Balance: an end or a means?
What is the purpose of balance? For example: Should the aim of balance be to give every champion a 50% winrate? If not, then what should the aim of balance be?
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Winrates don't always equal perfect balance. If a champion is harder to play a pro might do very well with them. Even dominate. Your average player... not so much. Look at Lee Sin or LeBlanc even before the nerfs. They're strong if you use them right, but their winrates have always been really low.
I've been kinda studying the same thing from MOBA to MOBA that I play, and from what I see, every one has a different definition of "Balance".
In a real situation, every champ should have a 50% winrate, but that's in a perfect world, and this is not one of those. Of every moba I've played, honestly, League's balance is sub-par (THIS IS JUST AN OPINION, HOLD THE FLAMES). League of Legends suffers from some SERIOUS powercreep, and it's obvious. Champs are now given kits that give them an option in just about every situation, with few blatant weaknesses. They HAVE weaknesses, but with the right items, those weaknesses can often be negated or just out-damaged. Older champs can still fight, but they have a very difficult time dealing with other, simply stronger champs.
Of course, there's a certain amount of player skill involved in determining champ balance, but it often feels like League isn't a game of skill, at least not all the time. Once a champ is fed enough, skill is replaced with pure damage (yes, there is still skill, but less is really required). Compared to other MOBAs, league has made some questionable balance choices. For example, one that I still don't understand, mana-less champs. A healing Aatrox will have a clear advantage over something like a Jayce in top lane. Katarina has no need to go back to base or wait for mana. I have little gripe with energy, because it's a very clever mechanic. Also, League has simply too much burst. This is a very moba-specific point, but burst is unrestrained in this game. With a 1000 AP viegar 1-shotting people. That's just an unforgiving mechanic. "Shutting Them Down Early" is an option, but it's easier said than done. Even if a character is fed, if I cannot get close without instantly dying, it becomes nearly impossible to stop. And if you stop that champ, it'll take 2 or 3 down with it.
I honestly believe that Riot does not put as much time into balance as they truly should. There should be like, a 2-month period of time where no new champs, no new items, and no new mechanics are released, so they can just overhaul every champ (that needs it) and find a standard of strength for every role. I look at people's posts every day, and they're always about the same issue.
" This champ is OP" "this champ needs a rework" "Is this champ viable?" "this champ didn't deserve that nerf"
These are not inherently bad questions, but I see them at the rate that I have NEVER seen in any game ever. This could just be from un-skilled players, but I truly believe it's not always. Some characters really are OP, some really are UP. "It's not about the champ, it's how you play them" is only a legitimate argument for so long. But, perhaps examples are required
DotA 2 has some amazing balance, and it's all basically done by one dude, Icefrog (used to work with Steve Feak, who now works for Riot). DotA's balance isn't because of better devs, but every character has been out for so long, that the balance is almost spot-on. When I die, or feed, or get shut down, I know it was ALL my fault, and I can easily address where I made my mistake and I can improve. There's also a kind of known-but-not-known standard of how strong a character should be, and a halfway decent player can accurately tell when a hero is truly overpowered. When patch notes come out, the devs don't explain why the balance changes were made, if you've played as/against/with the champ, you understand why it was necissary. My main, Ember Spirit was nerfed a while back ago, and I was glad. He was really just an OP character. He excelled at all stages of the game and pumped out too much damage with little consequence. I played the guy, and I knew it had to be done.
I didn't really play HoN long enough to know how balance it is, since half of it is copy-paste Dota. However, I do know that people don't complain nearly as much as they do on League.
Strife, although being a terrible game, takes the community seriously when balancing heroes. There are only two that are OP, and the devs get immediately on it.
Perfect Balance is when all champions have exactly the same chance to win... But it is also not something that League of Legends aims for. The term you are looking for is "Perfect Imbalance", which pretty much means that items and champions aren't equally strong - instead all champions have different strengths and weaknesses, which can be exploited to gain an upper hand over your enemy (so counterplay, counterbuild and counterpicks). You can look up Extra Credits: Perfect Imbalance. This is also why champions in meta change even without any real changes from time to time (Twitch visual update for example - he seen more play because of being better looking and then players realized that he's pretty good).
Though, there are some problems with that and League, especially now. Mobility is given for free to champions, resourceless champions have often more tools and damage than resource using ones and base stats are a mess (look up at Zed and Sion for example). Mobility one is the most common though.
IMO mobility should significantly limit your defensive stats and capabilities or damage output (so, Zed shouldn't have more base Health and Armor (along with higher gains per level) than Sion like in that case - of course there are more problems like this. Akali and Kata also have high defensive stats for no reason, while Varus (one of the least mobile adcs) have one of the lowest stats on average between all adcs).