[2023] This trend of needing to rework problematic designs so early in their lifespan (Zeri, Yuumi and now K'Sante) needs to be a wake up call for how champions are designed.

There's probably more champions than I mentioned, but these 3 are the recent ones.

Zeri had to get changed completely multiple times at this point because she was so dominant in pro play. It was an awful look that she needed a total overhaul that early on.

And Zeri is not even fixed. They still had to nerf her in Worlds patch just because they were so scared she'd be pick ban status tier again as the premier scaling ADC choice.

Yuumi was a mess for ages. She had 2 Worlds of being pick ban tier already while not being great in solo queue. It took way to long to deal with that - and honestly they didn't even really fix it. They just killed the champion by making it too underpowered.

Now comes K'Sante. Another rework so soon after release. Another completely problematic kit. Dogsh*t solo queue winrate and permanently meta in pro play.

/u/separhim said it well:

The issue with K'Sante is that he just breaks fundamental design. He is trying to be two classes which should not be together (Warden/Tank and Skirmisher) and that will not be fixed by just changing the way they do it now. It's like Yuumi, you'll never get rid of what makes those champs problematic unless you basically remake the champ from ground up. Just changing numbers is not a solution to the actual issues.

The champion is conceptually flawed.

You don't get to say "We don't believe our new champions are overloaded overall" when you have to rework so many overloaded ones. It's a silent admission that there is a problem. Actions speak louder than words.

This sh*t has to be factored into champion design. Learn from this. Stop doubling down on this. I don't even want to imagine the amount of resources being poured into such easily avoidable problems.

Queue the meteos clip. It has aged like a fine wine.

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Originally posted by Rickmanrich

Honestly, why don't they bring in pros to playtest champs? At least for NA they are already there and will give valuable advice. I don't trust the plat riot employees to really know how a champ will effect high elo.

To be clear; a majority of our high level testing is with players/Rioters that are currently masters+, previously pros, or both.

In addition, while I agree having current pros play a champion to give their impressions would be more than 0 value, implying that they would have the right read is pretty unproven. We review the examples all the time of how pros thought Zeri and Ksante were useless on release (even when playing in their own ELO, which is not guaranteed in internal playtests).

The reality is that it's really just up to myself and my team (Game Analysis) to do a better job at identifying the real-world effects of dangerous patterns earlier than we do. Using K'Sante and Zeri as examples, they were both identified as risky designs for a number of reasons, but where we drop the ball is quantifying what is dangerous but tenable (Akshan Revive, Renata berserk/revive, Lillia speed) and what is dangerous and untenable (Zeri speed, K'Sante sharpness). When we fail to identify what is tuneable and what isn't at the VERY early stages (say, a week after the kit is designed, 7 months before release), we spin our wheels trying to tune something that we'd be better off simplifying/de-risking and starting from there. As we continue to push new designs into league (which we've slowed down on, but will continue to do through new and reworked champions), it's an arms race between pushing the boundaries of League and how far into the future our team can predict, and lately we've been hit-or-miss on this front.

Hopefully we can prove with our next few releases (starting with Naafiri) that we are making improvements on setting realistic and player-acceptable champion goals without sacrificing too much innovation.

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