CT designs are some of the best designs in this game

Dead serious. How so? Lemme break this down and explain.

Regardless of how you feel about them, they offer involving game play for both parties:

She excels in targeting back line targets. She excels in taking advantage of carries, who largely use targeted damage. Playing into her strengths leads people into a bad time, and it feels bad when you play into bad match-ups. However, she's not that great in team fights without a lead, and she's not that great in late game scenarios (like most energy champs are). Her shroud enables her to calmly maneuver during dives, true, but she can't up and blink out of danger without sacrificing almost all of her kill potential, unlike some other assassins like K6 or LeBlanc. Her strongest tools are also on her longest cds. If you play around her shroud and E, play the neutral well, and don't play into obviously bad match-ups, Akali's basically an auto-loss for her own team.

Her tuning aside, Zoe's design as a whole is significantly better than people give it credit for. Her spells are generally "meh" ranged at best unless you utilize the different aspects in her kit. She doesn't have any escapes or lane sustain, either. Her best self-peel option is a skill shot hard cc that can be blocked by minions and delays in activation. There's also a ton of in-game ways to mitigate Zoe's overall effectiveness . She IS strong in the jungle, and she does have strong flanks. If she gets fed, she does what a burst mage is gonna do and pops people. Picking her into something that can't aggressively run her down is perfect, but divers, vanguards, assassins, and attentive supports that actually buy Crucible all make Zoe's infinite life way harder. Riot would be smart to deal with her overall tuning, but her core game play is actually fine if you're using your head while you play. Don't play into the jungle where she has a plethora of walls. Play in lanes, pack some spellshields and cleanses, and run her over.

The undying poster boy of League salt. There's a good reason why his strongest lane is bot lane, even if no one plays it. Despite his potential to carry, Yasuo's early game, between shoving waves hard with E and Q and having no strong escape tools to avoid ganks or undo a bad engage, is heavily exploitable. Sure, he double his crit chance, but that passive means unlike Riven, Fiora, and other skirmishers, Yasuo needs to build crit, which makes him insanely glass while being melee ranged. Sure, he has a shield, but any champ damage knocks it off. Sure, he can ult off of any knock-up, but he can't move when he ults, so you can just hard-cc him. Much of all of Yasuo's benefits come with some deterrent or another that keeps him weighed down, and the nature of his risky game play causes him to fall short of success time and time again unless you're pulling the champ off properly. The enemy needs to keep harassing him and whittling him down, and he needs to dodge enemy fire and land combos. The whole gig is harder than it looks, and having a support to work off of makes Yasuo's life way easier since there's someone there to bail him out so he won't feed.

Every designer has designed at least one bad champ and this is me being fair and honest in this thread.

Aight, so what's the point of all this? The point is that if you take the time to think on it critically, most of CT's designs have clear strengths and weaknesses. Most of CT's designs are high skill cap designs, as well. They're easier to mess up on, but they also offer strong options when utilized properly. It also brings us to the main point to make here, which is that this is the ultimate goal of champion design. Champions that are rewarding when played, crap when played bad, feel impactful when they do things, and are involving experiences for both them and the opponent. Most of CT's designs have these values baked into each one, if we're going to be honest with ourselves.

So why do people hate them so much? If you ask me, it's because OTHER designs don't have these traits. Lemme explain:

Marksmen: Their game play feels bad until it doesn't, or doesn't until it does. Because they're mostly balanced around the timer, rather than their own abilities, they feel limp-dick until they land items, and then they terrorize the entire rift. Shutting them down becomes increasingly difficult and there's very little to play around in this regard, but if they aren't like this, then they're in a state where being able to do anything of impact or merit is a greater challenge than 3D printing intelligent life.

Early-game divers like Diana/Wukong/Vi: You get that impactful feeling when you blast the life out of someone, but it's not very involving game play when Diana or Wu just slams into someone. If that one gimmick doesn't work (ass-blasting), you're left with no cds and you kinda flounder and die. Feels bad as hell, and their players feel slighted when they get nerfed because they see other more complex champions do all these flips and tricks and shit while their own champ gets nerfed for dashing and hitting someone, but front-loaded 1-shots from a mile away (or even stealth) isn't very engaging game play for anyone but you.

