"What separates Senna and Lucian?" Thresh 👍

Funny how this gets released right after Yone's video

Short answer: Yes Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

The problem I have with a few of the most modern champions is that they have a lot of plausible counterplay, but in practice they really don't because all of the counterplay they have requires your champ to have a specific tool and be in a specific situation or requires the enemy to objectively fuck up to a degree that will get you killed on literally every other champion, so it's simply like the supposed counterplay wasn't there. Take Akali for instance: You can still hit skillshots in her shroud, except no you can't because she gains 30-50% ms. You can also try to one shot her before she one shots you, except no, you can't because she has 3 different dashes, 2 ms buffs and the invisibility so she'll simply play safe until she has enough tools to avoid your attacks. You could try to force an extended trade that she'll lose, except she won't lose an extended trade bacause her Q has a 1.5 s CD and it empowers her basic attack as well and gives her 30% ms to kite and you also cannot force an extended trade if you're melee because of the aformentioned 3 dashes. Oh, and since she has so much sounterplay, the second you miss an ability she will jump into you from half a screen away and one-shit-on you because she's an assassin. It's like modern champions don't have counterplay, but rather they have counterpicks, so that their winrates more or less reach 50% between 40% insta-wins and 40% insta-loses. They are designed for the casuals but balanced around the pros. And I think champions should be balanced over several games, but they should also be balanced at least most individual games, not every laning phase has to be fair, but if I can only play 3 games a day I shouldn't end every laning phase feeling like I lost in champ select.

Someone on KZfaq (can't remember who) said "lately, champions have a clear weakness, but they give it so many ways to overcome said weakness that it isn't really a factor". Think about Kai'Sa, por example. She is supposed to be a late game champion yet she can outduel most ADCs at lv 1 or 2, thus making it insanely easy for her to reach her power spike. She doesn't have a weak stage in the match, only a strong one and a super strong one.

Yes Heroes should have 1 or 2 identifying, strong attributes to their toolkit that separates them from other characters. But now everyone has an incredibly powerful tool on all 4 abilities.

Riot: We need to stop making stat check champions! Also Riot: Keep making fast attacking champions who have tons of lifesteal!

12:05 That's Aurelion Sol. The proof that a champion doesn't need to be overloaded to be a balance nightmare.

New Champs nowadays: "Y'all like dashes?"

0:31 that sylas flash e was amazing

Samira's passive is even longer than all the achievement of my life.

I was expecting to be original with a simple "Yes" but it's too late... It's too late for me

it seems like you are one of the only people making good non-clickbait LoL content these days, thanks for that

I agree a ton with the rell point at the end. One of the only champs in recent memory that wasnt absolutely busted on release. Problem is they dont do this consistently. See yone being broken from the jump and never being fixed

Tbh, i think Sett was something of a step in the good direction, since tho he had more stuff than your typical garen/darius he doesn't feel overloaded, he was simple to understand, easy to grasp, but semi-hard to master, as all things should be I think maybe balancing out the more flashy "overloaded" champs with a couple of useful but simpler champs would be a decent balance, but nobody can be pleased at the same time :p

I'm amazed how you didn't mention Aatrox when talking about "removed pieces of kit". Yes I'm still sad about it.....

For me honestly the new champs are fun, its just the healing and life steal that triggers me and grevious wounds would do nothing to them. Yone at 5% hp can heal back to at least 60-70% with shieldbow and greaves even with an ignite on

Can't wait. All of the recent videos have been so good

The problem isn't in "overloaded kits" it's overloaded mobility/invincibility. You can't outplay them, because they can always pick when to fight, they can play safe and escape your any efforts in offense, but doesnt sacrifice their potential to kill you because of it.

Samira plays like Katarina but with a wind wall and can move during her ult tbh

12:02 "Let's make them fly over walls and give them an ultimate that fires thousands of meteors on the enemy team" Talon mains: *sweating intensifies*

I haven't played this game since Qiyana's release, and this is part of the reason..

Yet another banger from Vars Now let's watch the banger

I think riot just confused making champions unique with making them have everything that they need to be broken

@0:31 Can i get an F in the chat for that Sylas?

