As a fellow girl gamer, it's not fair that the majority of the female champions are

Jay x Miku x3·8/28/2014, 4:19:17 AM·21 votes·12,583 views

ranged. Go. Go ahead and check all the champs on client and count them. The majority are ranged. The majority of male champs are also melee. Are you freaking kidding me riot. Females should not be thought of as the "weak" gender and have to do things in combat from damn distance. Males shouldn't be the only ones spraying their testosterone against other "close quarter combat" male melees spraying their own testosterone. Only 13/40 female champs are melee. It's disgustingly bias and I have no words to say to you Riot.

59 Comments

GranspearZX8/28/2014, 5:29:51 AM51 votes

Wow. Where to begin...

**Your first problem is the assertion that 'ranged' is synonymous with 'weak'. **That's a perception problem on your part, not anyone else's.
Your second problem--also one of perception--is the math. 13/40 is about 33%. One third. ONE THIRD. Consider that the same percentage of all champions are also female. Somehow in your righteousness you seem to leave that out. Entirely.
Your entire premise, as is typical of these types of arguments, offers no solutions. What niche do you think another melee champion could fill that hasn't already been filled? There's 120 champions. If you're proactive enough to come up with this... enlightening critique of champion diversity, you would be better served by actually articulating what you think that diversity should look like.
That poll... that poll. It's amazingly immature, and identifying oneself as a 'girl gamer' generally is a red flag; by some grand stretch of the imagination, you seem to be under the impression that your clear bias is somehow more noteworthy than other biases--even the imaginary ones you put forth in your post.

Would it be cool to see female melee champions? Sure. This particular argument and the way it's presented though? Nah.

RiotCedriel8/28/2014, 8:38:40 AM31 votes

I'd like to offer a different perspective on this issue. When I read your argument the first thing that I wanted to check is whether we were mainly relegating female Champions to mystical waif roles instead of letting them kick ass in battle in any way a player would like. I assigned a gender and a main role to each Champion for this purpose—the roles are something I assigned on my own and don't represent how our design team sees them—counting all monsters (Cho'Gath, Vel'Koz, Kog'Maw, etc.) as male because we use the 'he' pronoun to refer to them.

Out of a total of 120 Champions, 40 (33.3%) are female.
For Assassins, 3 out of 9 (33.3%) Champions are female (Akali, Katarina, LeBlanc).
For Fighters, 11 out of 33 (33.3%) Champions are female (Diana, Elise, Evelynn, Fiora, Irelia, Kayle, Nidalee, Poppy, Riven, Shyvana, Vi).
For Mages, 10 out of 32 (31.3%) Champions are female (Ahri, Anivia, Annie, Cassiopeia, Karma, Lissandra, Lulu, Lux, Orianna, Syndra).
For Marksmen, 8 out of 17 (47.1%) Champions are female (Ashe, Caitlyn, Jinx, Miss Fortune, Quinn, Sivir, Tristana, Vayne).
For Supports, 6 out of 10 (60.0%) Champions are female (Janna, Morgana, Nami, Sona, Soraka, Zyra).
For Tanks, 2 out of 19 (10.5%) Champions are female (Leona, Sejuani).

The numbers for most of the roles look fairly distributed. What jumps out are Support, where female Champions are over-represented, and Tanks, where they're under-represented. We can definitely improve in having more tough, resilient female Champions—and female monsters, too!

However, even if we fall a little short in this area we do aim to make all Champions feel badass. We view female Champions with the same respect, and aim to grant them the same narrative agency and importance, that we do male Champions. Our focus—which I believe is more important than the raw population numbers—is having a variety of strong, independent women who have stories of their own going on and don't need anyone to rescue them. We want you to feel like you're this invulnerable bastion locking the enemy down and keeping your team safe when you play Leona, and we want to make you feel like your punches are ridiculously powerful and satisfying when you play Vi. Hopefully if the play experience and fantasy are good enough you will be able to feel like there are strong women that can genuinely represent you and have a good time, even if we fall short on perfect parity.

