My Thoughts on League of Legends' Balance.

A couple warnings beforehand: I expect this discussion to change my (and possibly others') personal views on how to play this game. I will be editing this main post often through the discussions. The rest of this main post is probably also going to be extremely long.

I play several games of league a day, seeing as I just recently graduated high school and am working part-time at a local fast food store. This sums up my personal age, but my experience spans from season 1 (my original account got lost somewhere out there) and my current ranking is Silver III, with 171 wins and 161 ranked losses on this account. I'm sure these stats just made some people instantly leave the page, and I'm certain others will have decided to read it all just because of these stats and this information.

I am listing what I believe are issues in the state of the game right now, and my opinions on how we can fix them.

• This first statement is less of an idea of an issue and more about how I approach the idea of balance in LoL. League of Legends' champions' design/balance matches that of balancing chairs. Imagine a game where everyone picked out different chairs, all of which had 2 legs in different positions, and your goal as a "player" of this game is to sit on your chair and not let it tip over, all the while trying to get other players to tip over on their chairs. So, the obvious strategy is to play to your strengths (e.g. which sides your legs are on) and to your opponent's weaknesses (which side their legs are on). But, what happens when you throw a couple 3- or 4-legged chairs into the mix? Those chairs have a much harder time tipping over and provide more stability so the player can knock over someone else's chair easier. Analogizing this to LoL, you have a whole bunch of champions instead of chairs, whose legs would be their damage output, utility, survivability, etc. A champion who does a lot of damage and can survive a lot (, for example) usually doesn't have that much utility, similarly a champion with a lot of utility and survivability probably doesn't deal that much damage, e.g. or .

• One thing people had underestimated, most of all Riot's champion designers, is mobility creep, the term used to describe champions with several dashes/blinks. Mobility enables a champion to easily dodge skillshots by moving out of the way, and a lot of damage comes from these skillshots. Currently, the only thing that counters mobility is lockdown, but only if you land it. This is why I feel there should be more "point-and-click" stuns or otherwise easier ways to land lockdown. The only other option I see is to nerf mobile champions to a nearly (maybe even) unplayable form, with very little damage output or very low defensive stats.

• Following up on the mobility creep issue is everyone's favorite teemo hater, . Someone on Riot's design team (I think it was Statikk in his recent Q&A) stated that they want to balance Lee Sin around the idea of an "early gambit, late-game fall-off." As soon as I read that, I remembered another champion whose design is clearly akin to that: . I feel that the gameplay balance team might be able to talk to avid Shaco players about him and possibly make a form of balance for Shaco, before working on Lee Sin.

• My final topic of discussion, which probably is the least important, champion redesigns. I feel Riot is moving in a good direction with the Urgot Discussion Thread and the style of asking the players what they think is the way a champion's design is made to fit. I don't think there's much more to add to this statement.

I hope some of you comment here not to agree with me, but to at the very least play "devil's advocate" and point out any flaws in my argument.