Another Take on Overpowered
Before I get started, you need to know that this post is going to make some very controversial claims which seem silly or even ridiculous. It is all to prove a point, so hear me out or scroll to the TL;DR before downvoting or upvoting.
has been THE top ban in Plat+ for several patches, consistently since season 5 even
In Gold is close behind, at #2
In Silver, this champion falls to #11 (where Lee Sin is #129, the statistically worst ban even behind Yorick, Taric, and Urgot due to his 44% WR + high pickrate. This status of last place is consistent across literally every tier because he is so bad, but a buff would never get through because of the bias, something I’ll address later).
Now, before you say that 75% of the community is in Bronze or Silver (a valid point), remember that Riot post saying that they focus balance on Plat+? Here it is:
Foundational skills and degrees of optimization are different for every player (not to mention difficult to measure with a high degree of accuracy), so we lean on the MMR system to serve as our best proxy to represent a player’s individual skill. With that in mind, our philosophy leads us to balance towards players at the upper end of mastery, which we currently believe to be around platinum and above.
This doesn’t mean we devalue the feedback from players below platinum - only that we’re acknowledging that a high amount of variance occurs in those tiers. Many factors are at play - is Master Yi overpowered if you’re able to dominate a game with him? Alternatively, did the enemy team lack the understanding to focus-fire or apply crowd control? With a more strategic use of map movement, item builds and mechanical execution against Master Yi, more competitive players at a higher average skill help to paint a clearer picture of Master Yi’s power level, often revealing when the intended play against him is failing and needs us to intervene. Extreme outliers, be they pubstompers or pro-level pains will always be addressed, but more often than not our patch-to-patch changes are centered around this skill bracket.
So with that out of the way, we have identified that is
- A top ban in Riot's primarily focused balancing tiers due to high win rate and high pick rate combined
- Has been in this state for a long time (a Rioter posted saying that was a top ban in season 5, iirc)
Now there is one key argument many of you have, which is why she is not permabanned.
I like to ban champions with a direct impact on the game, like Zed, Lee, or Malphite, because eliminating them prevents them from having X advantage whereas by banning
The problem with this is that, plain and simple, it does not solve the main problem, which is that if you ban Zed or Lee Sin you are removing a champion with a 51/44% WR sitting at the #16/last place ban slot, whereas this champion is at #11 (assuming you are Silver like the average LoL player), and even at his worst when you are in Diamond STILL outclasses him as a ban. Tahm Kench and Illaoi are both classic examples as well, with winrates at around 45%.
Side note: I don’t want to try and defend Zed, he is OP (but the main topic champ is more OP?) if you know how to play him and this is sure as hell not going to turn into a thread about Zed.
It doesn't matter whether you dislike him, the simple truth is that having a on your team makes you much more likely to win, especially at the level where Riot balances, and even if you play for fun > winning, I would argue that this is not necessarily the case for most players, especially the highest tiers (Dia+).
There is something which you may attribute to this and which, if true, would devalue my entire argument. Some champions have player bases disproportionately favoring their mains, which artificially increases winrate. Rioters have nicknamed this “Talon Syndrome”. Other culprits include Fiddlesticks, Shaco, Singed, and Heimerdinger (remember when he was the top soloQ winrate? Scratch that, remember soloQ? hue). Janna, however, is NOT. She has an 11% pick rate in Silver and a 40% pick rate in Diamond. She is #30 for average playerbase games played, so in the top 25% but nothing too high (Yasuo and Wukong are both higher than her).
One last thing I would like to tack on before ending is what I think is an interesting juxtaposition. Many people complain about how frustrating champions like Fizz are because they are so annoying to deal with. is actually the opposite. Playing as an assassin against her is very difficult. Example, you can skip the rest of this paragraph: As Zed, if I try to ult the enemy ADC, Janna will ult me, the ADC will flash away, maybe I’ll get exhausted and then knocked up. The counterplay as Zed is to place a shadow in preparation for the ult, but then you need to flash after the ADC after swapping and are no longer in auto attack range so all you can do is single Q + ignite, which will never kill an ADC through the shield.
TL;DR: Riot balances around platinum to remove inconsistency in low elo, Janna has a really high winrate and pickrate across all elos but especially high elo and has been in this state for a long time, she is statistically far better to ban than Lee/Kench/Illaoi and even Zed, it is not caused by “Talon Syndrome”, and she is actually quite frustrating to play against especially for assassins (wow I can feel the sympathy I’m getting). If you disagree, read the section and then comment with why you disagree.
Summary Section: If you read through this entire post, then thank you. If not, see the TL;DR, I’ll wait.
A few things about this post: I did not actually mention the name Janna anywhere near the title because I actually want people to click on this and read it through rather than just hovering over the title and downvoting it for being a Janna QQ thread. This is not a Janna QQ thread. I am trying to point out that statistically speaking, the best champions to ban to win are not the same champions that you don’t like to play against and complain about. I could make the same thread for Amumu or Lux. The bottom line is as such:
A champion being perceived as frustrating to play against is NOT the same as a champion being overpowered. As much as you may think to yourself “OP champ” when a Tahm Kench saves the Kog’Maw from a disgusting misplay, or an Illaoi 1v2 double kills your gank, know that they are frustrating to play against, and quite likely very unhealthy for the game, but not overpowered. An overpowered champion consistently wins more. When you pick an OP champ, you have an inherent advantage because of their overall game strength. You’ve probably heard this before, but that doesn’t change the fact that I continue to see boards spammed with lazy QQ posts getting tons of upvotes. Right now, the complaint flavor is the LCS. It’s not even necessarily that people think they are overpowered. It’s the attitude of boards. Every thread that would seem to give advice is filled with hate towards Riot, and it’s just like, “Why?” They aren’t trying to make the game worse, stop hating on them. /endrant