I ask this question every day on toplane.

Me a Nasus main: Ah, yes everyone may have a dash, but once I bonk them they will be no more.

"Setting bounds for designers to not cross" _Shows Akali_

'All juggernauts are melee' Urgot: sweats nervously

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I would be really interested in seeing a tier list made by Vars about how well designed each and every champion is. It would obviously take a lot longer than these discussion videos, especially if you would like to explain the reasons behind the placements in detail. Maybe it could be a 50K/100K subscriber special? I don't know.

8:28 “They have a tough time closing in on targets” *-Udyr*

I think one thing riot should focus on is giving every champion a clear weakness to play around and clear strengths to push. I feel like most champs nowadays are only designed with strengths in mind and are getting weaknesses simply by making them hard to master, etc.

You gotta do a best designed worst designed tier list! Like the other comment was saying

"Zoe is about bubbles" - No, Zoe is about death, humiliation and physical pain.

“Every type in pokemon is super effective against another” Me: looks at the normal type.

I swear Vars you keep updating constantly it is insane I wish you quick growth on KZfaq cause the great majority has to see this.

To be honest, the new mechanics on the champions are not that bad. Yes, they are frustrating. However, they can be dealt with. The problem that I have when it comes to modern LoL is with the INCREASE of DAMAGE and snowballing. It's like what the fuck? Isn't this supposed to be a team game? Or is it ANIME main character inducer syndrome?

Theoretically, if a person were to drink a certain amount of water continuously per second while simultaneously peeing a certain amount of pew continuously, could they be in an infinite cycle of drinking and peeing like a fountain? So human fountains can be a thing? We just have to leave someone at the same spot with an infinite supply of water and fluids to keep him healthy and wellfed while he does his thing.

I wholeheartly support breaking the norms to make a champion go beyond his designated roles, but what I never will support is overloading a champion with tons of free stats and passives.

"Bruisers struggle with gap closing as their necessary weakness" Riot: "STRIDEBREAKER"

200 collective years of game design is the answer.

At this point, I think the game designers are more beholden to the cooperate overlords than common sense. Everyone knows Riot plays favorites, and I think that's what's hurting the game more than anything else. Flashy is fun, flashy is cool, but when it starts getting to the point where the only weakness some champs seem to have is the player playing them, it just ruins the time for half the people in the match

This is an incredibly well put together video essay, even by your standards. Hats off to you Vars!

Me looking at how top and mid laners aren’t really countered by seemingly anything, Bot lane being seemingly weak to both

How does this guy haven’t reached 1M or 1B sub already? He just pushing out high content educational video at warp speed

What's important in defying classifications to make a champion is that one of two conditions are met: the alien mechanic exclusively serves the class's strengths, or the champion gives a strength up in exchange. Twitch is a marksman who has an assassin tool in his stealth, but the stealth exclusively serves a marksman purpose: positioning. It doesn't DO anything else aside from that, and the rest of his kit is still firmly "steady DPS at range". Verdict: good. Jhin is a marksman with an assassin tool in his burst, but trades away consistent DPS to do it. He has particular trouble against dedicated tanks - the natural prey of marksmen - because of this tradeoff, but works well against most squishier classes. Verdict: literal best champ in game. Samira is a marksman with assassin tools in resetting dashes/ults, skirmisher tools in dmg denial/conditional dmg steroids/passive MS/general stat-stick-ness, and mage tools in cc/AoE. And she trades away...a slightly shorter AA range. Verdict: Samira. Yuumi is an enchanter with assassin tools in theoretically permanent untargetability that eliminates the single biggest weakness of the enchanter class, and trades away A LITTLE of what is already enchanter-level dmg for it. Verdict: unbalanceable.

That Ori music is the best

Vars, I just wanna say man, I just found your channel and your content is top tier. Always lovin these league talks, they're so interesting and well written. keep up the good work!

What the. I didn’t even know this reminder or premier alert thing existed. Either way, I’m hyped!

Great video. I gave my own critique on the last one along this line, however this one was well spoken and said and I really agree with most if not all statements said. Great video vars nice job!

You talking about champion classes made me think about skirmishers. They are a subclass of assassins so they're supposed to have burst damage and low survivability, but instead they are strongest in long fights and have a stupid amount of lifesteal and other defences. A lot of infamous champions are in that category - yas, yone, trynd, and master yi. I genuinely can't think of any concrete counterplay they have as a class, they are basically assassins without the weaknesses of assasins. Anyhow, I think it could be an interesting subject for a video!

