The DBZ/Bleach/Naruto Problem - The Issue of Power Levels

Darrosh Jewfist··17 votes·3,345 views

A problem in a lot of battle manga is the escalating abilities of characters. So much so that in DBZ, Bleach, and Naruto there are characters that can literally annihilate entire worlds.

So it renders the common foot soldier rather... obsolete. Like, why do these guys exist if a single Bleach Captain is capable of annihilating an entire squad sans Captain?

Watching the Bard Video, this issue came up between me and my friends - doesn't the magic artifact kind of make Bard a bit more powerful than say... Rengar who's basically just a lion-man with bone weapons and jumps really far? Rengar doesn't have magic but can Rengar survive a direct hit from a magic orb laser? Can Darius? I mean, if the orb can annihilate a couple of Noxian soldiers - what makes Darius special?

Can Bard survive a laser shot? He certainly has the power to handle it and ascend to the heavens with it.

How exactly would a Darius and Bard fight play out?

Who has the greater power level between Kalista or Rek'Sai?

I mean, one thing that's great about the worldbuilding in Game of Thrones is the fact that there's numerous fighters where you have a pretty solid idea of how they'd fare. There's even a scene in the television series where soldiers are discussing who's the best swordsmen of their time. This leads to a lot of healthy speculation based on prior accomplishments and so forth.

But these League champions basically have none of that.

They're not explained what they can do or what they cannot do in their most extremes.

It's harder with magic, and it's harder with pseudo-demi-gods who have access to mountain melting weapons compared to Darius who is just a tough guy with an axe with no history of magic-surviving abilities.

;_;

I hope Riot sits down and considers the implications of their character's overall power and level in the lore. For example, the soon-to-be-here Ao Shin is a dragon that controls the weather. That's a bit over the top compared to say, Xin Zhao who's just a really good gladiator fighter with a spear, eh?

34 Comments

CupcakeTrap10 votes

Hey Darrosh! How's it going?

Actually, before getting to the "why do mooks matter", I think there's a problem explaining why Champions matter. My own head-canon for this is that Champions are kind of like D&D PCs, or Slayers in Buffy: they're empowered by some kind of extraplanar energy that allows them to go above and beyond mortal limits. Put another way, I don't think magic on Runeterra is limited to "mages" as such. I imagine that people sometimes get hit with a surge of power and go Super-Saiyan become Champions, often but not always in the midst of a crisis. So, maybe Lux was a pretty typical mage, and then bam, one day, she power-spikes and becomes a Champion.

In other words, I think that "Champion" is an in-universe term, and not just as a way to refer to people who rep their factions in the League (or whatever happens now post-retcon) or are famous for being skilled fighters. Rather, I think it's pretty obvious in-universe that (say) Garen is not just "a guy who's really good at swordfighting" but a superhuman Champion who could fight his way through dozens of lesser warriors. It would also allow you to have a fight between Caitlyn and Master Yi that wouldn't look like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs

It's similar to the headcanon I have for most comic book settings: I assume that part of the "fantasy" of the setting is that chi/ki is real, and spending a decade training with monks in the Himalayas doesn't just teach you some obsolete hand-to-hand fighting skills but turns you into a superhuman warrior. So of course Batman can jump out the window, catch his love interest midair, and absorb the impact of the multi-story drop onto a car without being horribly mangled. There's no RL martial arts technique for surviving that, but in comic book martial arts, all those myths about iron body training or whatever are true. This also explains why some dude can not only get good at punching people, but get SO good that they can fight a dozen gun-wielding thugs bare-handed and win.

I don't think this is that crazy. It just requires the acknowledgement that not all "magic" comes in the form of a person in flowing robes casting a spell from a spellbook.

So why aren't mooks obsolete?

I don't, however, think Champions are so amazingly powerful that they render actual armies obsolete. I've been talking about Warhammer too much lately, but…this was a major theme in Warhammer Fantasy. Heroes were awesome, and could even kill a shocking number of gumby troopers on their own, but the rules made it so that heroes plus mooks were a lot better than just heroes or just mooks.

