Putting the frustration in words: Hyper carry marksmen/Late game Supports

Now, lemme start by setting this straight: It is 100% fine to balance the game partly around time elapsed.

This allows Riot to create and tune champs not only by what they do, but when they do it. Lux, for example, is an artillery mage that's pretty strong (as far as they go) in the early game, but by a certain time stamp in the late game she becomes rather useless. Vel'Koz, however, does VERY well in late game fights.

Here's the thing, though: It is not fine when late game scalers don't work for that power.

The issue with late-game scalers is that their late-game power pretty much boils down to mindless clicking or mashing. Strong early game champs still have to keep in mind things like combos, dashes, and cancels. Strong late game champs, however, are usually "open up and fire" sorts of champs. Only real deviations to this I can think of are , who has to wait for enemies to face her before she stuns + has to land poison moves before spamming, , who has to time/position almost everything in his kit, and , who has a ton of mechanics to properly learn before you can even be functional on the champ.

Most other "super late-game" picks, from Yi, to Kayle, to the marksmen, to even Sona, just mash. That's the problem. So much of their overall power is tied to just dropping in, turning on with some steroid button, and wiping everyone out...or they're Jinx/Cait and they just naturally right click you dead. That's where my issue lies in late-game picks. They're a lot more brain dead when doing their thing than the early-game picks. It makes it so that it's less about picking the right marksman and more about picking the strongest marksman.

I mean, look at Xayah. Very well designed champ there. Her self peel and bursty E ability makes it so Riot can balance her around lower ranges and lack-luster mobility. She doesn't AA you to death super fast (I mean it's fast, but her damage is also partly allocated in her E burst), but she has unique plays she can make in comparison to other marksmen that gives you a defining time when you look specifically towards Xayah.

Look at Vayne, on another hand. Hyper-carry in the late game, but requires more positioning and mechanical knowledge than the others to get her damage out in fights. Results? She hasn't really been "good" for a long time, since other hyper carries are just as good as her when it comes to melting face, but she's been tooled against deleting squishies AND has shit wave clear (and is continuing down this path), unlike the other hyper-carries. So when other hyper-carries click you dead from like 700 units away, Vayne has to dance around you over and over again. Who'd pick Vayne when you can pick Kog/Trist and be done with it?

I think our issues would be solved if we think less about the objective strength of these champs and think more about the fact that their game play is really just slightly different flavors of the exact same thing. There's nothing to work with when your game play is this freaking shallow, and that adds to the problem of bot lane's metas always being stale as hell.