In my eyes Ormn and Jhin are one of if not the best designed champs of their class. Ormn fits the tank archetype to a tee providing cc and okay damage while not feeling to useless in terms of damage. And lore wise he fits perfectly. I wonder if anyone noticed this but him and volibear kits revolve around their w’s. They both have some cc with their q with their e allowing for them to safely chain their w. This in my opinion is genius design as it reflects how in the lore voli and Ormn are brothers. Jhin has the best execution of his design as unlike some champs (kog’maw) he isn’t held down by his theme but instead made even better because of it. Also he is a blast to play as or against his kit isn’t to oppressive to play against. Both champs make you fell like you’re a blacksmith who just wants to be left alone in ormn’s case or a mad yet intelligent serial killer who wants to put a on a show. I hope riot starts to make the champion first then gameplay as that would solve the grievances I have with newer champs

Vars on juggernauts: "They are also all melee champions." Urgot: *ANGRY PAPER SHREDDER NOISES*

Okay one, This is a very good objective view of what a well designed champion should be, that they have their own archetypes which can sometimes dip into a second (minus the occasional 200 years) , but second and more importantly, I recognise that music anywhere, greetings from a fellow Ori/ Gareth Coker fan

I love this channel so much it deserves more popularity Keep it up 💕

I appreciate your content and objective insights. It is nice to have your videos and the positivity they bring to an often hostile or livewire scene like gaming

Very good content, please continue this format it is very nice to watch and to listen to

I like champs who have a collective of 200 years of collective game design experience behind their back

"they're also all melee champions" *laughs in Urgot*

the ori soundtrack oml i'm in love

What the fuck is the beginning bgm at 0:45 ? I know that I've heard it before but I can't remember where

i like the ori and the blind forest music in the back..feels calm

Vars: talking Me: enjoying the Ori OST :)

Starting playing at late season 2 and learning the game in season 3 and 4 was a blast. Nostalgia really hits hard. I still remember myself crying when someone stole my first would-be pentakill. It was 13/2/20013 and i was playing kassadin . Then i mained yasuo for 2 season straight but then i felt the game started to change around season 6 and i stopped playing. I started playing for fun after all these years last August and damn the game has changed. I can't tell what half of the new champions do.

10:28 Forest's Curse and Trick-or-Treat said hi

do you have a video about bard? it is my favorite champion and i'd love to hear your insight about it

I'd like to see what Vars thoughts on the new items and champion balance entails; especially after the discussion of champion weaknesses and champion strengths. Personally, the new items seem to break the core fundamentals of the game as many reduce or nullify the champions weakness - Sunfire Aegis being a perfect example, as one of a tanks strongest weaknesses is a lack of damage... It'd be really interesting nonetheless.

2:55 he mentioned it!!!!!

Is this Backgroundmusic from Ori and the blind forrest ?

I would love to see a why no one plays/ everyone plays ft. Yone or Irelia!

Dang, but I love Aphelios 🥺 I love having a huge array of different weapons and being able to mix and match them. He truly feels like a gunslinger

The nostalgia part speaks volumes to how the gen 4 games for Pokémon spiked in price after Covid, due to many now 20 something year olds felt nostalgic and wanted to play the games.

Is the background music from ori?

when i design a champ i use what is already in game. such as an all invisible/ ring wall making/ untargetable/ nearsighting/ invulnerable/ shield making/ structure kill champs , from the abilities of champs already in the game.

My favorite champion designs are Pyke, Sylas and Rengar. Everythig fits together so well and the gameplay is super satisfying.

am glad that this part of the video 14:43 clarify that sett is not that broken, like most people think. his just slightly overtuned. but overall his balanced. thx Vars

Hey vars between the why no one plays and why everyone plays what will happen to the medium champions that have similarities in their strengths and weaknesses to other champions and dont exactly stand out. Example would be swain(slightly based because he is my new main) or let's say something like the default autofill picks nasus malphite lux ashe dr mundo etc

I love your videos, super informative 👏

I appreciate the music from Ori and the Will of the Wisps. It is nice

I think one's champion choice doesn't have to be an extension of one's identity. Rather, games are tools for escapism which allow you to try out something new, that you are actually not (perhaps even changing you in the process).

