Understanding Skirmishers for 2017

#Purpose of this thread I feel like Skirmishers are poorly understood, both by the player-base and RIOT. I've played over 6 thousand ranked games from season 2 till now with just skirmishers, so I'd like to share my expertise on how they are differentiated from each other, what makes them tick, and how to compare, make, or maintain a skirmisher.

#What makes Skirmishers different Skirmishers are differentiated from the other melee classes by their reliance on game-changing situational defenses. These defenses offer windows of power and weakness. If the power is used correctly and the weakness is managed properly, skirmishers can devastate enemy teams while denying attempts to retaliate.

Skirmisher effectiveness is tied to both the ability of the player to leverage their strengths and enemy to expose their weaknesses-- but because these strengths and weaknesses typically stand so starkly together, skirmishers tend to feel very volatile when they are balanced properly. A skirmisher might perform poorly in one fight, but extremely well in another, so predicting how influential they will be in any given fight is often extremely difficult. This volatility is the "special spice" that makes skirmishers feel so heart pounding and intense to play as and against.

Contrast this with permanent defenses, like resistances or health, which have no downtime, cannot really be used improperly, thus provide no volatility. Ultimately the influence of some amount of health or resistances is very predictable. The "predictable but inevitable" pattern infuses a radically different feeling than the "unpredictable but devastating" pattern infused by situational defenses. Generally, the first pattern belongs to juggernauts and the second belongs to skirmishers.

Situational defense falls into three categories, with pros / cons (in that order) from the perspective of the skirmisher:

#Mobility (boosts, crowd control reduction or removal, dashes, blinks, etc)

• improved target selection makes it easier to keep a snowball going
• are ineffective against very wide persistent area of effect or targeted abilities and auto attacks (the enemy backline)

#Durability (shields, heals, invulnerability, bonus resistances, etc)

• makes it easier to stop an enemy snowball
• use is always predictable

#Threat (enormous target agnostic damage output, punishing cc, victory effects like fiora aoe heal, etc)

• relatively unmitigateable effects make it easier to start a snowball
• ineffective against targets that can avoid, control, withstand or evade your threat envelope

Skirmishers can be compared to eachother according to their specialization in these areas. The following table is normalized such that the total points for a given champion is 9.

#Skirmishers |Name |Mobility |Durability|Threat | |- |Ekko |3 |4 |2 | |Fiora |3 |2 |4 | |Jax |3 |4 |2 | |Master Yi |5 |1 |3 | |Riven |4 |2 |3 | |Tryndamere |3 |4 |2 | |Yasuo |3 |3 |3

#Totals |Mobility |Durability |Threat | |- |24 |20 |19

We can group skirmishers according to how they specialize:

#Archetypes (1 4 4) Achilles (1 3 5) Extremist (3 3 3) Generalist (2 2 5) Paragon (2 3 4) Specialist

#Archetype populations |Name |Population | |- |Achilles |0 | |Extremist |1 | |Generalist |1 | |Paragon |0 | |Specialist |5

It isn't necessarily the case that having a perfect spread these archetypes would add value to league of legends, but we can atleast agree that everyone being a generalist diminishes the value of the game-- strong differentiation makes the game more interesting strategically.

Furthermore the fact that there are only 5 archetypes is an artifact of the constraints that the normalization of the table was 9 points, the values must be whole numbers, and the choice of only 3 orthogonal stats. Notice that without these constraints, we would simply have more archetypes to fit around and in between 5 specified here, but the amount by which they differ would be smaller; I feel that these 5 archetypes are sufficiently expose the entire skirmisher design space.

#How many of each archetype could we expect to have? For extremist and specialist, there can be 6 potential differences on the ordered [Mobility Durability Threat] [1 3 5] [1 5 3] [3 1 5] [3 5 1] [5 1 3] [5 3 1] [2 3 4] [2 4 3] [3 2 4] [3 4 2] [4 2 3] [4 3 2] So in the long term, we would expect a lot of specialists and extremists.

