Pretty much all mages feel like either burst mages or DPS mages

note: this is not a buff mages thread, some need buffs and some need nerfs

Outside of competitive, a lot of (with a few outliers like maybe orianna) mages are played purely because of their damage in an all in, which is either DPS or burst

? His poke is secondary, he's meta because he's the only poke AP with a EWQ burst combo comparable to Jayce or lethality Varus.

? QE burst and R DPS. Her CC and wall is nice but not the main reason she's played. Just buy a ton of damage items and one-shot the ADC

Okay he's partly played for his tower taking ability but not for his poke. He deals huge AOE DPS in an engage, and is a generally good teamfighter

is just a burst mage with no identity anymore, he should be played for his stun, ult zoning, and maybe his shield in tandem with his good damage but all he does these days is walk up to the carry and EWQR

LuX SuppOrt iS pLAYEd fOR heR shIElD

Probably one of the only champions to be played because of her ult being game changing CC, and having a good shield

Actually surprisingly has avoided this as well because he's focused on early game roams rather than teamfights. Also is among the few to have point and click CC

And this would be Okay in a vacuum, but that leaves champions who have this stuff as their main shtick being relatively useless

( maybe) Why play these champions when you can play another champion that takes 1 second longer to shred a tank, but in exchange has better CC, (unless you need ryze point and click very badly) burst, utility, and more

cool your bigger numbers overkilled the ADC by 1000 damage, but meanwhile the enemy mage overkilled the ADC by 100 and is continuing to contribute with good poke, lower ult reliance, CC, zoning, and utility

Sometimes a champion has such a good secondary niche that they're meta are mainly damage oriented like above but they have stuff like mobility, CC for picks, play making ability, etc that lets them compete with other mages

pay for their utility with decreased damage more than the meta mages and in turn manage to stay out of meta

This is probably because of LoL slowly becoming a highly team fight and engage oriented game, with sustain and poke taking the back seat (rip poke>engage>sustain>poke triangle) to keep things exciting but I'd really prefer if playing less damage focused mage was an in between of a supportive role and carry role rather than just being second fiddle backup to the ADC when they can't go in safely compared to a longer range mage

Edit: someone can probably steal my content and repost this because I made the mistake of posting in a low-traffic hour (which means it has less upvotes per hour and won't make it to front page)