The Biggest Problem With League of Legends.

There's an age old dilemma in game design whether to balance towards the top tier players or the casual majority. Frankly, I think League of Legends should be balanced towards the top tier players. After all, why should a champion like Garen receive nerfs in game that is played in tournaments for millions of dollars in prize money, just because Bronze players often lose to him?

This is a question that sadly a lot of players like to avoid because they themselves are victims of their own lack of skill. The biggest problem with League of Legends is that people are bad the game, and they blame their lack of skill on the game itself. Being bad at the game is perfectly fine and is actually expected. However, when you start blaming the game because you don't even know the basics of your own role, you turn the community into a perpetual war of players complaining about champions that aren't actually strong to begin with, but can take advantage of your lack of ability and inexperience.

The end result are these champions being gutted for long periods of time due to a vast majority of low tier players complaining about them. Despite them getting nerfed, newer players still complain completely unaware of how unbelievably bad they are in high tier play. Obviously there are champions that destroy in every single elo (including pro play), and they do need addressing, but most of the things I hear players complain about can simply to boiled down to "I'm just bad at the game". I'll go over some of the most prevalent complaints.

1. Zed is too strong! It's probably the #1 thing you hear on the boards. When players talk about Zed, they often ignore the fact that almost everyone in high elo agrees that Zed is not even a champion. Even players who can pilot Zed at such an extreme level of skill, such as LL Stylish, agree that Zed was in such a terrible state, which is why he received many needed buffs in 9.4. But even before the buffs, players were still saying Zed was overpowered, claiming that his damage was too high, and laning against him beyond level 6 would've spelled instant death for you. Well, of course he would! So either all high elo players are morons who don't realize that they should all be maining Zed to climb, or perhaps they know something that you don't... which are you more inclined to believe? So, what do high elo players know about Zed that you don't? Well, for starters, whenever you see them lane against Zed, they always take Exhaust (except for the really cheeky ones who are confident enough to dodge his very slow skillshots). If you Exhaust a Zed during his ultimate, even if you miraculously stood in front of 3 shurikens and face tanked his E and auto, you would still live with a fifth of your HP. That's because Exhaust cuts damage by 40% for a couple seconds, which, not surprisingly, is how long Zed has to execute his combo before his ultimate damage pops. But even if you're not satisfied with just that, there are more options for you. Taking Seeker's Armguard will cut damage even further, and Stopwatch will completely mitigate his full combo altogether. But wait! Taking Exhaust, Seeker's Armguard, and Stopwatch all for one champion?! That's completely insane and broken! But it isn't really, because all Zed really is, is a single target burst assassin. Once you take that away from him, he's almost completely irrelevant. What you have, playing as a mage, Zed doesn't have: long range, AoE abilities that are much more useful in a teamfight than a Zed who can't do an ounce of damage because you built correctly.

This goes for all champions, really. If a champion is strong in low elo but terrible in high elo (Zed, Yasuo, Tryndamere, etc.), instead of complaining about them, find out what high elo players know that you don't, and you might actually learn something. Or you know, down-vote this post and keep losing to these champions because you're convinced that there's no conceivable counterplay to them.

2. If CC is their only counter, they're overpowered. (Master Yi, Tryndamere, Jax) It's true that if CC is their only counterplay, they're overpowered. The good news is, that's not the only counterplay these champions have, there are DOZENS of things you can do to stop them from becoming a problem. The first thing you need to know is that while they're 1v2ing potential is very high, their team fighting is very poor. So if you take that skirmishing potential away from them, they end up being very bad champions. How do you do that? BUY WARDS. Everyone knows that these things are important, but no one likes using them. These champions are extremely overpowered in low elo because low elo players never use wards. When vision control is not set up, it's very easy for you and possibly one of your teammates to get caught out and beaten to death by their auto attacks. Secondly, these champions all have massive power spikes through their ultimates. Tryndamere has a 5 second enduring effect, Master Yi has a 7 second attack and movement speed buff, and Jax has an 8 second resistances buff. Buying Stopwatch, or some form of kiting item like Blade of the Ruined King or Randuin's Omen. Of course, if you had warded like before, it wouldn't even matter, but let's say you mess up, you still have these items to help you get out of jail free. Once their ultimates run out they go from being the best champions in the game, to the worst.

And that's the end of the post, the game itself is in a fairly balanced state and the community would be better off if they just practiced more and stopped villainizing champions that are weak, which are then nerfed by Riot for the sake of gold players (and below), completely annihilating any chance of them ever being playable in high levels of play. I hope that with the fairly recent and upcoming Zed and Tryndamere buffs, the community will rather see it as an opportunity to learn more about how the game works.

disclaimer: most of this post is plagiarized