isnt anything to worry about. Amumu and Janna have 54%. About Graves, i dont really know, i find Graves easy to beat, maybe some people struggle. But tell me this: What changed about Mundo since preseason? He wasnt buffed at all, 300 hp stacking mastery couldnt make him "broken". Old masteries were even better. HP items got nerfed. Mundo is like Veigar 1 month ago. Veigar wasnt played, everyone forgot about him. Froggen picked him on stream and owned, and suddenly cries of bronzes started how Veigar is OP. Now Mundo, Dyrus picked him on his stream and beat 4 people alone 1v4. Suddenly "MUNDO OP NERF MUNDO"

Mundo's E was buffed ridiculously a couple months ago. Mundo went from "early game champion that chucks cleavers and tries not to die" to "early game champion that walks up and pounds your face in"

alasarcherJan 25, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Mundo's E was buffed ridiculously a couple months ago. Mundo went from "early game champion that chucks cleavers and tries not to die" to "early game champion that walks up and pounds your face in"

They only changed his E damage from flat damage to % of his max hp. Making it stronger late game and weaker early game.

LiveYiOrDieHardJan 25, 201631 votes

{quoted}

They only changed his E damage from flat damage to % of his max hp. Making it stronger late game and weaker early game.

... It's an autoattack reset now lol...

alasarcherJan 25, 20163 votes

{quoted}

... It's an autoattack reset now lol...

And thats what made him broken? There are like 20 champions with auto reset. NO. Mundo was always strong, and always could do same as he does now. But he wasnt popular, streamers popularize champions. Before preseason started , when they said they will add 800g GW item, everyone said Mundo will be useless as everyone would counter him with 800 gold. Streamer starts playing him, OMG MUNDO OP.

LiveYiOrDieHardJan 25, 201615 votes

{quoted}

And thats what made him broken? There are like 20 champions with auto reset. NO. Mundo was always strong, and always could do same as he does now. But he wasnt popular, streamers popularize champions. Before preseason started , when they said they will add 800g GW item, everyone said Mundo will be useless as everyone would counter him with 800 gold. Streamer starts playing him, OMG MUNDO OP.

facepalm

Did you play Mundo before and after the buff?

The difference in dps is very noticeable. It lets him win fights and trades with almost any champion now... and on Mundo, who has spammable slowing cleavers, that's really, really strong.

Before the buff most of his early game was just spamming cleavers. There's a huge difference in how he can aggressively bully his opponent now. Which lets him reach his unkillable-monstrosity state much earlier, before the game ends, or before the other team actually gets enough items to deal with him.

Slamurai JackJan 25, 20166 votes

{quoted}

facepalm

Did you play Mundo before and after the buff?

The difference in dps is very noticeable. It lets him win fights and trades with almost any champion now... and on Mundo, who has spammable slowing cleavers, that's really, really strong.

Before the buff most of his early game was just spamming cleavers. There's a huge difference in how he can aggressively bully his opponent now. Which lets him reach his unkillable-monstrosity state much earlier, before the game ends, or before the other team actually gets enough items to deal with him.

To be fair, Mundo's winrate with just the E buff was only around 50% or so. It took preseason to spike up massively. Honestly, Grasp and the Resolve Tree in general in combination with the preseason changes are the reason he's OP, not the E buff. We had that for a solid 2 patches before preseason started and no one cared about it then.

AbyssphereJan 25, 201619 votes

{quoted}

And thats what made him broken? There are like 20 champions with auto reset. NO. Mundo was always strong, and always could do same as he does now. But he wasnt popular, streamers popularize champions. Before preseason started , when they said they will add 800g GW item, everyone said Mundo will be useless as everyone would counter him with 800 gold. Streamer starts playing him, OMG MUNDO OP.

