It is a common thing to hear about people claiming Lee Sin is OP. It is almost equally common to see someone rushing to defend Lee Sin and say that he is not Overpowered at all. So I decided to take a poll, and find out what the community really thinks. So here it is:
TyRamos8 votesLee Sin is like Morgana, high reward, little risk, the fact he can jump in disrupt and do damage, while being tanky and then just jump out with no consequence is what makes him over bearing.
warpenguin5557 votesNope
Laughing Fish3 votesSo why do you think so many people call him OP?
redniwediS10 votesHis kit is very oppressive. It leaves a lot of room through base scaling and utility for Lee Sin to make fancy plays, but while he is making those plays his opponent's ability to counter drops dramatically. No one likes feeling helpless to stop their opponents, and that is exactly what Lee Sin is able to do. It's a fairly common theme among all champions people call OP.
Laughing Fish2 votesA very good point. So you are saying that even though Lee Sin is not overpowered, he feels overpowered.
redniwediS7 votesI don't play him myself, so I can't actually say if he is overpowered or not, but boy does he feel like it.
Laughing Fish4 votesIt is hard to tell the difference between oppressive and OP sometimes. There are so many variables at work, that not even raw win ratio is really enough.
Hypochondria92 votesLee Sin is good in every situation, he fits into every team comp, and can go against any team comp. He is a jack of all trades, and in a game with over 100 playable champions there shouldn't be any who is good at everything.
warpenguin5553 votes[{quoted}](name=Laughing Fish,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aX2K8hvz,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2014-12-17T18:55:07.172+0000)
So why do you think so many people call him OP?
Cuz they're butt hurt about losing to him
Laughing Fish2 votesBut why would they claim Lee Sin is OP as opposed to, say, Rengar. Both are junglars with a decently high win ratio, so why does Lee Sin get all the heat?
TyRamos13 votes[{quoted}](name=Laughing Fish,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aX2K8hvz,comment-id=0000000000010000,timestamp=2014-12-17T19:05:22.762+0000)
But why would they claim Lee Sin is OP as opposed to, say, Rengar. Both are junglars with a decently high win ratio, so why does Lee Sin get all the heat?
Because Rengar is incredibly squishy, and easy to pin down since he either has to ult to escape or use his ebola strike, which only hits one person. He actually has some risk when all ining, Meanwhile Lee sin has a very large mistake area, where you have to REALLY screw up to get pinned down, or to die.
Laughing Fish5 votesSo you are saying that the reason is Lee Sin's kit is broken, and that makes him OP as players can abuse this?
TyRamos8 votes[{quoted}](name=Laughing Fish,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aX2K8hvz,comment-id=000000000001000000010000,timestamp=2014-12-17T19:12:32.724+0000)
So you are saying that the reason is Lee Sin's kit is broken, and that makes him OP as players can abuse this?
Lee Sin is very hard to balance due to the fact he has 7 abilities, which unlike most champs eg Elise, Jayce, Nid, aren't gated by a form swapping ult. He doesn't really have an exploitable weakness. He has high damage, utility, tankiness, mobility and sustain. Supposedly he falls off late game, but I've never seen it.
Laughing Fish1 votesSo you think Riot needs to add some form of weakness to him, in order to balance him out?
MattAkhavan2 voteshis winrate and his late game are both terrible.
Laughing Fish1 votesWould you say he is in a good place than?
MattAkhavan2 voteshe's not perfectly balanced but he's not over the top. there is something called perfect imbalance that exists in league of legends which means that some champions have an innate strength that makes the champion OP, but there is a counter for him. This is how the meta game shifts because one day Champion A is OP but champion B counters him. CHampion B becomes popular in the meta and now Champion C is picked to go up against champion B. This works the same for in game strategy as well. I think lee sin is in the curve of perfect imbalance so that he's not overwhelming but he's also not so bad that he's not popular.