I assume that Champions lead by example. They're elites who can intervene at critical moments to support the rank-and-file. And very often, in big battles, Champions wind up dueling each other to sort of cancel one another out.

In that Factions update I wrote about the Battle of Shurima, I had Swain comment on this topic:

“How do you kill a hero? You kill everyone else first. Do not waste your time with Champions and Summoners. Your first target will be the Demacian men-at-arms. They are here because their lords have commanded it. They are slaves, and they are already tired. They obey because they are afraid not to. You must give them something more terrifying than the useless pony-riding aristocrats yelling at them not to run away when they set eyes on two veteran Noxian legions flanked by the Executioners and the Nightmare Cavalry.” Swain stamped his cane into the floor of the gate complex. “I trust you are up to the task!” Shouts of BLOOD FOR NOXUS and STRENGTH ABOVE ALL filled the room.

—Hextech Revolution Update 9: The HexKorps

Champions are powerful, but they can't actually fight a war single-handedly. Their role in big battles is to inspire the common soldiers and to intervene where their strength will be most valuable.

Could (say) Garen kill a whole squad of Noxian soldiers? Yeah, probably. But if it's Garen and five hundred Demacians against three thousand non-Champion Noxians, the Demacians are almost certainly going to lose. He's not an army. He can try to kill the Noxian commander. He can fight side-by-side in the front ranks and keep Demacian morale up. But there's only so much that a Champion can do. Pretty soon, it's going to be him alone against thousands of Noxians.

So, I think Champions are pretty powerful, but they're not like DBZ characters who can obliterate entire armies with a wave of their hand, and whose only real rivals are other super-mega-energy-blasting-hidden-power-level aliens.

ItemsGuy11 votes

I think one of the neat things about pre-retcon League was that, a lot of champions could become champions by their own means. Getting superpowers from extraplanar phlebotinum is cool and all, but why does Garen have to be superhuman when he can instead distinguish himself from every other Demacian soldier ever through sheer dedication to his duty? Why can't Miss Fortune just be among the best bounty hunters through sheer skill and effort? Why can't Blitzcrank be special because he was the first golem to develop consciousness?

When the Institute was still in place, it didn't matter whether or not Teemo or Graves could wipe out dozens of soldiers without breaking a sweat (although having champs that could isn't a problem either--see Irelia or Sion), because a Champion wasn't just a really strong dude or a legend or a myth or whatever the hell they are now--they stood out because of their own excellence, and often either represented something greater than themselves, or had their own agenda. But now, if I was still invested in the lore, I'd feel pretty shitty about having someone like Zac or Olaf as a favorite champ, because as cool or fun as they may be, I know they'll never be capable of most of the stuff guys like Bard or Azir are. Olaf can die as glorious a death as he wants, but he alone would never be able to resurrect an entire kingdom from the ashes or steer the universe away from utter destruction for eternity.

KING OF MASKS3 votes

Cupcake, in some far-off alternate universe, you are the lead of rito's narrative team.

CupcakeTrap4 votes

[{quoted}](name=KING OF MASKS,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=EaE031Zs,comment-id=00030001,timestamp=2015-03-10T08:24:19.431+0000)

Cupcake, in some far-off alternate universe, you are the lead of rito's narrative team.

I take this as a great compliment. Thank you.

Narasimha3 votes

“How do you kill a hero? You kill everyone else first.

Honest question, did you get this from something else? Because I swear I've heard a version of this before. Something like "How do you kill a hero? Simple. You don't. You kill everything he stands for. Everything he's protecting. Everyone he loves and who loves him. You don't kill a hero. You kill what makes him a hero. And then? Then he's just another peg, waiting to be knocked down." I probably messed it up, but its driving me crazy, I'll try to find the original.

