Something to consider when designing champs

Eedat··91 votes·3,754 views

I just wanted to give my 2 cents of a basic idea that should be used when designing champs.

Please remember that only 1 person is playing it while 5 have to play against it.

If you make a champ that is fun to play but absolutely miserable to play against, the end result is a lot more people being angry than happy. This is kind of obvious with Zoe where admittedly she is fun to play, but at the cost of being really annoying to play against. While landing a 4000 range sleep on someone might feel satisfying to do, it feels absolutely miserable to play against.

The boards are pretty evident of this. You have people who play her thanking Riot for making her and at the same time the people who don't complaining how frustrating she is.

This is not a thread just about Zoe however. There are a lot of champs that are like this. Another example is a champ like Lee Sin. I'll admit he's a ton of fun to play. Granted, I'm personally bad at him and would never play him in ranked, but I do have fun being bad on Lee in norms occasionally. However, it's pretty apparent that a lot of people really hate playing against him. There are also champs that are both miserable to play with and against. A champ like Trynd is miserable to deal with because at some point he's going to reach a point where you need to send a lot of people to deal with just him. Trying to defend him solo leads to getting dove and killed. On the flip side, it's annoying to have him on your team because he splits 24/7 leaving the rest of your team to deal with the map 4v5.

So that's my humble suggestion to consider when designing and reworking champs. I think how a champ feels to play against should be a major contributing factor.

121 Comments

AquariusGine42 votes

Please give your thoughts on Yasuo

I feel so miserable playing against Yasuo. Don't tell me to learn/ play him, or learn his weaknesses. I know his weaknesses; he is vulnerable to ganks because he's melee. I know how to bypass his shield and walls, but it doesn't make him any less horrible to play against.

Whoever designed Yasuo completely ignored the other side of players, just as Evelynn's designer might have given her too many hoops to jump through

Salson23 votes

There are 3 play styles against Yasuo:

  1. Play a duelist. Assuming you play mid, think Akali/Malza/Kayle.

  2. Rely on your jungler. The biggest RNG mechanic in League, use it when you can.

  3. Farm and scale. This is your Ziggs/Lux/whatever cannot fight Yasuo.

For bonus points you can deny his outplay potential with champions that don't have counterplay like Malzahar/Akali/Annie/Kayle.

ChuShoe34 votes

Junglers = RNG

Such a comment has never made more sense the more I think about it.

LordGeovanni3 votes

You entire team is rng. Matchmaking is rng so so are your enemies. It doesnt make it any better though. The general idea about rng is that generally you get good rng one game and bad rng the next so it balances out. That is completely false each game its own self contained rng if you get good rng one game you can get good rng the next game and on indefinitely until it stops hence being rng. Same thing with bad games. Having tilting teammates is rng related. Having quitting teammates is rng related. Having stead fast teammates is rng related. Having allies who die alot is rng related. Having enemies who die alot is rng related. Having Allies who go gg because of a teammate dieing alot is rng related. Having Teammates who help the dieing teammate get back into the game is rng related. Having junglers who gank your lane as opposed to other lanes is rng related. Having junglers who gank pushed lanes is rng related. Having Laners who dont push when the jungler is on their side of the map is rng related. Having a jungler who will try to gank bot no matter what state its in ( enemy pushed, Allies pushed enemy under tower, walk over ever ward in the game, patiently waits in the bush for an opportunity, runs into lane immediatly no matter if the enemy can just walk away) is rng related. Having Laners who ask for jungler ganks but then dont bait a fight when the jungler is near so the enemy doesnt see him comming or even if they do cant run because they are in the middle of a fight and will take free damage is rng related.

Andrey03457 votes

It's RNG even when I am jungler myself.

Tails90163 votes

Unless you're Skarner. You already know you lost from champ select/

What Is Smite3 votes

Yea cuz Cinderhulk Trinity Skarner is an instant loss with how tanky he is and the amount of damage he does. I mean fuck the Juggernaut classing he's been given he's just a straight-up tank

ZedUsanGovos2 votes

what is "skarner"? is that the codename for the new shen Janna skin?

RainbowIcee4 votes

My experience with Yauso on my team: Hold my beer i'll kill him this time. Me: Yasuo that didn't work the other 4 times why are you going to fight him again the same way? Yasuo player: Because.... oh well! here i go!