As a vi main the best way to counter an assassin is point and click your ult and let them try to run (very fun)

Although I can kind of agree with your point that older champions had unbalanced kits at the start (like draven bleed). League developers went and made an effort to balance their kits as the game went on, but today it seems they keep overloading champions kits and make no effort whatsoever to fix that issue, and thats the exact reason I stopped playing

loved seeing all these season 9 footage (its pre alcove so it was obvious)

3:50 Absolutely debatable. There were problems back then but there are even MORE now. The power creep in League is no joke

Honestly one of my biggest frustrations in league is champions that are designed to lose lane but win game. People talk about how newer mechanics have been souring the pool of league ever since s6 or s7 but honestly, champions whose entire gimmick nowadays can just be "don't worry I'll scale" can totally screw off too, I don't know if it's bad design but it's certainly crushing for characters that can just do the song and dance consistently (looking at you, Diana and Katarina)

3:34 6- sunfire cape Evelin microwaving you while in perma invisibility

Yeah, a bit of a nitpick. Sett would be well designed. . . If it wasn't for his passive. You can argue that it's a numbers issue but autoattacking twice and being essencially inmune to non-FullCombo poke is not a well designed passive. Especially on a champion with so much burst damage on his R-E-W combo. Sett can theoretically be kited, but it's especially hard because of his E and R being ranged CC and his passive giving him rather absurd regen for a 1v1 scenario. And he should theoretically be good either at burst trades (like Illaoi for example) or at extended trades (like Darius) or be just decent, on juggernaut standards, on both. Sett is great on both having the tools to do burst damage with his passive double hit and Q, W and R if he wants to use them or just extend the trade with E or even R and double strike his way into winning to save his burst to finish off.

Ori music never gets old 👌😩

Can you do a why we hate series

About what you said at the end, I loved this video!

Sharing some S1 nightmares: Twitch ap mid, dealing AoE dmg with R and penta easy Evelyinn full sunfire cape (they stacked), stealth at the time was toggle on, and it was distance unrelated (so you died for no reason? It's eve stealth walking around you with 5 sunfires and shotting you) Rammus adc - like Eve, stacking sunfire, but rammus also got ad from armor Oh, rababoon and zonya were only one item (zonya's ring) You are welcome

i think not giving every tool to a champion is the real key of balancing, i've recently try to play and main sett, he's like viktor who was at the start of the season 11 really powerful but with some tiny nerf make the champion not too good or bad to play, and sett is good not too much, now he has some real skills to escapes 1v2 toplane and can carry a teamfight even if he's behind in score with a really good e and ultimate and not just damage.

I'd like to see your take on champions that can fit a variety of roles. Most champions can be picked in more than one role, but some are especially versatile without having to do a different build, such as Swain, Heimerdinger, Gragas, Pantheon, Sett, etc. They can be played in 3+ different roles and it tends to work out alright. They may have periods of being broken in one lane, but overall their win rates remain stable. Does this sort of versatility make them better designed champions than champions that are more confined in what role they play? Why or why not?

The BGM sounds like something from Ori and the Blind Forest.

11:07 What about Fiora, she is bruiser, and her Q is a decent range dash that by mid game is on like a 7 second cd that is reduced to like 2 if any enemy champ/minion/tower/monster is within a large circle of her end point. And it deals dmg.

I've been around since season 3 I think? Maybe early season 4. Nostalgia is a big factor for a lot of people. For me, those seasons were so fun because I was new to the game, I didn't understand what made good game balance for a MOBA (League was my first) so I thought all this ridiculous stuff was great. Years and years later, here I am, and though I don't have as much fun as I used to, this season is still super enjoyable for me while being mostly balanced. (mostly cause my main, Ahri, isn't just a Glacial Augment GLP spam bot anymore and can actually kill people). Preseason did mess A LOT up, but it's been getting better as the season goes on imo. Healing is the big problem now. Compare that to back when I first started. Jinx was THE hyper carry and the moment she got a kill, the rest of your team would probably soon follow, Vladimir had Will of the Ancients (as did all AP champs, but come on, it's Vlad), assassins were the meta, I remember Leblanc specifically, as much as we miss it, DFG was around and amplified this burst, Nidalee was one of the most mobile/frustrating champions in the game, champions like pre-rework Akali even if like 0/7 could 1 v 1 almost ANYONE once they reached level 6 with ease, etc... Most constant problems nowadays stem from one thing, healing, the Irelia constantly dashing around and healing while doing so, ADC or bruiser champions refusing to die due to Immortal Shieldbow lifesteal or Goredrinker + Ravenous Hunter, Healing and Shield Power increase no longer being a unique passive for supports, Grevious Wounds simply being too weak, etc... Of course I did cherry pick certain problems out of many, but this is like the major one everyone is talking about. Nowadays, League usually has one or two major problems that Riot takes forever to fix in fear of overnerfing it compared to earlier seasons where there were uncountable amounts of small problems.

Marksmen can be divided in dps and caster. Caster is like ezreal or jhon

my favorite design for a champion was syndra back when she could throw multiple balls her abilities all fit into one another so well

I'm old enough to remember Mordekaiser being next to unkillable.

