What's the advantage of a difficulty 3 champion to a difficulty 1 champion?

Erase Riven·Apr 8, 2019·1 votes·2,067 views

Example: Annie, a difficulty 1 champion, vs aurelion sol, a difficulty 3 champion. Most of the time, annie's going to win because of her cc and stuff (I've seen it in multiple games). Or maybe a garen vs irelia, which most of the time garen wins with the exceptions of irelia otps. Is playing a hard champion just for bragging rights? showing skill? Should I just play easy hard carries like Master Yi or Nasus instead of Azir or Ivern? Is it because I'm just in low elo? A thoughtful explanation would be helpful, and not "because rito wants broken champs in their game hehehe". Thanks!

11 Comments

AlienPrimateApr 8, 20195 votes

High difficulty champions have the opportunity to outplay their opponents while also being more prone to mistakes while easy champions just have to calculate their same combo every time and know exactly what they can do with no chance for outplay. Easier champions are generally better in lower ranks because you are less likely to screw up with them. All you have to do in lower ranks is let the high skill cap champion screw up while you sit back and farm with the easy champion.

Critmaster GarenApr 8, 20193 votes

{quoted}

with the exceptions of irelia otps.

you answered your own question.

ideally, more mechanical difficult champions shouldnt be more powerful than mechanical simple champions when compared directly against each other.

their advantage tends to be that they have more tools available to generally fit into more overall teamcomps, while mechanical simple champions tend to be strong in a specific niche and need certain other champions on their team to become as effective.

Irelia is a champion who can make plays happen on her own, while Garen needs other champions to make those plays and be able to follow up on them in most cases.

as a result its easier to 1 trick a champion like irelia, since she has less hard counter matchups than a champion like garen, and is less reliant on team synergy.

as Garen i want champions like Ornn Thresh Sejuani and other initiators on my team, or champions like Veigar just for the aoe cc and dash interruption or Orianna to speed me up and shield me, to be able to be as effective as Irelia .

as Irelia youre pretty much just strong on your own and can initiate fights yourself. youre not as reliant on your team to fight high priority targets and dont need someone else to initiate fights for you or overcome enemy peel. you can be the initiator yourself.

so generally speaking, there are more bad teamcomps to pick garen into, while most of the time you can pick irelia into whatever.

DuskDaUmbreonApr 8, 20192 votes

In theory, the higher the difficulty on a champion, the higher the skill ceiling is, so the better you can do on them.

That, and more difficult champions tend to be able to do more things.

WarnercBbTApr 8, 20192 votes

There isn't one. All champions are easy to play

MorganFreemanBotApr 8, 20191 votes

XinZhao is a good example of an easy champion. I say this without malice, as Xin is one of my favorite junglers and the first champion I rode into high plat. I'm going to refer to season 3 xin (post nerf, not pre) as that's when I mained him.

Basically, Xin only had two things to think about when it came to fighting.

The first was pretty simple: ** Can I get into melee range?**

If the answer to that was yes, move onto question two. If not, look for other opportunities.

Question two: Can I kill them?

I realize that sounds simple but that's.. all it was. If Xin was in E range, you just had to know whether or not you could kill someone (based on items, levels, ect) and that was that. There was no calculation about hitting skillshots, spell shielding, ect. Just straight up understanding how champ kits worked.

Sure, there was a teeny bit more nuance. Side stepping skill shots, flashing over shit, knowing how to extend your E range (E a minion within the aoe impact of an enemy champ). And actually getting the hang of old Xin's R took a moderate amount of skill. But those were marginal skill investments to milk every ounce of potential out of the dude, where as you could be at 85-90% power just from knowing when to go in and win your stat check.

Now, compare that to LeeSin , one of the poster children for skill.

Lee has, at many times, been stupidly strong at a baseline. When he had assassin levels of damage, a large shield, and Ad scaling magical damage with true vision and attack speed shred for example.. But despite that, he's always had a huge skill ceiling.