RISE Shlack12314 votes

Zoe & Yasuo are both the creation of the same designer who has this issue of not giving a damn about counterplay.

Existential Bard14 votes

Every champ has counter play. People just are unaware or unwilling to play around a champs weakness. The reason people are annoyed is because prior to this poke champs dominate, but now they have a champion who has better poke than them. Zoe is extremely easy to beat. CC, sustain tanks, dodging, standing behind minions when sleep is up. These are all things you can do to beat Zoe. She is only strong when she snowballs.

Eedat12 votes

Alright, what exactly is the counterplay to Zoe getting a free TP from a minion and getting a 100% free back or roam?

Either way you're missing the point. Zoe follows the same pattern as prerework Nid. You can dodge the first ten just to get hit by the eleventh and be sent back to base from a single hit. It's made even more frustrating because you can't even counterbuild it properly as a damage dealer because it does a huge amount of true damage. This type of playstyle is miserable to play against and the reason why Nid was reworked to begin with

Existential Bard3 votes

You lack out-of-the-box thinking. Go full sustain tank. If she can't roam from her one shot, she scales slowly

MuffledGarbage10 votes

full sustain tankVeigar in midlane????

full sustain tankYorick in toplane???

full sustain tankAzir in midlane???

full sustain tankVarus in bot???

Building items is not counterplay.

If building items is counterplay, then why is there not an item that for literally every situation in the game and every single little change that count possibly occur?

building items and getting 2800+ behind on gold while Zoe is still building full AP does not make ANY normal midlane champ more effective.

Nerfing something like Zed's Q cast time would let people react to it more and require more thinking from the Zed player.

Nerfing Zoe's EQ Combo in only base damage(BASE DAMAGE NOT ANY AP SCALING WHATSOEVER) does 1/3 of most mage champion's healthbars...

That's a problem!!!

That's not including runes like electrocute and gathering storm(which makes Zoe's lategame even MORE oppressive than her earlygame)

Existential Bard2 votes

Geez Louise. Go Swain tank into Zoe. You will win every time okay?

MuffledGarbage3 votes

That's counter-picking.

If a player is required to be a specific champ to beat another one(as in there is no other feasible way to attain a win) then that makes the champ being countered overpowered.

In this case, Zoe is overpowered and you are saying "Pick swain".

Swain's mana pool drains faster when he clears waves than what Zoe's mana does when she waveclears.

This leads to Swain going OOM and losing lane because he has to back more.

I've gone Swain tank into Zoe. I've taken the Manaflow band rune.

IT

DOESN'T

WORK

Zoe's mana costs are too low and THAT'S partially what makes her overpowered.

She has no definitive counter.

"Assassins" her E stops them

"long range mages" her Q has effectively the same range as Xerath W or Lux E

LordGeovanni2 votes

Xerath Q/ult or Lux Ult*

wildfox995 votes

full sustain tankVeigar in midlane????

but...tank veigar is insanely strong....

MuffledGarbage2 votes

I agree 100%

the thing is though... that's toplane where Veigar can constantly hit his Q, W, and E due to most toplaners having low movespeed.

If a Veigar goes midlane and tries to go full tank, his team is likely to see him as a troll for the majority of the game.

Toplane Veig works off of the principle of him being ranged VS melee and thereby having an innate advantage.

Toplane Veig then pushes this advantage by buying tank items(making him effectively invincible against his enemy toplaner) and then proceeding to keep gaining the ramped damage from his passive(made even more effective thanks to the "Gathering Storm" rune)

Midlane tank Veig has a bad winrate per playrate(39-ish% was better last season cause of runes), but Toplane tank Veig has a moderate winrate per playrate(50-ish% usually stays the same)

Champion Skin2 votes

Toplane Veig works off of the principle of him being ranged VS melee and thereby having an innate advantage.

Toplane Veig then pushes this advantage by buying tank items(making him effectively invincible against his enemy toplaner) and then proceeding to keep gaining the ramped damage from his passive(made even more effective thanks to the "Gathering Storm" rune

Not to mention that even if Veigar only go about even or even a bit behind in damage he can likely still be more useful in teamfights than a lot of fighters because of how incredibly powerful his E can be especially when he is more durable and less likely to be forced to throw it out early to try and protect himself

Veigar top does sound interesting though I know that I shouldn't play it (as I am horrible with Veigar E)

RISE Shlack1232 votes

Because he gets AP from his passive. That's the only reason. It's also why full-tank Nasus with great Q stacks can one-shot carries late game. Veigar and Nasus are exceptions, not the rule.

