Boards›Gameplay

PSA: Just because a character is easy to play, doesn't mean it takes no skill. (And rant)

I Q·9/20/2016, 10:21:27 PM·18 votes·1,333 views

Ok ok ok, I know I am a filthy Ekko and Yasuo main and I should go die, but seriously someone needs to say this. Characters that are easy to pick up do not take no skill. I am talking about META BUILDS, the builds the champions were made to play! No Tank Yasuo!

This is gonna get ranty, but please hold your downvotes and comments until the end.

The reasons people hate champs such as: Yasuo LeeSin and Ekko

They are easy to play

Yes, all three are relatively easy to pick up, but against someone who knows the champion well the person who just picked them up, cant do anything against.

They are played EVERY DAMN GAME!

I understand that you all are sick of getting outplayed by a mastery spamming Yasuo, and a insecing Lee Sin, but you need to think of this at a standpoint of a main of these champions:

If you play against them everygame, you have more chances to learn their counter's and ways to play around them!

You might think Lee Sin has no counterplay, but after a few matches you'll learn that you can flash in another direction to be inseced in your team, or if you dodge his Q, he deals virtually no damage. Also, he is blind.

They only need to land 1 skill to kill you!

By that logic you could say "If you can dodge one skill, you can kill them!". If Yasuo misses his Tornado Q, abuse him for it. Also, almost every champion in the game only needs to hit 1 ability to do their combo! Ex: Ahri Diana Katarina TwistedFate Brand Jayce The list goes on and on! Your main is most likely one of them.

They have no counterplay

Walk TOWARDS a Yasuo when he E Qs you and you will dodge his tornado. At that point he can't ult you for 8 seconds early game at the quickest. I mean, that sounds like counterplay to me!

They deal too much damage!

This is mostly for Yasuo and Ekko from what I have heard. However, they deal the same amount of damage as many other champions. Ahri can deal half your HP with her E, Q ,W combo early game, and she is safe to play. Mordekaiser does more damage then an Ekko E, except you don't have a dash. Just build a item 3152 and you are ready to go. Vayne Can and will 3 auto attack you. If she isn't in solo queue of course, then she will be 0/10. Kappa

Riot always buffs them, even when they don't need a nerf!

These champions are played ALL THE TIME. They are poster children for their lane/role and weather you like it or not They are one of the most balanced champions riot has made. All three champions have counterplay that you can abuse to beat them. Also, they aren't giving any of the three buffs/nerfs for no reason.

As much as you like to say the recent LeeSin buff was stupid, Nidalee beats him in every stat you'd like in a jungler. ESPECIALLY VISION (Get it. he's blind? Huehuehuehue)

Alright guys, I think I have had enough. Thanks for listening to my rant! [slayer-jinx-catface]

43 Comments

Around999People9/20/2016, 10:27:25 PM5 votes

Honestly, I was called a noob for manning Trynd. Everyone said he's easy to play. But I mean, the timing on your ult is crucial. I used to be able to time the ult to the moment I would be killed or at less than 50 hp. Those extra moments are a game changer. But people that are new to him would R the moment they get bellow half hp and lose all that extra time. So like you said. Easy to pick up, but it takes skill to master. Not to mention all those tricks with the e

Theorchero9/20/2016, 11:22:01 PM5 votes

The problem with those champions is that For most of the roster there isn't really any counterplay to them. You counter pick them, or you lose.

In the case of Ekko, if you play him remotely correctly you should never die except after killing both squishies in a teamfight. He has ZERO risk associated with his builds.

Yasuo and Ekko deal a shit load of damage quickly on top of being incredibly hard to punish for mistakes. Catch Yasuo with a critical binding? LOL NOPE presses W right as he gets hit and it's completely negated. He's about to die to your front liners? LOL NOPE, someone had some minor displacement so now I press R and get a shield for 400 hp on top of a free last whisper and a huge nuke!

