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So, regarding Lee Sin... (x-post from GD)

Shinjusuke·2/20/2014, 8:01:55 PM·9 votes·1,320 views

I know he's not the monthly hate-target of GD, but I legitimately want some answers about Lee Sin.

I don't think anyone who's played any real length of time, or has any notion of game balance, except the Lee Sin "mains", of course, who are "blind" (hueueue) to his balance issues, will disagree he's an overpowered champion concept.

My question is, why is he allowed to be?

To sum up, Lee Sin is "supposed" to be either an assassin, or in rare cases, a tank. Primarily he is played as a jungler, but he is JUST as good in both top lane and mid lane, if not better in some cases.

He has seen multiple, lengthy stints in high-level play, and has been FotM a couple times w/out the repercussions that usually come with FotM status.

His LOWEST damage skill is an AOE with 100% bonus AD scaling, it reveals all stealthed targets, and can be followed up with a much longer range slow that not only slows movement speed, but attack speed as well, for an absurd 60% considering it doesn't taper off over it's very long four second duration.

This is only one skill.

If we continue to look, Lee Sin has a 200 point shield, that he grants to himself as well as the person he dashes to. He can use to dash to a unit up to 700 units away, a huge distance for a gap closer. Furthermore, this dash can be used to dash to both wards, and minions, including the trinkets that everyone in the game gets from level 1.
After casting this, he can give himself 25% lifesteal outright. So after one, maybe two vamp scepter items, he can spike heal in a fight, or sustain pretty much indefinitely in his jungle. (or yours, because Lee Sin can invade incredibly safely.)

It gets better.

He gets a 600 base plus 200% of his bonus AD kick, which knocks an enemy TWELVE HUNDRED units away, keeping them airborne for a second, and doing equal damage and knocking away all other enemies hit for the same length of time. In an ideal situation (note I said ideal), this can be used to disengage from an entire team and nuke them for a very very high amount of damage, as well as effectively cc-locking them for a full second.

And I saved the best for last:

The 7 second cooldown (without any cdr, of course), 975 unit gap closing harass + engage + free bush check + power gauge move. Lee Sin can fire a projectile that does 170 + 90% of his bonus AD as physical damage, reveals the hit target, and allows him to follow up by dashing to the enemy doing the SAME damage, PLUS 8% of their missing health. He can't be body-blocked, he WILL connect with the target he's after. The dash has even longer activation range at 1100 units, and on top of this, can be cancelled by using his W skill to dash to a different target.

Finally, his passive grants him an inexhaustible amount of energy unless he uses it incredibly poorly, as it grants him a 40% attack speed spike for 2 attacks and returns 15 energy on each attack.

The end result is a champion with Sustain, Tankiness, Waveclear, Hard CC, Soft CC, Dueling Power, Burst Power, High Scaling, High Base Damages, Good Base Stats, and some of the highest mobility in the entire game, if not definitively the highest outside Kassadin (at least Kassadin's entire concept is "i'm mobile"). A Lee Sin with ANY skill with literally never have to fight a fight he DOES NOT want to. He can even leave a fight, decide it's a better situation, and come right back. If you count in flash, a Lee Sin combo allows him to close a gap of 2075 units, and do so reliably and consistently (I'm not adding the extra range on resonating strike, because you'd have to get in close enough to hit with sonic wave first). That's more than enough to come under tower, dash to your trinket, hit a high value target with sonic wave, dragon kick them, jump to them (well outside turret range), and flash out if necessary. Not to mention he has very strong invade offense AND defense, can juke better than anyone, Kassadin included, if played right, can clear incredibly fast with proper warding, doesn't need blue, can gank successfully with a gap closer, nuke damage, and cc at level 2, and sustain near indefinitely in his own jungle.

After all that, my question is: WHY is his kit allowed to be this overloaded? I'm not really QQing so much as appalled at the fact this exists. I've been playing a very long time and Lee has never been bad, ever. Which is good, except that he's ALWAYS good. He's never mediocre. Nobody will say you're trolling by picking Lee Sin in any lane but bot. At the risk of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, anyone who actually pays attention to champion power can pretty much agree he's way too strong.

