Something That Riot Needs to Take More Seriously: Frustration

Almost all losses will be frustrating, even if only a little bit. However, I believe Riot does not take into consideration the frustration a champion can potentially bring when they make balance changes, create champions, and rework them. Sometimes, I see things that Riot have preached to try not to do in their gameplay show up in a future rework or new champion just down the line. It's as if they don't really care about what they themselves have learned from. Let's look at some examples of frustrating champions that are ALWAYS frustrating whenever they are meta because Riot doesn't want to address their main issues that make them so:

Riven Have you ever been in a meta where Riven is in Top Lane and generally enjoyed the experience? Unless you counter Riven or you simply go against a lot of poor ones, no, no one generally enjoys playing against a Riven. The main reasons simply being that she holds so much control over the lane and can snowball very hard from that control over the lane, making her into a champion that feels like you never had a chance from the beginning. Furthermore, a lot of her power comes from animation canceling, a mechanic that took me two years of LoL to even understand how it worked and what was going on. I get it, Riven is modeled to be a combo, "Street Fighter style" champion that uses fighting game rules. However, it's just frustrating to fight against.

Yasuo Windwall. Windwall is the most anti-enjoyment ability in the game. It would be one thing if the ability specifically could not negate ultimate abilities, but it can. You know that fantasy your champion has when you play them? That insane enjoyment when you press the R button and think, "Man, time to unleash my secret weapon!"? Well, it better not be a projectile, because Yasuo has some bad news for you. Windwall doesn't make the game more enjoyable for anyone and it doesn't even feel amazing to use. You aren't performing some cool maneuver or anything. Yasuo presses a single button and the Windwall blocks whatever is coming his way. Unless you have already engaged on him, you can't use any projectile ultimates against him or you will not win the fight. If your team relies on projectiles to initiate, good luck.

Camille Camille's entire fantasy is being in control and making sure the opponent plays by her rules. Translated, that basically means that whenever Camille is viable, you're going to have a bad time. If there is one thing players hate, it's having the control taken away from them. For Camille, she can do that and it's all she does. Press R and the enemy champion can't escape and if they do somehow get away, Hookshot and stun them into a quick funeral. Simply put, Camille is never fun when viable. She is just pain.

Pantheon Point and click harass and then a stun that also completely negates their next basic attack. If you rely on basic attacks or really are just melee in general, Pantheon almost automatically wins the lane and then roams to give his advantage to other lanes. You have to be some pound of pain for Pantheon to lose the lane. Furthermore, Pantheon's E is one of the most damaging moves in the game if it is allowed to complete it's channel, which means that if your team doesn't have the power to interrupt Pantheon or contest his E, at least one person on your team is going to get shredded and likely without much feedback since they are probably stunned by his W and then have to get through his passive afterwards.

The worst part here is that none of these issues have been addressed. Sure, all of these champions fall in and out of meta, but when they come back they are the same as before. Riot band-aid fixes them, but then it eventually peels off and the horror is unleashed again. Whenever I hear Riven or Pantheon is viable in Top Lane, I almost just wanna take a break from the game these days because I know I won't be enjoying the game. I'll be playing it because they won't always be picked. They won't always ruin my game. But eventually, they will appear and just ruin the fun time I was having because Riot refuses to remove the frustrating parts of their kits. Sure, they might be fun to play as, but this is a PvP game, not PvE. For every ounce of joy one of these champions brings to the table, it's being siphoned from someone else.

I would like to try and ask Riot to please be more considerate of players who will be playing against these champions when designing and balancing them. I would rather a champion be the obstacle I have to face, not the thorn slowly digging it's way into my side.