CupcakeTrap3 votes

{quoted}

Honest question, did you get this from something else? Because I swear I've heard a version of this before. Something like "How do you kill a hero? Simple. You don't. You kill everything he stands for. Everything he's protecting. Everyone he loves and who loves him. You don't kill a hero. You kill what makes him a hero. And then? Then he's just another peg, waiting to be knocked down." I probably messed it up, but its driving me crazy, I'll try to find the original.

I did not consciously take it from any other source. (It's possible that I saw it somewhere and forgot about it.) To be perfectly honest, and this is a little embarrassing, I recall thinking of Warhammer as I wrote it. (As I mentioned above, a big theme in that game was that while heroes were awesome, one surefire way to wipe them out was to make them solo-fight a unit of mooks: even if the hero killed a dozen of them, the troop formation bonuses and battle standard bonuses and such would drive the hero into retreat and possibly result in them being run down and killed.) There was also a bit of meta-thinking there: Champions don't die for story reasons, but that's lampshaded in-universe by making Champions just really hard to kill, and I think Swain's genre-savvy enough to realize that. (There's also that scene from Game of Thrones, but that connection didn't occur to me consciously until I finished the story.) I suppose the other thought going through my head was this Noxus/Demacia contrast. In part due to criticism that I was making Demacia too awesome and Noxus too "evil", I wanted to show Noxus being badass, and simultaneously show that Demacia is not all sunshine and rainbows. Demacian men-at-arms are generally not valorous warriors seeking honor and glory; most of them are peasants who have been pressed into service. When writing from Swain's perspective, it felt very natural to focus on that, and identify their psychological weakness.

I like your quote, too.

Nybx4life1 votes

Dude, I've seen that quote from somewhere, and now it'll be on my mind for the day.

Good one spotting that out. Have an upvote.

KING OF MASKS7 votes

Remember when there was a system that explained the discrepancy between champion power levels?

I think it was called a "League" of something. Pretty sure there was some kind of Institute involved, too.

Kinjishi5 votes

Was there such a thing? There must have been records of this, but... where is the mention of this institute now?

Also... "It's harder with magic, and it's harder with pseudo-demi-gods who have access to mountain melting weapons compared to Darius who is just a tough guy with an axe with no history of magic-surviving abilities." - OP

With a system that constantly resurrects the champion and the access to up any stat you have, this kind of gets nulled.

Jeddy0174 votes

http://youtu.be/BsMSiVn6vpQ

Just wanted to say that.

libraryseraph 4 votes

Well, when summoner's rift still existed you could say the summoners magically altered champions' abilities to give them all a level playing field, but recent changes to the lore have made that impossible

Matezoide3 votes

The league doesnt exist anymore. The gameplay itself isnt canon, so the difference in power does not matter.

It is literally no different than a kid playing with action figures and having Spider-Man beating the shit out of Superman, Hulk and Thor at the same time.

Even before the great retcon, i sorta assumed the League used their powers to nerf/buff champions for matches (With the champion's agreement, of course) so they can be on even ground power-wise. Otherwise the likes of Cho'Gath, Mordekaiser and Nasus would be pretty much invencible.

ItemsGuy4 votes

You know, having champions be magically "re-balanced" in the Fields of Justice would actually make sense, to the point of even explaining balance patches through in-universe means!

Wouldn't that be crazy, if the game we were playing had something to do with the world we were being told about?

Matezoide5 votes

Thats crazy talk! How is Riot supposed to tell the story about Bard stealing a random rock from a random village with the League on the way? :^]

ItemsGuy6 votes

Ah, damn! Disregard all that, I completely for got about this.

I keep on forgetting that the Institute was removed because of how much it limited storytelling, since it applied some sort of "structure" and "rules" to the narrative. I think those sorts of things make for a really boring and hard-to-write story, though. I mean, imagine if Noxus had to settle a dispute over that mystical rock/nuke/egg/Dofus with that one village (in whatever region it's in) through a League match, operated by some sort of Institute established to prevent large-scale magical warfare (like what would've happened if Noxus got their hands on the thing) and the resulting magical nuclear holocaust, where we actually got to see multiple champions interact in a way that reflects the workings of the very game that would endear us to these characters in the first place?