ModCaptainMårvelous8/28/2014, 5:48:32 AM16 votes

Well it's weird that a guy can't agree or disagree. Probably a troll thread but anyways:

Just because someone is ranged does not imply their weak. I mean Jinx is physically capable to carry two extremely heavy guns as well as sprint with them on occasion. Quinn is able to shove someone with a well-timed backflip. Sivir is both agile enough to sprint at extreme speeds as well as strong enough to carry a heavy chakram, not to mention run with it and use it effectively.

I think it's also worth noting that a lot of these females are some of the strongest in their fields. Caitlyn is the sheriff of an entire city and renowned sniper. Karma is the duchess of an entire country. Sarah Fortune is a bounty hunter with hundreds of confirmed kills/claims. Vayne is literally one of the greatest hunters in the world when it comes to dark magic/sorcery. etc.

Upset or not, I think there is little emphasis (if any at all) that females are the weaker gender in League. But yeah this is probably a troll thread so w/e

Willahelm Fulber8/28/2014, 4:56:09 AM8 votes

This is an extremely feministic point of view, and as I am a guy I will try to respond in as much of a logical, unbiased way as possible.

It makes sense that frail little girls (Annie, and for the most part yordles) aren't strong enough to whack eachother with blunt objects, and those whose lore gives them prominence in some sort of ranged ability (Ashe/Vayne/Caitlyn;marksmanship, Lux/Ahri/etcetc.;magic) would probably prefer to use it over melee.

And, in reverse, there are a lot of male champions who are frail enough not to be smacking eachother such as Varus, Twitch, Teemo, or Malzahar.

MackleDoge8/28/2014, 4:49:33 AM7 votes

I don't see how ranged is indicative of a weak champion. You're taking something entirely irrelevant and blowing it way out of proportion.

CobaltBlue648/28/2014, 4:46:35 AM5 votes

I am a guy and I think it is fair to say we need more close combat female champions. I was actually thinking that quite some time ago.

YwP987Eu8i8/28/2014, 4:57:16 AM5 votes

le epik gd mey mey lmao xD xD

red panda z8/28/2014, 6:14:02 AM5 votes

First of all, I feel like there should be 4 choices, girl agree, girl disagree, guy agree, guy disagree... just saying.

I'm with the crowd on this one, there are lots of powerful female Champions and ranged doesn't mean "weak", but I do agree that we could always use more melee love and more diverse female Champions is something I think a lot of people want to see more of.

What about a Valkyrie themed Champion? They were all about charging into war with swords and spears. I can imagine her leading a team fight using a Sivir-like ult with an AD steroid or something.

Wullf8/28/2014, 6:25:31 AM4 votes

In that light I'd like to mention supports.

Majority of supports are female and support dudes are mostly melee. There is practically no male support casters. There is Gragas (but he is not completely support) also Zliean (meh), I have seen Xerath (still not support), Victor? (noting much), Velkoz (I like that one), Galio (usable) and Fiedelsticks (not played anymore).

These are all but champs taken from other positions. On the other side there are female pure support casters: Nami, Lulu, Janna, Sona, Moragana, Karma, Soraka, Zyra. And I left out experimental ones like LIssandra, Oriana, Elise (used to be good), Lux, Annie.

This is how it is. And I am not complaining even though I'd love one or two male casters supports.

Woman and Man were always two symbols. Men - strong and rough. Woman - weak and gentle. And design is a lot about symbols.

Females should not be thought of as the "weak" gender

Physically they are. If you are thinking about mentality thats different story. Fact is that majority of men are stronger then women. But in League there are strong women and they are great.

I am no women hater nor sexist.

At the end of the day you pick your champion not because he is he or she but because of his/hers skills and abilities.

GhastlyGhoulMan8/28/2014, 9:01:48 PM4 votes

I think what's biased is that poll lol. With those options it seems to me like YOU'RE assuming that guy gamers will automatically disagree with you, because you don't even give them the option to choose whether they agree or disagree. Just saying, watch out for your own gender bias before you talk about gender bias. :P

vins8/28/2014, 1:11:39 PM3 votes

Kaceytron is that you? Syndra

The Hexmage8/28/2014, 2:32:00 PM3 votes

Who cares if a champions is male or female?