Has Riot just decided they're fine with him? Is it a "he won't work unless he's OP" mentality (which is totally wrong, by the way). Has a Rioter never gotten their butt kicked by a Lee Sin with way less gold than them before? Never played with anyone who strangely enough sucks at everyone [I]but[/I] Lee Sin? etc?

I'm legitimately curious. Even if they never have plans to balance him, I'm just curious why he's allowed to exist in this state. Best I can figure Riot's just treating it like there's "bigger fish", like when people kept saying "Olaf is OP" or "Ezreal is OP", and were ignored until Riot saw them wreck for themselves.

Thoughts? Preferably besides "LEE ZIN SHO SCHKILLED HE HAZ SKILLSHOT U SUK NUB" that inevitably comes from every single asian-fantasy lee sin player guarding their MMR..

13 Comments

Kira Onime2/20/2014, 8:17:54 PM4 votes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXxcpaCr1hw

an actual dog2/20/2014, 10:49:35 PM3 votes

I just hate how much he's been indirectly buffed by Sightstone and yellow trinket. His W is basically Flash on a 9 second cooldown now. He's arguably as frustrating to play against as Kassadin.

Lavasioth2/20/2014, 9:44:33 PM2 votes

I feel like 90% of the reason Riot doesn't change Lee Sin is simply they get a lot of revenue from him and his skins. I also feel that is why they tend to have only 20 or so characters at anyone time that are considered really good in current Meta because it boosts sales

Argionelite2/25/2014, 12:19:47 AM1 votes

Early game dominance. That defines lee sin. If you don't manage to end the game quickly, he scales really badly into endgame. With all the ad scaling you might think not, but if he builds tanky he has no damage lategame, and if he goes damage, he gets melted in teamfights. The 200 health shield isn't much, considering that building AP on him is stupid. He can do everything, and that is amazing for the early game, but when late game comes along, he is outclassed by many other champions. He can't burst as much as Jax, shield as much as Janna, his only hard cc ability is on a 1 minute cooldown, just to name a few. Do you realize how much skill you need to not throw the game with him?

Early game, he dominates in all aspects. Late game, he is so-so in all aspects.

Unless you're inSec. Then they just surrender.

Take this from a veteran lee sin player :)

Ku renz2/21/2014, 3:24:06 AM1 votes

he falls hard late game like renekton so ye..

Newbert Newman2/21/2014, 3:42:30 AM1 votes

I don't main Lee Sin, so don't take me as a "Blind" fanboy......

But a lot of that 100% AD scaling actually does MAGIC damage and scales very poorly into late game. Also, Lee Sin is great vs. Bruisers/Fighters but with any lock down CC he doesn't survive. He can't carry like an AD does or an APC. So he has good scaling which means if he gets fed he's scary, but very rarely will win you a game.

Last night(alright I'm S5 so grain of salt here) I played MF bot, 1 0 11 until 25 minutes. Lee Sin kept KS and until the 30 minute mark was unstoppable ( i think 10 2 4).

After that, because he bought too many dmg items he got focused down too easily and we lost. Lee has to have dat tanky build in late game; he doesn't do enough damage quickly enough to be like Talon or Zed and carry into late game when extremely fed.

Just my two cents, but I don't think he's overpowered as much as a great jungler. Which isn't bad in and of itself.

Knight Devout2/22/2014, 10:44:15 AM1 votes

Lee Sin is really versatile and his damage is also quite good for his kit. One may argue he falls back lategame, but considering his utility, and base damage, I doubt he will be usless late, unless you stacked 5 bloodthirster.

Some interesting changes could be fix the damage/effect of his ability to distance with the enemies: Q damage based on % of missing health should be calculated on distance traveled with resonating strike. E slow could be stronger the further you are from Lee Sin. Things like that, to create some counterplay and meaningful things to do for Lee Sin opponents, rather than hoping that lee players messes up.