Could you imagine how less cool and hype that cinematic would've been, if Bard instead had to actually negotiate with said Institute, become a champion (explaining why we can play him), and fight for the team he perceived as being worthy holders of the artifact or submit himself as a champion in exchange for being allowed to keep artifacts deemed too dangerous for mankind in safekeeping until they were ready? I mean, watching a cinematic that shows what Bard would feel and play like in a League match (with some level of A New Dawn embellishment) would be a much more honest advertisement of the character and would give players an idea of what to expect from him in-game, I'll give you that. But if that were the case, I wouldn't be able to see a mountain get sliced in half or see Bard jump into the heavens! You can't tell me that isn't WAY cooler.

Helmight2 votes

I always saw it not as a magical rebalancing of power, but as the rest of the League catching on to a specific champion's abilities/said champion changing the way they fight on the Fields. So if Galio's ult duration got reduced, it wasn't because some all-powerful Summoners said it should be so, but rather that Galio's match schedule was so tight that he's unable to muster the same amount of energy for each cast of Idol of Durand. Likewise, if Ezreal's Q increased in damage, it could be because Ezreal found a way to extract more energy from the gauntlet when he uses Mystic Shot.

NorthernDruid1 votes

I dunno, as Jax's bio tells us, the guys who run the league will restrict a champion if necessary.

In my headcannon, the Summoning ritual enhances the Summoned Champion in various ways, while limiting them in others (for instance, the mind-merge thing means they have to half-relearn their abilities, and probably also limits how many of their various tricks they can perform in the scope of a League match).

So I could see the various referees paying close attention to the balance between summoner skill vs champion power, and having a list of restrictions to what champions can be augmented how through the ritual.

So that when a Champion is disproportionately more powerful than the others, so the Champion is contributing more than the Summoner to the match, they put restrictions on their summoning to enforce a Balance between the Champion's innate power and the Summoner's skill at guiding them.

tl;dr: I imagine they do enfore balance so that your team is reliant on both the champion and the summoner being capable. Because the League should test both.

It's pretty clear from Runes and Masteries (and summoner spells) that Summoning a Champion does enhance them in certain ways.

Helmight1 votes

The League did choose to put sanctions on Jax, but read what his bio says afterwards: "This was something the League had never done before, and something which has never been done since."

So from a canonical standpoint, the Institute does not, in fact, limit champion power. Obviously that might be different nowadays, what with the new lore making LoL into Super League Bros., but at the very least in the old lore, power restrictions were not a thing that happened save in Jax's case. People simply adapted to Jax over time, or he began to grow tired from the constant matches and wasn't always able to put his all into the battles.

The Whamboozler3 votes

Well, given the way the lore works... Darius and Bard aren't really fighting anymore. Matches don't have a place in the lore. There's no longer an in-lore excuse for why a team of Lucian, Braum, Zed, Kennen and Vi are fighting a team of Lissandra, Xin Zhao, Xerath, Tristana and Janna. Bard is an unknowable cosmic entity that does things for reasons. And he plays the flute. Why is he fighting Darius? Well, in the lore he won't. I doubt we'll even learn much more about the fat flute man beyond "he's mysterious and stuff". Why would he be helping Caitlyn kill Ashe in bot lane? No reason. Why would he be randomly slapping around mortals at all? No reason. Why can't be blow them all up with his boss cosmic powers? No reason.

At this point, they may as well say that league matches all take place in the deranged mind of some random lunatic in an asylum in Zaun or something. He keeps babbling about that time that Jax and Rek'sai fought Fiddlesticks and Ezreal, and how Ezreal failed to arcane shift over a wall... then Jax killed him with a lamp post and Fiddlesticks called him a noob. The lore now has no connection at ALL to the game. And considering it's the lore OF a game, that's a pretty sad thing to say. Most of the new lore just boils down to "This champion is a thing that exists. He/she/it is all powerful and stuff. Wow." anyways.

No real point in worrying how lore questions matter in the least anymore. Riot's answer has been a pretty firm "They don't".

