It doesn't seem to me that when balancing existing characters or making new characters, that the developers really think about not only how to balance characters compared to other characters, but to think of each character and say:

"what does this character bring to the team, or why should I use this character over that character?"


As it is, there are some characters that just don't bring enough to the team to warrant using over other heroes that bring more. And there are some that if they are on your team, and the person playing is any good, it drastically increases your chance of victory, these are considered top tier heroes.

For example, if I'm playing an a team, why would I use Worwick over Trynd? or why would I use ash over sivir? or Kat over Yi? or Eve over Twitch? Or in top tier play is there any reason to have a pirate on your team? or an Udyr? Janna? These characters may do well but when it comes down to which is better for the team it's pretty clear.

Basically what I'm saying is that when we get to ranked ladder play, its going to be every team using maybe different setups of around 10 champions because some champions bring way to much to the table to not have and some, while maybe not underpowered, just don't bring as much as another champion.

So I think when the developers are re-balancing old champions and making new ones they really need to consider what the champion has to offer a top tier team because having 40+ playable champions doesn't matter if they aren't viable to top tier play.

I think they are trying to balance for all levels of play. Not positive about this, but I think it ruins the longevity of a game if they do that.

I agree. It is a problem with the basic game play though. There is no room for different types of characters because at a certain point everybody just goes around with their team. Their is no penalty for doing that because you don't lose out on EXP or Gold and towers can be pushed by one person and everybody gets the same amount of EXP and Gold. Look at DotA. If everybody clumps up as a team you can have two heroes just block their push (Pitlord or Ezalor) and then majorly punish them by farming with your other three heroes while they are losing out on exp and gold. LoL is intended to be a quicker game but it breaks a lot of the subtle balances that DotA had and really hurts the range of characters by basically only allowing 5v5 pushing as an acceptable stratagy.

If they are balanced for top level play, than they will be balanced for all levels of play. Why would champions balanced for top level not be balanced for lower level play?