Problem Champions and Why They Are Still a Problem

Rengar There is no mystery why Rengar is a problem champion, so we're starting here. As Rengar, the measure of his usefulness and your skill as him is how quickly you can 1-Shot someone with one rotation, mostly during one leap from his ultimate. His rework not only did not change this, but it almost reinforced it. Riot made it to where his first basic attack out of his ultimate was a modified critical strike! Ouch! They reworked his Q so that it wasn't an enhanced basic attack, but instead a two part ability, SLIGHTLY slowing his burst, but only slightly. Basically, Riot did not remove the one issue that Rengar had from his kit during his rework, which was his instakill nature while also for some reason giving him instant defensive tools with his W for some reason which would make him even harder to play against and negate the counterplay added to his ultimate with the increased "!" range. So, they nerfed him and he is where he is today. Unfortunate indeed.

Azir Azir is a problem character for being far too of a generalist which one most likely won't realize due to his unique play style. While his play style is unique, in the end his kit offers almost everything a Mage/Marksman-type character would want and more. He has sustained damage, great range, great mobility, great initiation or disengage depending on the situation, respectable crowd control in general, and enough burst damage to respect his range even if you are only entering it for a second. He even has a neat little shield tapped onto his dash in case he dashes into someone, giving him some nice little bit of extra durability. Plus, he can wave clear extremely well, even wave clearing well when a Super Minion is around due to their vulnerability against magic damage, sustained magic damage especially. When you combine all this together, Azir just becomes a must pick once learned, essentially becoming the god of Middle Lane once mastered. Unfortunately, this lead to a limited competitive pool when he was strong, leading to Riot nerfing him to the ground to the state that he is in now. In the upcoming rework for him, I would severely hope Riot removes the Shuriman Shuffle or make his entire kit based around it, which would mean nerfing his Sand Soldier theme to the ground or making them have a different use besides damage.

LeBlanc When LeBlanc was in the state she was in before her rework, while she wasn't pushing the limits of competitive play or even really performing stupidly well in pubs, she was extremely frustrating to play against for those who weren't very good at the game and was frustrating for everyone when she was strong. Her main weakness before her rework was her extreme lack of waveclear without using her ultimate or being something beyond what one would call fed (being able to clear a wave with a single W). The reason for the frustration was because she felt like an Assassin who never really endangered herself when going for a kill. Due to her W allowing her to instantly teleport back to it, she felt like a character that never really felt at risk. This was further amplified by her old ultimate allowing her to have some incredibly extreme mobility by copying her W. This all was especially true when her Q silenced her target when triggered, but that was removed. After her rework, LeBlanc seemed tame at first until player's began to discover new ways to play her. Gunblade LeBlanc dominated for a short while and showcased what she was capable of. This lead to an increased pick rate and caused many players to suddenly notice how long the tether range of her E, which became a new point of frustration. When you combine this with Riot only kind of reinforcing her theme of deceiver (let's be honest, LeBlanc's clones only fool you when she is stupidly fed and not shooting at it endangers your life due to the risk involved... or when you aren't paying attention or are just a little hyper at the time), LeBlanc was put again on the chopping block and left to rust where she is now.

Aatrox Aatrox is a case of being unfun on release. When he was released, the data quickly showed what kind of champion Riot had released on the rift. When ahead, Aatrox absolutely dominated the playing field and felt like this brick wall with sawblades attached to it that also had a jetpack attached to it. When behind, he was paper and you were a gallon of water being poured on it. Please note that this was before a ton of the current Grievous Wounds items were put into the game, meaning the counter for Aatrox was the old Executioner's Calling which was a piss poor item that cost 1600 gold (if I recall), built into nothing, and provided around 25 Attack Damage and only proc'd on basic attacks. It might have also provided some crit chance, but it was so bad at the time you can't blame me for not remembering. Basically, Aatrox had to be nerfed because he was beyond being a "feast or famine" champion. He was more like a "apocalyptic god or wet noodle" champion, which is not good for the health of the game. The main issue here was the fact that Aatrox had many defensive mechanics in his kit that didn't scale with his defenses at all, meaning building defenses only really benefited him when it helped his healing, like Spirit Visage, or absolutely shut down an enemy character, like a Thornmail against a Master Yi. This lead to an almost all-AD champion that was invincible when ahead. Riot quickly nerfed him and left his kit to rot to say the least. They have recently reworked him, but this hasn't really made him a good character again. It is more like a band-aid fix that only slightly reduces the extremes he can achieve, although to be honest it really only slightly helped Aatrox when behind but really hurt him when he is ahead, forcing him to buy defenses to get really good healing.