Narasimha2 votes

So it renders the common foot soldier rather... obsolete. Like, why do these guys exist if a single Bleach Captain is capable of annihilating an entire squad sans Captain?

Because even Captains don't have infinite power. Throw enough mooks at them, and they'll be exhausted. You use mooks against mooks, and heroes against heroes.

what makes Darius special?

Its not like being a higher rank suddenly gives you magic immunity. At his core, Darius is just a very experienced, very strong human.

How exactly would a Darius and Bard fight play out?

Darius : STOP DANCING AROUND! GET BACK HERE! AND GET THESE DAMN THINGS OFF ME!!! Bard: ......

Who has the greater power level between Kalista or Rek'Sai?

Definitely Kalista. Rek'sai is strong, but ultimately just a beast. Kalista is closer to a Force of Nature.

They're not explained what they can do or what they cannot do in their most extremes.

It makes sense in GoT, because all you're doing is explaining who's the best swordsman. Its easy to figure that out. But when you start throwing in magic and other dimensions, it no longer becomes a simple scale.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

I think it's ok for some characters to dive a bit into the divinity-theme. As long as there are logical reasons to how their power is restricted or why don't just kill everyone. Is there some kind of "cosmic rule set" in place that prevents direct influence for some beings? We don't know...

On the other hand this question is like: what is the point of having any normal human characters if MF and Graves just shoot everyone? The answer is: magic. Valron's technology differs to ours, especially when it comes to defensive tech. There IS the equivalent to a bulltetproof west (enchanted armor), but there is also armor specially against magic. And for dudes like rengar those enchantments are basic equipments, because hunting without those would be too dangerous. It would be like running into the battlefield naked.

Helmight1 votes

I feel as though Bard is relatively "balanced", so to speak. Sure, he wields unknowable cosmic power and can handle dangerous artifacts, but he's inconsistent and doesn't really act with any sort of agency that makes sense to us. He might show up and kick someone's shit in, but it's at random, according to a design that only he knows. I'd also suggest that Bard is more of a caretaker than a warrior, as evidenced by his kit. He CAN fight, but he's not particularly good at it because it's not his Prime Directive to kill people.

I feel as though characters in LoL are all about equal. Given that most every character uses mana, we can assume that magic enhances even the most mundane of champion abilities. Darius therefore isn't just a tough guy with an axe.

ItemsGuy7 votes

Sure, but it's like Superman fighting Batman--even though Supes probably wouldn't kill Batman (or even hurt him too severely, since Batman isn't a threat to innocents), you know for goddamn sure that he won't lose. Even if Batman put together Kryptonite-laced supersonic homing batarangs, Supes has super sense, super speed, etc. The fight would start, and the next moment, Batman would be hanging by his underpants on a flagpole.

With how alien and incomprehensible Bard is (which I see as another flaw in his execution--Riot wants him to be so beyond anything anyone can ever understand that they're alienating him and making him static, because even if his character does somehow progress in a timeframe that we can fathom, we sure as hell won't be able to tell), sure, he might not ever outright kill Darius. But considering that Bard is beyond space and time (and even when limiting himself to linear time and three dimensions, he's pretty damn fast, as shown in the cinematic), you can bet that Darius will never be able to lay a finger on him.

Also, if mana is the issue, then what about Garen? Or Rumble? Or Gnar, Rengar, Kat, etc.? Also, considering that mana is only a part of the game (which is no longer canon and has nothing to do with the story now aside from possibly being used to play out extremely inaccurate "what-if"s), how can we know that any character that isn't explicitly magical has any ability to tap into magic whatsoever? How do we know that Gangplank isn't just a dude with a booze-soaked cutlass and a crappy flintlock?

It's kind of a mess, and if you feel that all characters in LoL are about equal, then show me more than 10 characters that are capable of wiping out the world/an entire civilization (Xerath, Lissandra) or preserving/revitalizing one (Azir, Bard).

libraryseraph 1 votes

batman has beat superman multple times in comics continuity, even leaving out comics written by Frank Millar

ItemsGuy1 votes

Then this only goes to show the incompetence of Superman.