I compare lee sin to trinity force, it has everything, is good for anything if you use it right, but it's not the BEST. it's a jack of all trades but a master of none.
Brenticus121 votesHis winrate is bad because they take into account low Elo players who aren't really the most mechanically brilliant. Lee Sin still requires some mechanical skills but the skill floor is low enough that anyone who's half decent can pick him up and start doing InSecs after a few matches.
Also, his late game isn't terrible. Stop saying it is. He falls off from his very powerful early game to a normal late game which is still devestating. His flexible kit with his base stats is what makes him OP. This isn't like Renekton who has an overbearing early game but a subpar late game. Renekton has one of the least teamfight presences but Lee is pretty much an assassin bruiser who can kick the enemy ADC from their backline into the midst of our team while doing alot of damage with his R and also escaping afterwards because most players build him tanky enough to not blow up.
MattAkhavan2 voteshis win-rate is bellow 45% in diamond/master/challenger. Not to mention he is negative in competitive play too. i am not exactly sure the stats but i remember before IEM he was sub 50 at least.
His late him is pretty bad. Bad enough to the fact that everyone who plays lee sin or understands how game flow changes in different stages in the game will likely tell you that lee sin has a bad late game. you become useless unless you build full damage and even at that point you aren't doing as much as other champions.
It's funny that the guy who has a moved named after him for playing a champion doesn't play him that often.
FrostRevenant4 votesLee Sin is very hard to balance due to the fact he has 7 abilities, which unlike most champs eg Elise, Jayce, Nid, aren't gated by a form swapping ult. He doesn't really have an exploitable weakness. He has high damage, utility, tankiness, mobility and sustain. Supposedly he falls off late game, but I've never seen it.
This. overall even if you do well against him, a good lee makes your day bad, hes got a very strong early game, great ganks and high mobility. For example its easy to be frustrating that he has 0 issues gap closing and dodging your skillshots and just when youre about to kill him he kicks you away and dashes to an ally for cover. He leaves you as a player feeling in the early to mid game that you dont really have alot of ways to deal with him. Lee being a jack of all trades further pushes that mentality so its easy for players to feel overwhelmed dealing with lee in general, hence his perception that hes simply too strong.
As far as balance goes i think he might just a bit on the OP side but not much, i believe its mostly perception.
Joe Dredd1 votesLee Sin's kit does have a lot of things. And honestly I can't tell you the exact reasons why his kit isn't OP, but it isn't. Even though Lee Sin has so much stuff in his kit he really isn't that hard to deal with, as compared to others like Fizz.
Laughing Fish1 votesa jack of all trades is a master of none?
ImHerVoice2 votesno thats jarvan. Get your "jack of all trades" comment out of here.
Laughing Fish1 votesJarven is certainly a versatile one.
Jarvin81 votesSometimes, though, he can create bad synergy with his team, because of his ult. Yes, it does lock down carries, but bruisers can't get there to shut the adc down
ImHerVoice1 votesthats just your j4 being garbage. Not the champ. Believe me.. a good j4 ults where it blocks the enemy team from progressing and zones out the enemy adc and zones in someone who then gets deleted or forced out of the fight after getting focused to death.
If I ever gave enough fucks to record games I could show some well placed ults in jungle paths that can completely win teamfights simply because the enemy team has to burn flash just to deal with your ult. Then you renegage later with your ult up again and they're dead because you have flash and they don't.
Hayaishi6 votesLee Sin is only god if he's ahead, which needs some game knowledge to pull it out, that is the real secret in playing him.
If you listen to these boards you will end up believing Lee Sin is faceroll free elo, unstoppable etc.
Laughing Fish1 votesI see. So you think he is just a snowballer who needs to be shut down early?
Hayaishi2 votes[{quoted}](name=Laughing Fish,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aX2K8hvz,comment-id=00050000,timestamp=2014-12-17T19:25:57.353+0000)
I see. So you think he is just a snowballer who needs to be shut down early?