And what, streamers playing Mundo caused his win rate to jump 10%?

ayNigerianPrinceJan 25, 20164 votes

Why isn't anyone mentioning the mastery point that is strong as fuck on him?

doiminat0r3600Jan 25, 20161 votes

The 300 HP Mastery?

LittleBlastJan 26, 201610 votes

Grasp of the Undying

Sightless66Jan 25, 20168 votes

That is incorrect. E previously used to only be a buff increasing his AD based on the percentage of life he was missing. Now it does that AND it has an on-hit effect dealing damage to the enemy equal to a percentage of his max HP. That is strictly a buff. It is better at every single point of the game. There is no stronger late game or weaker early game. It is only stronger, because nothing was removed.

Proof:

V5.20:

Masochism New Effect: On-cast, Dr. Mundo's next basic attack has 25 bonus range and deals 5% of his maximum health as bonus physical damage.

This was followed by nerfs in 5.24, but those nerfs only decreased the damage the new function of his E did, so he's still strictly stronger than he was before.

So, you're wrong. Mundo got buffed significantly, and is overpowered right now because of it.

Add in the preseason nerfs to pretty much all non-tank items (you may have noticed those 2-3 patches where tanks had 8/10 of the top winrates) and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Axis the DragonJan 25, 20162 votes

Don't forget Grasp of the Undying - this adds ANOTHER "% of Self Max HP" on his E, on top of healing him for some of the damage dealt. That really didn't help matters at all. xD

Sir YamazukiJan 25, 201620 votes

{quoted}

53% isnt anything to worry about. Amumu and Janna have 54%. About Graves, i dont really know, i find Graves easy to beat, maybe some people struggle. But tell me this: What changed about Mundo since preseason? He wasnt buffed at all, 300 hp stacking mastery couldnt make him "broken". Old masteries were even better. HP items got nerfed. Mundo is like Veigar 1 month ago. Veigar wasnt played, everyone forgot about him. Froggen picked him on stream and owned, and suddenly cries of bronzes started how Veigar is OP. Now Mundo, Dyrus picked him on his stream and beat 4 people alone 1v4. Suddenly "MUNDO OP NERF MUNDO"

You do realize what AVERAGE means right? 53% is his average while being played by people who never play him 42% of the time. When played by experienced players that 53% becomes 62% as a top laner, and 67% as a jungler. So, how is an almost 70% win rate not op? I don't watch streams, so that's not why I think he's OP, he's one of my most played champions and has been for multiple seasons. https://gyazo.com/a117a2336aeb94a5e65e15101d87d81c

MrWasjigJan 26, 20162 votes

53% isnt anything to worry about. Amumu and Janna have 54%

WIn rate alone can't be used to justify a champion's state of balance. Have you also heard of "Pick rate"? Champions with low pick rates are usualy picked by a small but dedicated player base, thus their win rates are artificially inflated because those few that are playing are good at them.

alasarcherJan 26, 20162 votes

{quoted}

WIn rate alone can't be used to justify a champion's state of balance. Have you also heard of "Pick rate"? Champions with low pick rates are usualy picked by a small but dedicated player base, thus their win rates are artificially inflated because those few that are playing are good at them.

Ye. But thats my point. Champion by itself is nothing. No matter how popular champion is, or considered op, if u dont have skill, u wont do anything with him. People here claim that picking certain champion is instant win, but fact is, that mundo or jax, or graved, or vayne,yasuo,yi and probably every champion bronzes cried about, when they owned u, it wasn't cause of champion,but better player than u. No matter what champion he played, he would still own u. But ego plays too big part and people wont admit that they were outplayed.

ZGM DazzlingJan 25, 20161 votes

Except Graves isn't even permabanned really, compared to Mundo and Jax at least.

CatboyAsbelJan 25, 20165 votes

[{quoted}](name=ZGM Dazzling,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NqB398n4,comment-id=00000000000000010001,timestamp=2016-01-25T18:31:51.132+0000)

Except Graves isn't even permabanned really, compared to Mundo and Jax at least.

