A question I had raised to me by the general discussion thread, how and why do people classify certain champions with certain attributes, and which ones are "effective" and which ones aren't in the current metagame. Similarly, wat are the roles you expect these champions to fulfil in their actions?

At the simplest level we have st least 5 types. Attack Damage Carry, Ability Power Carry, Jungle, Support, and Top.

These labels declare the properties that we expect from a champion. Yet, are there more? Do they overlap? And if they do, should they? Ephemeral questions aside, we know there are more labels than the 5 above.

We have bruisers, AD casters, lane bullies, tanks, and AP bruisers for instance. And Riots own label system is notoriously obtuse. Teemo is currently played top or mid, but is marked as a support. Until recently Morgana was thought to be best played mid (same with Galio) yet these are also marked as support. Mordekaiser is often played as a mage, when he is marked as a fighter, and Zyra sees more play as support than middle, but she isn't marked support at all! Fiddlesticks can be found in bottom lane also, but was famous for being a jungler for many years.

And so I decided to start this thread as part discussion and part reference guide. In your opinion, which champions have which labels (or should have which labels, but don't) and how does this affect the way they are played, built, and perceived?

When I get home in about a half hour I plan to compile a list of champions whose labeling has obvious effects on the way they are looked upon and played.

For those of you who never read, or need to refresh your memory of what these labels mean, click here

Master Yi has 3 labels. "Carry", "Recommended", and "Melee". Master Yi is widely considered not to be viable in competitive play. This is because, being melee, he is susceptible to ranged harass when in lane, when taking objectives, and when trying to close on an opposing champion. As a result of this attribute, he is considered to risky to fulfill the primary "attack damage carry" role on a team, as opposed to his ranged counterparts who are much more difficult to harass from range, and significantly more difficult to kill in team fights by the opposing team because of their position in most engagements. As a result, we mainly see Master Yi as a troll pick, or one that is used for specific strategies (backdooring, or split pushing) that accomadate his strengths and weaknesses.

Given that Master Yi has all the possible advantages necessary to be an effective "melee carry" -a gap closer, a built-in attack damage steroid, an ultimate that grants movement speed, attack speed, and resistance to slows, as well as the ability to reset his cooldowns on an enemy kill or assist- why doesn't he see more play? Is it merely the effect of public stigma and lack of expertise, or are we missing key items (such as BKB -DOTA- or Shrunken Head -HoN-) that would allow a relatively easy to kill melee character to fill the same role as the similarly squishy, but ranged attack damage carry of the current meta?



In cases such as this, is the problem the perception of players, the mechanics of the game, a combination of both, or is it a result of Riot's lack of understanding of their own champion and labeling system?

If anyone bothers to read this, i'd like your help. If you can label the attributes or common nicknames for the kinds of champions you are most familiar with, and compare them with the attributes Riot determines the champion should have, perhaps we can understand more about the game.

 

Remember, a dedicated support babysitting the AD wasn't the usual thing in NA until after the Season 1 finals. The support tag just means that champion can keep an ally alive in some way, usually through a shield (Galio, Lux, Morgana, Shen) or a heal (Kayle, Nidalee). Teemo has the support tag because he can spam wards. The support tag doesn't mean a bot lane babysitter.

In fact, with the possible exception of the Jungler tag (which is there to tell you which champions can safely jungle at level 1 without specific runes and masteries), none of the tags Riot give are meant to tell you which lane that champion goes in. Riot knows that the way the game is played has changed, can change and will change again. Their tags are just meant to give people a quick idea of a champion's kit and playstyle.

Mordekaiser is tagged as a Fighter because he's a durable dude who can still dish out a bunch of damage, not because he's meant to go top lane and build Metagolem style.

Shen is a Support because he can land a clutch Stand United from across the map to save an ally, not because he's meant to sit in the bot lane brush with a couple of GP10s, buying wards and not last hitting.

Master Yi is a Carry because he's a physical damage dealer who scales especially well with items, not because he's meant to go bot lane and farm up with a babysitter.


The 'problem' isn't with Riot, it's that you're misunderstanding what they're trying to do.

 

Yet, the strongest builds for Mordekaiser all require him to build utility AP items that provide health and AP, instead of a glass cannon build like rabadon->DFG. If you look at the description of a "fighter" that is how it is described.

You seem to be saying "You don't understand how Riot is using their tags". I'm not.

What I am saying is that sometimes people misunderstand how to build a champion because it is designed to be a certain role (fighter) and people build them like a different one (mage). What other champions are like this?

And taking that idea even further, what kinds of attributes that champions have had since their inception, are more viable in season 3? Are there general trends across champions with different, player created labels? Assuming there are, how are they identified, and by what process is this done.

For instance, Mordekaiser, Diana, and Gragas are all AP casters with a melee auto attack. Gragas is a mage, and Diana and Mordekaiser are best described as AP bruisers. What are the connotations for each term, and how do they affect the way you should play them?

What is the role of a bruiser? What about a mage, or an AD caster? How do they differ, and what items are most efficient towards achieving that goal?

