The item's not a problem when the intended champs use it. But it becomes abusive when unintended champs abuse it.
But you either ignore it altogether or nerf the item instead of just not letting said unintended champions use it when that was the sole problem?
Ralanr7 votesWhen an unintended champion uses it and it ends up being flat out better than their intended build (be it providing more safety or faster damage with little drawback) then it becomes a problem.
Riot understands this, but they don't want to just restrict items from people. That's just not fun (neither is another class breaking your items, I'm not defending that) for players because it ends up limiting options and you lose out on some interesting combinations.
Yes seeing a ranged champion with Mallet or BC sucks and seeing a melee champion build like a marksman isn't going to give the same worry. It sucks and it goes deep into champion design (ranged vs melee. Which has always been a problem in games that have both).
There is a reason mankind moved to guns in warfare.
Big Lincoln3 votesif they want item diversity then why doesn't Draven have AP ratios?
seems pretty hypocritical to me tbh 
Ralanr4 votesIdk. Why doesn't Darius or Olaf?
I want to play Wizard Darius.
RavenMagus5 votesYou already can.
Darius has pretty good AP ratios on his Lichbane.
Ralanr1 votesLichbane Darius, let's go!
Unrelated note: Lichbane on a full build Ryze is great for splitpushing.
RavenMagus2 votesLichbane on a full build Ziggs can literally one-shot towers from full HP.
WhatAGeinius1 votesExcept it HASN'T always been an issue in games that have both. Almost every other major game in this genre has this shit figured out. League is the outlier.
Ralanr1 votesD&D would love to hear this answer. What major game actually has this issue resolved?
Oh wait, you meant this genre. Well Heroes I don't know their meta at all, but since abilities work on towers then I can assume that opens up a lot. Dota 2 I also know nothing about in terms of how their meta works. League just has a perfect kiting system.
Leetri1 votesDota 2 "solved" it by adding turning time, so it'll take like a second for ranged champions to turn around and walk the other way. I see a lot of people complaining about that though and I don't play the game myself, so I can't say how great it works.
In Heroes the maps are tiny, there's loads of terrain obstacles (that makes it easy to get jumped) and barely any vision tools at all. Spells dealing damage to structures makes ADCs unnecessary, along with the weak turret damage and limited ammo. CC is also king, to a point where at one point the entire meta was literally just "who can land and chain CC first?".
Sagan Forever1 votesBalance wise it is amazing. It is not fun and feels clunky, but if you want to balance champions like garen it works great.
WhatAGeinius1 votesDota 2 does more to solve the melee vs. ranged problem than the use of turn rates. Almost half the items in the game have a significantly stronger effect on melee heroes than they do on ranged, including nearly every on-hit effect, and melee heroes also can't have their attacks disjointed, unlike ranged.
In general Dota 2 does a very good job of providing distinct advantages for being melee or being ranged, I.E. ranged characters can attack more safely and threaten a greater area, but melee characters are much stronger within their own area of attack.
Handy Sandy 3 votesMaking abused items melee only would be such a big and easy fix, maybe putting in a few exceptions depending on the ranged champion.
Zero Skill Tank3 votesMaking a lot of melee only items is a very bad choice, because this would give all melee champions access to the same kind of bonus, while their kits are very distinct. A Darius deserves more stat bonuses than say a Zed.
Brain Errör 4041 votesThey're both melee champs though...
UltraGigaNiga1 votesExamples please?
Ralanr5 votesSteraks and marksmen are probably the biggest issue. Same with armor pen and marksmen.
Marksmen have broken a lot of items recently. That's not surprising since as an item scaling class they have more room to experiment with builds.
Zero Skill Tank1 votesActually, as item scaling class, marksman always had very restricted, cookie-cutter builds.
There was a lot of recent cases of abuse simply because Riot tinkered a lot with AD items (juggernaut and marksman update, flat penetration last preseason, lethality this preseason) lately.
Ralanr1 votesI say they have more room because they're intended to get more gold than others in the laning phase imo.
Auz the Ripper1 votesThey're restricted because they have one job and that's to output as much damage as possible which items give the most damage is the best build and anything else is moot
Ralanr1 votesAnd that means in Normal games they have the best time to experiment with different builds.
ZephyrDrake2 votesSteraks and marksmen are probably the biggest issue. Same with armor pen and marksmen.