Newer champions are really interesting with all these new things they can do, but riot definetely has to try and add more simple champions like Sett, because they're also really interesting

Having not seen this at all yet, I hope he mentions Viego. When you look at his kit, he is literally a 100% complete champion without his character-stealing mechanic. With a typical ultimate reset on kill, nobody would even question that he was a fully realized character. To me, that is the very essence of overload- When you could remove a mechanic entirely from the character and they would still seem complete.

10:33 Azir's W also used to be castable on towers to have something like a mini Demolish proc. he shredded through lanes like it was nothing.

Men, I've just discovered your channel and I have to say that your monologues are really OP. It's like a scientific dissemination and really love it. Great to see this quality content. Cheers from Argentina!

Vars you have the same interests as me and it’s kind of awesome! I love the yugioh, pokemon and smash references as I used to play all of those competitively! Great vid and keep it up man!

Sett actually has a pretty normal kit in my opinion. Not overloaded at all, even compared to older juggernauts. Juggernauts in general have very simple and straightforward mechanics that are not overloaded, unless the numbers are too high. I think Aatrox was the only one who was overloaded after the rework.

The good old days of season 4 when i just picked up the game and build frozen mallet phantom dancer runaan cho gath and fiddlesticks. That s my nostalgia lens.

The issue is though that even when a kit can do multiple things, the champions still are accompanied by loads of unintuitive passives too. It is ironic that the newest champs play unique and yet are also insane stat sticks like older ones.

My favorite of the recent champs is Sett, he had a much simpler kit than the rest of recent releases.

I personally believe that conceptually, champions are all different, but gameplay-wise...recent releases feel the same...like not strictly but I feel that Samira is kind of the same to Yasuo in terms of overloadness...and I can give you a lot of examples

7:01, I thought he said spiders. I was like “What? Elise?”

I will still say that two champs I’m mad didn’t get the azir/akali treatment are seraphine and kaisa. Both of these fuckers have been meta since the start of the season, yet they remain untouched by nerfs. I’m hoping now that spring split is over, sera can finally get the axe along with kaisa.

Honestly i am okay with overloaded champs but they just need to keep reworking the old ones if that’s gonna keep happening

this is a much needed video especially since s11 and the new items which imo added even more overloadedness to champs by removing unique strengths and weaknesses

Charizard avoids power creep because its gamefreak's favorite pokemon

0:30 what an outstanding move

a really good video that gave me a new insight about the new championn released

I have no problem with an overloaded champ if it takes a lot of skill to play well. For instance I believe azir is one of the strongest champs in the game. But he takes hundreds of games to get down while a champ, my main, jhin only takes tens. But while jhin isn’t overloaded another champ that only takes that many games is someone like sett, yone seraphine, or senna. Champs that are decently easy with amazing damage, kits and versatility. So I agree with you and I don’t. But as always great video vars.

I think riot just needs more of the "Sett" type champions, who are direct and easy to understand, to balance the more complex ones. Their psst few Champs have done this well, and I hope this is thwir new dedicated direction

They could add new maps quite well. For example, a smaller map, maybe make it a3v3 map. Possibly a spider boss much like baron. They could even base it on the shadow isles

Vars: Are champions too overloaded? After all 1 champ can have 10 dashes, invincibility and a global that hits everyone. Riot: Write that down! Write that down!

11:49 gotta love that shield...

My biggest problem with having so many champions is the drafting in competitive: What good does it do if you can ban 5 counters to your comp when there are 50?

How do u only have 50 k subs can’t wait to see u grow

"fly over walls and give them an ultimate that fire thousands of meteors on the enemy team..." bro, that's Hou Yi from Smite lmao

Here's a sughestion for a video. One trick ponies and why they exist, who even plays them, who are the champions being one tricked, and what do they provide to the community.

honeslty azir's dash blocking was broken then, but would feel really damn nice now

Hard to believe you released this before Akshan's release.

On one hand, yes, but a while ago a saw a tweet from blizz (who is on the balance team I think? Maybe QA) where he says that champions with a lot of parts are easier to balance because there's a lot of moving dials, unlike more stat stick-y champions which are mostly either op or useless. Honestly, I can really see that point, so maybe the problem isn't that they are overloaded, but that they are unevenly overloaded?

As a lifelong pokemon fan, thank you for using them for comparisons in your vids as I think it highlights your points very well.