Diana and Mordekaiser are bruisers. They need to build health and ability power and their main goal is to kill the enemy ADC, to the almost exclusion of other targets. What is the highest priority in that sense of the ADC? Or any mage?

In many cases, the answers to these questions vary on a person-by-person basis. I've seen bruisers who kill tanks first because it is faster, and ADC who just burst anyone. AP mages tend to be only slightly more selective, basically choosing "whoever is lowest" or "whoever I can burst first.". Do these tactics change at higher elo, and competitive play? If so, why, and how do you react to these tactical changes?

To bring up a point I made in the OP, I think that identifying these popular labels on champions (from people who have extensive experience on the champion in question) could be beneficial for the community. An example of this for me is Mordekaiser, who according to common knowledge should "just burst the enemy ADC". In many cases however, doing this is sub-optimal because the enemy will be able to kite and CC you as you try to dive their team. In these circumstances, or if you plan to siege the opponent soon, it is better to burst the enemy tank, depriving them of their front line and creating a meat shield to tank the tower so your team can dive them.

Knowledge of specific, situational tactics can be beneficial (and I believe we had a thread not too dissimilar) but there are likely general trends that can be recognize and published for DLP. And possibly, by doing so, we can fashion new team compositions that were not viable before (while turtling teams exist, I don't think i've ever seen a team that focuses on pushing the opponent to their turret and holding them there across all the lanes, nor "non-cheese" double bruiser comps until recently) or learn to exploit the specific weaknesses of already existent compositions.

 

In my quite honest opinion, and yours may vary, Mordekaiser was, is and possibly will remain the scariest motherfucker of them all once fed.

I know of no other champion who can walk in a 1v5 scenario nuke the carry and proceed to shit on the rest of the enemy team by his lonesome. CC, nuke, nothing can stop Mordekaiser with a relatively strong adc ghost if the other side decide to stick around and try to fight him, (and I see it often enough.)

He is an AP bruiser, and a bruiser are the champ with high resistance and good damage. They have strong presence in team fight, strong presence in lane phase and they are generally the last to die in a fight simply because they can take it while dishing it out.

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Like Evan wrote a bit ago. Tank aren't named like this in the usual sense. Tank are the protector of the weak and act as a screen for the carry.

He is the one that will make sure the enemy bruiser doesn't charge the rank and fuck over the adc.

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A support is a champ whose kit is loaded with spell or utility that can affect the whole team, either with buff, or the enemy team with debuff or the map itself via improved sight and visibility.

They help the bruiser survive via a variety of spell, shield, slow heal, etc... there is also a lot of other variable that doesn't come to mind right now.
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A mage carry are those with the mean to remove any one of your champion from a distance and/or to promise pain and death should you fight to close to the rest of your ally.

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the attack damage carry is self named. hes the one that just carry to victory or fail at life and make you lose. a physical carry will sit back and kill from a distance or back door tower to the enemy nexus.

It is the role that is often the most pivotal, I have seen epic comeback because a rang ad got a few lucky kill late game and then suddenly be a major treat where it was just a minor annoyance.

I have seen ignore and trollish *melee* win a game by focusing on tower alone, to the point of charging them even when there was no minion to help them and eventually get their team a win.

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Major Text aside. I love the game. I can't play it at the moment, I have problem with all the game I own where they crash my computer no matter what I try to get them to start.

P.S. for the record, I got 1637 win and 1600 lose. I play for fun more than any competitive need. Please guys stop saying I got 3 time the loss I got in win.

I play like trash sometime because I am impulsive and I can make stupid judgement call when I know, I know better.

This is how I see it, it may be wrong, it may be right. But there is too many different way to build all the champ to bother with label.

Example, tank Veigar, adc Annie, pure mage Cho'gath, etc.

The soul of a character is what you make of it. Feel free to experiment you never know what you might discover.

 

Jon, You man of my heart, you never needed to clarify this.

 

To answer your Master Yi question, he doesn't see competitive play as a Melee carry because melee carries just aren't good enough in LoL.
It's a combination of a lot of factors, but I think "Why DPS at 125 range when you can DPS at 550?" sums it up quite nicely.

As for the labels, I honestly think it's just player perception. The labels are pretty spot on. It's just that game comprehension has evolved past these very basic labels.

I would say there are peelers, initiators, assassins, and dps.

Master Yi for example, would be in the DPS category. Unfortunately, there are others who do his job almost as well if not just as well, but without any of his weaknesses. Master Yi can't do any of the other 3 as a melee carry either.

Let's take some top tier tournament characters in comparison.

Nunu is a champion who serves as an excellent peeler with a single target Slow/Aspd slow and an AOE Slow. He also has his strong Blood Boil which multiplicatively increases the DPS of the carry.

Evelyn is an excellent initiator, assassin, and DPS with her low CD Q.

Lee Sin is a stupidly good peeler, very good assassin, and can even initiate with a good ultimate kick.

There are of course other aspects such as team strategy (split pushing, wombo combo's) that also put top tier champs at the top.
I think this is the more important part in determining viability; not the labels a champion has. It is also this team aspect from which I distilled the four labels I have above.

