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The Most Hated Champion Class:

Hemulen Magi··90 votes·6,473 views

Hands down, the most hated, most frequently complained about, most frequently banned class in League is hyper mobile/safe assassins. These guys end up permanently banned when balanced around a 50%+ winrate in solo queue, because when people maining these champions can reliably thrive in their lane, then they reliably become low-counterplay, snowballing, steamrollers that the entire opposing team has to focus all of their efforts on.

Their mobility gives them a global sphere of influence while they have the freedom to dictate where fights happen and when fights happen. Their safety makes it so that they can take careless risks and capitalize on their opponents' tiniest mistakes, but their "outplay mechanics" make it almost impossible for their opponents to grip them in a mistake hard enough to shut down the snowballing. If you combine their kits with enough raw power that they can start building defensively while still bursting people, then their windows of vulnerability practically vanish altogether.

Now, I know that winrates aren't everything, but there really does seem to be a sweet-spot around 47.5% overall winrate for balancing these champions in solo queue. Look at Kassadin Leblanc Evelynn LeeSin. These are all currently balanced at under 50% winrate in solo queue. At their heights, these champions have each generated as much QQ as entire other champion classes. In their current states balanced below 50% winrate, they all still have decent pick rates, and Lee Sin and LeBlanc still have some of the highest pick rates in the game. Out of those four, Kassadin has the lowest overall winrate, yet Kassadin mains are still thriving with 54%+ winrate in his balanced state because of how much steamrolling potential super-mobility on an assassin grants.

Now look at Zed Ekko Fizz. All three have extremely high banrates. At the current rate, Zed and Ekko might some day soon hit old Kassadin's 97% ban rate or old Evelynn's 97% ban rate in Korea. Both Ekko and Fizz start out at around 50% winrate for players brand new to the champs, showing that they have both low skill floors in addition to their fairly high skill caps.

Obviously, Zed Ekko Fizz should be treated as similar cases to Kassadin Leblanc Evelynn LeeSin if a healthy role in the game is desirable for them. Hyper mobile/safe assassins simply cannot be balanced by the same standards as other (arguably more healthy) classes.

155 Comments

Michael Bacon19 votes

Players with 1-5 games on Zed have a 46 percent win rate with him. http://champion.gg/champion/Zed

Hemulen Magi18 votes

I am perfectly aware of that. I am addicted to checking champion statistics, so I checked statistics for all of the champions mentioned in the thread before I wrote it. Out of Zed Ekko Fizz, Zed may be the best balanced at the moment, but his massive ban rate reflects that the community is not happy with his game health and balance. I personally think that Zed would remain popular and a dominant pick among skilled players if he were balanced similarly to Lee Sin, who has around a 44% winrate for brand new players. Both Zed and Lee Sin are very popular "safe picks", yet have decently high skill caps and snowballing potential, and their balancing should probably reflect that. For the record, I think Lee Sin is currently well balanced and relatively healthy for the game. I never thought I would say that.

Guy Fox Teemo11 votes

Just because the community thinks so doesn't mean its right, if the community had its way this game , would be 100% about mages with inifnite mana regen who never die and are gods, and zeds abilities would do 1 damage and 100 seconds CDS.

Theres people who still think Yasuo is OP as shit, thats guy is a dam gimick to play now and thats coming from a guy who mains him.

deadlychuck14 votes

I think the only reason that the concept of "mages with infinite mana regen" is because champions like zed exists, who don't seem to lack any of the same combat disadvantages heavy mana usage champions have, yet still has almost all of the same combat advantages.

oh and the hate on yasuo comes from the lack of down time. It's not that it's impossible to beat him, it's that he lacks any real CDs, then also lacks a limiting resource. It's frustraiting when the enemy can spam abilities, miss skillshots, and never recall. While you're having to tactfully time abilities and manage resources. Personally categorize him as one of the "they can only outplay themselves" champions. Riven is another champion i'd put into that category.

GayFluffyUnicorn3 votes

So where is Zeds massive AOE dmg and cc? Where is Zeds magic dmg? Magic>AD btw. Where is Zeds safe range like lux, syndra, xerath, vel koz etc etc. Or the same waveclear as liss, lux, xerath, vel koz. Even in a full rotation he needs basic attacks to kill the last minions. No he does NOT have the same combat advantages. Yes no mana, but still a resource which is exploitable. Zed has been designed to counter mages in lane. So he wins the lane against equally skilled mages. Fact. No need for discussion or nerfs. End of story. Same applies to other assassins.

