About champion tags
About Champion Tags in LoL
I know I’m not a balance expert and I’m in bronze V, but I still feel like there are a few questions and problems that I am confused about with champion tags.
-I am not sure what “difficulty” means. Does it mean skill cap? Katarina’s difficulty label is 8, so that would suggest so since her skill cap is high but her skill floor is lower. However, Master Yi’s difficulty label is 4, and I’m pretty sure that skillcap-wise, he should be much higher. The 4 suggests skill floor instead. Or maybe difficulty means something entirely different. Do they mean overall difficulty using a combined winrate at different elos? Do they mean the difference of skill between a good Katarina and a bad one? Do they mean difficulty in the current meta? I am somewhat confused by this.
-I’m also not sure what “mage” means. Almost every champion that has AP abilities and can viably build AP has the mage label either primary or secondary except for Akali (assassin), Nasus (fighter, tank), Nidalee (assassin, fighter) and Ekko (assassin, fighter). I feel like “mage” should be defined more narrowly than just a synonym for “AP champion”. After all, AD champions don’t have their own specific designation; instead, they are fighters, tanks, assassins, marksmen, etc. AD champions can be anything except mage, and AP champions are usually a combination of something else with mage as either a primary or secondary tag. Here are a few of the possible definitions of mage:
- Someone who primarily uses spells as their main source of damage as opposed to autoattack. They can be melee or ranged. This could mean AD mages like Talon (melee) and Jayce (ranged, sorta) as well as AP ones like Malzahar (ranged) and Katarina (melee).
- An AP champion who casts spells from the backline like Xerath and Ziggs. These are usually ranged. The AP version of a marksman or ADC.
-Some of the tags seem somewhat inconsistent, especially secondary tags (primary tags are usually quite accurate). For example, Malzahar is a secondary assassin but not Diana, even though most people agree that Diana’s kit is more of an assassin than Malzahar’s. And also, if someone like Malzahar is an assassin, then why isn’t Ziggs? And Ashe’s secondary label is support because she has slows and a stun on her ult arrow. However, Varus has the same thing and doesn’t have a secondary label as support.
-Some of the tags seem a bit outdated (also mostly secondary tags). For example, Wukong used to be a tank, but in seasons 4-5, more Wukongs are being used as assassins than tanks. Blitzcrank used to be a top-lane fighter, but now he is usually used as a support.