League of Legends is a MOBA game created by Riot Games. This game consists of a map where 5 players on each team must battle each other and take objectives in the form of enemy towers. Through repeated objective taking and rotato-potatoing, teams can acquire victory with teamwork. Every player takes control of a champion, each with unique abilities which fit a certain role: marksman, mage, support, tank, fighter, and assassin. In a game with many different champions that have various styles of playing supported by their abilities, balance is essential to the game.
With the world finals taking place a few days ago, the best teams from around the globe came together and fought. The champions that each team picked or banned can give insight into how well the game is balanced. If a certain champion is picked or banned too much, that champion is most likely too strong. Two prime cases during worlds are the champions Alistar and Zilean. Alistar help a whopping 100% pick/ban rate throughout worlds. Close behind, Zilean exhibited a high 96.15% pick/ban rate. It doesn't stop there. The next couple of champions- Lee Sin, Maokai, Ryze, and Kha'Zix, hold a 92.31%, 92.31%, 87.18%, and 84.62% pick/ban rate respectively. This data supports the idea that Riot isn't doing a very good job balancing the game. I agree with this, but balancing a game such as League of Legends is no easy feat. With different strategies and tricks being developed every day, the balance of certain champions can change without any actual change to the champion's stats.
Considering the difficulty of balancing this game and many different opinions, 'is Riot doing their job at balancing?' will never have a true answer. But, like many others, I have my own opinion on the matter, as I am a diamond player on the North American servers and am familiar with the game. As stated previously, Alistar held a 100% pick/ban rate across the World Championships. The rise of Alistar is in part due to a buff to his ultimate ability, which reduces physical and magical damage dealt by 50/60/70% based on the level. Riot changed it to be 70% at all ranks. I thought Alistar was good even before the change, and think that the change made him too strong. Early on in the game Alistar's weaker damage reduction was balanced due to the fact that champions cannot output that much damage in the early stages of the game. As the game progresses, champions can deal more damage and Alistar can tank more. However, increasing the damage reduction early game made Alistar too strong in that stage of the game, turning him into what he is now: a highly contested pick because of being overpowered in the early stages of the game, while still keeping his power as the game progresses due to high utility.
Zilean is the second example of a champion who seems unbalanced due to the pick/ban rate he had during worlds. Zilean is different that Alistar in the sense that he is part of the second case mentioned earlier: he didn't receive any changes. People started playing him randomly and learned his techniques and how good he could be despite previously being thought to be trash tier. Zileans strength mainly comes from his ultimate too: an ability that can revive a dead champion upon death. This is a strong ability but what makes it strong is that is has a very low cooldown. Sometimes Zilean can use his ultimate in one fight and be able to use it in another fight right after. Zileans will just ult the target who deals the most damage on his team and the fight will most likely be won since it is really difficult to kill that champion with Zilean's ult. Another factor (albeit slightly less substantial) is his bombs. His bombs can be used in fairly rapid succession and do decent damage. The problem is that these bombs deal area of affect damage and can be attached to enemy champions to they cannot be dodged. Zilean, now that people know how to play him well, is an overall strong pick with too strong abilities which Riot should tone down in the upcoming patches.
To make my point, Rito Games is a money-whoring shit company who can't balance their own game to save the world. They constantly put feeding teammates on my team just so I can't reach master tier, which I obviously deserve. I also refuse to acknowledge that people being mean in the game ISN'T Riot's fault- why must they let people be a flaming shitlord in their own game? Their balance ideals are shit too. Rock Paper Scissors? What kind of balancing is that? They need to adapt some MLG game balance like only the I champion I am currently using is the best. It's only game, why they have to be so BAD?