MetalGearTeemoApr 8, 20191 votes

Odd, after playing these two champions my mindset with Xin was "I must know where every member of their team is because if I go in and don't ge the kill I am dead almost certainly."

Where as with lee it was

"Meh, I'll go for it. Not like I can't just kick him away if he has backup, or ward hop away, or threaten with a Q landing and seeing if I can bait out his backup."

Lee as a Champion has so many ways to cover for your bad positioning and mistakes that he spins the curve the other way and becomes easier to play for it.

The benchmark for skill in League seams to be "can you ward hop without fucking up". you too can be skilled with just 5 minutes of training mode.

grarrrgApr 8, 20191 votes

Difficulty has little to do with "winning". It's a combination of factors: ease of entry, how 'clicky' they are, how hard it is to pull off their combos (if they have any), etc...

Annie: count to 4 > alpha strike Aurelion Sol: requires constant attention to positioning, as that's his prime source of damage. 1 of his abilities does nothing in a fight, another toggles how he has to position himself, leaving him with 1 'attack' ability and his Ult.

BLACK REALM GODApr 8, 20191 votes

i would like to make this as simple as possible.

Bard/Ivern/Thresh = tier 3 supports.

Lulu/Nami/Braum/Rakan/Pyke/Zilean/Taric = tier 2 supports

Sona/Soraka/Janna/Morgana/Tahm Kench = tier 1 supports

The benefit of playing a tier 1 : simple and powerful. typically builds standard items to win. easy to counter (grievous wounds, chill, pure damage), very minor skillshots or ally interaction.

The benefit of playing a tier 3 : Unique gameplay (chimes, souls, jungling without hurting camps) , difficult to predict gameplay , flexibility in build paths and ability use (Ivern's bushes, bard R, thresh flay) , requires a lot of allied communication (leaving lane as bard, making sure someone grabs the duo buff as ivern, throwing out a line for allies as thresh) , has HUGE end game potential (unlimited soul stacking, chime stacking, free camps post 20 minutes as ivern

the benefit is you can express your skill more as a tier 3 difficulty. the downside is that you're going to have to rely a ton on your allies and enemies making the right (or wrong) plays to get to where you want to be.

i hope that helps.

to answer the rest of your questions - it depends on your end game goal and game format. you shouldn't for example be expecting to do well with team reliant champions in order to win in solo queue or low flex queue.

if you're playing with a premade that is skillful then yes you can benefit from flexing your skills and teamwork on your opponents with ivern, yasuo, azir, viktor, zoe, etc.

otherwise you're going to be waiting and waiting for your allies to make a play that you can kickstart your build from and it's probably never going to happen.

in those instances i recommend the level 1 difficulty or level 2 difficulty champs.

if you dont want to be a heal bot or a stun bot and want some interesting mechanics without losing your solo carry potential then that's what tier 2s are for.

zyra, karthus, vladimir, sivir, corki, shen, poppy, evelynn, etc.

they add a bit of expression while also being semi self reliant.

TinkerTantrumsApr 8, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Example: Annie, a difficulty 1 champion, vs aurelion sol, a difficulty 3 champion. Most of the time, annie's going to win because of her cc and stuff (I've seen it in multiple games). Or maybe a garen vs irelia, which most of the time garen wins with the exceptions of irelia otps.

According to Blitz.gg: Annie doesn't counterpick (win against) Aurelion Sol And Garen loses lane against Irelia, but wins matches when they aren't direct laning enemies.

haaaaaaalpApr 8, 20191 votes

Higher difficulty champions are harder to play against. Annie or garen are very linear and easy to plan for.

MetalGearTeemoApr 8, 20191 votes

Difficulty 3 champions have so many outplay options that if you're literally underage b& or wood 6 you may accidentally trip over one and everyone has a good laugh.

Difficulty 1 champions are simple mechanically but require near perfect positioning/macro play to compete, making them often more difficult to use then said "high Difficulty" champions in higher ranks.