PSA: A champ having a high skill cap does not mean it's hard to play

Zenthon Prime·May 19, 2015·7 votes·949 views

See title.

Just because certain champions like Zed have extremely high skill caps does not make them a difficult champ. Champion difficulty is decided by skill floor. For example, Yi is not a difficult champion (this is common knowledge), but his skillcap is pretty high. However, Draven is a difficult champion, because although his skillcap isn't actually top-tier (it's high, but not Zed/LB tier) his skill floor is high from his Spinning Axes.

10 Comments

Poptart EvelynnMay 19, 20154 votes

It's called skill floor and skill cap.

I don't why most people don't know these terms.

Skill Floor = How easy a character is to pick up. Skill Cap = How much potential a character has.

A great example of this is Kat. Extremely low skill floor but extremely high skill cap.

Zenthon PrimeMay 19, 20151 votes

Pretty much exactly this.

I made this thread in response to several comments I've seen here and in-game claiming that champions were hard because they had a high skill cap, ignoring skill floor entirely.

360D3GR3SSMay 19, 20153 votes

I personally think draven is the hardest ADC to play, and has the highest skill cap possible for a majority of champions and ADCs. He is easy to use to an extent but actually using him to his full potential is almost never seen.

GuileRavenMay 19, 20152 votes

Yi, high skill cap? What? All you do is activate ult and right click. Use your Q to gap close or avoid skill shots if you have to. The only difference between a bad Yi and a decent Yi, is that decent Yi's don't charge in at stupid moments like a moron.

Zenthon PrimeMay 19, 20151 votes

Meh, it's an example. Replace "Yi" with any other easy-to-learn-hard-to-master champ and you get the idea.

GuileRavenMay 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Meh, it's an example. Replace "Yi" with any other easy-to-learn-hard-to-master champ and you get the idea.

Thing about easy to play hard to master champions, is that "easy to play" really depends on who you are vsing. Sure, I can hop on Riven and crush noobs who don't understand how trading works; simply by being gungho aggressive; but if someone knows how to mitigate the damage from my abilities, then harass me while they are on cooldown then using this tactic all I would succeed in doing is feeding. If you look at the match history of the average Riven player; you will find most of their matches they either do extraordinarily well, or extraordinarily bad.

r11naMay 19, 20151 votes

Yi does have a high skill cap.

GuileRavenMay 21, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yi does have a high skill cap.

In what world is Yi high skill cap? There are literally no mechanics to his kit whatsoever. It's right click and auto till it's dead. That's his only strategy. If you are talking about how to do this and not die; then it applies to just about every other character in existence. If Yi were high skill cap you would see all kinds of lcs highlights with him. You don't, because if people know how to starve him he will be starved.