Hardstuck G49/20/2016, 11:05:15 PM4 votes

Ahem, meta builds are not what they were meant to play. Meta builds are what is popular and makes that character strong :P

Sylvant9/21/2016, 7:47:04 AM2 votes

I dont agree, Yasuo LeeSin Ekko are meant to be hard to play. They are skill shot reliant, combo dependent, require great timing on skills landing. generally high skill cap champs. The problem is 2 of them are also pretty op and in the hands of experienced players, they can outplay and counter many champions, even played by good opponents, simply because other champs lack the flexibility to answer that advantage. Id say an "easy" to play is Evelynn . She doesnt require high skill to execute combo, there is no real way to "outplay" the enemy, or put into use any extreme player "skills", but yet she is example of champion as you said, which still requires alot. She requires alot of knowledge. The ability to map control and focus on most important objectives, to abuse your stealth, to use the small game mechanics which can ease your jungle farming potential alot.

CerealBoxOfDoom9/20/2016, 11:13:15 PM2 votes

a complicated tool is simple when it solves a simple problem.

Computers are so complex that you could study them all your life and still find something new if you try. But when doing a simple task like shitposting about what champs are easy they are just as simple to use as anything else.

The Boring Nerd9/20/2016, 11:41:01 PM1 votes

Just because a Vayne can one shot you, doesn't mean you can one shot her. You only need a stun and a instakill champ to shut her down. Also, make sure the stun isn't a skillshot, she can easily dodge that with her Q. Besides, her laning phase is really boring, and you need to make sure you land all those condemns correctly. And she can't always land her W, she often needs to switch targets unless she's in a 1v1. Other than positioning, landing your W and making sure you use your ult in the right time, dodging and csing with Q, she's pretty easy. (For me, :P)

GULAG 4 U9/21/2016, 1:18:01 AM1 votes

Doesn't sounds like a rant to me.

Mogarl9/21/2016, 6:23:48 AM1 votes

Personally, and I think to a large degree for everyone, people hate Yasuo in particular because he has more denial than almost anyone else in the game. Riot has kept denial pretty low in league. You can't last hit your minions, xp ranges are generous, for the most part it's about playing the game against someone not stopping someone from playing against you.

Yasuo on the other hand honestly has a lot of denial in his kit. Passive shield denies poke and in some situations retaliation Windwall denies skill shots. Dash is a massive engagement denial. as long as your minions are behind him, he can escape.

Yasuo has so much opportunity to play around anyone else's kit that it feels like a punishment to lane against him. When I go into lane against Yasuo I never think "Alright I know what I have to do to beat this guy" I think "Alright here's what I have to do to not feed this guy".

You don't fight Yasuo based on the knowledge of your champion. You fight Yasuo based on your knowledge of Yasuo. Unless you are a hard counter it barely maters who exactly you're playing because Yasuo is going to do the exact same thing regardless, and you have to play around that.

Here's the important question,as a Yasuo player does playing against different champions really change how you play? (Obviously Lissandra or Malzahar are going to force you to play differently) But barring Champions that can ignore windwall does it really change that much?

Most of this is probably just short of random ranting, but it's the best I could say on why (almost) Everyone that doesn't play Yasuo will always hate Yasuo.

Abyssphere9/21/2016, 6:53:16 AM1 votes

I agree with your post as a whole but it's really dumb to say any of the champions you're talking about are particularly balanced, let alone among the most balanced champions Riot has ever designed.

LeeSin This guy has to be at a persistent 46-47% win rate in order to not wreck pro games and he has arguably had more impact on the game's design than any other champion simply because he was made with so little thought. He is the absolutely perfect jungler and as a result, warped the jungle meta around himself until Riot finally made enough Lee clones (e.g. Elise RekSai Nidalee, but every jungler that's been viable in pro play in the last 3 years fits the bill) that reasonable other options existed. It is thanks to Lee Sin that every new jungler must be an early pressure jungler with excellent clear because if not, they cannot be viable. Lee forced everyone else out because you cannot pick someone with a weak early against Lee Sin. Now? You can't pick someone with a weak early at all because you can't deal with Lee and you can't deal with any of the champions made to deal with him either.

Yasuo Not terrible honestly, his balance history is a lot tamer than people assume. He did have a long period of being broken and then a long period of being terrible but he's also had a good period of being decent. I believe Riot have specifically talked about Yasuo in relation to the concept of agency though, where Yasuo is an offender because his kit gives him an inappropriate amount of control over in-game situations. Yasuo is of course far from the only offender in this scenario and actually this issue of his is also one of the biggest sins of both Lee and Ekko. You can list a lot more champions as offenders here, anyway.