InTheory3 votes

[deleted]

Gnart Even Close9 votes

death is the strongest CC

deadlychuck1 votes

lol what game are you playing that AP > AD

ALso most mages until maybe 15 minutes need to basic attack or cast two spells to kill minions. Zed has AOE, but i'll admit he does lack CC, which he makes up for with mobility utility.

Ironically though, the only line i need to read is "Zed has been designed to counter mages in lane", to know you have no idea what you're saying or are just completely bias. It's like saying blitzcrank was designed to be a support. Zed was DESIGNED to be a top lane fighter with a nice amount of assassination potential, what they didn't consider is that his very mage-like kit with high assassination potential and mobility basically covered all the weakness of the rest of his kit.

Oh and as an assassin AD is massively more powerful than AP, because it gives you follow up damage if you fail to burst the target.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Well the fact i'm in higher elo means i understand the game pretty well. AP dmg is ALWAYS stronger than AD dmg. If you don't understand that get out and don't even try to discuss, end of story. Yes AD assassins, all of them, are designed to counter mages in lane. That's a fact and no Zed was designed for MID and JUNGLE. Just read it up: Deadly in many roles, including mid lane and jungle. Zed's ganking and pursuit power also makes him an ideal jungler. THat's copypasta from the champion sneak peek. If at all they wanted him to be a jungler, not a toplaner. And again: No idea what i'm saying? Sure, that's why i'm close to diamond right now. How can his kit be mage like without any cc, AOE dmg or lockdown potential? And the last sentence is just utter bullshit. No need to answer that. A leblanc is more powerful than Zed, sorry. So i don't know why an assassin would want to have AD than AP ? So he can basic attack? Nice, no need to basic attack with AP dmg.

deadlychuck1 votes

Zed does have AOE, mages don't require CC to be considered mages. In many cases they are given about enough to make up for their lack of mobility.

Though how do you consider "AP dmg is ALWAYS stronger than AD dmg" This doesn't make any sense for two reasons.

  1. There is no AP and AD damage, only physical, magic, and true.
  2. It's not true in practice. Full physical damage teams aren't uncommon, but full magic damage teams are basically impossible to win with. Mixed damage is easily more powerful than purely physical or magic.

How is the last sentence "utter bullshit"? It's accurate...

A champion's power as a whole has nothing to do with the power of AD vs AP... Consider, if they halfed LB's scaling she'd be weaker than zed, though if they doubled her scaling she'd hands down be undeniably more powerful than zed. This point proves nothing.

There is rarely ever a need to basic attack on a physical damage assassin either... Though AD does offer the extra damage after using your abilities which AP doesn't. That's all there is to it. It's an objective truth about AD.

He was released as a mid laner, i'll concede that point.

Irelia Bot17 votes

marksmen are the bane of this game.

LordGeovanni2 votes

At level 1 i can see marksmen with 30 less health or even more health that many of my tank picks while having initially less cooldown on their spells with higher damage and lower mana costs. Not to mention that with the pre season Essence Reaver change marksmen can build reliable crit (which is supposed to be gated by being a random statistic) while getting max cdr and more mana than they can use while still having the free space to pick up one or more lifesteal items which in addition to being offensive is defensive also being better defense than anything in the game versus anything that isn't raw burst. While having mobility on most everyone from the marksmen class except kog maw and while they still have the advantage of range most of them still have heavier cc than fighters or tanks are allowed to carry on lower cooldowns.

Kuroi863 votes

Wow, you just approached wall-o-text there, you hurt my head.

marksmen can build reliable crit (which is supposed to be gated by being a random statistic)

What does this even mean??? o.0

cdr and more mana than they can use

Kind of niche depending on the champ, though still somewhat of a fair point on the champs that do rely on ER.

pick up one or more lifesteal items

Just because you can doesn't mean it's a good idea. There are other stats you can pick up that will benefit you more.

addition to being offensive is defensive also being better defense than anything in the game versus anything that isn't raw burst

Well, you've got two forms of damage in this game, DPS and Burst (each having their own sub catagory but won't get into that.) Defensive stats are meant to counter burst, burst is meant to counter DPS and DPS is meant to counter defensive stats.