Yeah for people who don't know what's going on. He autowins games if you don't suck.

Meep ManJan 25, 20169 votes

Ah, I see what you are saying more clearly now. And what I have to say is... this problem isn't new or growing. This has been around for seasons upon seasons.

Also, you are looking at it wrong. It's actually good that more than 6 champions are ridiculous. Sure, Mundo/Jax/Graves may be OP, they get nerfs. But the fact that the game has went from 7-10 champions being pretty good per meta to 20-30 is pretty dang good to me. I love the fact that when somebody picks Garen now, people are actually scared now. They aren't like "Oh, it's Garen... whatever." Now, it's instead, "Oh crap, it's Garen. What am I gonna have to do to play around him?" That's good. Also, you are somewhat exaggerating there. Mains with champions of any kind have learned to play champions to their best and become real threats. Annie mains have become great at her. Galio mains have learned to abuse certain mechanics and use his ultimate to change team fights. Nunu mains have learned how to counter jungle optimally over time. Vel'Koz mains have learned to not only go Middle Lane, but also Bottom Lane as a good support. Those 80 champions that are supposedly fighting an uphill battle are really doing just fine. They just take time to learn and have to be played around their weaknesses.

ofartJan 26, 20163 votes

{quoted}

The problem is pretty clearly getting worse. Games I've seen lately are basically decided by which team gets Mundo/Jax/Graves because one or more of them usually gets through bans due to OTHER champions that also need banned.

There's like 5-10 ridiculous champions right now. Maybe 20-30 that are pretty good in most situations. And then a whole nother 80 or so that are only decent in certain situations, easily counterpicked (often by those 20-30 that are pretty good in most situations), and simply have to hope they get a lucky matchup in champ select or they have a huge uphill battle.

That's the opposite of what you're arguing. It isn't that these champions were picked into their ideal niche. They are just generally strong in virtually every comp. That's an entirely different problem and argument if true.

If all champions are equally viable in all situations, then that means there is no identity or uniqueness to them. They may as well be skins since they wouldn't offer strategic diversity.

DrCyanideJan 25, 20163 votes

I'll admit, I may be tunnel visioned here, but how many popular champions can you think of an ideal time to pick them?

What's the ideal/not ideal situation to pick Lee Sin?
What's the ideal/not ideal situation to pick Thresh?
What's the ideal/not ideal situation to pick Blitzcrank?
What's the ideal/not ideal situation to pick Riven?
What's the ideal/not ideal situation to pick Zed?
What's the ideal/not ideal situation to pick LeBlanc?

There are some answers I can think of like "it's not ideal to pick an Assassin into a team full of Tanks," or "you shouldn't pick more AD if your team is all AD," but those are both pretty generic and can be applied to other classes of champions too.

Similarly for Vel'koz, you could argue if you have an AP Top, Jungler, Support, and an ADC that does mixed damage, then you probably shouldn't take an AP champion Mid. You can also say if the enemy team is full of Assassins or mobile champions or has a lot of displacements and stuns then it's not a good game for Vel'koz.

I guess what I'm getting at is that claiming there should be a reason to pick a champion seems so flimsy for so much of the lineup, why try and make it a point for Vel'koz specifically?

VallaarMorghulisJan 25, 201618 votes

its not about op-ness but usefullness. And brand/malzahar/velkoz have all the same skillset of which brand´s is most effective. So brand is picked all thetime while malz and vel are left in the dust.

LiveYiOrDieHardJan 25, 20168 votes

{quoted}

its not about op-ness but usefullness. And brand/malzahar/velkoz have all the same skillset of which brand´s is most effective. So brand is picked all thetime while malz and vel are left in the dust.

Vel has longer range poke and can hit people behind creep waves, and Malz is safer and a better pusher than Brand.