Ekko This guy has been confirmed for work in the assassin update and as an assassin, he has never been meta building squishy, offensive builds. That is terrible. Ekko is one of the worst designed champions of recent years and has actually spent time only as overwhelming or outright poor, so I don't think calling him balanced is smart at all. When you spend all of your time either too strong or too weak and you are NEVER building as intended, you are not balanced at all. Sure, he has counterplay if you build AP, but you never do and there's no real counterplay to Tank Ekko so...

Schàdenfreude9/20/2016, 10:44:29 PM1 votes

Actually, Lee Sin is not easy. and is not played every game. He only does need to land Q though and then the rest is straightforward to destroying the adc.

DunkinNoobs9/21/2016, 11:37:30 AM1 votes

The only one of those champions that's easy is Ekko and only because he now plays in a lane where he wins almost all matchups and builds to negate his weaknesses.

Imperial Japan9/21/2016, 11:53:28 AM1 votes

Woo! You're not a brain dead bandwagon Yasuo hater¡

Eraenis9/21/2016, 12:19:42 PM1 votes

You just gotta accept that you gonna be hated for playing Yasuo and Ekko, cause they are absolutely obnoxious to play against. If somebody is accusing you of playing a "no skill champ" this is just another aspect of a very simple fact: Everybody hates you for playing these champions. And they have every right to.

Should you actually care about being hated? Not really. It's a competitive game after all. At the same time you just gotta accept that you are never going to be the nice guy. You are always going to be the guy that doesn't give a shit about what your opponents are thinking.

Iskierka9/21/2016, 12:20:27 PM1 votes

I mean I also curse about the champs you mentioned but I d never say they re easy to play. Im not good with any assassin or champs who just jump in and pray to come out alive. It took me a shorter time to pick up Azir than Ekko (and hey Ekko has still an escape).

DemainaNyx9/21/2016, 12:22:41 PM1 votes

The biggest problem I have with these champs is that they are so mobile while dealing tons of damage. I had a game where I was a 22/2 Varus vs a Yasuo, Ashe, Lee Sin, and a few other champions. Lee Sin would Q anyone in my team and flash and/or ward hop to get into range to ult me in the backline, who Yasuo would then ult, and Ashe would ult if I wasn't already dead after all that. Explain how me being in the back of my team and gets instantly murdered cause a teammate got hit by a skill shot is fair gameplay? If a teammate eats a skillshot, I would expect that player to be chunked or killed, not someone else entirely.

I played all for one during the weekend and did surprisingly well on Ekko and Yasuo despite only playing them on this type of game mode. So yeah, I'm not an amazing Yasuo or Ekko, but I can be a decent one and still do a ton of damage. That just seems off to me.

Catastrop9/21/2016, 12:48:39 PM1 votes

If champions like Anivia Brand Katarina are recognized as "no skill" on the basis that they're just easy to play, then all champions take no skill because they're easy to play. I'm not sure if I got my point across, but whatever.

Soraka Dreemurr9/21/2016, 5:19:54 PM1 votes

I hate Ekko because of the Tanko and no other reason.

Lugg9/24/2016, 5:00:58 PM1 votes

Yas, Lee, and Ekko have NEVER been balanced since their release. They have always been at least a 7 out of 10 on the power scale. The only time they aren't "meta" is when there are even more broken champs at the time, but they are still very viable. Ekko is easily the safest champ in the game and he gives up zero for it in his kit. His damage honestly needs gutted or he needs to lose the heal or shield. Yas basically has two ults with his WW. Lee really has no weaknesses at all. His "falloff" late game is pretty minor and he still has his insane utility.

I agree that they take some skill to dominate with, but that is no excuse for them being blatantly OP. They have great counterplay already built into their kits, they don't need anything extra. It's the case where the safer the champ is, the less threat they should be from a damage standpoint.

Ahri falls in the same boat, she has never been weak in any meta. Nid is stupidly broken as a jungler, she is tailor made for it.