Balance: Things Riot Should Consider

A lot of players talk about balance, OP Champions, OP Kits, etc. But what drives a champion to be considered balanced/unbalanced? So many changes in the game have unexpected and sometimes unintended impacts on the overall balance of the game. Irelia has become a force more so now than ever because of the advantage the new tank items give her in sustaining life force and dealing damage, this has made her nearly impossible to play against combined with her loaded kit. Then we have Fiora, who prior to patch 5.18 has a higher base armor rating than champions like Jarvan. This got me to thinking, what are some simple things Riot could consider in the future when balancing the game?

I believe this should start with taking a look at champion base stats before nerfing or buffing abilities. For starters if Riot wants to create a tank, they should not also give them high base AD/AP ratios. If they are strong in both these areas, they are imbalanced from the start and going to be very difficult to adjust in the future.

Champions with high base damage, should be easier to kill than champions with high base defense. Their individual kits can then be adjusted to favor their defensive weakness, or favor their offensive strength. When it comes to champions, no one champion should be strong in multiple base stats, as this automatically creates an unbalanced matchup against champions who don't have this benefit.

But what about champions that use AD and AP?

Again, these champions should not be high in both areas but should favor one stat over the other, with their kits complementing one stat or the other. Kayle is one of the best examples of this balance and is in my opinion one of the best balanced champions currently in League. Miss Fortune feels unbalanced because her AD is high, but her abilities don't complement this. She has no decent AP scaling and building AP sacrifices damage on more than one of her abilities to create a small amount of extra damage if you happen to build an AP item. Because her abilities don't complement her base stats, she is unbalanced. Riot doesn't even recommend AP items in her recommended build. The items that offer both AD and AP bonuses are combined quite weaker than focusing on one stat or the other since her base stats and kit aren't balanced.

I feel if Riot pays closer attention to base stats and how the individual kits complement these stats, they could avoid overly strong or overly weak champions and provide us with kits that have more utility.

Either that or make every champions bases the exact same and let kit scaling and item builds determine the strength and weaknesses of champions, but I doubt that would ever be a viable option.

That's my two cents worth.