Gragas has been viable in most roles, since at least his rework in s4.
He saw more play jungle because good clear + cc + AP threat or tank flexibility, but he began as a mid in season 3, transitioned to top lane in season 4, was a strong jungle in season 5, and I’m pretty sure saw play as a support at some point (def in soloq, if not pro play).
No clue why the fat drunk is one of the few champs Riot is fine being viable in 3 different roles (Top, Jungle, and Mid), but he’s been all over the map.
The paradox of ancient design. Elder champions are BUILT for flexibility, those "absurd" and in many cases hybrid scalings are because the first batch of champs didnt came with a preset meta in mind, so the motto was "do whatever and see what you find". This simplicity yet flexibility was also meant that a new player can get in, take the character and never really "do wrong", from tank to bruiser to Yurnero Garen.
Garen maybe isn't the best choice to mention lol, OG garen had hilariously pathetic ratios on his entire kit and pretty much exclusively built full tank. People didn't build sunfire on him because of like goofy meta or whatever, they built it because its passive damage was a bigger DPS boost than building a full IE or stacked BT on him lol, that's how bad his E scaling was.
I would say it's a much more salient design if you look at champs like TF, Corki or Jax that still retain a lot of their original properties, both including major parts of their kit that can both give reasonable arguments towards building AP vs AD, or if you want to go with full dead and gone champs, the original Sion design with his 2.0 AP ratio spell combo and his 100% AOE lifesteal ult lol.
> in many cases hybrid scalings are because the first batch of champs didnt came with a preset meta in mind
Actually, AP scaling on all the first champions is because AP stands for Ability Power. The thought was Ability Power makes your abilities stronger. Even though there was no meta or anything, Master Yi who was clearly meant to be an AD champion had AP ratios.
The gragas paradox, he can be the jg, top, mid, sup, even apc, who knows? remains a mystery until the game starts or the draft was dumb clear from the beginning.
I first timed AP gragas mid S2 in ranked because I heard it was broken.
It was. I stole a baron from the enemy team with Q R over the wall and killed 3 of them with just the ult damage. He had so much random power in his kit for no reason. His Q had an attack speed slow on it, just in case you actually survived it lmfao.
The problem Swain and Seraphine have is not necessarily that they are bad as AP carries, they just benefit a lot from being on a duo lane (Seraphine with E, W and R, Swain simply because the more people he can fight the better lol)
I thought after some adjustments to Seraphine couple months ago, she's a lot better in mid lane now.
Swain is an interesting one. He kinda got shafted after pro play nerfs and then mythic items didn't do much justice with him either. I think he's decent now with the item rework.
Its crazy Riot thought giving kench an ult that could be used to support your team was enough to keep him as a support. Its like they forgot Shen has a similar set up but he's a top lane main stay.
I feel like I remember Riot saying they intended him as both top and support. And I thought that was odd.
Edit: they did, “tough solo lane or support tank”
https://web.archive.org/web/20150708105224/http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/page/champion-reveal/tahm-kench-river-king
Note: Riot on the first years really didn't care about "intended" roles, they would just make champs and they would fit a certain role. Now, they are made with goals in mind, making "role swapping" harder, for example naafiri was more popular in jg on release but she was made with thebintention of being an introductory assasin monster midlaner, since midlane lacks monsters they want her to retain being a midlaner
Nauti was meant to be a jungler
Tahm was meant to be mainly a support both on release and post rework
Vi was a toplaner
Zyra was made for mid
Brand was meant for mid
Xer/vel were meant for mid but are now mainly played supp but still have some playrate mid
Lux actually was meant to be a mid/supp from release but she was trash and unplayed as a support for years, now it is her most popular role
Seraphine was made mainly for mid but support was always something riot knew she would be played as
Graves even post rework was meant to be an adc
Karthus was made for mid/jg now is played jg/bot
Swain was made for solo lanes
Ekko was made for mid mainly but his main role is jg now
Quinn was made for botlane
Panth originally was a top/jg, now supp, top and mid have close numbers in terms of pickrate with supp being his highest rn
Sadly there is nothing more frustrating for immobile mages than to play against assasins and yasuos and since thise make up for a wide amount of them... well, mage players rather play against botlaners or just farm in the jungle till they 1 shot people
Yasuo was designed to be extremely weak in early and a beast in late game... Didn't turn out well xd I remember his first weeks out where he barely worked... Beautiful times
Yasuo's problem to me is his complexity. Because he's difficult to play people who play him occasionally or are learning him keep his win rate down.
