I want to ask Riot: Why the most banned champions for years aren't touched?

Xcom Ufo Defense·Feb 19, 2020·1 votes·1,775 views

I mean, things like Yasuo or Darius are kinda permaban in most elos since years. Same as Fiora and other few champs.

It means that the champions are too powerful\oppressive and\or people don't like playing against them. Does this situation require to be fixed? i mean, it hurts the game diversity and also it basically remove those champions from the game permanently.

I can understand Sett and Aphelios because they are new, but Yasuo and Darius are in this state for years.

I am not asking for nerfs, but maybe some soft rework that give them a more healthy gameplay so that people won't permaban them anymore.

7 Comments

Blue ZerglingFeb 19, 20203 votes

Because they fit in a weird niche. Daruis/Yas/Fizz/Lee/Etc aren't overpowered typically, but aren't fun to play against, increasing their ban rate. However, they are popular in their current form, making large reworks to them unlikely because they still have large playbases.

Some ( Yasuo ) are also nearly impossible to balance perfectly due to mechanics in their kit being completely unique or having indistinct power budgeting.

If windwall was removed, yas would be much less frustrating to play against and would see a much lower banrate. However, it's hard to say how much compensation he would need to make up for losing that ability and more than likely the compensation would be something that ultimately pushed him back into the near permaban status.

It's much easier to leave them more or less alone and just tune numbers when they egregiously over or under perform.

Xcom Ufo DefenseFeb 19, 20202 votes

If you say a "nearly impossible to balance perfectly due to mechanics in their kit", i would say this is wrong design and then the champion must be removed or reworked.

Also, if they are popular but cannot be played anyway because of permabans, the fact they are popular doesn't matter in theory.

TeodorusofNoxusFeb 19, 20203 votes

Both Yas and Dar are fun to play AS. And even on the other side it's fairer. Yasuo still needs a few Qs and autos to kill even a squishy. Darius needs 5 bleeds. That is 5 seconds of time. Other champs- smash keyboard and they make your hp disappear. Burst is much more disgusting and unfair. Either you slam your dick into the buttons and one shot someone, or you can't and you are useless for just long enough. The enemy either dies with no counter or survives and tries to nuke you- the cancer assassin.

IP MasquerenaFeb 19, 20201 votes

Perfect balance doesn't exist anyway.

What even is perfect balance? "Balanced for every level of skill at the same time", that's bull Shaco .

No champion will EVER see perfect balance, especially ones that are harder to play than average.

Point is, you can't balance the game for everyone at the same time, the skill disparity between Plastic 12 when some players are and Challenger is just slightly lower than the ego of some players, so if something is balanced in Challenger, 500$ says 99% of the lower elos can't play that thing, but if something is balanced in lower elos, same 500$ say that said champion is either doing jack Shaco above Gold or is borderline toxic and overpowered in high elos.

So how will you reach a perfect balance when that itself is impossible?

As for fun, that's relative, so being fun to play as is the higher priority, as the only thing that's "fun to play against" is something you beat consistently and almost constantly.

TehNACHOFeb 19, 20201 votes

Let's put it in another way using Yasuo's Ultimate.

Yasuo (when he was first released, at least) was the only champion with an activation condition on his Ultimate. Because his Q3 isn't perfectly reliable, this means, ability for ability, Yasuo is noticeably weaker on a macro scale compared to most other champions because he doesn't have free access to his Ultimate. However, it does have fantastic synergy with other champions with more reliable knock ups like Malphite, Jarvan, or Nautilus.

Now let me put it this way, are synergistic mechanics wrong design and any champion with them must be removed or reworked? Should Xayah and Rakan, Lucian and Braum, Sejuani and any melee carry all be deleted because they have synergistic abilities? They are all impossible to balance perfectly due to these mechanics in their kit; alone they are naturally weaker than normal but together their combination tends to be stronger than any other two random champions in the game.

This argument also works in another direction; counter picks. Champions like Trundle, Udyr, Rammus, whose existence is entirely to spite specific champions on the enemy team. Once again this is impossible to balance perfectly; all champions of this nature are overwhelmingly powerful when picked into Sejuani, Yi, or Yasuo respectively, but are terrible blind picks and would wildly underperform if they don't have someone to counter on the enemy team.

The idea of perfect balance is a stupid one in a game as complicated as League. Unless you specifically want to water down the game such that each and every champion has a perfect 50% win rate against each and every other champion, with no specific synergy or counter pick delta, balance is a poor measurement for what you should consider as being good or bad in the game.

2gudaiyaFeb 19, 20201 votes

because we gotta nerf akali. dontcha know?

ParoeFeb 19, 20201 votes

Theres a couple answers, but the biggest is that Ban rate, Win rate, and Pick rate are indicators of a champions overall strength in the current meta and do not necessarily mean a champion is in need of immediate changes.

Pickrate relative to win rate, Ban rate relative to pick rate, and PIck:Win:Ban are important metrics that must be exercised with caution otherwise you will come to a biased conclusion. Lets take lee sin as an example; very high pick rate, average win rate, low ban rate. He is a problem in that he is consistently one of the most popular champions in the game and still retains a reasonable win rate, despite his ban rate being so low. On the flip side, Akali with her average pick rate and low win rate is not a problem despite her ban rate being so high.

That being said, theres a lot of champions who either 'check' their contemporaries like darius and zed, or who have singularly frustrating mechanics and are not changed because riot likes them.
Yasuo is a pretty good example of a champion who is immensely frustrating and needs a rework to reduce that, but is left largely unchanged because hes one of riots favorites.