MuffledGarbage4 votes

I mentioned this though...

OmarmohyThinker2 votes

Tank Vayne new meta pls nerf

JoeMG2 votes

{quoted}

Alright, what exactly is the counterplay to Zoe getting a free TP from a minion and getting a 100% free back or roam?

Either way you're missing the point. Zoe follows the same pattern as prerework Nid. You can dodge the first ten just to get hit by the eleventh and be sent back to base from a single hit. It's made even more frustrating because you can't even counterbuild it properly as a damage dealer because it does a huge amount of true damage. This type of playstyle is miserable to play against and the reason why Nid was reworked to begin with

One could argue the same thing about a Blitz hook - 1/10 still about guarantees a flash or a kill that 1 time.

I think her issue is her cooldowns/mana costs, not the abilities themselves.

Eedat4 votes

Which is why his hook was nerfed multiple times along with other changes. It has a huge mana cost on top of blitz getting very low base mana. A single hook costs literally 38% of his mana at level 1. Bltz's max rank hook has the same CD as Zoe's rank 1 E. Not to mention as a midlaner you have 30% CDR with just one item plus runes and practically unlimited mana with just item 1056 + item 3802 + Manaflow Band. They also added the self slow on Blitz's W to further punish him for attempting bad hooks.

Thats the difference. There are a ton more factors punishing Blitz for bad hooks. Riot has recognized the power for that hook and balanced accordingly. Zoe has no such punishments and it free to spam it out frequently. Again, it goes back to pre-work Nid where you just spam your poke out until something hits.

MuffledGarbage8 votes

What's the counterplay to toplane Akali ???

farm? well she outdamages normal toplaners from minute 1-25

stay under tower? well now the Akali freezes lane and toplaners can't get farm

ask for a jungle gank? with botlane being so prevelant right now, this is so unlikely to happen that it sickens me and even IF a toplaner gets a jungler who will gank top the Akali can 1v2 after level 6 and item 3145 due to the normal toplaner being 1-2 levels and 300-400 gold behind Akali.

Wait for lategame? sure, if you are a tank. But what about bruisers and juggernauts? Let them feed Akali 0/4 before 10 minutes?

Also building items is not counterplay. If Akali can devote her build to pure damage and a toplaner has to take 2800 gold behind just to buy item 3065 to get 1-2 extra seconds of living, it's a horrible experience for the toplaner.

zero3566 votes

There is a significant difference between "There is a way to counter this" and "It feels good to do the thing that counters them"

AlienPrimate3 votes

I feel pretty good when I'm playing a tanky champ and I just casually walk into her stars that she is trying to throw at my sleeping carry.

Mita30031 votes

I love how you say things to do against zoe and get downvoted but the guy that says she has no counterplay bs kit has 20 upvotes

Existential Bard2 votes

Yeah, it's quite sad. I'm not even high elo, but I still understand how to play around a vast majority of champs. I feel that people are just so reactive in the game, rather than proactive.

ModCaptainMårvelous14 votes

The problem is that counterplay/fighting someone is never fun. I know I'll get someone come in and go "NU UH I LOVE PLAYING AGAINST <x>" but the fact is that it's not true. Whether it's the weakest champion in the game killing you with an annoying gimmick or the most busted monster in the game smashing you into the ground, it's never fun to play against a loss.

And conversely, while it's 1 person playing/5 against, that one person is having a much longer, much more in-depth experience. Say you hate Illaoi? That's fine but for the first 10-20 minutes of the game, three-to-four players aren't interacting with her to a meaningful degree. Late game, you may not even fighter her until that one last team fight. Conversely, the guy playing her has an uninterrupted 15+ minute game using this champion. Sure, counterplay is important, but you're forcing someone to be stuck with something far longer than the people who occasionally have to play against her.

Counterplay is important, yes, but I think your example isn't a good one.

Who is Taliyah3 votes

NU UH I LOVE PLAYING AGAINST LISSANDRA. She is pretty much freelo to play against.

ModCaptainMårvelous6 votes

YOU STOP THAT. >:(

Catastrop1 votes

I feel personally attacked right now.