Yasuo For Yasuo, his issue isn't really being too powerful or anything like that (although he has multiple times over his lifetime). It's more the fact that no one likes playing in the same game as him when he is on the enemy team. This is mainly due to the the three deadly sins that people hate about Yasuo: his Passive, his W, and his E. His Q and R are, in fact, incredibly well designed abilities in fact. They make for an interesting character with unique synergy that rewards team building and teamwork. However, the rest of his kit is what makes everyone really hate him. Let's start off with his Passive. First of all, no one enjoys his double critical hit chance passive being in the game. It leads to the enemy Yasuo having huge spikes in power due to the large jumps in the amount of critical strike chance he has, while also making it seem like Yasuo only needs two items to become a ginormous damage threat. Whether this is true or not is not the discussion. People simply hate the fact that he gets free stats, even if it comes at a slight cost of reduced critical strike damage. Then, there is the second part of his Passive (which him having two parts of his passive is another point of frustration since it makes it feel like he has two passives that aren't connected in any way that would warrant him having two passives). The nature of his Wind Shield, where it essentially just gives him extra health against burst, makes Burst Mage and Assassin mains especially feel useless when fighting against him due to the fact that it makes it feel like you can't just burst him with your normal combos. You have to alert him of your presence by popping the shield and then a couple seconds later pull off your combo, which can give him enough time to use this next ability that is also a point of frustration. Wind Wall is an ability that even I disagree with existing. It's not a fun ability to play against and feels boring to use, although sometimes satisfying (or at least relieving) when you block a huge ability like an ultimate. However, that's the core of the issue to me. Satisfaction in League commonly comes from one player using one resource to either ignore, dodge, or overcome a resource used by another ability. It's a trade that one player commonly wins while another loses. However, with Yasuo, it usually doesn't feel like an even trade... by a long shot. Yasuo can block ultimates with his Wind Wall and can do so almost instantly without any tricky plays involved. If he presses W and can at least know the direction you are attacking from, there is a high chance your ultimate will be destroyed if it can be by Yasuo's W and you launch it. This feels cheap since it completely destroys the fantasy of playing certain champions that use projectile ultimates. If you are an Ashe main, you know the pain of throwing out this epic, cross-map ultimate that you predicted perfectly to hit the Yasuo running from your teammate, and it would have hit him if he hadn't used Wind Wall to completely negate it because it just so happened that he spot it coming at him at the last second. Yasuo's Wind Wall is a parasitic ability, where it often feels like the Yasuo players just leeches to fun out of the enemy team to gain it for himself. To end off this incredibly long section, we have Yasuo's dash. Manaless champions generally have a higher chance of being annoying, especially when you give them incredibly high mobility. Yasuo is no exception. Not only is this a low cool down, manaless dash, but it also often feels like Yasuo is turning your minions against you. Most of the time when you are running from Yasuo and have to constantly be watching him to dodge a Q, you hope to the Riot gods that a friendly minion wave isn't coming down the lane you are running down, because then he gets free targets to dash to and most likely kill you. This is only further amplified by the fact that dashing also causes Yasuo to charge his passive shield, another frustrating part of his kit, faster. This all comes together to make an incredibly frustrating ability. With Yasuo's mini-rework incoming (like Azir), I would really recommend Riot entirely rework how Yasuo's Wind Wall works at the very least. It's a fun leeching ability, and doesn't feel good to use or play against.

Gangplank Let me start this section off by saying Gangplank is probably the smallest problem character on this list and this section mainly has to do with his impact on higher level play and not lower level play. Anyways, Gangplank is a character who is perfect example of having too much of his power put into one part of his kit, being his barrels and a little bit his R. When I saw that Gangplank's barrels could ignore armor, could critical strike, dealt bonus damage to champions, and also applied the bonus damage of his Q if they were killed by a Q (and also gave the bonus gold if it kills units) on top of applying a major slow, I knew that this ability would hurt and hurt it does. Everyone has felt the pain of a Gangplank blasting you with a barrel for sometimes over 1000 damage, especially if you are a squishier champion. This commonly spells instant death for you, especially if his instant, global R that slows enemies hit is off cool down which can be upgraded if he farms appropriately. Gangplank is an example of a character that forces the enemy to learn to be a master of his respective mini-game as well to play against him. If you can't out-barrel a Gangplank, there is a decent chance he will be popping your health bar if he has mastered the art of the barrel. This is only further reinforced that his oranges are the most iconic get out of jail free card in the game, basically telling you, "Now where were we in this game of barrel chess?" When you combine this with the weird Q interactions he also has, Gangplank turns into a real monster at higher level play that has forced him to be nerfed relentlessly over what seemed like an entire season. Gangplank needs his power spread into different parts of his kit besides his barrels without making his barrels useless (and basically going back to pre-rework Gangplank... gross) if he is to be less of an issue.

Ryze Riot just doesn't get it do they? Ryze. Cannot. Have. A. Point. And. Click. Root. If he is to have a point and click root, he can't be a Burst or DPS Mage. He has to be a Control Mage that focuses on doing such and not doing too much damage. What does this mean? YES! RYZE WILL LIKELY GET AT LEAST A TINY REWORK IN THE FUTURE! His root is a real issue that hasn't been addressed in all of his reworks and Riot seems to think it is why many people like Ryze. Sure, it's a part of him that his mains would probably miss if it was removed. However, I don't think the truly dedicated Ryze players would quit the champion if it was removed or at least made not point and click. To summarize, Ryze needs his point and click root given counterplay and then changed so that hopefully new Ryze players don't suffer so much when playing him.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: These are champions that do have issues and have had them since release or at least for a decent amount of time or have been a large issue on several occasions during their life cycle for a short time, but aren't extreme enough to where entire sections of their kit are huge issues that force them to be nerfed/gutted when strong:

Allow me to end this by saying those who main these champions deserve better and those are forced to play against them also do, especially those who played against them when they were an issue. I would also like to say that I'm not saying Riot cannot make such mistakes ever again or that they are a terrible company for doing so. What I am stating here clearly is why these champions seem to be issues, at least in my eyes, and even offering a way to solve them for a few who are quite obvious. I feel terrible for the mains of those who play these champions who have to deal with the treatment of their poor champions, but I hope they understand where all of this is coming from. Your champions are problems or have been in the past, and are currently in the position they are in due to those problems. What we need to do is suggest how Riot can solve the issues these champions have in a constructive way and hope they are smart enough to listen to such feedback. Some feedback they probably shouldn't listen to, but there a few out there already most likely that they definitely should look at and/or listen to. I hope all of these champions are fixed in the near future so that their mains and those who play against them can have a wonderful time playing this game.