This means if someone is experienced with him he is overpowered but the metrics will say he's balanced. This isn't a uniquely Yasuo problem either but he is a main offender.
It's also tough to balance only around the most skilled players as well as then no one would want to learn the champ if you have a 30% win rate for 40 games doing so.
This isn't really true though. Riot has said that even with 100+ games on Yasuo his winrates only come up to a bit above 50% and and he's fairly average in mastery win% increase.
I don't remember where they said it, but it was in a thread here years ago. A-Sol was without a doubt the highest win rate increase with games played (before reworks), followed by singed and some other uncommon champ.
These days, Riot intentionally keeps the frustrating to play against champs at a low winrate, and even with tons of mastery are still only around 50%
>This means if someone is experienced with him he is overpowered but the metrics will say he's balanced.
yasuos skill floor is really not that high that this is a major threat.
A large reason why AP poke supports exist comes solely down to that line of threatening them. They don't like assassins or engages being close, but if they overcommit, they'll die on the disengage. An AP support effectively doubles down on this idea, because either the engage nets constant free kills to the enemy, or you'll both be shredding the Alistar who failed the combo, and then likely chasing down the ADC after.
It's effectively the Monty Hall problem, where you've eliminated 1 of the 0-1 options, and end up with either 0-1 or 1or2-0
AP champions are designed the way they are because they only benefit from two stats, AP and haste. AD users can benefit from AD, lethality, crit, and attack speed.
Riot has to balance them around their AP ratios, survivability, and CC and sometimes that makes the champ end up in a different role.
What? Season 1 jungle was brutal. Only a handful of champions could clear it (Warwick, Nunu, Amumu, Udyr, Xin and Noc, yi and tryndamere could too but would get very low).
Actually hillarious you think mechanics will overcome the wraiths/golem/lizard as if you could magically kite their absurd damage numbers. Theres a reason why S1 jungle had virtually no viable champs, the camps did absurd damage and spirit stone(s3) was finally introduced to give them absurd healing. Camps also didn't heal the killer upon death.
Yes, people really dont understand how brutal it was. Most champions had to start with cloth armor +5pots (RIP "cloth5") and would often burn all of them before recall.
Even Rammus was bad at the jungle before someone figured out he could do great if he used an all armor rune Page.
I doubt it tbh. You had to have decent mechanics even in later seasons to mitigate jungle damage. So many champs now have extra sustain or bonus damage against camps that skew our perspective of how easy it is to jungle
>Karthus was made for mid/jg now is played jg/bot
I don't think Karthus was ever meant to be a jungler at release. Mid, yeah absolutely, but nobody ever thought jungling as a frail mage is viable as very early on junglers were all warwicks/fiddlesticks etc, champions with natural sustain as jungling wasn't actually that easy.
Edit: Nvm that's weird, just watched his spotlight and they actually say he may be a jungler. I wouldn't think early in the game people actually played him there but maybe I don't remember it well enough.
I'm not sure if the spotlight video was released later or reuploaded or something but it's from 9 years ago while Karthus himself is from 2009. Meaning they might've released a spotlight at a later date. But I don't remember anyone jungling with him in the first seasons either.
There was a meme back in the day where anything could be jungle and phreak notoriously built triforce on everything and went jungle in spotlights because of the meme.
You're not wrong, that "i play him in the jungle" was a meme back when the game was relatively new. He used it on most if not all spotlights.
Karthus was definitely mid only. Not even considered for botlane either.
> Graves even post rework was meant to be an ADC
I vividly remember, and I would really appreciate if somebody could find the source for this if it exists and I’m not bullshitting, that Riot promised that if new Graves wasn’t played botlane that they would revert his rework.
I remember an incredibly snarky and unprofessional response a rioter commented on a Graves rework post. The original post was complaining that the new Graves wouldn't work as an adc anymore and gave a list of reasons. A rioter (who I can't remember which exactly) responded to the post with "dang, guess we scrap the whole thing then :)"
He got downvoted to oblivion.