I don't even think they play all that similarly. (especially malz)

VallaarMorghulisJan 25, 20168 votes

they have the exact same playstyle, all of their spells is just one combo to do as much burst as possible in team fights. After all spells go cd they dont do anything anymore for at least 7 seconds they run around waiting for cd to come up again and repeat the same pattern all over again.

The WhamboozlerJan 25, 20163 votes

And? It's not a complicated game and there are over 100 champions... some were gonna overlap a bit!

People who like Vel will play Vel. People who like Brand will play Brand instead. There is no reason to change a champion who is as balanced as Vel'koz. The people who play him certainly enjoy his playstyle and aesthetic. There are a pile of Vel players now terrified that Riot is going to pull a Cassiopeia on their beloved champion... and for NO REAL REASON.

hopeful4Jan 25, 20164 votes

This kind of design leads to burnout quickly. Veteran players want a huge variety of different champions to pick, not re-skinned versions of existing champions. It was a common complaint when Riot was releasing same-y champs back in late season 2 and season 3

iamleburkJan 25, 20163 votes

Yea the idea that overlap is a good thing shows how little people know about design here. There is a reason people moan and complain about three hit passives, its a good mechanic but overused.

SvartfiskJan 25, 20167 votes

{quoted}

they have the exact same playstyle, all of their spells is just one combo to do as much burst as possible in team fights. After all spells go cd they dont do anything anymore for at least 7 seconds they run around waiting for cd to come up again and repeat the same pattern all over again.

You could say that exact same thing about a vast majority of the mages when it comes to teamfighting. Besides, Malzahar doesn't even revolve around teamfights at all. With that logic, you might as well rework a majority of the marksmen because they are all about autoattacking.

hopeful4Jan 25, 20164 votes

Follow the same pattern =/= follow a very general function. Kalista is very different than Jinx although both are AA reliant, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the reason you want them in a comp.

Brand and Velkoz are all about dissing AoE in teamfights, they are both immobile, they scale around the same, their laning phase is on the same level, they have a few CC and a bit of poke, they are both good against tanks/juggernauts, they are both weak against assasins and so on

SvartfiskJan 25, 20163 votes

I'd go ahead and say Vel'Koz is the mage that best defies the line between poke mages and regular AoE burst mages, even Riot compares Vel'Koz to the poke mages rather than the AoE burst mages. Vel'Koz has a pretty considerable poke as well as great kiting, very much what you would like on your poke mage. In addition, he has the intense AoE and damage that a burst mage like Brand has, as you say, and is very potent in teamfights. I recon he is the crossover mage, and does fill his own niche as such; the teamfighter poke mage.

I am not gonna comment on Brand, although I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with his style of play. I think they could've done the whole fire mage that wants to burn the world better, but I digress.

iamleburkJan 25, 20166 votes

Vel'Koz is the mage that best defies the line between poke mages and regular AoE burst mages

Aha! this is it. This is what you want Riot to emphasize, because atm they dont think its clear enough. Perhaps the AOE on that AOE burst is too small, perhaps its not bursting hard enough, maybe his poke isn't strong enough. Riot pretty much wants to get fix the overabundance of generic immobile team fight mages. Yes, there certainly is differences between them, but what they provide for a team is very similar.

That right there is the niche you want Riot to put Vel'koz in, be vocal about that particular thing. I think they are probably going to scrap his current W and probably make some changes to his passive, but I personally would like to see them give more power to his ultimate and more reward for hitting the second part of Q (either extra damage or two stacks of his passive instead of one).

Although props to you for being the first person to argue actual relevant points to this topic. Every other example of his "niche" so far was "Umm he has a cool Q and the lazors look pretty sweet."

So my question to you is, would you rather see him get more AOE burst, or more poke? Perhaps have it more accentuated in a certain part of the game? Or would you like him to be the MF of the mid lane?

HaiLnKillJan 25, 201611 votes

{quoted}

Azir? Get rekt all melee champions.

