A question regarding design in general that I have had for the past 7 years.

This is a question that I always wondered if Riot ever asked themselves when creating new champions and creating new items. What is it that Riot offers a champion that makes them break a pattern that the champion gets stuck in?

most old champions suffer from this. You know the ones getting all the reworks and such. There are some champions in this game that no matter how much stats you give them, they lose on patterns.

It doesn't matter if they have 1000 AD/AP or 10000000 AD/AP, they cant even begin to land their abilities without help for that 1000000 AD/AP to do anything.

karthus shooting Qs at someone with brown boots come to mind, unless he uses his wall he wont be landing anything. Syndra has this issue as well. A Hecarim running at a jhin, the Jhin is dead 100%, Hes going to get the hooves no matter what. An Ahri trying to charm a yasuo will always get walled.

now keep in mind im not talking about this while taking player's reaction times and skill into account. Imagine 2 super AIs playing the game with these champions. Like dota 2 now has this OpenAI thing going on for it and this AI is running a train on pro players sometimes.

I wanna see what an OpenAI controlled Zed or Yasuo vs an OpenAI controlled classic mage like annie or lux or syndra or morgana can do.

I feel like some champions in this game are irrelevant simply because they are stuck in this limbo. They cant do anything even if they wanted to.

Waiting on evelynn's charm to build is another one. When seeing that charm building up It feels like you, the evelynn player, have sounded the horn for the enemy to retreat for a while and then come back after its over. just delayed the fight a few seconds.

An annie who charged her stun creates a circle of danger around her that people will NEVER enter unless she forces it with a flash. But then that locks annie into a 300 seconds cooldown engage. she also wont fire her abilities unless she knows she gets a stun and enemies wont get close because they know she has a stun. If she doesnt have flash, shes never getting out of this loop hole.

you can say get twin shadows, or GLP but twin shadows is REALLY slow and GLP has the same range as her abilities mostly. If you are safe from her abilities then you are safe from GLP as well. Twin shadows is another item where it feels like a sounding a retreat horn for enemies.

another pattern that one can discuss is the short cool down abilties vs the combo champs.

combo champs like Lux lets say have a built in problem. If they dont kill someone in the combo they are not kill them at all. Always managed to die to a talon dive for example after i comboed the guy but he survived with 10% HP and since he only needs like 0.2 seconds to 100% you it didn't matter what i did. I just put my abilities on Cool down really. you might say zhonya, but zhonya only lasts 2.5 seconds and your CDs are way higher than that so you are still stuck in a retreat that you cant make. You always have to be under tower but playing always under tower doesn't win games. you need to move. Also edge of night makes this encounter far worse.

These kinds of champions feel like they are stuck relying on other champions to set them up ALL THE TIME leaving them with no ability to help themselves. These are the kinds of champions that barely to never see gameplay in pro scenes etc. now im not saying the above champs never see pro scene, since syndra and eve were picked but they were picked with either junglers that set them up or laners that do since a team is more coordinated than randoms. but unmentioned others who have this issue rooted far in them are the ones that never see the light of day.

Another pattern is a sion, malphite or a sejuani casting their ults on a fiora. a fiora will always see those 3 coming and will always riposte them. Fizz using playful/trickster against certain people's ults have a similar effect where it feels like they can never shoot their ult until he wastes it but if hes good enough hes knows not to until they shoot their ult. You will need help from someone else to break this pattern so you can do something.

And to top it off the Item shop, which is supposed to be your solutions house... offers nothing but buffing up already failing patterns. Unless the solution is built into the kit of the champion. you cant buy it.

the items shop in league feels like this. It feels like trying to make an electric circuit with distilled water as the medium, and the only solution you have is adding more distilled water or putting out more electricity... it will never work.

The main issue is that these patterns persist from early game to late game and nothing changes. You are still as reliant on team mates you are still stuck with the long delays on your abilities. A buffed up problem is still a problem.

I once had this encounter with a Garen as a Janna, where the Garen was trying to rush at me and i was trying to kill the guy, and we got into a very mesmerizing dance.

where he always try to rush at me with his Q, but i stopped him with my torando and ran away, and when the speed buff from Q ended, he ran away but I always slowed him with W and since im janna i was fast enough to always catch up to him. So when his Q was off CD he would try to rush back at me but I tornado and run and when the buff ends I use W on him and chase him again this went on for a good 20 seconds... I was at max CDR. But i did no damage to him and he couldnt run away. And we were just stuck in this ebb and flow kind of motion. Even one of my friends shouted at me "STOOOOOOP!!!!! I CAN't SEE STAND THIS ANYMORE!!! LEAVE THE POOR GUY ALONE!!!".

Just a thought I had for a long time. This issue has persisted in every MOBA that follow league's formula. The utility is on the character, the item shop only increases the stats of said character. No change to their pattern whatsoever. you can't buy the cover for your weaknesses from the item shop.