Winrate is not a direct measure of champion strength.

ChickenWrap·Sep 9, 2016·7 votes·763 views

If a champion does not have a high winrate, that does not mean they're bad, or even weak. It means that they either

A) Take time to understand B) Are FoTM and being played a ton by people who think they're simply a free win or C) Are best suited for certain team compositions where they become immediately broken. Champions that are only OK unless certain simple criteria are met, then they become insane.

If a champion has a higher winrate, that simply means that they're easier to play or understand or abuse than the others. A champion with a 55%+ winrate or 40%- winrate is a champion that should be looked at and understood, but between those two, I'd say that you can't really use winrate as a means to round out or base your argument on, because it simply won't work.

21 Comments

DavarrilSep 9, 20163 votes

If anything has over about a 55 - 56% winrate, it's too strong. If it has less than 50%, it's too weak, or too difficult to play well.

ChickenWrapSep 9, 20163 votes

{quoted}

If anything has over about a 55 - 56% winrate, it's too strong. If it has less than 50%, it's too weak, or too difficult to play well.

What? No. Just because something is below 50% does not mean it's weak.

Ryze, Vlad, Elise, Lee Sin, Nidalee, Zed, Rek'Sai, Riven, Gragas, Ezreal, Ekko, Jhin, Gnar, and LeBlanc all have sub-50% winrates. Does this mean that they are too weak? Are half of those champions actually difficult to play well?

DavarrilSep 18, 20161 votes

Ryze IS actually hard to play well, along with Lee Sin, Nidalee, and Riven. Ezreal can also be hard to play well, if you can't land skillshots.

HauntSep 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

If anything has over about a 55 - 56% winrate, it's too strong. If it has less than 50%, it's too weak, or too difficult to play well.

Azir was always a negative winrate whenever he was a top ban. Tons of bans are like that.

AstôlfoSep 10, 20161 votes

Except he was only a top ban in pro-play events because that was the only place he was even slightly playable. He was still complete fucking garbage outside of those few events.

HauntSep 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Except he was only a top ban in pro-play events because that was the only place he was even slightly playable. He was still complete fucking garbage outside of those few events.

someone here has never played at high elo it seems

DavarrilSep 18, 20161 votes

"Or too difficult to play well."

I included Azir in there.

Mr Broken WingsSep 9, 20163 votes

Riven lost 1 % winrate after her buffs, that means she got worse!

AstôlfoSep 9, 20162 votes

It's not the direct or sole measure, but it still is one of the measures. You can't just look at overall winrate by itself. Looking at winrates across different factors (build paths, runes, masteries, matchups, gamelength, experience, etc) are what help.

ChickenWrapSep 9, 20161 votes

{quoted}

It's not the direct or sole measure, but it still is one of the measures. You can't just look at overall winrate by itself. Looking at winrates across different factors (build paths, runes, masteries, matchups, gamelength, experience, etc) are what help.

Except you can't use winrate in an argument for why something is or is not good. It just doesn't work. There are vastly too many factors at play to make it a viable form of proof.

AstôlfoSep 9, 20163 votes

Uh, that's why you look at said winrate across specific factors.

ChickenWrapSep 9, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Uh, that's why you look at said winrate across specific factors.

Which is why winrate is not a direct measure and can't be used to back up a basis on if something is strong or not.

AstôlfoSep 9, 20163 votes

what?

Winrate by itself (overall average winrate) is not enough information because there's dozens of factors. That's why you specifically look at average winrate for each specific factor because all the other factors that'd raise/lower it balance each other out.

ChickenWrapSep 9, 20161 votes

{quoted}

what?

Winrate by itself (overall average winrate) is not enough information because there's dozens of factors. That's why you specifically look at average winrate for each specific factor because all the other factors that'd raise/lower it balance each other out.

Winrate period is not enough. You're basing total winrate off of sub-winrate of things like builds and differing elos.

AstôlfoSep 9, 20163 votes

Like I said.

Using winrates for specific factors to assist with judging a champion's strength is fine. Using winrates just overall without considering any other factors really is not fine.

ofartSep 9, 20161 votes

Yeah, winrate's more about ease of use and reliability than anything else.

RequiemsfireSep 10, 20161 votes

What winrate says is that a champion with a high win rate has a higher chance of winning even for people relatively new to the champion but it doesn't account is skill and experience relative to the people who dedicate time to properly learn them. Ryze is in such a category where he is actually really really strong but not many people can utilize him very well resulting in a poor win rate. There's also Azir Taliyah AurelionSol and Zed whose champions skill ceilings and floors are higher than champions like Anivia Talon Graves Volibear where their power is more frontloaded and easy to use.

AnonagonSep 18, 20161 votes

This idea that winrate doesn't correlate to champion power is bullshit Winrate, when it becomes significantly far off of 50%, begins to be a direct measure of a champions current power level yes, a champion with a 49% winrate is not necessarily stronger than a 48% winrate, and you can be a champion with a ~50% winrate that is strong but a champion with a 55% winrate is easily far better than a champion with a 45% winrate. A champion does not become that far off of 50% without there actually being a reason. While it is important to take into account pick and ban rates into account when evaluating winrate (for example, a 52%+ winrate on a champion with a bottom 10% playrate is likely due to a dedicated playerbase), you cannot say that winrate doesn't measure champion strength at all.

Irelia BotSep 18, 20161 votes

It does indicate a champs ability to sway the outcome of games.

Some strengths is in your face (Leblanc comboing the enemy ADC and taking them out of a fight) while others are are less noticeable but arguably more impactful (Tristana /Jinx Taking a turret in under 10 seconds or Yi being able to rush down Dragons while no one is looking)

People tend to rage about the in your face power far more then the power that is not directly effecting them but indirectly effects them.