Have fun playing Azir against Zed Talon

CrystKnightJan 25, 201611 votes

The problem with having generalist champions, or having champions whose roles overlap, or do the same thing, is that there will always be specific champions that are stronger at that job than others. This is a problem that League has faced in season past. Too many champs were the same thing, and so you had 3 top picks for any particular job, and all others were considered trash because they weren't as good as the top three.

This has manifested itself as "The top 3 junglers" the "ADC Trinity" The Assassin Pair (LB and Zed), and so on so on.

The big problem is NOT that we need "Distinct times each champion is best" it's more, we need to get rid of blatent homogenization that keeps competetive from being diverse.

Let's look at Dota 2, where they have the entire design philosophy of "What job can this Hero do that no one else can." Then make them insanely OP at it.

They then put in counters in the form of other heroes, specific items, and even mechanics within the game itself that are accessable to everyone.

Overall, Dota 2 may seem liek the balance is trash, because there's counterpicking, but you find greater competetive diversity within Dota 2 matches. You'll see close to 80% of all heroes in Dota 2 picked across a tournament, while In League, you have aproximately 30-40 champions. or around 40% of all champions. This is because some champions are just outright worse versions of others.

BluePolarizerJan 25, 20161 votes

Sometimes they're made that way though. Hecarim used to have an amazing niche as an AD initiator tank that could build only 1 damage item and then go full tank while remaining very threatening to carries due to his mobility, burst and sustained damage. This was in contrast to other initiator tanks who either did mediocre AP damage regardless of what they built ( Amumu Sejuani Nautilus ) or had high AD ratios and thus built full damage or at least 2+ damage items MonkeyKing . Hec was OP in season 2 and 3, no doubt, but then he got gutted in season 4. In season 5 he was buffed a little bit and saw play both top and jungle, then he was again nerfed into the ground this season.

Would Hecarim have fulfilled an interesting niche that no other champion can fill (AD initiator tank that can build almost full tank)? Sure. But he was gutted.

CrazedPorcupineJan 25, 20161 votes

mainly because hecarim is Strange in that he's almost unbearable when he's viable because he's so strong. His higher mobility makes it so that if he ever reaches you, good luck getting away.

BluePolarizerJan 25, 20162 votes

Even when he was popular he was still getting rekt by alot of matchups. He scales weakly as a laner (since he is weak against tanks) and as a jungler, he scales strongly against AD casters and clears fast but gets low during his first clear. The most important thing is that as a jungler he has no %HP damage or low cooldown wall jump, making his objective control weak and his pre-6 ganking mediocre. That's why if he's not strong when he actually gets to people he's just total trash.

Lovely PantsJan 25, 20167 votes

Ideally the goal is less to do with creating more hard counterpicks and more to do with crafting more complicated interactions with team compositions. Granted, the former is inevitably going to happen to some degree and there are currently a number of champions that make the laning phase boring and frustrating for their opponents out of a lack of choices, but I personally think it's worse just to have champions that are never picked because they are outstatted by a very similar champion. The lane vs. lane interaction is only one facet of the game.

Having said this, I think the current general perspective from players that the game is near impossible to recover from if several lanes on the same side gain an early game lead does make any degree of counterpicking in the laning phase much harder to live with. If the feeling of early game stomping can be mitigated, the downsides to this kind of philosophy of champion balance are much more palatable.

TransgressorJan 25, 20166 votes

I have a couple of issues with this post.

Your complains are nonsensical and completely generalized.
You don't seem to know yourself, what champions offer to players, despite mentioning fun and style.

Kalista doesn't make all non-sticky melees invalid. Is there even such a thing as a sticky melee? Anyway, circumstances and builds are also what can dictate a game. Nasus is nowhere near as sticky as Olaf right? Well boehoe, Nasus with 40%(or 45%)CDR and Frozen heart can spam wither until hell freezes over or you become so slowed you're permanently stuck on the map. You're not escaping that one.