Eedat7 votes

That's not exactly true. Look at a champ like Jhin. He's both very fun to play yet feels fair to play against.

Of course not counting cases where Jhin gets extremely fed because that's not a problem with the champion themselves. It's never fun to fight (insert any hyperfed champion here)

Terozu3 votes

I actually love playing against champs like Rakan and Lulu. Rakan hes just so bombastic and awesome, Lulu because whenever she screws you over you get to be a squirrel.

TequilaZombie2 votes

I actually love playing against [...] Lulu.

I see you are not an Assassin player

Terozu1 votes

Assassin is my most played role, my current most played champs are Kat, Kayn and Lux. I also play Akali. And while yes they can be frustrating to deal with, they aren't impossible. Since I also play both champs I have a weird, even if bronze level, subconscious knowledge of their weaknesses. The best way to handle them is through double dipping and paying attention. Kayn can negate shields by waiting them out with ult, Kat can jump in for burst damage and back out before Lulu can get polymorph off, and before Rakan can knock up.
You can also watch who they shield and go for someone else, subverting their expectations. Enchanters are one of the main reasons assassins have such surprisingly high survivability.

HalcyonDweller12 votes

I concur, counterplay and fun to play against should be larger factors in designing or reworking champions.

Thilmer8 votes

This thread shoul be called: "CertainlyT, we are getting tired of your sh*t". [sg-ahri-2]

hoyohai5 votes

But he didn't make Lee Sin or Tryndamere (Tries to find appropriate emote)

Nymzo7 votes

In my opinion, every champion should have a kit based about TFF design (that term doesn't exist, made it on the spot).

Thematic design: Basically if the champion's kit/spells make sense for their thematic cough not like Kindred cough

Fun to play: Very straight forward, the champion should be fun to play and shouldn't feel like a chore when you play them.

Fair to play against: This is the biggest part, is the champion's kit fair to play against? By ''fair'', it means if the champion's kit allows for counterplay (without being too simple) without also not having too much frustrating part.

This of course may sounds easier said than done but this is not rocket science either. Hell I'm pretty sure most Riot champion designer like August have some kind of ''rules'' like this. Maybe CertainlyT needs to be reminded of that.

Champion Skin3 votes

Reading that basically makes me think of Sion with the ramp up on his Q and delay on the W reactivation damage (which also removes the remaining shield) and R requiring a build up for max damage and CC

Though there is his E which is fairly reliable (at least compared with Sions other abilities) and long range harass if minions are around (though it doesn't really do much damage late game so it is mostly annoying in lane)

BobaFlautist6 votes

Who would you say is a fun champion to play against when they're strong?

ªTeemo7 votes

Probably champs that are easy to outplay but they are never strong lol

Troll for Trump2 votes

People seem to have little issue with some of the enchanters (Janna is always strong, Karma), among which Nami would probably be the most fair one.

Jhin and Varus are more fair ADCs.

Brand mid, Karthus were fair champs, and as a result are now outdated in mid lane.

Fid would probably be a fair jgler if he were strong, but he hasn't been strong for so long that I have no idea what it would actually be like

Top: Urgot

LegitBusinessman3 votes

The problem is that Zoe doesn't feel good to play against when she's WEAK. She has no windows available to her where you can jump her bones because she literally has almost no cooldowns.

And this is usually the point where people would say "Well she's immobile" or "cc can shut her down". This needs to be understood: General weaknesses that apply to enormous swaths of champions do not justify why a champions kit should be that unfun to play against. If I just make a champ with a skillshot that does 9999 true damage on a 6 second cooldown, "that champion is immobile" or "You should have CCD her" DOES NOT JUSTIFY THAT KIT

JustSaiyan692 votes

She literally has no escapes so any assassin or mage who lands a decent combo will completely destroy her. Your statement claiming she can't have her bones jumped are contradicted when Zed, Yasuo, Katarina, Leblanc, Fizz, Lux, Syndra, Talon, Kha Zix, Orianna, Zyra, Yi, etc. Can almost completely one shot her while avoiding her cc entirely.

She's squishy, immobile, and has one damaging ability that requires preperation to even do full damage.

ShiniXII3 votes

zoe was designed by a man that is the direct descendant of the chancellor of the third reich, he tried to destroy the world once and now he's back at it again

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