While having mobility on most everyone from the marksmen class except kog maw

Ashe Jhin Jinx Kennen MissFortune Sivir Teemo Varus >.>

most of them still have heavier cc than fighters or tanks are allowed to carry

Fighters sure, most tanks though have 2 or more forms of CC while most marksmen have 1-2.

deadlychuck2 votes

{quoted}

Well, you've got two forms of damage in this game, DPS and Burst (each having their own sub catagory but won't get into that.) Defensive stats are meant to counter burst, burst is meant to counter DPS and DPS is meant to counter defensive stats.

lol wow, i think literally every DPS mage missed the memo about DPS countering defensive stats.

Kuroi862 votes

item 3151 item 3116 item 3070 item 3158 Stack some mana, max your cdr, then kite and keep on reapplying your spells as they come off cooldown. It's harder than AD DPS, but it works.

DutchMatt3 votes

{quoted}

item 3151 item 3116 item 3070 item 3158 Stack some mana, max your cdr, then kite and keep on reapplying your spells as they come off cooldown. It's harder than AD DPS, but it works.

"its harder, but it works." now tell me, why do DPS mages have harder to execute DPS than AD-based DPS champions. Not to insult just want to know why that´s fair considering they fill the same role (doing DPS), even though AD DPS has abilities AND autoattack while most DPS mages have good ability DPS(example:Malzahar, I know, bad example, just bear with me) OR good autoattack DPS(example:Azir ) not both, and while you could say mages have more cc, that´s not entirely true.

as an example, Ashe has quite decent autoattack dps, pretty good W damage on low cooldown, and a permaslow and stun, especialy lategame.

now Azir has about the same: good autoattack dps, but relies on W to do that, nice damage on slow with Q, which is also Reliant on his W, and good cc and zone control on his R.

You could say that Azir has more available, which he does when he has mana, while Ashe can do dps and cc opponents while she has no mana. "but this creates healthy windows of opportunity" t does against Azir, but not against Ashe, who can still dps you down with autoattacks while she is OoM.

All and all I think that magic damage dps should not be harder to execute, and if it should, it should be way more rewarding if done correctly, and not just made up with through burst and a little zone control.

LordGeovanni1 votes

I forgot some of the other marksmen with extra mobility but any one with a speed boost is extra mobility so get the the fuk away. you can cover the same or more ground with speed boosts as with dashes and running in a similar amount of time. all the champions in the game with more than 2 sources of cc in their kit Ekko Bard Braum Gnar Gragas Janna J4 Jhin Leona Lissandra Nami Natilus Poppy Shaco Sejuani Sion Thresh Vel Koz Xin Zhao Zac and Zyra. 7 supports 2 assassins 1 adc 6 tanks 2 fighters 2 mages Most fighters have 1 cc some have 2 cc while most marksmen have 2 at least 2 cc are ranged and most have mobility any increase to movement speed above boots base movement speed and items by that marksmens skills is considered mobility. the only fighter that is comparable to marksmen at most- all points in the game is half marksmen called gnar. wtf is an assassin with high damage assassinations low high damage low cd spells even doing with 3 in kit cc. if slows can be considered cc and by fuk they are cc speed boosts from spells kit is mobility

Kuroi861 votes

I forgot some of the other marksmen with extra mobility but any one with a speed boost is extra mobility so get the the fuk away.

As I said to another post, I intentionally did not count ms boost as most people only think of dashes, blinks and jumps when they think mobility. That is largely a point of opinion there, if you disagree, then okay, you're more than welcome to disagree.

all the champions in the game with more than 2 sources of cc in their kit Ekko Bard Braum Gnar Gragas Janna J4 Jhin Leona Lissandra Nami Natilus Poppy Shaco Sejuani Sion Thresh Vel Koz Xin Zhao Zac and Zyra. 7 supports 2 assassins 1 adc 6 tanks 2 fighters 2 mages

...

while most marksmen have at least 2 cc

Um...

Also you miscounted as other marksmen have 2 forms of CC counting slows. Ashe Caitlyn Graves Jinx Kalista Quinn Teemo Tristana Urgot Varus
All other marksmen have 1 or no CC

wtf is an assassin with high damage assassinations low high damage low cd spells even doing with 3 in kit cc.

