Reign of Gaming

Hmm I guess that would all happen on it's own. Does this mean everything isn't morello's fault?

Excellent article. Trying to explain this to people is so often very, very difficult.

I feel like there is another category to this though which I would call unknown, comparable to FOTM champs.

Volibear is a great example to start off with. He isn't really a "weak" champion but the rarity with which he was played shows the general opinion of him. In stonewall's article people are talking in the comments about how they believe that Volibear will never make it to the high level games because his kit just isn't good enough. He has good mechanics from different champions, but doesn't do the jobs those champions do as well as they do them i.e. Singed fling. He can fling champions, but singed also has the slow and poison to run through champs to be more annoying when a champion actually gets flung. However just this past weekend, Diamonprox pulled out volibear in 2 LCS matches going 4/0/19 in the game vs Fnatic.

If you think about Elise when she first came out. People were trying to play her mid while maxing her w. A few people knew to max her q but overall she was a champion who was thought to not be that effective unless laning vs someone with arachnophobia, but it wasn't until much later that she really became such a mainstream top laner. There are champions that people just assume aren't good mostly because the champion isn't being played in the niche that fits the season or it might be more of a situational vs a certain team comp or in a certain team comp. A great example of this is Nasus. I remember reading in multiple places and I can't remember which pro said it, (it might have been scarra), but a well known pro player said they couldn't see any team comp in which Nasus was viable. Yet I'm sure many people remember when Voyboy played top Nasus for a few weeks in Tournaments and wrecked shop for a few games. I will agree that they had to use quite a few resources in making sure he got fed making him less viable due to taking away resources that could otherwise have been used to ensure the other lanes also were snowballing, but those games proved that even Nasus was still a viable champion in the right situation. He may or may not be viable now, but the fact remains that while he was argued as one of the worst champions and one that had no place in any team comp, he found a successful place in semi recent tournament games.

I am not arguing against there being champions in the Unwanted or Underpowered categories, but I feel that some champions in the underpowered category are actually waiting in the unknown category for someone to come along and discover a team comp in which they excel, or how to build the champion such that they bring out the champions full potential. With the way the meta is constantly being evolved, this category is always changing but I think that due to the number of champions, there are sleeping op champs who have yet to be discovered that would excel if they were discovered.

Explain why in DotA every champion is viable.

And i mean EVERY FUCKING ONE.

You are not playing the same DotA everyone else is playing. Their champions are not all viable. They are also not balanced. DotA is played by less than 1/10th of the people who play LoL and the DotA competitive scene is nothing compared to the LoL competitive scene. DotA is like LoL in beta. Were all champions viable? Sort of, because so many were grossly overpowered that you just needed a couple of overpowered champions per team and you'd be ok, provided you didn't want to win because of skill.

Nobody can measure viability in DotA. Not until it gets released and becomes popular. (That being a pretty big IF at this point.) If all champions were viable, they wouldn't be making balance changes every patch.

Maybe because they've had about a decade to get it right.  Lol's been out for about what 3 years?  Well, 3 years into DotA's life span is about the time when IceFrog took over development and started turning it into the game you now know.  DotA didn't start out great, it became great over a very long period of time.  Compare LoL 3 years in to where DotA was 3 years in and you'd pick LoL every time.  I guarantee it.

While that's true, its well known that guinsoo was involucrated in DotA and LoL has copied some things from the game, but it has eliminated some features that seemed "too complicated" and in the end those features were key in balance imo.

They could have learnt a bit of those 10 years of experience DotA has, right?

I think that champions should be balanced according the highest elo. You can't balance for all, thats already known. But if they balance according highest elo experience low elo  will eventually understand how to counter champions. And yes, you are here to play, but also to learn. Evelynn might stomp low elo players, but someday they'll learn to counter her. If high elo discovers a new way to build a champion and be OP, or to play him in another position that makes him stronger, then he should be nerfed.

Umm... no.  Being OP in the 1200's, and UP in the 1800's is still being OP.

Better to be balanced in 1200's, and useless in 1800's.

In a sense yes, champions are balanced around tournament play.

But there is a caveat. They can't be overpowered in low level play. As a result, these are the balancing priorities:

1. Champion doesn't stomp new players to the game, discouraging them from playing the game ever again.
2. Champion isn't grossly overpowered in competitive play.

That's why Olaf was able to exist for so long in S3. He was super strong in competitive, but he wasn't stomping new players. Riot is a lot more careful about what a champion will do to new players than what the champion will do in the pro scene. Remember, you don't get to ban champions when you're level 2 and you've never seen a champion before.

Interesting article.  I hadn't really thought about it that way.

Nice article. You may add Poppy, Rammus and Fiddlesticks to your list as well.

Poppy has one of the most broken kits in the game. Imagine, if her laning was better. Oh boy, you wouldn't want that. That ult and passive have no counter play whatsoever.

Fiddlesticks is not really fun to play against either. Either he is just way too strong or nothing more than a cc bot.

Rammus: Just look at his patch history on lol wiki. This guy just never feels balanced.