The LeBlanc nerf is already live, which is really disconcerting to me. It points, as many things have over the past couple months, to an overly aggressive development cycle. As a result, we’ve been exposed to both over- and underpowered champions, though mostly the latter. Personally, I’ve been disappointed by a lot of the recent champion releases, and I think their absence (or overwhelming presence) in ranked play speaks to the flaws in the current pace of development.

Let’s take a look at the five most recent champions starting with the least recent.

Miss Fortune: I know a lot of people disagree with me on her strength, but I still think she is extremely broken. It’s not her late game, it’s not that she has high survivability, it’s that she is nearly impossible to shut down in the laning phase. She can outfarm and out-harass virtually every character in the game, guaranteeing late game success. Also, consider the strength of her Impure Shots – it has a healing debuff, attack speed increase, and passive damage increase, all on one skill. Why does a ranged carry with a powerful slow and a powerful harassment skill need that kind of utility from one spell?

I see experienced carry players wreck more games with her than any other physical carry.

Sona: I know the LoL community was crying loudly for a new support champion, but whoever designed Sona just wanted a champion that could dominate games. It’s clear she wasn’t playtested thoroughly, because a champion that easy to play should not be able to deal that kind of damage, be that survivable, and give her team some of the best buffs around.

Swain: Swain had a really underwhelming release and has one major design flaw – he has to be on top of the enemy team to maximize his damage output. He does have a pretty nice skillset, although it doesn’t fit very well with the current metagame. Still, his pre-buff damage was pretty pathetic and then there’s the Maledict issue. Granted, that wasn’t changed because of a rush job, rather some design issues, but the current version of Torment is nowhere near as interesting as it could have been. The idea of building a champion around Deathfire Grasp is cool and kinda different but we lost that flavor because of some ‘burden of knowledge’ crap that definitely exists elsewhere in the game.

Lux: Lux is maybe the best example of a design rush in the game right now. She was originally supposed to grant her entire team invisibility with a skillshot boomerang, just like the shield she has now. A cool mechanic, but it was buggy right up to release and so was quickly scrapped and a shield thrown into the mix. Lux is woefully underpowered – her spells have weak AP ratios, even weaker base damage, and some of the longest cooldowns around. Her only reasonable spell is her ult. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s patch day, and Riot has once again put together a detailed spotlight video for the new champion, LeBlanc. LeBlanc is an all out nuker, to the degree that her ultimate just lets her cast another one of her nukes again, though for increased damage the second time around. From a flavor standpoint, I can’t say I’m all that impressed. When I play nukers, like Annie or Kennen or even Ryze, I like to know that my ultimate is going to cause mass carnage. LeBlanc’s ult only effects one ability, and since most of her skills are single target, I think she’ll end up feeling more like a carry killer – Akali, anyone? – than full on mage.

I’m also a little concerned about her passive. Granted, I’ll have to see how it plays, but the clone idea already exists for Shaco and is fairly easily countered if not for the damage the clone deals. Any time I’m playing against a Shaco, I make sure mark him with a ping before a fight starts. When he hits Hallucinate, the ping stays on the real Shaco. I’d imagine LeBlanc works the same way, although her clone deals no damage, and will likely just stand there auto attacking most of the time. So what’s the benefit? A half second of stealth that will only confuse people who haven’t watched her spotlight/read her skill list? It works for her thematically, but the mechanics are only effective/interesting so long as your opponent doesn’t know how it works. Sounds like weak design to me.

On the whole I’m excited to try her. I do think using her ultimate to chain root someone will be a lot of fun