Marksmen have broken a lot of items recently. That's not surprising since as an item scaling class they have more room to experiment with builds.
sorry but what? armor pen is intended for anyone who builds AD how is armor pen not intended for marksmen? specially when they have 
? hell some ADCs are just absolute garbage without it and they have room to experiment with builds? sorry but wrong again! they have room to experiment as long as the build actually gives them some amount of damage in return. ADCs cannot afford to have more than one actual pure defensive item unless they want their damage to fall off the face of the earth and sterak's was going to get nerfed regardless of whether or not ADCs picked it up due to how easily it was to just get both it and Maw and pretty much leave mages become a complete joke. Anyone who build AD could abuse that combo not just ADCs.
Ralanr1 votesThey weren't balanced around the early power spike that flat pen provided. It was becoming the goto build for every marksman.
ZephyrDrake1 votesThey weren't balanced around the early power spike that flat pen provided. It was becoming the goto build for every marksman.
once again no, 
did not care at all about building armor pen early. The champions who built armor pen were pretty much the lane bullies which were pretty much balanced around having a good early game but a not so great late game. (few exceptions like Cait and Jhin)
Ralanr1 votesYeah, and the lethality changes prevented those lane bullies from abusing those builds.
ZephyrDrake1 votesYeah, and the lethality changes prevented those lane bullies from abusing those builds.
and now you don't see them at all since they are garbage without armor pen... except Jhin who really didn't need armor pen to begin with
Ralanr1 votesProbably because they relied on pen too much.
ZephyrDrake1 votesProbably because they relied on pen too much.
more like they had no actual use outside of building armor pen. 
was only useful whenever 
was good on her. is so feast and famine and it's not even that great of a late game champion 
is pretty much reliant on ambushing and assassinating targets which pretty much means he has to go for an early game build since the later the game goes the harder his job gets. That is the case of pretty much every single armor pen ADC out there. They relied on it because they had no other options other than "let's have the same items as late game ADCs but be worst than them since their kits are better made for late game than us"
10Tickler1 votes 51.04% winrate
49.40% winrate
49.03% winrate
Now, disregarding the fact that Jhin would be far happier at a 44.44 winrate, these are all lane-bully champions who take, and abuse, Armor Pen and Lethality-based builds at the higher levels of competitive play. I believe the most popular builds for each right now center on rushing 
, before anything else, although I'm more than likely to be wrong.
But, that aside...
You were saying?
ZephyrDrake1 votes[{quoted}](name=Various Felonies,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=UlKT16mK,comment-id=00000000000100000000000000000001,timestamp=2016-12-24T04:33:40.006+0000)
Now, disregarding the fact that Jhin would be far happier at a 44.44 winrate, these are all lane-bully champions who take, and abuse, Armor Pen and Lethality-based builds at the higher levels of competitive play. I believe the most popular builds for each right now center on rushing
But, that aside...
You were saying?
oh noes winrates whatever shall do against winrates!
52.1% winrate yet everyone says that he is in a terrible spot!
54.9% winrate yet once again people think he is in a terrible spot!
49% winrate garbage champion right?
49.9% winrate... wow such a bad champion!
winrates really don't say the entire thing!
10Tickler1 votesActually, a little off, Current Patch Stats, according to Champion.gg are as follows:
: 21.08% Playrate, with a 51.17% Winrate out of those games.
: 13.15% Playrate with a 53.05% Winrate
: 7.56% Playrate, with a 51.50% winrate
What these show is that people who actually PLAY lower playrate champions, have a greater success than with others.
Karthus Mid, where he's MOST OFTEN PLAYED is played by...1.23% of players with a 50.12% Winrate, meaning those few who still play him...have played him enough to do so WELL.
Kog'Maw? 1.26 in an ADC capacity, with 51~% winrates
Morde has, by far, the most dedicated out of the four you've put forth, at .14%, .16% and .75% playrate, in Jungle, Mid and Top respectively, and Sub-fifty Winrates, which honestly do show how bad of a state he's in right now, considering that the highest hovers around 47%.
The only reason that Morde, Kog and Karthus, Galio and a handful of other champions who aren't listed here have winrates AT ALL, is because of the 4-5 dedicated people like MaximumMorde and his ilk who STILL PLAY THEM.
For Jhin to have a +50% winrate while still being in the 20% range out of ALL the games played says quite a lot.
Also, oddly enough, Sion Support has the highest winrate in Plat+ games, sitting at 55.11%
The Yetii Rider1 votesMelee/Ranged restrictions limit champion kit design, particularly form shifters like Nidalee.
Riot hasn't given up on making a form shifting Champion that is balanced, and there's nothing inherently wrong with Jayce using Sterak's or Maw even when he's in cannon form.
Saianna1 votesSo you say 
wasn't made for ? HA! What a lie. it was obviously for him. just like that runic echo for junglers Ezreal!
Irelia Bot1 votesWhen IBG was first added it was not intended to be used on Ezreal.
xevi2 votessarcasm my dear friend