Azir isn't wrecking jack shit. He's overnerfed, and really buggy/inconsistent to do anything worth mentioning outside of organized 5v5s in which he offers a specific niche. Tahm is, was, and will be a problem. There's no middle ground for him, he will either be cancer or over-nerfed. The meta also favors him. And grabbing a teammate out of existance is literally cockblocking EVERY SINGLE FUCKINGCHAMPION IN THE GAME, and not a specific class like the ones you mention.

Pre-rework Mordekaiser is a false example. Logical fallacy which I won't waste time iterating. Poke champions with thunderlords aren't even a thing. You know what happened? Nerfs, which made TLD the best, and only viable keystone if you were anything but a sustain support/tank jungler. Buffs happened again, and more are sceduled, thus TLD started to fall off. All keystones offer a specific bonus one way or another; free sustain from crits, HP stacking, a damaging nuke for your combo, a DoT for your spells etc etc. It was never about a class, it's just that everything got nerfed.

If you feel you're getting outpicked at champion select, perhaps you should start considering improving your game knowledge so you can pick/ban/strategize better. Ranked is for try-harding. If you want to have fun and pick something that's most likely to get you shafted, you can always play normals. If you pick something shit-tier in ranked where everyone tries their best, you're in for a bad time because you're literally handicapping yourself. Part of being good at the game, is being good at deciding what, where, and when to pick. The pick/ban phase is literally a part of being a good player. It's not about what makes you angsty. Counterpicking, priority picks, rotations, all the fucking shit you see done in very high elo. They don't do it because they are dumb. They do it because they are good at the game.

Perhaps you should improve yourself and fill what's lacking. Especially when you're arguing that a very important part of the game should not have any impact on how the match flows. What's next, remove the turrets because the game's not chess, but team-deathmatch? No mate, the game's revolved around objectives.

I've looked through your profile. You're in a nasty loss-streak. Your scores are bad even in victories. You don't ward even if you life was depended on it. Your builds are mostly bad, your CS is bad. Your rune pages are disgustingly laughable; I've never seen someting like that in my life. How do you expect to perform in games when your rune pages look like that.

If you're playing this game "for half a decade"(5 seasons would've suficed, you're not impressing anyone) you'll have earned yourself plenty of IP to make a set of runepages for your favorite champions. Also, playing the game for a long time doesn't mean you collect all the champions. It means you improve at the game. To do so, you don't need the entire roster, you just need to master a bunch of them and then improve. You can't play every single champion, you won't like every single champion, so not having them all is no big deal. Especially not big enough to bitch about it.

IF you're having problems with how the game flows, take it with the meta, with your elo, with your game-knowledge. I can't take you seriously when you're ranting like a tee. Nor when you have a runepage called "jangle ap tryndamere".

lxlLilybellelxlJan 26, 20165 votes

I still say Riot should focus on the 120+ champs in the game instead of coming out with a new champ every 2 months

lolptwoJan 26, 20161 votes

You clearly have no education in E-Commerce.

This is no accident that they do this btw. It's a simple economics tactic. Ever notice champs are usually released OP? Tell me the last time a champ was released and not subsequently nerfed?

Tahm - nerfed Kindred - nerfed Ekko - nerfed Vel koz - nerfed Azir - nerfed Yasuo - nerfed Kalista - nerfed Jhin - watch I'll be willing to bet money he will be nerfed a month or two into his release

It's no mistake. They inflate the prices of these champs when first released and release them Overpowered, so people find they NEED to buy them or lose out in a competitive advantage. They make a shit ton of money and release these champs with Skin combos and put sales of other champions who are not being bought often or skin sales for them.

They then fix the balance issue right before any major gaming event.

This is Business, this is the World. Riot's bottom line is the same as any other business, Money.

TL;DR: Riot is a business, they want to make money, they release champs Overpowered then nerf them after the sale period or price inflation period. After you've wasted your money.