This is why the new Mythics hurt the game in my opinion because now bruisers DO have a gap closer and marksman DO have an escape and there are hardly any defined roles anymore because every single champion can cover their weaknesses with a single item

Seriously though, the first pokemon game set was broken as F. Tying speed to crit, auto 1% crit, Normals being unironically the strogest (non-legendary) type, dragons having no real weakness. It's really crazy and 5 year old you didn't notice, I recommend reading up on it.

Generally speaking, on the broad points you set as good design, I think, you are right, but I totally disagree with your conclusion... In my opinion, Riot's main way of making the game accessible is by making the newer champions have less weaknesses and be less punishing if you make a mistake, meaning they remove counterplay (also they make you feel like you are doing something difficult, when you are not but that's besides the point). Even if you correctly say, that most champions have an aesthetic theme, like tunnels, stealing ults, stealing kits ets, almost none of the newer champions has a clear singular gameplay identity and fantasy because in the process of "removing weaknesses", "giving them more ways to achieve their goals" and "making them a little safer" just to be sure, they can do many many things. I am convinced that right now, Riot is unable to produce a fair new champion(only some of the reworks are good, because they build on old fair ideas).

I'm learning a lot from you Vars thank you. TBH, I feel less likely to say a champion is terribly designed when they kill me.

(somewhat) unpopular opinion: the pre- mini rework Ryze was a pretty good example of good champion design at its core. Yes, you had a choice of almost all the tools imaginable (shields, aoe, single target, hard cc, mobility) but it was a *choice*. Do you go for the e-q-w and create some distance? do you just pop the q reset every time to nuke a priority target? do you wait for the e spread to mop the floor during a teamfight? while in practice it turned out a bit different, i honestly believe that, with tuning, it would have been a wonderful addition to the game. Thoughts?

"when you hear of ollai you think about tentacles" *heavy breathing*

10:25 I get what you mean, but the analogy is very bad. Not having more than 2 types doesn't have anything to do with one type covering the other's weaknesses (in fact, that already happens and is completely fine, like Steel/Bug only being weak to Fire or Ice/Ground being so good offensively). It's more about the type chart becoming way too convoluted with 3 or more types to take into account at the same time when attacking.

2:49 I don't have rose tinted glasses because I didn't play any of those games but I can tell that what they say is true

-So, Irelia is a melee champion, so you can poke her and send her to base -No, she has sustain, good farming and gap closers -But if she use it, she is exposed -No, she hast resets -But if she miss her e she can't -No, her r is almost unevoidable and don't let you escape (and she disarmes before) -But she is squishy, so you can burst her or stun her -No, her w makes her tanky and you can't cancel it -Does she have burst damage or sustain damage? -Yes

You know, I wonder how much archetype preference is influenced by what genre of game you gravitate towards. It might make sense that I gravitate towards juggernaut champions since I like playing JRPGs since game mechanics in those games are less about how you intend to dodge or avoid damage and more about how you intend to mitigate or respond to damage being taken.

Corki Q being an aoe blind actually sounds legit because his Q bomb does look like some kinds of phosphorus bomb that is very bright

8:40 however carelessness can neutralize them rather quickly *laughs in Diana bruiser build who tanks and oneshots* :D

2:48 that sett ult hurt my ocd

Will you make a best abilities for bot lane?

A video that congratulates experimentation in design is, by itself, experimental with regards to the types of videos produced. Coincidence? Probably xd

For me Shen, who I main as support has a perfectly balanced kit, easy to execute skills, effective and can carry even as a support. And from a design perspective is pretty solid too.

Vars you should do "Best abilites to get out of fountain"

Janna and Soraka are passive champions?

4:40 thanks for reminding me that tiemat is gone forever

I really think taking the invisibility out of Akshan's kit would make him a better champion. Maybe a little less damage in some way as well but ultimately it's just the random invis that he gets for no reason that gets on my nerves.

The problem becomes when the few new bad designs are so overloaded that the many good/fun balanced onces become obsolete to play

7:50 ap0calypse would like to speak with you

I think a basic requirement is that they need a good enough kit to be able to overcome more than half of the champion pool, but enough weaknesses that around a third to a half of the roster has actual opportunities to outplay them instead of hoping that they make a mistake.

samira had an aoe windwall and moving katarina ult, it took almost 3 months to riot finally nerf her appropriately

I feel like the problem is that when these champions are designed, riot's designers don't take a step back to see what parts should be removed. A lot of characters are annoying to play against, but if they proactively changed part of their kit, they would be more well received. For example, Bel'veth. She can dash 3 times in one direction and can reduce damage from enemies by 70%. If they removed these aspects of the champ and took a different approach, they would probably be able to create a less frustrating champion that was still fun to play.

Best designs: Renekton and Jayce for top. Elise and Rek'sai for jungle. Lucian and Orianna for mid. Taliyah and Draven for bot. Bard and Zyra for sup.