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LeBlanc having a 9/10 Difficulty rating is an insult to Bard mains.

Tentakill Myself··13 votes·5,289 views

You've rated Bard lower than LeBlanc on the difficulty scale. Whilst this may seem like I'm nitpicking and trying to poke fun at rito, let me explain.

People will often argue that LeBlanc does take skill because of her difficulty rating, but she is in no way, shape, or form hard to play. You press 3 buttons and kill someone, your skillshot isn't even required most of the time. Just because a champion has flashy moves does not make them hard to play.

Bard requires proper everything. If you fuck up, you die. If you fuck up on LeBlanc, no worries m8y, you just press W / R and go back to your cheese platform. Oh, and if you do get caught with no mana, you can just go invisible and make LCS big plays.

Yet, despite all of this, Bard is an 8/10 and LeBlanc is a 9/10 on the difficulty scale. I'd like Bard reclassed to a 10/10 because he is no doubt the hardest support and maybe even hardest champion to play in the game, and I'd say LeBlanc gets reclassed to a Darius level difficulty rating. You mash buttons and win, that does not mean equal higher skill than the most difficult support in the game.

15 Comments

1000angrybees5 votes

Bard is definitely harder than leblanc to play. Also Zed.

Sightless665 votes

I don't agree with you, and it's because the difficulty measure isn't quite what you think it is. It's not meant to be a measure that you or I would use. It's entirely for new players. Difficulty is a measure of how easy it will be for a new player to use a champion effectively. It is meant to be an estimation of the difference between the average winrate for a new player's first game on a champion vs their winrate on their fifth or tenth game with a champion. For a new player, LeBlanc would be very difficult. Jump in wrong (pretty easy if you don't know when is the wrong time to jump) or fail to dodge something, and you just pop. She's not that hard once you have some skill at the game, but that's not what the difficulty rating is for.

Also, I'm seeing Bard rated on the wiki as a 9, which does make him the hardest support for a new player to pick up. The harder ones are some of the very unusual champions like Rumble and Eve. I'd say Bard's rating is fine.

BakedLotion1 votes

{quoted}

I don't agree with you, and it's because the difficulty measure isn't quite what you think it is. It's not meant to be a measure that you or I would use. It's entirely for new players. Difficulty is a measure of how easy it will be for a new player to use a champion effectively. It is meant to be an estimation of the difference between the average winrate for a new player's first game on a champion vs their winrate on their fifth or tenth game with a champion. For a new player, LeBlanc would be very difficult. Jump in wrong (pretty easy if you don't know when is the wrong time to jump) or fail to dodge something, and you just pop. She's not that hard once you have some skill at the game, but that's not what the difficulty rating is for.

Also, I'm seeing Bard rated on the wiki as a 9, which does make him the hardest support for a new player to pick up. The harder ones are some of the very unusual champions like Rumble and Eve. I'd say Bard's rating is fine.

How exactly will a new player fuck up with lb? A skill shot that never needs to be used, and point and click 100-0 nukes. The only thing they need to do is read the abilities... LOL

Meanwhile bard is completely skillshot oriented and requires much experience to play even on his skill floor. He has so many things he can miss or fuck up. What can lb fuck up? pressing q on a minion by accident?

Sightless661 votes

A skill shot that never needs to be used, and point and click 100-0 nukes.

That's not the most important factor. You're putting too much emphasis on mechanical difficulty. Most skillshots aren't that hard to understand. Being very squishy and being expected to avoid damage or only go in when enemies can't threaten you is harder for a new player to grasp.

If a LeBlanc goes in poorly or doesn't think about being able to escape, she dies. If a LeBlanc tries to just straight up fight a person without avoiding enemy damage, she dies. If she jumps back to the wrong teleport point, or even forgets to teleport back (yes, new players will do that) she absolutely dies. Seriously, I've watched my friends learn the game, and I've seen them take mobility-based champions and overdive to their deaths or try to straight up manfight stronger duelists because they didn't know how to avoid enemy damage. It's easy to play LeBlanc once you understand that you can't just straight up fight people without dodging their stuff, but new players don't do that well.

I get that you don't like this champion (I don't either), but you're really underestimating the basic game knowledge that goes into making her easy for you or me. Her playstyle isn't immediately obvious to newer players.