I'm guessing you mean Ekko Simply put, Riot realizes that his numbers are still a bit too high but are not freaking out about reducing them. He is meant to be a utility assassin, locking down a target while jumping around and whittling them down a bit at a time. Riot is still eyeing him for more nerfs, they just don't drop them at lightning speed like people want them to.

LordGeovanni1 votes

i didnt count marksmen that had 2 cc at all i said most marsmen have at least 2 cc. what i counted was champions with more than 2 cc in their kit. what im getting at is that for marksmen that have high damge spells and atuo attacks and the intial advantage of range those that have cc dont have their cc suck (which should be the trade off for being safe high damage highly mobile etc) its very significant on top of all the other advantages they have. for a class designed to have a little helper and be at the back of every 5 man team fight dishing out damage. what you just said is the job of tanks and supports having that shit on an assassin with high damage anyway is beyond stupid in terms of balance. the amount of marksmen with no cc is 3 and they still have high damage to go with their mobility

Kuroi861 votes

Most marksmen don't have any significant damage until after they have a few items built, at least without the protection of a tower or a support, they will lose 90% of duels until they have 2 or more items.

CC, range and mobility means little when most lane opponents can take half of your health while you're forced to take minion aggro to try and respond.

LordGeovanni1 votes

against what other marksmen? calling minion aggro when that can be used for or against anyone.

Kuroi861 votes

The bulk of marksmen damage comes from auto attacks. Most fighters, mages, supports and assassins can get away with more damage from abilities without having to throw in auto attacks.

And while minion damage may not be devastating, it CAN make a difference over a number of trades.

LordGeovanni1 votes

the bulk of marksmen damge comes form auto attack and crits but with essence reaver change they now dont have to moderate spells and its become spammable for maksmen with out having to consider cooldown much on their usually low cooldown high damage spells and get max cooldown for building damage (which translates into both more damage and utility) or mana because most marksmen build into an at least 70% crit build and essence reaver restores % of max mana every time the user crits and marksmen usually reach an average of 1.4 attack speed on the lower end of the scale. the only thing most marksmen in the game dont have is flat out mass health late game (not that they dont start out the game with as much or more health as most other classes I've been tanks at level 1-9 with less hp than a marksmen) but they get mass of health by healing damage they take with life steal which also increases with crits (which in team fights goes further than having health armor and Magic resist as it is offensive and defensive at the same time and all of it synergiseing with each other far more than any other class has synergy in their build)

Kuroi861 votes

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_champions'_health

Probably because those marksmen take health runes, it's pretty much mandatory on ADC. Though if you look at the list, they are pretty middle of the road in terms of lvl 1 health.

essence reaver change they now dont have to moderate spells and its become spammable for maksmen with out having to consider cooldown much on their usually low cooldown high damage spells and get max cooldown for building damage

To a point yes, but this can be misleading. For starters, even with ER and 30% crit from other sources you only max out at 30% cdr so you don't hit max cooldown without building an additional source which isn't always ideal for a marksman.

Another thing to consider is that many marksmen have abilities largely dedicated towards acting as steroids or non-damaging abilities. Ashe, Draven, Jinx, Kalista, Kindred, Kog'Maw, Miss Fortune, Sivir, Tristana, Twitch, Vayne. These marksmen all do much better when itemizing for AS and crit (or on hit) instead of worrying about cdr. While cdr can be a nice stat on them, often it's not vital enough to bother with getting.

LordGeovanni1 votes

actually up and until yesterday it went all the way to 40% from just 30% crit from other sources now the displayed crit could have been wrong but i definately got 40% cdr from jsut building essence reaver first and phantom dancer second only today it seems to have been fixed but left out of the patch notes

Kuroi861 votes

Did you have CDR from runes masteries?

Also, I pulled my info from the wiki. ER has been that way since 5.24

Kuroi861 votes

Then barring a separate item granting you CDR or a bug you maxed out at only 35%.

Ralanr13 votes

I personally hate juggernauts, because they give tanks a bad name.

DorkunedAuras5 votes

Juggernauts are a subclass of fighter, not tank

Ralanr7 votes

Yes. Exactly.

LordGeovanni4 votes

Thats ingnorant players and flimsy riot not Juggernauts fault.

Ralanr2 votes

There's only so much I can blame on people before I can say the source is somewhat at fault (though Riot's class update has done a good job).

