I don't really think so. Not without a lot more work.

Most gameplay updates keep a decent amount of the kit - even if it's shifted from actives to passives, combined, changed, etc.

Even if the abilities are all changed, enough of them remains for people to recognize the champion. As an example, I once came back after the fiora VGU and she really felt like the same champion.

In fact, I actually had to look up a list of VGUs - because the champions don't feel any different. And from that list, there's only a couple where I think maybe they'd fly as new champions. Specifically, the soraka and Sona gameplay updates could've been formed into new champions as both of them were virtual kit reworks and removed the one thing each champion was defined by (Mana giving and persistent auras, respectively).

Except that the older versions of Akali, Aatrox, Ryze, and many others were problematic as hell and would require even more work to balance rather than just starting over with a fresh concept. They were also incredibly outdated in some cases like Swain's.

Fact: Nasus is the most skill-expressive jungler to have ever existed in League of Legends, which is why Riot is buffing him.

this discussion always comes down to the same argument "I'm fine with Riot deleting champions because it doesn't affect me". Idk why people resort to such mental gymnastics instead of just admitting it.

Fact: many irelia players were upset seeing xayah and thinking much of her kit would have been a good irelia rework.

ITT: People who didn't play or care for the reworked champions claim that reworks are the same because they are ignorant to the subject.

Yes, they could have. And then we'd have like a dozen characters that were terrible, and that pretty much no one played, just eating up resources.

In what way are they healthier? Akali is considered one of the most broken champions to grace league of legends.

"They may be problematic but atleast they're healthier for the game most of the time." #"most"

Reading comprehension is fun.

Ezreal was more akin to their mini mid season changes they used to do like with malzahar, not a true VGU.

It was still a VGU. Ezreal's base design is fine, not a broken walking stat check like Old Aatrox or a point and click spam-monster like Ryze.

Evelynn, Urgot and Galio are the big swings from their original concepts. Galio and Urgot in particular are so different from the original source material that they could have been released as separate champions side by side with the originals and no one would have said anything.

They could have, except that makes more work for the balance team, splits the dwindling playerbase of those champions even more, and doesn't remove the problematic design of the old ones. Old Aatrox would never work as a niche of a drain-tank. Old Akali would never have worked as there was no peeling against her. Do I need to go on?

The problem here is not whether or not the new champions are better in your eyes, the problem is that they're deleting champions not reworking them. Evelynn was a perfect example of one of the first reworks they've done to a champion with a substantial user base, and low and behold when you completely change their champion it's the least popular one they've ever done because with the more people they pissed off the more of voice they have.

Uh... yes, they are reworking champions. Same or improved lore, same champion concept (ie. Swain as tactician, Nunu & Willump as yeti and small boi), generally similar gameplay elements. Aatrox is a fighter/bruiser with some lifesteal and a revival ult, Akali is an assassin with some dashes and a shroud, etc. Just because you don't agree with the changes doesn't mean they're deleting your champion.

Riot games - a business. What's better for business? Maintaining a low-playercount champion with no counterplay or reworking it into a more modern, more counterable, more popular champion? See: Evelynn, Urgot.

I USED to be a Shen main so I think I have some authority when I say reworks can be bittersweet, but I'd rather have him be more modern and able to be picked up by others instead of being a super niche, boring pick that doesn't appeal to most.

I know you're probably newer to the game but try to think of it from the perspective of someone who played these champions for years.

How cute. I've been playing since Season 4 and all of my friends have been playing since S2, so you're wrong on that point. I'm also nearly double your level with another level 50 account and another one in the works. Next. ######inb4 "season 4 is still new" or you try to shame the fact that I don't play ranked

Success to who? Who are these reworks actually better for?

The community? The freshness and health of the game?

This just proves you don't understand how a business works. Old Evelynn, Yorick, Galio, Warwick, Aatrox, Akali, Ryze, Urgot, Nunu, all insanely outdated champions with virtually no playerbase.

Does it suck to have your champion changed? Yes, as a ex-Shen main, it does, a lot. I'm out for the greater good of the game though, and pissing off 0.1-0.5% of your playerbase to make 5-10%+ of them happy is most definitely worth it.

I'm not disagreeing with you that Akali/Aatrox/Irelia are currently bullshit, but you have to be insane to say you want both versions of the champions running around with unhealthy kits.

You seem to be getting a bit angry.

Great response to the fact that you completely misread and misunderstood the sentence. Just keep doubling down on that negativity.

This is where I question your experience, and probably why I considered you a newer player. Ezreal has been the bane of the balance team since his inception.

The reason I mentioned Ezreal is because he has clear weaknesses and counters unlike the former champions I mentioned. Can you dodge skillshots? Congratulations, Ezreal does no damage. He also has no waveclear, is squishy and very susceptible to punish when his E is down.

Old Aatrox gets near you. Can you outdamage him? No? Better flash. Good luck farming though because he'll just jump on you with Q because now you don't have flash. Did you have a great trade or poke him down? Too bad because he auto attacked a few minions and got 300+ health back.

New Aatrox gets near you. Did you dodge his W? No, but you can dodge the second part of it. His E is a very short range dash so that most likely won't chase you too well unless you're entirely immobile, and his Qs are all telegraphed with clearly marked sweetspots.

Pretty obvious to most people that the reworked version is better. Champion balance should be an ebb and flow of strengths and counters. Reworks accomplish that.

The reason they didn't hit Ezreal's problematic design is because of his popularity. By your definition he could have used a "full" rework for the health of the game moving forward.