That Irelia vs Sett is so painful to watch. That amount of dashes is just so broken

11:59 It's funny you say that, because there's this niche new champ called Aurelion Sol

everydays a good day when vars uploads

6:38 the only example will probably be yone, but the only things i see similar are the playing around shields playstyle, q ability, knockups and the 1/10 powerspike and your team vs my team meme

I'd argue Sett and Garen are the similar ones. AD juggernauts who can viably build full tank, damage, attack speed or mixed. A passive that gives regen, Q that gives movement speed and an auto reset, a W shield that increases in power the more you fight, and a big damage ult that synergizes with your opponent's max HP.

For the intro: the champion menu still has a difficulty meter, gat actually indicates how versitile a champ is. Alistar, Annie and Cait are difficulty 1 so their versatility isnt that much just like sett or yuumi but the champs you talk about (viego and yone for example) have rating 3 meaning its pretty versatile. It really is a good indicator imo, pls have a look. I'll always be open for discussion :) Edit: i only talk about the start of the intro with the champs i talked about i agree with all the rest of the vid

Riot could've easily stuck to simple straight forward designs and still had a consistent player base, instead of doubling down on overloaded kits. Hell if Smite can go as long as it has by sticking to simple kits and only doing the overloaded experimental stuff sparingly, Riot could've done the same.

im pretty sure they CAN make another version of rift that isnt what is currently is. like 2-3 additional maps with varying lanes and objectives, while the over all game objective wouldnt change much (Example destroy the enemy nexus) they can easily make varied maps to have a map pool, not just same old plain boring ass SR. I dont wanna use Heroes of the Storm as an example but SOMETHING like that but not nearly as objective heavy.

This video will blow up hilariously in the next few days

12:06 little did we know that’s exactly what the A Sol rework would be 😂

I play Rell and other tank supports like Leona, Nautilus, and yes, she does feel different, but tbh I sometimes feel like the other, different thing she does is just much more useful to the game, and she's closer to "outclasses all other similiar kind of supprots" than "she does something different" imo. Although she *is* a lot harder to play perfectly than Leona for example, so I guess it kinda makes sense

I started playing in late season 10, early preseason 11. So I don't have any rose tinted glasses when it comes to this topic, yet I can still tell that the s11 champs are insanely overloaded to the point where even the smallest of leads causes them to snowball out of control. Yone and viego have the most overloaded kits imo and it really shows in their gameplay. Either one of them gets 1 or 2 kills in the early game, and the match is basically over.

When you think about it, some time ago, in the s11, one of the most broken champ was Udyr. Champs that Tops are afraid to face are Vayne or Darius, ect. Over all, yeah, new champs have bunch of stuff and all, but they don't excel in one of them. Everytime you wanna do something, there is a champ that can do it better.

Champions being overloaded isnt truly the issue. What I find to be alot worse is how many new characters are basically just old champions remade in a modern environment, stuffed with a billion+1 new tools to hide away how painfully similar some characters are. Seraphine-Sona is the most obvious one, but champs like Camille for example basically do everything a character like Vi or Jarvan would, just alot better and effective. There will be a point where theres no reason to ever play old characters unless they're deliberately overtuned and minireworked/VGUd, which frankly is about to start ramping up like hell. They even awknowledge it with multiple older champions getting bigger gameplay changes

Rell and Lillia are my favorites of the new champions o:

You’re the only League KZfaqr still worth watching since you don’t make clickbait bullshit, I love your breakdown.

As a gold player that started playing the game in ss11 i can say that from my perspective a lot of the older champs give me more trouble than the newer ones examples being vlad yasuo xin lee sin and especially garen fk garen

0:31 Nice flash, dude!

this could of been a 1 second video of just yes but this 14 min explanation is way better

Very nice breakdown. I feel like part of the problem is that Riot states explicitly that they value change and 'freshness' over achieving a static balance. They also put theme over balance, e.g. Akali having all these cool ninja moves, but way overloaded. Akali being a balance nightmare is in my opinion, because they started with giving her everything they wanted a ninja to have, rather than starting with a plan to have a balanced character. Then they have soooo many moving parts... individual base states, item interactions, rune interactions, some with mana, some energy, some none etc. Yet I feel some of the best characters in the game have relatively simple kit designs that ALLOW for skill expression.

As they will keep making overloaded champs, i only want to see a lol's version of dota's champion Invoker. I think is the highest point of overloading a kit because his spells are combinations of his 3 basic skills so in fact he has 10 basic skills.