For Paragon and Achilles, there can be 3 potential differences on the ordered [Mobility Durability Threat] [2 2 5] [2 5 2] [5 2 2] [1 4 4] [4 1 4] [4 4 1] So in the long term, we would expect some paragons and Achilles.

There is no differentiation between two generalists, which is why it is dangerous to have more than one generalist in a given class in the roster. In the long term we would expect very few or perhaps only one generalist.

The table I provided is based on my extensive personal experience, but is ultimately subjective. However, if you find the table agreeable, you will note that we have no paragon or achilles (as of yet). If Ekko continues to be a persistent problem, or if Tryndamere's frustratingly one dimensional gameplay is addressed in a future skirmisher class update, they might be moved to Achilles and Paragon; moreover, new skirmishers might be created some time in the future to better represent the entire scope of the skirmisher space.

#Better use of the Skirmisher Design Space

Notice that Mobility seems to be over-represented as a kind of situational defense. Notice also of the 5 specialists, Jax, Ekko and Tryndamere overlap as [3 4 2], and there is no [4 3 2], [2 4 3] or [2 3 4] specialist on [Mobility Durability Threat]. Having 3 of 5 specialists overlap isn't ideal because it creates the same issues that are had by having more than one generalist-- they compare so similarly that only one can be considered "worth picking".

Currently this is handled by allowing them to differentiate from each other according to what sort of champions or team compositions they are best against, but strictly speaking this is less ideal than simply allowing these champions to exist in different positions in the skirmisher space if the intention is to increase champion diversity.

We can use the table above to think more clearly about how to optimize our current usage of the skirmisher space, so that we can use as much as possible. As an exercise, think about which of Jax, Ekko and Trynd should fit the [3 4 2] pattern most closely, and which should fit least closely, based on their theme, identity and ideals.

#Jax

I would say that Jax fits this pattern most closely. Ideally, he would be more durable than he is mobile, and more mobile than he is threatening. He isn't supposed to blow you up instantly or devastate you in the blink of an eye if you are tanky. His cadence shouldn't revolve around a singular point or moment. He should take the punches and blows you throw at him in stride, leap around hazards and smash you in a straight brawl, and that seems to be his pattern currently.

#Ekko

Ekko doesn't seem to want to fit this pattern as well as Jax should, even if he currently does. The idea of Ekko ought to be one that leverages time to survive lethal encounters, and uses patience to set up the perfect fight. That sort of ideal fits a [4 1 4] pattern, not a [3 4 2] pattern. His primary way to survive should be through threat, threatening to do enormous damage to you, threatening to stun your entire team-- not straight durability, not massive shields.

Ekko should feel like he cheats time with his mobility, easily moving around hazards and rewinding the one thing he can't avoid. But the underlying dynamic that was supposed to make Ekko feel relatable was the fact that he's just a kid-- his weakness should be his durability, it shouldn't be his strength.

#Tryndamere

Tryndamere doesn't fit the [3 4 2] pattern either. Ideally, Tryndamere is a guy who takes an axe to the gut, shrugs it off, and slams people with a huge blunt sword that can split stone, but does he feel that way? Does the sword feel big and heavy to you? It doesn't, but it should-- thats the point of Trynd. We can see RIOT's attempts to make the sword feel enormous, letting Trynd drag it behind him, but seeing Trynd attack with it 2 times a second kind of destroys the illusion.

Tryndamere in general probably isn't executed very well, but if he were executed properly his pattern would likely be [2 5 2] or [1 5 3]. Imagine a tough sum'bitch with a 8 foot sword. Alright, does "Mobility" come to mind when you think of that? No of course not. He should be someone who relishes a large fight, not someone who can't even function in one. You will note that none of the skirmishers are rated below 3 on mobility. In order to allow any skirmisher to function with low mobility, they'd have to have multiple cheap and effective defenses, not just one costly one. One costly defense makes the champion too binary, either win all or lose all. He has to be able to win some and lose some without winning or losing everything.