MrToasterWafflez8/28/2014, 2:57:10 PM3 votes

LOL- The AD Carry is a always ranged and if you think champs like vayne are weak...my god

Deep Terror Nami8/28/2014, 6:20:06 AM3 votes

Females (human) naturally have less muscle mass than males, so even if female champions were portrayed to be weak on purpose there is a very good reason for it. How many women do you know that are stronger or larger than the average man? If ranged was synonymous with weak then does that make Graves and Draven weak? I think you just pissed on the wrong mustache.

Hell, look at my name. Two names generally attributed to females, but nobody would call a valkyrie or witch a weak creature!

Omnipherious8/28/2014, 5:36:44 AM3 votes

Funny you bring this up because one of the archetypes we're missing is in fact a Breanne of Tarth type (no Leona doesn't count, neither does Diana). I'm talking a big, strong woman that can arm-wrestle Garen here. A woman that can punch Braum through a wall and give him a concussion. I'm imagining a tall, muscular woman with a Scottish accent here. Fuck it, give her a two-handed great hammer.

Examples: http://th04.deviantart.net/fs31/PRE/f/2008/257/c/8/c81278b66bac67ec5d8a3c472c906f9c.jpg http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090801164821/powerinstinct/images/e/ef/Angela_bonnou.jpg http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/02/femalebarbarian.jpg

I love strong female characters, I don't agree that being ranged is a sign of weakness though. I think the issue more is that, many of the female characters present adhere to the general rules of female characters in video games; Slender? Check. Pretty? Check? Appeals to one or more common male fetishes? Check.

Even the armoured ladies of League are pretty poster girl status. The only females I would actively recognize with badass status this game are Katarina and Poppy; even then, Katarina is poster girl status so that leaves Poppy as the only realistic choice.

Edit: Forgot Vi and Riven; Vi's definitely cool and badass. Riven is okay but... poster girl :| More Riot pls.

Edit2: Akali, Fiora, Irelia, Leona and Diana are cool but too poster girl IMO.

MAZZ1M08/29/2014, 2:23:38 PM2 votes

You're too biased to look at this clearly.

Your poll alone indicates you don't think men are even capable of understanding which is untrue. Women are typically relegated to roles and designs that cater to masculine ideas -games are dominated by men. That shouldn't come as a surprise. What you're off about though is that the women aren't fairly represented in action. Please refer to the Riot post by all means for the statistics on it. Being only 33% of the roster, any role therein is going to be fewer than the male and monster majority. That's simple percentages. The distribution and ratios (which are all you can fairly compare) aren't unfair.

Then there's also the obvious, the moment I saw this post I thought "lol, and two of the scariest hyper-carries in the game are Riven and Fiora." Even if they are a minority you sure as hell wouldn't know it. When people see Riven, Fiora, Akali, Katarina, etc. they think "Oh shit! Shut her down before she snowballs!" not "Oh, it's just another bimbo." or "I don't remember what she does... let me look this up at loading screen." You always remember what they do. If anything, the male designs are boring by comparison. Most of my roster is female.

If you're going to have a feminist outlook on the game, approach an actual issue. I've seen the sexualization of the female champs come up quite a bit. That'll never go away, but it's at least an issue that everyone, even men, (even if we don't want anything done about it) can understand. Tackling issues without a level head is counter-productive and hurts your argument more than anything.

JustBoneBrook10/16/2014, 5:17:13 AM1 votes

I belive if you want stronger girl upvote this http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/9x4qsuYP-strong-female-champion or this http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/guKEAA3m-a-she-hulk-champ (i know the name is not really good but it what i mean)

Because usally women are not seen like bodybuilder

Or go there if you think Shyvana look too weak

Tiara Diamond 5/14/2017, 12:52:22 PM1 votes

i'm a girl and i pref play range ( or riven sometime) meme si je main Janna ( le cliché xD ) je comprend celles qui joues d'autre champs

Quil Evrything5/14/2017, 3:19:35 PM1 votes

reality check: girls usually ARE weaker than boys. Try not to let your political correctness get in the way of reality.

For what it's worth, I'd like to see more manly ranged champs. but your argument sucks.

FROScountered5/14/2017, 3:56:36 PM1 votes

Fiora , illaoi , akali , camille , rek sai , evelynn , irelia , katarina , kayle , nidalee , riven , sejuani , leona , shyvana , vi = 15 female melee champion pretty strong in the game .