0:30 my man had a stroke

Actually there is a third balance method Riot uses: the modernizations/ minor reworks (dont confuse it with VGU) like the ones they had done on Annie'and Brand some time ago, and now on Rammus at 11.8. Instead of took power or layers of gameplay of the newer Champions, they add some power level and layers of gameplay on the really old champions, almost all true relics of another design philosophy, but still with a niche or just lacking the new tools Riot developed in between their releases and the actual moment of game.

I'm a relatively new league player but a long time magic the gathering player. Mtg had a massive power level upswing between 2019-2020, players complained, formats were ruined and a lot of bans had to be made, thankfully they have listened to our complaints and feedback and now in 2021 power level has come down to a much better and fun power level. Riot doesn't listen to its players and doesnt need to. Which is what worries me about the future of league

I think Sett is pretty old school in terms of design. Heck, even Lillia. I'd like to see more of them sprinkled in with the crazy new ideas they come up with. I'm fine with how things are going in terms of new champs

The class orientation they follow is very similar to D&D/Pathfinder archetypes. A good solution to preventing power creep would be to flesh out classes untouched, you've mentioned it in Taric but a "Paladin" Class seems to be a missing option, you have "Wardens" But it just doesn't feel the same. You can make an argument most operate more as a warpriest than a paladin does, outside of Taric. Although the berserker isn't necessarily a class as much as an archetype it's largely untouched outside of Olaf and a few others that you could make an argument for, Tryndamere and Sion mostly. Fleshing out their "class" system a bit more at the point then developing those to an equal point would work very well. Edit: I understand at this point League has been out for so long and has followed it's own set path so retconning powercreep isn't a simple feat. Mostly I think the the pro scene pushed powercreep to the point it is now.

at first it was a huge problem but now that they are handeling it better it maybe isn't as much of a problem as it used to be i hope they do better like they are doing now instead of like season 8 and 9. and partly season 10 with aphelios, sett and samira.

would you imagine if Riot one day fed up after just making crazy champions, they just one day release a champion called Bob, and all of his abilities just say "Bob does something" and is passive is "passively, Bob does something"

Simply: Yes!

I don't think they should stop making champs with a lot of features, but I do think they should throw some simpler ones in the mix sometimes. Especially when concerning mechanics and mobility. I'm someone with very average mechanics but I'm really good at placement and zone control. As such, casters and mages are my favorite thing to play, and I love the elation from well-placed skill shots and zoning (top 3 are Ahri and Lux over 400k, with Morg next at 380k+). Their kits are super simple and even people new to the game can play them. But I feel like in a long time they haven't released a champion that caters to my "simplistic yet effective" playstyle that I use in my roles, mid and support. The last one I can think of was Neeko and she herself almost has too much to call her simple.

Viego is a mix of Yasuo, Master Yi, Eve, and Old Mord. Rell looks like an adaptation of high-noon Ashe with a basic Q skill shot, an aura that attaches to an all like Taric, a mobility ability that slows her and shields her, and an aoe ultimate that's like a nerfed version of old Galio. Lillia has Darius's old Q that was removed from the game for having no counterplay, she also has a "bleed" passive, she has a high damage hit in a small area like Aatrox Q 3, a long-range cone-shaped ability that's like Graves ult on steroids, and has aoe Zoe sleepy pills which could be compared to an ability such as morgana ultimate. It's a lot of recycled material.

12:00 "Let's make this champion fly over walls and give them an ultimate that fires thousands of meteors" - *Reworked and buggy Aurelion sol 1 year later:* Allow me to introduce myself Jeez, vars can almost predict what's gonna happen with the game at this point

Its so funny to see this video and comments after akshan

it's kind of funny to me. the simplistic thought would be "more possible tuning knobs should make balance easier" when it's actually the opposite. the more knobs there are, the more intricate the balance is and makes it harder to make the champion feel fair.

i don't mind if a champ is overloaded, if this champ has clear weakness that you can exploit to counter it like Sett has poor range with low mobility so you can stay away or that if he uses his w only the middle part do true damage, but i don't like when a champ is overloaded with no big weakness because you can't punish the errors like akali is pushing with no wards and is being ganked she can e out use her shroud and double ulti out and others can't be punish like that it's just frustrating

12:03 Vars casually predicting Asol rework(when he released he had a glitch with his ult to…ehm…let’s just say to make him more faithful to his lore.