You're missing the integral point of Ezreal actually having counters. Was he strong with FOTM or abusable builds? Yes, but you can dodge his main source of damage and escape/duel him very easily. Akali, Aatrox, and Irelia boiled down to "lol just don't fight"

You keep bringing up Akali like she was actually a problem. She maintained a healthy winrate without being a problem in game for a long time. Sure she had the small period with lane dominance but she even saw a mini update for that, which was received very well.

She was? Just because the champion isn't pick/ban doesn't mean it's healthy or people enjoyed fighting her. They forcibly kept a lock on Akali because if left unchecked she could dominate entire ELOs. Also, there was literally no escaping her. Her ult had a disgusting range and no cast time meaning flashes, dashes, and blinks were no match for the likes of Akali.

You say it would split the dwindling playerbase? Well Warwick proves you wrong. Not only was that Rework a big success it didn't split anything. Both original warwick mains and newer players to the champion loved it.

#Here's what I said:

They could have (split the champion designs), except that makes more work for the balance team, splits the dwindling playerbase of those champions even more, and doesn't remove the problematic design of the old ones

The reason Warwick didn't split the playerbase is because he's 1 champion who kept the same design. Like Swain, Nunu, you know, the healthy reworks? You're saying they should split the champions, I'm saying they shouldn't for the above reasons. Mentioning Warwick holds no basis because he's not two champions. I said they would be split if they were two separate champions, which Warwick is not.

You could make a lot of champions sound the same by using vague terms. This doesn't actually help your case. Eve is sexi ladi who kill ppl with stelth is accurate still but the champion is played completely differently.

You could say they play differently and as a result that means the champions got removed. You'd be wrong, because in practice the champions are similar to their old designs. Find me one rework that doesn't have one retained ability or element from their old kit.

In the case of urgot it would have been a challenge to make a lower playercount champion but that doesn't change the fact that he still didn't see anywhere close to a playercount bump until he was considered "broken and uncounterable" by a lot of people mid last season.

Which means his rework was a success.

And Eve on the other hand you maybe should have at least checked the stats. Not only only are her average numbers lower, but even during new eve's most broken time period she didn't even come close to the same play percentage as when old eve was meta. At least do a little leg work.

At certain points old Evelynn was busted, but the main point is she was outdated and unfun to fight against. New Eve has better winrates throughout most ELOs. Here's a graph of Evelynn's playrate and winrate over the course of a few years.

https://imgur.com/5jcxYs9.png?noredirect

"At least do a little leg work" into seeing why people hate fighting perma-invis, cheesy, unintuitive champions with little counterplay. New Evelynn actually has a telegraphed ability and easy to kill when caught.

And that champion is Twitch. Twitch went from being almost unplayed to one of the best and most played ADCs bot lane to the point where he needed nerfs over just his visual update and some smoothing of his animations. Clearly you don't need to butcher a champion just to get them back into the public's eye if that's your only argument.

So... the rework was a success you would say? But it just needed some tuning to get it right?

Hmm... kind of like Irelia, Aatrox, and Akali, who are currently being worked on, huh?

I'm saying reworks are on average pointless and accomplish nothing except to shift playerbases rather than fix anything.

Uh, no. It makes champions more fun to fight against, brings new players to the game or more players to the champions, more fun to play, brings them up to par both graphically and story-wise, re-invigorates their skins to higher qualities, gives them unique mechanics, and/or keeps the game fresh.

Taken straight from the Riot Support website:

WHY DO WE HAVE UPDATES? A champion update is a graphical or kit (play style) update that occurs after a champion's initial release. Over the past year, our teams have been working on updating champions whose visuals or gameplay don't fit with the current state of the game. Our goal is to level up any outdated visuals or gameplay to make them feel fresh while still retaining what makes them unique as a champion.

On average the majority of reworks accomplish this because regardless of what you're trying to argue, Ezreal, Nunu & Willump, Urgot, Swain, Evelynn, Xin Zhao, Galio, Warwick, Ryze, Yorick, Taric, Shen, Poppy, and a ton of other champions have succeeded in one or more of the categories listed above.

Objectively speaking, you're wrong considering that out of the 20 reworks to come out from 2015-2018 (including both Class and individual updates), only 3-4 of them have been problematic and that's just gameplay wise. So, I'm being generous when I say you're right about 20-25% of them.

New Evelynn actually has a telegraphed ability and easy to kill when caught.

Do you even play League? New ult is the best escape tool in the game while also being a massive aoe execute. And her "telegraphed" ability is her cc, which she doesnt need to oneshot past 2 items.

New Evelynn has been played less but banned more, literally the definition of a bad design. Unfun to play as or against. And you still blindly defend the rework due to some unexplained desire to believe that Riot can do no wrong.

Dozens of devs killed their own games wih poor choices, you dont need to defend them like holy bible arguing about things you barely know about. You have been multiple times corrected on your knowledge of playrates and winrates of reworked champions and you never even address it. You keep pulling statements that supposedly prove you right out of thin air.

Heres a quick summary: "Nobody played Eve, she needed rework" "Here, look, she was played more than Nueve" "Oh well she was OP and had no counterplay" "Look at her winrate, its been around 50% for months" "But she was cheesy and unfun to play against" "Look at the stats, she is banned more now than before" "Thats because shes finally viable, she was garbage before"

So which is it? Make up your mind lmao

most VGUs are bad but ironically the ones that boards hates the most vocally are mostly the only ones with actual quality to them

My only point of disagreement is if they were new champs, you'd still have people asking when is X going to get a VGU?

Otherwise, yes I think most of the reworks (except maybe swain) would have been better off as new champs.

It's kind of a lose lose situation really.

Updates an old champion

"What the frick, the old one was better."

Makes a new champion

"What the frick, update the old ones already."

That's the whole point of VGU.

Reworking old champions into the new meta without having to flood the game with new champions with un-unique lore.