The difference between pro and low elo play and what makes certain champions bad.
If you've watched high elo games lately, you'll notice a couple champions are just completely absent. One you might not notice until someone lists his absence is Nasus.
Nasus (unless you're sirhcez), is on the high elo "shit list". It's a champion that nobody dares to pick up until he's so broken in low elo that low elos have insisted he's been overpowered for months. So how was it so hard for high elos to notice?
It's because between the elos, there are two totally different metrics for measuring champion strength. I call them raw strength vs. meta strength. For example;
Viktor is a B tier in terms of raw strength. He's pretty okay compared to a lot of mages in his class and he does his job effectively if you put in the practice time.
HOWEVER,
Viktor is D tier in terms of meta strength as a scaling champion without a super impressive 1 item spike has no place in the meta.
And if you wanna compare it to the meta from months ago
Talon was S tier in terms of raw strength, and he was able to push, roam, and kill his lane. He was a truly independent midlaner and hard carry.
He was also S tier because the itemization favored him and no meta champions were particularly effective vs. him.
the reason that assassin meta lasted longer for low elo than high elo is because the shift to mages botlane made it particularly difficult for a lot of assassins. How is a Zed/Yasuo/Talon going to dive a Vladimir? Or a Swain/Donger with Stopwatch? How do they outplay Fiddlesticks' Fear? So while assassins remained S tier in terms of raw power, their meta power fell, and high elos dealt with them accordingly.
Another reason Talon was particularly good was his "open ended" play. Talon had multiple ways to get around and get to you that could create success. Champions like Nasus and Wukong only have 1 way to get in and one way to combo. Even in cases like Wukong's, where the meta is good for him, he still isn't good in high elo because you're thinking, "okay Wukong only does one thing and I should be waiting to see where he comes from when he does the one thing."
In Nasus' case, the champion will never be good in high elo unless you can circumvent his Q stacking. Running up to your target, Withering them, and hitting them with Q's until they die is, in the same way, extremely one dimensional. It's very easy to play around in full blown teamfights and so the only Nasus builds that are good anymore are ones that circumvent Q stacking to be strong in the midgame and fight in mid-game skirmishes where your opponent cannot CC you.
This does not mean you cannot play these champions, as Annie is considered a bad champion but is particularly effective all the way up to D3, and risti just onetricked Garen all the way up to Master. However, it does mean that these champions are not going to be as favored once you pass a certain elo.