Only 1 problem with this video: the Pokémon reference You couldn't be more wrong with that reference: Cinderrace is currently positioned in the Uber tier(a tier where the most broken Pokémon reside like legendarys) and Charizard is positioned in PU(poorly used) which is the bottom of the tier list where the most weak Pokémon reside and it's only higher than untier which is Pokémon so useless you should never use them. This is competitive Pokémon btw. Other than that the vid was great

My pet peeve is Pyke. Sure he's been out for a while now but he's definitely overloaded. Long range hook, invisibility, hp recover/sustain on a massive move buff, dash aoe stun, reusable high threshold true execute (unlike Cho or Evelynn that a timely shield can wreck, his just does 9999 if you're below a decently high threshold) that scales with Lethality (as a "support") and all with pretty low cooldowns. Oh and he can dish out extra cash to another player involved in a kill. My fixes would be making his dash hit only one person (similar to Leona's e), making his ult do max set damage (even if it's amped like eve's) so it can be shielded, and unless he has a support item the cash doled out is half. Done. Massive nerf but still highly useful and viable, now with some outplay ability. Actually any two would do it, the third may be overkill? Oh well, send him back to the depths!

4:08 "naturally to keep players engaged and excited to play League more stuff needs to be added" *Laughs in TF2*

To me the issue is not all the stuff a champ can do, but how they tend to be strong at each and every aspect of those things. To pick up on the Pokemon example, all Pokemon have 6 different stats that can go up to a maximum depending on how they are trained and how their base stats are. Those are their Health Points (HP) their Attack (Atk), special Attack (spez. Atk), Defense (Def), special Defens (spez. Def.) and Agility (Agi.). Charizards base stats look like this: HP: 78 Atk.: 84 Def.: 78 Spe. Atk.: 109 Spe. Def.: 85 Agi.: 100 In comparison, these are the stats of Weavile: HP: 70 Atk.: 120 Def.: 65 Spe. Atk.: 45 Spe. Def.: 85 Agi.: 125 Both are offensive Pokemon with little defensive capabilities, but Weavile has even weaker defensive stats as trade off of a bit more damage and speed. Charizard also can potentially use a physical move while Weavile's spe. Atk is hopeless. Now let's look at a defensive Pokemon - Aggron: HP: 72 Atk.: 110 Def.: 180 Spe. Atk.: 60 Spe. Def.: 60 Agi.: 50 It's extremely bulky against moves based on Atk. and can deal damage on it's own for the tradeoff of only dealing damage based on Atk. really not being able to take spe. Atk moves and being very slow. But that is NOT how it looks with champions. New champion-kits do not have this kinda trade off inside their classes and instead are great at all of those things. Seraphine is an excellent control-mage with great sustain, egnage, disengage and anti-burst tools and overall utility with her movementspeed buff. Sett brings sustain for the laning phase, enjoys 1v1s, has great teamfight tools in 3 of his 4 abiltiies and is also a dangerous split-pusher with his passive. Mordekaiser brings sustain, has an ult to literally 1v1 despite having his kit design around AOE damage which is great for teamfights, which also help him to waveclear, making him a sidelane threat as well. Nami in comparison offers CC, movementspeed, a bit of damage and healing, but not in such an amount that it compensates for just how much more Seraphine has to offer, especially as Seraphine is straight up better at all of those things. There is no "Nami is better at this" because Serpahine has all of it, does it better and has even more. Jax is a great duelist with an AOE stun, but that does not compensate for how much easier he pops than Mordekaiser and how little damage he can do in teamfights, not to mention that his engage is not an AOE grab, but him literally jumping into the enemy team, but he has no shield and uses his defensive tool to stun. Sure he has turret damage, but that does not compensate for how much faster Mordekaiser clears or how much harder it is to engage onto a Sett or Mordekaiser.

But vars have you read misc ? And what your fav deck

Soon enough we'll see champions with two paragraphs per ability.

This channel is awesome

6:35 I noticed you skipped Seraphine. Fair.

I think the problem Riot is having when creating champions is agency. Newer characters have more agency, no/fewer weaknesses, or improved versions of old abilities