Yes pretty much.
But he still has some usefulness due to his utility, pulling Insec etc, but that requires you to play differently and apply game knowledge, it's not his mechanics that make him hard.
However it's no lie that his kit is stupid, but he's not overpowered, maybe he once was, but not now, i'm certain of it.
Laughing Fish1 votesSo you just think he is broken, but not overpowered. How do you think riot could fix him?
Hayaishi2 votes[{quoted}](name=Laughing Fish,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aX2K8hvz,comment-id=0005000000000000,timestamp=2014-12-17T19:32:24.223+0000)
So you just think he is broken, but not overpowered. How do you think riot could fix him?
probably by giving him a more defined identity. I'm not good a designing kits, but they could clean up his abilities a little bit.
Riot released a kit rework for him a couple of months back which shifted him towards a more gank-snowballer with some late game power for teamfights.
That looked like a fine rework for me but was turned down due to the community/pros not liking it.
One of the stuff i liked is that they nerfed his ultimate's single target damage by alot and made it so that the damage increased depending on how much enemies he hit with the kick.
Laughing Fish2 votesSo you are saying he needs kind of a 
style update, one that gives him a clearly defined role, and lowers his ability to fight outside that role?
Hayaishi1 votes[{quoted}](name=Laughing Fish,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aX2K8hvz,comment-id=000500000000000000000000,timestamp=2014-12-17T19:42:18.829+0000)
So you are saying he needs kind of a
Yeah pretty much. Then again i believe that right now, despite how broken his kit is he can be left alone for awhile.
Laughing Fish1 votesSo who do you think needs a rework before him than?
Hayaishi2 votes[{quoted}](name=Laughing Fish,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aX2K8hvz,comment-id=00050000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2014-12-17T19:52:28.487+0000)
So who do you think needs a rework before him than?
Warwick, Poppy, Darius, Taric, Shen, Yorick.
You know those champions that we really never see, or those that Riot keep weak because they're toxic.
Budupops3 votes"which needs some game knowledge to pull it out" meanwhile im bronze 5 cant warop hop cant ult properl 3.0kda 60% win rate yeah hes op
Remlap12236 votesI think in terms of a kit concept, it's perfectly balanced. Unfortunately, he's got the CertainlyT balance problem of sticking too much shit in his kit. My ideas are:
Q)
JustMyBassCannon2 votesI like most of those changes.
I usually don't talk about Lee Sin, just because 80% of the board threads talking about him aren't actually discussing changes that trade off strengths and shave off excess power like this. They just whine about gutting everything he has, because he won that one time. You seem to have taken a good look at Lee Sin's design and problems, and have a relative idea of how to shift power without completely murdering the champ or ruining their playstyle.
Remlap12231 votesI think Lee Sin is oppressive, but his kit is solid. Cuz I'm on East Coast ping and not a huge fan of assassin type champs I don't really make the LCS big plays on him, but I enjoy an occasional Lee Sin game. But yes, his mobility is a huge issue, and I like the idea of being able to jump around and literally kick champ's asses. However, being that mobile means no slows and a damage tradeoff. I like the idea of Lee Sin being a scary early game ganker that is utility late game, but ATM, he's just too safe. I don't think he needs to be gutted, unlike some other champions in this game.
*cough, 
, cough.
JustMyBassCannon1 votesWell, Lee will probably always have a relatively high degree of safety when played correctly.
As for Fizz, if he needs a nerf, it's to his late-game E CD. 8 seconds is a pretty low base for that.
Mindworm Jim1 votesIf I was to make one change and one change only I've always felt that making Tempest scale off of AP instead of AD (or just slash the scaling completely) would make things a little more interesting. All the fancy mobility plays and clutch kicks are fine, but give him sub-par jungle/wave-clear so you have a distinct trade-off for using him.