I just don't like having the same argument over and over and over and over AND OVER!

LordGeovanni5 votes

I have always been of the opinion that sense is not common.

DKM Bismarck1 votes

Right now Juggernauts are too tanky, that's what he's getting at owo

DorkunedAuras2 votes

not really. Unless they get uber fed, they still get killed relatively quickly to an adc. if your ADC can't kill them, then you lost bot and top, and the game was probably gonna be over harder if they had another top laner snowball.

DKM Bismarck2 votes

But adc's kill nearly everyone easily atm.

Kuroi861 votes

No one kills DrMundo easily.

LordGeovanni1 votes

item 3071 item 3165 full crit adcitem 3031

Handin Out Naps11 votes

Well on the boards yes.

Hemulen Magi19 votes

Zed also has a 66% ban rate, only beaten by a clearly broken Ekko in that regard. That's an objective fact. The issues with Zed go way beyond just boards QQ. I think he needs to be balanced similarly to Lee Sin, who seems pretty well balanced right now and still remains extremely popular. I assumed you are referring to Zed because of your display name.

Handin Out Naps9 votes

I was referring to assassins in general being the most hated by the community. Using ban rates as a way to say a certain group of champions is hated by the community isn't a very good example though. First Ekko is being built as a tank, second if you go a little while back Mundo and Tahm were the top bans, so I could say tanks were the most hated champions in the game, if you go a even further back to when Darius, Garen, Skarner, and Morde were banned every game you could say that Juggernauts were the most hated class. I dont think I need to make more examples for why using ban rates is a terrible way to decide which class is the most hated by the community.

Voluug132 votes

Ekko is being built as a tank, but he is has the kit of an ''utility'' assassin. Which means he gets access to things like sustained damage, constant mobility and invulnerability.

There is a big difference between a tank using IBG and Ekko doing it. Tanks usually cant spamm skill after skill, while Ekko does. A mobility skill.

Cosnirak2 votes

Current ban rate alone isn't enough. But when you take away all the new hotness bans (like current Taric) and all the actually just stupid op bans (like tank Ekko) you're pretty consistently left with a ton of assassin bans. It's not necessarily a hard and fast rule, but it is a pretty strong trend.

Zorasama6 votes

I woundn't say Lee Sin is currently balanced. You said : "When people maining these champions can reliably thrive in their lane, then they reliably become low-counterplay, snowballing, steamrollers that the entire opposing team has to focus all of their efforts on." He's still exactly that. When he's fed he can still snowball like crazy, plus when he's behind he can still be useful with his utility, unlike Zed.

EDIT : Just realized this is kinda midleading, imo Zed is also not balanced, maybe even more than Lee. I just trying to point out that Lee is also not balanced in some other way.

Zenthon Prime9 votes

I hate Lee Sin, but even i can admit that Lee can't reliably thrive right now. He can't abuse the broken tank items, he doesn't provide enough utility to make up for it and he can't carry as hard as other carry junglers. The only time he's good is when a very skilled Lee is using him, and quite bluntly anyone that skilled on a single champion will do just as well on whatever else they picked.

Face it. Lee is more balanced now than he ever has been.

Zorasama6 votes

Yes he's more balanced than he ever has been, he used to be a lot worse I agree but still, I wouldn't say he's currently balanced. A very skilled Lee will not do just as well on whatever else they picked. Champion pool in this game is never balanced. A very skilled overloaded kit champ will always does better than a very skilled simple kit champ. That's why everyone always pick them as long as they're not completely gutted.

Snowplosion8 votes

http://www.lolking.net/charts?region=all&type=bans&range=monthly&map=sr&queue=1x1&league=ranked

Zed at what ban rate? Is that just for Na or something? It's high, but come don't over exaggerate!

AMYS GRAVE6 votes

https://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.banRate&order=descend

champion.gg uses plat+ rating ranked games for all regions for that patch.

Yours is using data which includes differing balance states because the game has been patched twice in the last month and includes low elo games.

Snowplosion2 votes

Got it. Thanks.

YumScrumptious9610 votes

Do I taste some aged salt? Dude Kassadin isn't even a hyper mobile assassin anymore, he's more of a mage fighter with some dashes. Almost all assassins have good early and mid game power, yet Kass has literally no early game power, he only truly thrives in the late game when he was some burst.

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