The being who has created at least one universe, became a god, has lost his kryptonite weakness on multiple accounts (depending on the writer), and came back from the dead, should never at his worst be trumped by a really fit, really rich man in a bat costume at his best.

But then again, comics don't necessarily make sense all the time and occasionally adhere to the Rule of Cool! Batman is a much more compelling character to me than Supes ever will be, and goddamn if I wouldn't want to see him win an impossible fight, but I'd be lying if I said that it could happen without completely destroying any willing suspension of disbelief I went in with.

Grand Viper5 votes

[{quoted}](name=libraryseraph ,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=EaE031Zs,comment-id=000400000000,timestamp=2015-03-09T21:44:27.222+0000)

batman has beat superman multple times in comics continuity, even leaving out comics written by Frank Millar

But what about All-Star Superman, where Superman loses his weakness to Kryptonite. What would Batman do against that? Keep in mind, during All Star Superman, he also didn't have a weakness to magic, so Batman would be shit out of luck against the guy who races the Flash "for fun". What about Batman vs Superboy, the guy who punched the air so hard he shattered dimensions? It's a different context. There's literally hundreds of stories, scenarios and alternate "what if's" that it gets muddled and confusing to the point where you have over 50 different types of alternate dimensions, require an Infinite Crises to create a modicum of sense and even then you still have branching paths and what if's.

Why does Batman beat Superman? Because he has to beat Superman, or else it'd be completely laughable. Batman has to keep up in the race or else he'd be seen as completely incompetent. Superman can be shown as incompetent because he's Superman, he's the boy scout, he won't really ever try to kill Batman, and he never really tries to. In no context whatsoever has Superman ever tried to legitimately kill Batman of his own free will.

Not once in all 80+ years of Superman's existence.

Superman has become God in one comic, Batman in an old comic has actually challenged Superman to a duel with revolvers despite the fact that Superman is immune to bullets (and it wasn't Kryptonite laced). How is this really in depth storytelling?

And yet, like what other people have said, you can have a really easy limiter to people's power via the League and the Institute of War and use that as a limitation rather than do the arm's race that is currently happening.

Another reason for why Batman beats Superman is the Brains vs Brawn, except how smart is Superman now?

"New 52 Superman learned what takes a human 10 years of medical training to accomplish in 5 minutes.....literally."

In the 1930's Superman used to run faster than a speeding train, leap tall buildings (no flying), invulnerable to even gunshots, and was super strong. It got to the point that he needed a weakness because he required to be more interesting since he could beat everything due to being superhuman, so in 1949 kryptonite was invented in order to act as a macguffin weakness.

Is this what we want League to become? When we had the League, this wasn't really an inherent problem. Now...Try writing Miss Fortune vs Bard with her flintlocks. Go ahead, bounty hunter, catch an interdimensional traveler who can pop in and out of the realm that is confined by what we call the 3rd dimension on a whim.

"She can do it in game!"

Yeah, and theoretically summoner spells are still in game as is summoner rift and the name League of Legends is the name of the game, yet none of these are canon anymore.

Helmight1 votes

The difference is that Superman can and will fight someone for the hell of it - or even not for the hell of it if the person in question is trying to do him in. I don't get that same feeling from Bard. Bard's goals are so far removed from ordinary human comprehension that he may not even realize that a champion like Darius is TRYING to kill him. So it evens out. If Bard doesn't understand that his life is in danger, it gives relatively "ordinary" champions an edge.

Gnar is a special case in that his rage augments his normal abilities as a yordle. While in mini form he's easy enough to kill if he gets caught, his mega form is no slouch in the thick of combat at all - so he evens out with other champs.

Rumble's mech clearly uses hextech, which is magically augmented technology, so he gets around using mana as well.