Troy2426215 votesHe has insane mobility, negligible energy costs essentially removing all ability constraints aside from cooldowns, a passive restoring energy and giving him an AS steroid (Synergizing with high AD values), massive AD scaling, % missing health damage, and very large base damage values. He can build tanky and still deal respectable damage, and scales well with relatively small sums of AD due to said ratios. He has high mobility, and good survivability. So it's established, his raw effectiveness in combat is very high.
But wait, there's more! He has a huge quantity of utility. Revealing stealth, one of the largest displacements in the game, a shield, a movespeed slow, the ability to check bushes via Q, lifesteal/spellvamp innately increasing survivability, the sheer mobility allows insane playmaking with wardjump, and it causes the CC/damage/utility/mobility to synergize entirely too well.
But it doesn't stop there. His early game is insane. One of the best. His ganks are just absurd because he packs CC lockdown with damage. On top of this, it's hard to win 2v2s because of it should he be counterganked. This, plus the fact he is strong early means he's impossible to counterpick, making him a safe pick all of the time.
The fact he has such an oppressive early game means he should fall off. Basic design says that, power curves that are intense early, are typically mild later on, correct? Hahahah, of course it i-WRONG. Lee Sin is strong earlygame and can get himself fed pretty consistently. He scales well with the gold, due to his scaling and playmaking design, meaning even his power curve synergizes with his kit, and is NEVER actually weak.
End point, usually with EVERY SINGLE champion, I can point to something and say, "That's bad. It's an exploitable weakness that can be used against him/her" but with Lee Sin, he just isn't built with any weaknesses, and as much as Lee Sin players hate to admit it, he doesn't really fall off.
TL;DR: He's just oppressive and is never a bad pick. Even if he does poorly, he's still useful. He's never actually weak.
Laughing Fish2 votesSo you would certainly say he is overpowered. What do you think could be done to repair balance?
TyRamos4 votes[{quoted}](name=Laughing Fish,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aX2K8hvz,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2014-12-17T19:17:18.692+0000)
So you would certainly say he is overpowered. What do you think could be done to repair balance?
I believe he needs some sort of kit rework, which Riot was planning, until every Lee Sin main went to reddit and made a witchhunt out of it.
Short term, they could make him closer to Shen energy wise. Actually have to manage it.
Silmaril5 votesI don't think he's overpowered except in very high elo/professional play, most players simply don't have the mechanics to make him work properly, so he's more or less balanced below diamond/maybe plat, ie, the vast majority of players.
That said I'll still lobby for LS nerfs for several reasons.
-I'm sick of seeing him in competitive. Flashy plays are more impressive when you don't have a kit designed to make one every 5 seconds.
-I'm sick of seeing him in my games. I don't consider him OP, but due to the trickle down effect, you still see him almost every f-ing game. I just want some variety.
-His ult is one of the most retarded skills in the game. Hurr durr, AOE knockup/super knockback with higher base damage than Veigar ult, and an excessively low CD. It doesn't necessarily push him over the top, but it's definitely one of the more frustrating parts of his kit.
BeatzBoyFTW4 votesThat last option got me thinking.... O.o
Spacesuit Spiff2 votesI'll usually defend him in the more hysterical threads that claim he's completely ruining the jungle (there was even one that acted like his Q was a powerful poke ability when it won't even set people on fire this season), but he is pretty strong. I don't really think he's a problem, since I've only seen him once or twice in the last couple months (plat elo), but he could use a weakness of some sort. Maybe give him the Eve treatment: he has to choose between building to do damage and being tanky.
HeadHonchkrow2 votesNot OP per se, but he is a jack-of-all-trades, master of ALL.
Sammystorm2 votesI don't really have a problem with him. Other tanks can initiate and tank much better then he can. Other bruisers can deal more damage then him. The only reason you see him played so much is for a jungler he is very safe. In no scenario can you truely hard counter but on the reverse their is only a handful that he truely counters. He is decent at most things and not clearly bad at anything which should be the direction of change if riot decides he is a problem.
