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Champions Have Roles -- And They Should Stay There.

Best Ekko NA··1 votes·241 views

One excuse Riot often uses when it comes to balancing certain champions is that they are too strong in other roles if buffed for being weak in their primary role. Non meta and unusual champions for role picks has long been a problem in League of Legends. Sometimes item changes make certain champions really strong or safe in other lanes (i.e. Lulu Mid / Top, Brand Support) and those picks become really frustrating to play against. Then we have the opposite side, where a player happens to really enjoy a certain champion and decides he or she wants to play it everywhere on the map. This more often than not is frustrating for the rest of a team, because another champion is much better suited for the role, and it's not always easy to adapt and play around something that is rarely seen. Both of these situations are not healthy in League of Legends, and Riot has done little to nothing to actively address the problem.

Each time Riot has released a new champion, they state their intentions along with what role the champion has been designed to play. As of recently, you can even sort champions by which role they belong to. Riot has even gone as far as removing parts and toning down champion kits to ensure that they cannot Jungle very well (Alistar S3, Camille PBE, Ekko's original passive, etc). To me, this is a big indicator that champions are not meant to be played outside of the role they were designed to be in. Why go to such lengths to pressure players into picking only certain roles, without actually preventing them from doing it?

At the end of the day, I really believe players should only be able to select from champions in their intended role during champion select. Some players might be upset at this notion, but generally it's just not healthy in anyway for champions to be played everywhere. It forces Riot to make additional balance adjustments that otherwise wouldn't be needed, often it's not fun to play against, and sometimes it's not fair to a player's team to be forced to play with. Marksman do not belong in Top lane, Supports do not belong at Mid lane, Karthus is not a Jungler, and Yasuo is not an AD Carry. Every champion has a place where they belong in League of Legends and it's high past time Riot started enforcing it.

tl;dr

Remove the ability to play any champion in any position.

2 Comments

SithesisLord2 votes

Marksman do not belong in Top lane

Ironic because Kayle is part marksman. So is Jayce. So is Gnar.

Supports do not belong at Mid lane

Even more ironic because Zyra was supposed to be a midlaner from release, but then came some pros and shoved her to support, now that´s all she can do.

Karthus is not a Jungler

He can be though. He's just easily abusable. He's Fiddlesticks without the Drain in the jungle.

Yasuo is not an AD Carry.

Except he was advertised as one. And is technically one. Y'know, with the whole building AD and being a carry type champion kinda thing.

Remove the ability to play any champion in any position.

And therefore remove one of the last few true versatility aspects about champions in League.

Champions have main roles and off-roles. And they should keep all of those, regardless of how successful they are on them or how frustrating they can be to face.

By your logic, Riot should revert all the jungle related buffs they gave to Ekko.

Enforcing just one role on a champion limits what that champion and the player could do.

If Riot has to do some extra balancing to compensate for off roles, so be it. Heck, Diana used to be a jungler as well as a midlaner, because jungling with her was safer, but at the cost of being a less tanky, less on-hit based version of old WW gank-wise.

Best Ekko NA1 votes

Champions who fit multiple categories, should still be select-able for their secondary positions. Most Top / Mid lane champions are interchangeable (Diana, Galio, Gangplank, Kennen, Yasuo, etc). Champions who can fit multiple roles, should still be able to play both. My real issue is that, a lot of players are just cheese picking right now and that's problematic. There are a lot of Marksman getting picked Top to counter melee champions, despite the fact that they fall off hard, and are a liability to the rest of their team even when they get a lead. It's not much different from Season 6 and 7 when Lulu was becoming prominent in solo lanes for much of the same reason (even in competitive play).

Also, Riot hasn't taken a stand on it. Which I stated in the first paragraph. They had to give Ekko Jungle buffs, because they don't condemn off role selections (so long as it doesn't become a balance issue). To me however, they should throw it in the gutter for good. There's nothing healthy about off role picks and zero reason to pretend like there are advantages in having them. The only time they are good is when players can abuse unbalanced items and champions, which is actually not a good thing at all.

By my logic, you are correct. Ekko should indeed not be a Jungler. He was not designed to be one, he's actually not a good Jungler and hasn't been for a long time, and his whole kit is balanced as a mid lane AP assassin. Riot explicitly went out of their way in an attempt to keep him out of the Jungle before he was released (by giving his passive a 5 second cooldown), and by giving him extra attack speed "to help his early Jungle clear" they are practically going against the reason they nerfed his passive to begin with.

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