Detailed post on why I believe Kled to be decently broken

(Hello, hello~) (Before you get into this, I want to point out it's super late and I'm headed to sleep now, so no replies unless I get around to them tomorrow. '.')

I've been putting this off because I know there is a lot of debate about Kled, but with a decent enough amount of time passing since his release now, I feel pretty confident in publicly stating I believe Kled is pretty broken. Even if I want to dive into how he is broken, I'm not even entirely sure where to begin.

I guess the best place is to start would be with his passive. Part 1: While mounted, Skaarl has 400 - 1505 (based on level) (+ 100% bonus health) maximum health. Now, already that is a ton of base health at all levels because we can't forget that Kled has his own health bar still too. At level 1, Kled has 340, add in Skaarl's 400, and the two have a combined health of 740, higher than every other champion in the game. At level 18, Kled has 1530, add in Skaarl's 1505, and the two have a combined health of 3035. I don't even need to research to know that is more base health than every champion in the game at level 18. (I did research it anyways and it's 1000+ every champion.) Not to mention now Skaarl's health scales 100%. The amount of damage it takes to take down Kled is insane. Part 2: Upon finally taking down Skaarl, there is a brief moment where Kled gets to become invulnerable. I'm gonna break the paragraph to let that sit in even. And if that didn't help, let me aid a little more; Going invulnerable in one of the most delicate aspects of League because so many times it's had to have been tweaked, fixed, or just completely reworked in some cases to get it right. Having built in invulnerability on a short cooldown already proved to be highly unenjoyable when Fizz came out. But at least Fizz takes some degree of skill to use his E right as well if he messes up or gets caught out without it, Fizz is kind of screwed since he is squishy. Kled on the other hand, who scales with HP, gets an invulnerability every 30 seconds upon being mounted or dismounted. Not only that, but upon remounting, Skaarl can come back with 50/60/70/80% of his health. What? You can put everything into trying to kill Kled, potentially miss various skill shots (if not ults at times) because of Kled's invulnerability, but then 30 seconds later he is allowed to get Skaarl back at 80% health, rendering everything you just put into your engage completely useless. Not to forget the second invulnerability of course. Part 3: Admittedly, only while unmounted, Kled is possibly one of the weakest champions in the game. Limited to only two skills, one being a passive on a cooldown, there isn't much you can't do up front. However though, anyone who is decent at League even and can kite is able to use the passive movement speed when headed towards enemy champions, plus the knockback on your Q, to simply stall 30 seconds until you can engage with your W up and get Skaarl back almost instantly because of your W. Let's look at the numbers a bit in regards to the Courage meter; 4/20 Courage on takedowns, and 5/15 Courage for dealing damage (passive), Pocket Pistol shoots five pellets in a cone and each pellet that hits an enemy champion restores 5 Courage (25 total), and then the W buff is just basically bending the enemy over to prepare them for Skaarl's Return.

And that was just the passive, now let's move into Kled's Q. Now the Q I already went into a little bit in regards to the passive, but mostly just the unmounted form. The simple version of Pocket Pistol is that Kled can use it to save himself, get Skaarl back 25% with a single ability, as well as wave clear with it while staling time for his passive. While mounted though, Kled gets a hook that can pass through minions until it hits a champion. (RIP &) So Kled can use this ability to wave clear pretty well but it also works as a gap closer, initiator, or just as general CC. Oh wait actually, the same ability can do literally all of that at once. It can pass through multiple minions with no set backs, it has 50% increased damage to minions (the same thing that just got removed from ), and can still hook an enemy champion afterwards. (INITIAL DAMAGE: 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 (+ 60% bonus AD)) The only set back to this move is if the enemy champion is able to escape the range before the bear trap goes off. But if they can't escape, they take more damage plus slowing them for 1.5 seconds and dealing them bonus damage. (YANK DAMAGE: 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 (+ 120% bonus AD) SLOW: 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60%). The base damage and scaling on this move is already crazy, plus added CC with the slow makes it even more crazy. The cooldowns on Kled's Qs are; Beartrap on a Rope COOLDOWN: 9 / 8.5 / 8 / 7.5 / 7 & Pocket Pistol RANGE: 250 COOLDOWN: 3. (That's right, Kled's ability to get 25% courage back is on a 3 second cooldown at all levels.)

