The Best/Worst Designed Champions In Your Opinion?
Regarding the following criteria:
Artistic Design: Having a unique and cool look in game and on the champion's splash art and voiceover instead of being the generic buff warrior or fanservice on overdimensional legs.
Lore and Character: Having an original and interesting character with a cool background that is relatable and not your copycat chosen hero that will save the world or villain that is evil because he's an envious asshole.
Gameplay Design: Probably the most debatable one. Having a unique and distinct playstyle that is fun to play with and against while not being doomed to be either hilariously overpowered or so weak that you forget about their existence. Not just the next copycat autohitting bruiser.
When it comes to gameplay design all the champions below get excluded because they are on Riot's list of "probably getting a rework soon (tm)". Yorick is excluded altogether because he's getting a complete overhaul ( even though I kinda like his character and league judgement, meh ). You can still write about them if you want but you can expect them to change over something like the next 3 years or so. -Yorick -Galio -Swain -Urgot -Cho'Gath -Irelia -Evelynn -Mordekaiser -Pantheon -Rammus -Mundo -Nunu -Akali -Shaco
For me, the best designed champion is Riven. I know what you think but hear me out.
I don't even play her that often but her kit is very unique and interesting and both fun for the player who plays her and whoever plays against her. It's relative complexity allows the player to get better over time and have fun for several games instead of something like a Garen which gets pretty stale pretty fast.
It's also pretty fun to play against her. She has a really bad reputation because of her relatively unbalanced history and past but I think she has finally reached her sweet spot between not being over-or underpowered. If you are laning against a Riven you have to actively outplay her and remember all the tools at her disposal which makes for intense and fun fights. And it's not like it's going to be happening only once per laning phase either - instead of having a boring farmfest you can count on her engaging you very often to duel you.
When it comes to her lore and character it makes you really relate to her past and sympathize with her. Even though she's on the good spectrum she has a troubled character and past filled with mistakes that affected a lot of people negatively, but this makes her ultimately more human and relatable. Her blade is also a really good metaphor for her character and metaphors are always awesome in literature. Compare that to the heroes which are absolutely perfect in everything and the chosen one and could never ever do anything bad because they are so good and amazing and perfect.
Her artistic design is pretty simplistic but this also makes her seem pretty cool again. She has that rogue vibe to her and it makes the contrast between her and her oversized shiny runic blade during her ultimate even more awesome. You don't have to make something look overly extreme and shiny to make it look awesome ( a lesson that Japanese and Korean game developers don't seem to have learned ). And while she does look pretty she isn't oversexualized or anything like that.
Contrary to that is Quinn.
Quinn was created in a time when Riot was creating champions in really short periods of time and it really did not benefit her all that much.
Her kit was absolutely terrible before the rework but that is not something that should be focused on, because we are looking at the present and not the past.
Even so I'm not a big fan of her Kit. The only ability that is unique about her is her ultimate. The rest is pretty much copycat from other champions. Her Q is just another damaging projectile, like that hasn't been on any other Marksmen yet. Sure it has the blind but this was already unique to Graves, and Graves' smokescreen is designed much better than the blind on her Q - I'll talk about that later on. Her W is basically Ashe's Hawk shot, but in a circle instead of a line. Her E has a lot of combinations but is ultimately just another dash ability on another marks(wo)man.
When it comes to playing with her she actually can be kind of fun. She is all over the place so she will rarely be only farming and as a lane bully she will have an interesting and action-packed lane. Being a marksman also makes her really complex mechanically, though she is probably one of the more easier ones.
What really bothers me is how her playstyle affects her enemies and how frustrating it is to play against her. There are lane-bullies that have great designs and even though you can't fully avoid a lane bully to be frustrating, something like a Darius or Gnar can be fun lanes and don't let you feel like you can do nothing against it.
Quinn on the other hand has that annoying blind mechanic to her Q which is pretty frustrating. The low amount of vision you have can be counterplayed but it just feels like you can't do anything and it is not a fun experience. Compare that to Graves' Smoke Screen where it is definitely disrupting but you have the feeling that you can do something against it by walking out of it, instead of being forced to endure it for 2 seconds.
The rest of her kit also makes it really hard for melee champions to approach her instead of having to farm it out, most notably her E and her standard marksman range which allows her to poke you under your tower, which even makes that option really hard to pursue.
I'm not saying that she's OP - In a teamfight she is much worse than other marksmen and in lane she is very vulnerable to ganks - it's just that she does have a toxic playing pattern to play against and it's the last thing you want to approach in the evening after a hard day of school or work.
Or, to make it short, gameplay-wise, she is Teemo 2.0.
Now, let's get to her artistic design. And oh boy, is it bad, at least for League's standards.
While she is not oversexualized she is pretty generic. And it's not like with Riven where it adds to her design and character, it is flat out just boring. She's just a woman in armor with a crossbow and weird looking helmet. There's not a lot more that I can say about her because that's basically it.
Valor also deserves a mention. It would have been interesting if he would have been some kind of special or interesting bird, at least something that may be overused like a Phoenix. But no, it's just a bird, nothing more to it.
Compare that to the companions other champions have. Kled's mount Skaarl is a creative mix between a Chocobo and a Bearded Dragon. That combined with the derpy look on her face which gives her a nice contrast to her rider.
Then, there's Tibbers. The idea of a little girl throwing her teddy bear at people to transform it in an oversized flaming magical grizzly bear is just extremely awesome compared to the burd.
Even in game it never really was spectacular, but now after the rework it's just so absurd that it is downright hilarious. Even if it has a really big wingspan a Bird of that size could never carry a human, especially because birds need to be extra light to the point of having empty bones. Not only that, the way Quinn just hangs in there looks absolutely stupid and lazy.
Let's get to her lore. Yet again, it's kind of generic and boring. Her brother died and she fell into a depression. That has been used so often in pop culture already that it is really annoying at this point. But the rest of the lore is just really weird. Basically, Burd showed up randomly and over and over again until she replaced her brother with him. Now they both fight for Demacia. Meh.
She did have an inner conflict, albeit a pretty boring one but now she's just pretty much without anything to cheer for because it has been solved. Other characters have interesting ambitions and goals but at this point Quinn just has nothing. Well, except for being a soldier I guess? Another generic warrior. Welp.
Well this turned out to be more of a rant than I expected, anyway, would love to see some of your takes on this topic.