Rengar, Katarina, Garen, etc. clearly use a different energy source than mana - one that is theoretically unlimited. I have no idea what said energy source is, but it operates on a different level than mana. The ability to teleport to allies and enemies/summon Justice Shields/become invisible is obviously magical in nature, we just don't know how they're doing it. GP on the other hand is clearly tapping into his own personal mana reserves to augment his otherwise simple combat abilities.

I think it's fruitless to try and say that EVERYONE in the LoLverse is balance. I'll concede that point. But if you're looking for ten champions that can wipe out/revitalize a world:

  • Azir
  • Bard
  • Xerath
  • Lissandra
  • Cho'Gath (his height is presumably unlimited in actual canon)
  • Aatrox
  • Brand (Goal is to purge the entire world in fire - therefore probably has the power to do so)
  • Karthus (arguably the biggest threat to living beings because of his army of undead)
  • Sion (was single-handedly winning the Demacia - Noxus war before he was "retired" by Boram)
  • Syndra (lifting temples into the sky permanently certainly hints that her power is immensely strong already and could grow even greater)
The Soulforged1 votes

{quoted}

The difference is that Superman can and will fight someone for the hell of it - or even not for the hell of it if the person in question is trying to do him in. I don't get that same feeling from Bard. Bard's goals are so far removed from ordinary human comprehension that he may not even realize that a champion like Darius is TRYING to kill him. So it evens out. If Bard doesn't understand that his life is in danger, it gives relatively "ordinary" champions an edge.

Gnar is a special case in that his rage augments his normal abilities as a yordle. While in mini form he's easy enough to kill if he gets caught, his mega form is no slouch in the thick of combat at all - so he evens out with other champs.

Rumble's mech clearly uses hextech, which is magically augmented technology, so he gets around using mana as well.

Rengar, Katarina, Garen, etc. clearly use a different energy source than mana - one that is theoretically unlimited. I have no idea what said energy source is, but it operates on a different level than mana. The ability to teleport to allies and enemies/summon Justice Shields/become invisible is obviously magical in nature, we just don't know how they're doing it. GP on the other hand is clearly tapping into his own personal mana reserves to augment his otherwise simple combat abilities.

I think it's fruitless to try and say that EVERYONE in the LoLverse is balance. I'll concede that point. But if you're looking for ten champions that can wipe out/revitalize a world:

  • Azir
  • Bard
  • Xerath
  • Lissandra
  • Cho'Gath (his height is presumably unlimited in actual canon)
  • Aatrox
  • Brand (Goal is to purge the entire world in fire - therefore probably has the power to do so)
  • Karthus (arguably the biggest threat to living beings because of his army of undead)
  • Sion (was single-handedly winning the Demacia - Noxus war before he was "retired" by Boram)
  • Syndra (lifting temples into the sky permanently certainly hints that her power is immensely strong already and could grow even greater)

Don't forget Karthus's requiem. If he completes the song, the world will die.

Kinjishi1 votes

Zilean could do an enormous amount of damage to the entire world. Manipulating time is a serious endeavor with real and lasting consequences.

Helmight1 votes

If that were the case, Karthus would have sang the song already and killed all life. Remember, his whole goal is to make the entire world embrace death. If he had to power to simply end it all right now, what's stopping him from doing so immediately?

GreenLore1 votes

Well that orb is extremely powerful,but I guess that is the reason why it is more of a mac guffin and not part of a champion.

Physical champs always look kinda underpowered,but I'd say that they are probably much tougher than a regular human could ever be.

Lockenster1 votes

I like to believe that all the champions are magical in some ways.

Like Garen pulling a sword off the sky.

Tryndamere and his undying rage.

Caitlyn surviving a fireblast from Annie.

and even Jinx, a crazy women with guns and is able to shoots things with such and accuracy, could use magic or is magical in someway.

Nybx4life1 votes

Y'know what I'd like to see?

Set up a Horde mode, kinda like Gears of War. Huge waves of minions, add in some of the forest guys, with Dragon and Baron being bosses.

Get some champs, and see how long they last. Minions are usually only a threat after a duel with another Champ, or just very early levels when overextending.

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