Older tanks: Tanks like Malph, Amumu, Rammus, and even tanky picks like Mundo and Trundle are or can be good champs objectively, but regardless of if they are or aren't, their game play is bland. They're rewarding for...like...one button in their entire kits, or they just stat check the shit out of people, but translating that objective success into success the player perceives is hard to do. Maybe Trundle beating your shit down is kinda cool at times, but for the most part, older tank designs have issues with people appreciating what they're even doing. It doesn't feel like they're doing that much, and when someone like Akali or Yasuo's dancing around you, it garners spite.

Highly reliable champs (Annie/Sona/Garen/Kayle): When it's hard to create lower lows for a champ, your highs have to be controlled in rather unbecoming ways as well. Usually you get the marksman treatment, where your scalings are your gates to enjoyment, and they open or close depending on what Riot decides for you. Yeah, what those champs over there are doing looks cooler and more fun, but you're objectively more reliable than them, so Riot has to cut down on what you get to do because what you do is stronger due to reliability, which isn't fun, but it works so they can rework someone else.

The main point is perception versus reality. CT's champs feel impactful and powerful to a point where people grossly overestimate their strength, while people undervalue others on the roster, including their own champions. This is how someone like Sona, Janna, Nami, or Jax can quietly acquire a 54% win rate and no one bats an eye, but a CT champ on a 50% win rate causes hell to break loose. They feel way stronger and influential than they actually are in solo queue...which is good. A champion SHOULD make you feel like you're strong and influential. You SHOULD feel empowered to play a champion. The issues occur when everyone else around you feels like you're too good in comparison to them because their own game play experience doesn't get close to yours. Not objectively, but based on perception.

So what's the remedy?

Well, there's a few aspects for CT designs that I think needs to be integrated into more champ designs.

1. Each skill in a champ's kit needs to be important. CT designs are usually kits that rely on most of, or all of, their basic spells in neutral game play to make the kit work right. Many older designs have these sort of "dead weight" abilities that are OBVIOUSLY there to make build orders simpler. Teemo, for example, has only one active basic ability. Vi doesn't have an active on her W as well. Sona's E is so forgettable that most people put a point in it at levels 4 through 8 rather than level 3. On the other hand, I don' think a Thresh or a Yasuo would work even remotely well if you just up and didn't care about one of their buttons.

2. There needs to be some part of the champion's kit that players are actively working towards/against. Most CT designs have SOMETHING that's on a pretty short cd that players are encouraged to play around. Akali's Q, Yasuo's E and Q, Darius's passive, Warwick's Q, Zoe's everything...there needs to be something to keep the players engaged relatively constantly.

3. Avoid front-loading. Most CT's designs actively avoid front-loading damage. What this does is that it allows you to create more opportunities for players to outplay each other. Sure, Yasuo's zipping through minions, but at least he's not Dian-ass blasting you, so you have the time to assess your situation and attempt to react. This is the reasoning behind Darius needing to stack his passive before slamming you with his ult. This is the reason for Zoe needing to land her E before blasting you with a paddle star (sure, if it hits from a long distance, it hurts like hell, but note she has to send the move backwards, then send it flying forwards. You have plenty of time to dodge it, and if she does the prep from out of vision, it doesn't mean it's some massive .2 second burst option). This is the reason for Akali's damage being baked into her passive and the delayed second shot of her ult. When you aren't super front-loaded, you create a space where you're allowed more room for bells and whistles because you're less reliable. Those extra bits seem cool and strong, but what's stronger between Akali dancing in her shroud or Rengar just murdering you in a singular jump and walking off?

In shorter terms, designing more well-rounded basic abilities with a clear game play goal in mind that isn't extremely bursty upon contact, that's what will give champion designs more room for cooler and more fun tools to utilize in the game so people don't feel like they're missing out or playing something that's less capable than a CT champ, which drains the fun out of those match-ups despite the reality of the situation.

If anyone wants to discuss, feel free to do so below.