Think about this. These ratings weren't made just from speculation. They were created as a result of data collection of how much winrates increased between the first game new players had on a champion and their subsequent games on that champion. Something is causing new players to not do well on their early games with LeBlanc, which is why she has that difficulty rating. What would you suggest is causing that?

Meanwhile bard is completely skillshot oriented and requires much experience to play even on his skill floor.

He's hard all right, but he's not completely counterintuitive. He's not going to screw anything up for himself just throwing a Q at his enemies or dropping healing shrines (although his allies will screw that up for him). He deserves a high difficulty rating, and the data has led him to be a assigned a high difficulty rating. He has a high difficulty rating. I'm not seeing a problem.

flibitydoo1 votes

{quoted}

How exactly will a new player fuck up with lb? A skill shot that never needs to be used, and point and click 100-0 nukes. The only thing they need to do is read the abilities... LOL

Meanwhile bard is completely skillshot oriented and requires much experience to play even on his skill floor. He has so many things he can miss or fuck up. What can lb fuck up? pressing q on a minion by accident?

leblanc is combo oriented. You need to play her for a few games to understand ability orders and what you can and can't do. She's flexible and there are a lot of scenarios to explore if you are new to her.

Bard has like 2 combos: 1.Place journey, go through journey, let enemy follow into journey, pin enemy to wall they came out of. 2.ult enemy. Position self to line up Q on enemy champion/wall. Stun enemy

Someone like Garen has one combo: Silence, spin and Justice. Very easy to pick up and play.

I'm not saying bard is super duper easy, nor am I saying leblanc is impossible to new players, but the number of things that one needs to know to play the champion at a competent level is different.

AyRe CoNteMpT2 votes

having more skillshots and more jumps doesnt make a champ hard to play. mechanics in league of legends are basically nonexistant, its really all about gamesense and insight. "big plays" with jump champs come from that insight, not from pressing buttons fast. that is why a champion like garen is MUCH MUCH MUCH harder to play than a zed or leblanc. true difficulty comes from mistakes not being forgiven.

DarthSpectrum2 votes

I agree with you that Bard takes 100 times more skill to play properly than LeBlanc.

However, that isn't how Riot rates difficulty. The actual difficulty level is a measure of how quickly a new player can start "performing" and winning games as that champion.

LB has such as high difficulty level because her CS animation is terrible, and that the mechanics of her kit is unique (Mimic ult, double tap Wm etc,), so it is hard to pick her up. Bard, on the other hand, can be useful to his team by just giving them portals and health packs. If he is terrible with the ult, he can just ult the tower.

Bard definitely takes much more skill than LB to be played well, but his kit is straightforward and its effects intuitive (good design perk) and hence new players don't struggle to learn how to use his abilities for the players' intended purposes - as evident by the incredible amount of Bard trolls who can manage to screw over their entire teams on the day of his release.

High difficulty rating champions such as Annivia, or Rumble are not necessary hard to play, just hard to get used to.

3tyson1 votes

have you even tried adc heimedinger ?

Fadedpf1 votes

I love bard, Seeing as how you only have 1 damaging ability that speaks for its self

Spacesuit Spiff1 votes

It's more their absolute skillfloor. A first game Bard can at least Q people, drop heals, etc. Leblanc is at least somewhat tricky to first pick up. This is what that "difficulty" bar is for, to tell new players what to play. Veteran players know how the champs work already, so they don't need the bar.

stochastic421 votes

If you fuck up on LeBlanc, no worries m8y, you just press W / R and go back to your cheese platform.

Except part of fucking up on LB is using your combo from a place where they can land CC. You've gone in, used your spells, now you have nothing left and they are in range to stun you even if you press W.

The only way LB can kill someone without her skillshot is if they are bad or make a big mistake, like walking within 600 of an assassin, as a sqishy. Almost any assassin can kill you if you do this.

I have played with mediocre lb players and they only do well if the enemy team, or at least the enemy mid is bad.

Curling Veigar1 votes

leblanc isnt hard to play

if ur playing leblanc and ur team is feeding she cant carry though

Penguin Eclipse1 votes

Depends on how you define difficulty. It was my understanding that Riot's difficulty ranking is based on mechanics. I agree, LeBlanc is more mechanically difficult than Bard. Bard's definitely hard to play. But it's a different type of difficulty.

FancyKiwi1 votes

Katarina has a difficulty rating of 8 so the ratings for me are pointless.

umbraˉ2 votes

{quoted}

Katarina has a difficulty rating of 8 so the ratings for me are pointless.

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