 

Well, in part I think that the benefit of Yi is his utility, but it is vehicle obvious that utility ADC are not as highly desired as mobility ones. For instance, Varus has a slow, a healing debuff, and a mass snare, and Ashes has a slow and a stun (plus hawkshot), Kog has range, a slow, poke, and magic health based damage, and Tristana has range, a knockback, healing debuff, and a gap opener that resets. None of these champions see anything near dominant play %s, as opposed to Corki, Ezreal, or Graves. Even though they have all suffered nerfs recently, they are still very strong and see a lot of play. Admittedly its not like they are just big dumb damage (Corki has AR shred, Ez has a global ult and AS buff, and Graves has smokescreen) but comparing the list of 1 or 2 utility strengths to the number of average strengths of the utility carries, and you are starting to see a pattern. Caitlyn is an exception who is seeing more play, and she has a gap opener slow, a utility stun/trap, sniper ult, and poke.

In short, teams are not willing to trade needing additional peel or CC lightning rods to make up for the deficit of a low mobility ADC, let alone one in melee range.

But if you did want to... How do you make it work? Protect the Kog is a valid team style, albeit kind of a one trick pony that is countered by assassins. Comparatively, Yi is immune to assassins with his Q removing him from the field and his W granting him heals and ridiculous defenses. So the question becomes, can AD Yi out out the same, equivalent damage as AD Kog?

If your team is Galio and Yi bottom, Kayle top, Skarner I'm the jungle, and an initiation middle (Morgana or someone else) could you make an ADC Yi work? Or with that exact composition with a ranged carry just better?


I don't think that player comprehendsion is too complex for labels, or that they have no place. With sufficient understanding of the labels and how they interact not only does it become easier to pick an equivalent champion when the one you wanted is banned, but also allows you to create more balanced team compositions as an individual. And in some cases these labels even explain the type of expectations you should meet while playing.


I never intended this to be "that thread about AD Yi" but rather used him as an example of a champion who is labelled in two different ways but two different sects of people. It was originally my intention to see what other champions have a different contemporary use than their labels imply, and what the player based labels are and what that means in terms if gameplay.

For instance, a bruiser top is generally considered to be the person who dives the enemy team to kill their ADC. This started with champions such as Jax, Irelia, and Malphite (etc.) who have ways of ignoring the "front line" with a gap closer and surviving the damage the ADC and their team put out. What is the role of an AP bruiser, such as Mordekaiser or Rumble?

 

I think I resent this thread quite a bit. Why are we trying to "classify" champions? Many, if not most, champions can fit into multiple roles without any problems. Supports can often go AP mid, vice versa. Top laners can easily jungle, vice versa. Bruisers can easily build glass cannon, assasins could still do hefty damage to squishies even with a tankier item path.

I think I'm annoyed because I don't understand what this thread is trying to accomplish, besides your relentless attempt to "properly define" Mordekaiser.

Different champions see more play depending on strategies a team wants to play (duo top, etc) , or to counter enemies strategy. Some strategies might seem more risky, thus not favored. Champions that get picked solely because they are OP usually gets nerfed pretty quickly.

So my question is once again, what are you trying to accomplish? Analyze why people play certain champions? Misunderstand Riot labels? Trying to classifying Mordekaiser? I see no reason for any discussion to continue without a clear useful topic or a specific question for debate.

 

@tragicmat1: I think the reason Wildfeather originally came for was to help people understand a champion better with a few labels that would let someone compare and contrast champions.

The ideas of Support/Top lane/Jungle are all team strategy labels. They do define the champion, but not in the way Wildfeather wants; I think.

@Wildfeather: Sure, you can have a Galio, Kayle, Skarner, Morgana, Yi team. But why would that be better than say, Miss Forturne who can just instantly obliterate the midgame teamfight with her ultimate and stay at 550 range for autos? Not to mention the terrible laning phase the Yi is going to have simply because of being melee range.

Caitlyn has been seeing more use because of Nunu. The Season Three changes really hurt AD carries a lot. A lot of the pro tournament matches have been consisting of a Combo midgame team or a late game AD team. Caitlyn with her 650 range is an excellent late game AD. Especially with the pushing power early with Nunu to help her early in the game get to the late game.

 

The "goal" of the thread is to create a knowledge base of champions and what kinds of roles they fulfill from people whose experience you know you can trust. In order to do this you must first have a shared understanding of what the roles are, and how they interact with eachother.

I don't have a problem defining the kinds and types of roles Mordekaiser can fill, because I am extremely experienced with him. If I wanted to form a team that complimented him well, I already know how to do that. Jayce/Nunu/Kogmaw/Skarner/Mordekaiser. Is is an AP bruiser with low mobility but high pushing power. His weaknesses are his low sticking power and lack of reach, and his main strength is that he is a hypercarry that wants you to focus him.

However, I do not have nearly that same expertise I'm say, Akali, or Fiddlesticks. However, chances are good that someone here does have an intimate understanding of what compositions and strengths those champions have. By sharing them as a community, we can benefit from that experience, which in turn helps us in team select for ranked queue or team play.