Follow-up on Mobility Discussion

There's a larger thread right now http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/uRv66Z91-i-love-immobile-champs-the-last-years-have-been-the-worst in which Riot Sotere has been discussing mobility with the community. I wanted to discuss a specific subtopic of that conversation: that many mobile champs have reliability on damage and crowd control equivalent to or better than that of immobile champions.

Part of this is due to positioning: whereas a champion like or can only walk up to a target to accurately land their skills, a or a can gapclose, making the possibility of dodging their skillshots minimal. This is also true of crowd control spells, such as 's E or 's E.

However, some mobile champions have much more reliable crowd control in their kits, even without the added bonus of their dashes or blinks. E slows instantly in an AOE. E slows instantly in an AOE. There are no qualifiers to these abilities. ? You've gotta hit at least 2 spells for a single-target stun. ? With the rework, he has to wait .75 seconds for a stun that can be described as inconsistent.

Let's look at some of the immobile champions (specifically midlane champions, since I've been discussing them primarily) that get played in the LCS: -: E with a near-immediate AOE knockback/stun, great burst damage, strong poke. -: E with a near-immediate Stun, great damage, crazy range. -: E with a strong, long-lasting AOE slow; crazy range. -: R with an immediate Stun/slow, high damage. -: Ult with a near-immediate AOE knockup/pull-in, great AOE damage, near immediate AOE speed boost/slow on a 9 second cooldown (with 0 CDR).

The immobile champions that are played in the LCS are selected either because they have strong, fast CC, or because they're so safe due to range that it doesn't matter. This is how, in the eyes of professionals at the game, immobile champions compensate on a competitive level for a lack of mobility: with either strong crowd control, or awesome range.

Crowd control is the batter's bat to the pitcher's baseball of blinks and dashes. Without a reliable bat, you have little to no chance to hit the ball. If you give the pitcher both a baseball and a bat to throw at you, that's just not playing fair. This is why a matchup between, say, and sucks: you gave the bat to the pitcher. There's no play/counterplay here, because holds all the cards (engage, CC, disengage), and holds none.

I believe that to honestly balance the game in a way that makes immobile champions both fair and fun to play with and against, without negating the advantage of mobility, we have to limit the amount of crowd control entitled to mobile champions, and congruently make the crowd control of immobile champions more reliable. Just as immobile champions are not entitled to dashes or blinks, mobile champions should not be entitled to anywhere near the amount of crowd control an immobile champion has. Conversely, a mobile champion should be able to stop a mobile champion if they play their cards right. This just makes sense.

This is obviously a large change that would have an effect on many champion identities ('s E might be a prime suspect, for example, as might 's E). However, as may remind us, "Balance above all else." With balance, we gain variety and more engaging, back-and-forth gameplay.

tl;dr: I think balance of immobile champions is best achieved not only by giving them better teamfight damage potential, as has seemingly been the tenet of balance in the past, but also ensuring them more reliable CC. I think conversely that mobile champions should not have access to the same tier of reliable CC.