Finally we move on to Kled's W, the only ability I might be able to go into discussion about without two or three paragraphs lol. "Violent Tendencies - COOLDOWN: 14 / 12.5 / 11 / 9.5 / 8 PASSIVE: Kled periodically enters a frenzy that grants him 150% bonus attack speed on his next 4 attacks for 4 seconds, with the final attack dealing bonus physical damage, capped at 200 against monsters. BONUS PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+ 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% (+ 5% per 100 bonus AD) of target's maximum health)" I honestly feel like I shouldn't have to say anything about that ability, just reading it it's clearly unbalanced. Okay, so for 4 auto attacks, Kled will an 150% attack speed boost. Now, this champion is a fighter, so you're building a good amount of AD as well as tank. So you get 4 rapid attacks, enough to almost full stack , plus the last hit deals an addition base damage of 60 on top of % health which scales. Meaning, it doesn't matter what champion you're playing, tank, ADC, mage, jungle, these four auto attacks from this ability is going to destroy your health no matter what your items are. There is so little counterplay to this move, with only a few items and a mastery or two to decrease various percentages of damage.

I honestly feel that alone is enough stated on Kled's W, so on to his E now. Only while mounted Kled gets a dash. Now, dashing is an amazing skill in League of Legends because so often that quick burst of movement to get out of the way or to close distance is super important and super useful. The very existence of the summoner spell Flash is precisely the show of just how important being able to burst distances is. What makes this move bad on Kled is because it is beyond overpowered in his kit. Kled's Q is already a gap closer as well as has the slow for some CC. Kled's W does massive damage but since he is a melee champion he needs to be close. So now you have your Q and E to close the distance. Not only that, but you are rewarded for landed your skill shot on E by being allowed a second dash away, guaranteeing an escape. Plus, on your second dash, you can cross walls if close enough. Overall, this skill just ensures no escape from Kled, especially if hit. This move has a cooldown of 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 and does physical damage of 20 / 45 / 70 / 95 / 120 (+ 60% bonus AD).

Now finally we hit Kled's ult. A practically global, 10 second movement speed buff for Kled's whole team, on top of Kled himself gaining an increasing shield as well as becoming completely invulnerable to all CC during the duration of the cast or until locked onto an enemy champion. The shield scales 200 / 300 / 400 (+ 300% bonus AD) and the lock on damage does 12 / 15 / 18% (+ 12% per 100 AD) of target's maximum health. It has a cooldown of 160 / 140 / 120, on par with Soraka and GP ults. (I would say Karthus but his ult cooldown is almost double those three.) The movement speed alone is one of the fastest in the game, the shield alone is enough to block certain ults completely, plus being completely invulnerable to all cc completely cancels outs certain champion abilities completely but also regards some champion ultimates 100% useless (besides a tiny bit of damage on some).

And if all of that isn't enough to convince you Kled is broken, just watch any form of videos on him or about him and you should be able to clearly see how problematic the champion is.

CLG Reacts - Kled The Cantankerous Cavalier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olbK3NhBfkE

Best of Kled - League of Legends Montage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJI4EfIaLtU

Kled ACTUAL Champion Spotlight (This video is much less serious than the first two but accurately protrayes how silly Kled is that you can literally feed with him yet still carry a game.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye6Z7jwRRTk

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying Kled is completely broken and needs to be removed from the game, but it wouldn't be too bad of an idea to start thinking on some Kled nerfs, if not just on Kled's first rework lol.

Alrighty though, that is my opinion on the matter. I'm tired and it's pretty late, so apologies for any potential mistakes I may have missed as well as if any parts I've left unclear or anything. Thank you for taking the time to read over all this, I know there is a very large amount but I wanted to try to be reasonable and decently detailed while typing this all without making it too long or going into too many specifics. (This honestly doesn't go into everything but it's well enough, I'm done typing at this point.) As I said before, I don't think Kled is game changing right now but he is definitely super impactful to the point where Kled stands out almost every game he's been played in. Playing with him or against simply doesn't feel fun as the champion is alienated right now in his current state. It's like, "League of Legends; with Kled".