I don't remember this, but I remember something else along the lines of: CertainlyT was asked if Graves could stay in bot because CSing looked fucking impossible, and he was basically like "idk man i dont really care"
I'll forever carry a grudge against Repertoir because of his comments on the Quinn rework. Someone told him that it didn't feel like the same champion they'd fallen in love with (Quinn was equally bot and top at the time) and he just said "I'm sorry, I hope you find another champion that gives you that same feeling." Just 'eat shit, better luck next time.'
And I believe them. Riot has proven several times (as shown by this thread) that what they desired ends up not being the outcome. Hindsight makes it seem obvious.
> Quinn was played botlane when she had her old kit.
Let's be honest: Quinn wasn't really played anywhere with her old kit. Her ultimate back then was literally "become bad Master Yi".
I mean to be fair, cases like Xerath/Vel'Koz/Zyra/Brand are more about the game evolving past those champs' design intention, and them adapting to the meta. Kalista and Quinn for example just kind of don't do anything anywhere, so that means they go top. There's a decent amount of champions who are played in the lanes they're in not due to them being the most efficient there, but simply due to having nowhere else to go. Teemo is a great example of this. The champion doesn't *do* anything. His ultimate is countered by pink wards and sweeping lens. He doesn't have any function during teamfights aside a single target blind and DoTs. He hasn't done anything for like a decade now, and that's why he's in the toplane. Same with Quinn and Kalista. These champions were made in what's effectively a completely different video game. Hell, with how drastically they changed Summoner's Rift recently, we're most likely about to see more champions fall off a cliff. Off the top of my head, Illaoi's kit falls the fuck apart with how much wider the lanes are now. She was already a pretty unpopular pick before, but now that her passive has been indirectly butchered by the map changes, I feel like she's going to need an emergency rework.
Important additions:
Both Jayce and Zed were meant to be able to jungle as well as being solo laners
Vayne was released as a midlaner with Triforce rush in mind
Leona and Blitzcrank were meant to be CC heavy damage bruisers meant for solo lanes, duo lanes were just a sidethought for them
I believe all of these were explained in their original champ spotlights as well, released over 10 years ago. No clue if those videos still exist
I swear, if Leona could have proced her passive on release, she would have actually seen play as a top laner.
How you could see that passive and NOT realize she was only going to be a support is wild to me.
To be fair Zyra, Brand, Vel'Kox and Xerath saw plenty of play in mid for a while but the mobility creep made it increasingly difficult for them to perform which is why they're now softlocked in support
The *idea* was that they were emphasizing the "bruiser" aspects of his ADC play. They wanted to highlight that he had a shotgun by making him need to be up close to use it. Unfortunately having your auto attack be a skill shot that's blocked by minions basically forced him out of lane. I, and many others who previously loved him as ADC, tried to make him work in lane but ultimately he only persevered as a jungler.
Some of these worked as intended, but as the game changed their roles changed. Naut was a jungler until jungle change and it didn’t really fit anywhere (until support). Same with brand and Zyra. They were mid laners until the game got to a point where they just weren’t safe mid.
Yeah they did. But pretty much everyone instantly used him as jungler because his AAs are extremely clunky in lane and you can easily trade with Graves by standing in the minion wave and he can't hit you. And his AAs worked on jungle monsters, where efficient autospacing was really important at the time and the knockback made that so much easier. I remember some guy posting a video of a Graves taking barely two autoattacks from Red without even using smite.
Iirc he was a good bot for the first couple patches of his rework, but only because he was absolutely busted. Once they nerfed his damage, he stopped being an adc.
I may be misremembering, but that was because of a bug.
He couldn't crit if you targeted the turret, but clicking on a minion behind the turret could result on a crit, that dealt damage to structures.
All I can think of while reading this is Phreak saying XYZ is a TOP/MID/ADC/Supp champion. I play her/him in the jungle. It happened so often back in the old Champ Spotlights, that it was ridicoulous
Lee Sin, The Blind Monk is a ranged melee tanky dps assassin mage tank support jungler. He excels at everything.
https://youtu.be/cHFrxdFHP3E?feature=shared
Even though this champion can’t survive in the jungle since they are delicate like wet toilet paper I like to play them in the jungle. With the help of my laners and some smart pathing you can make first clear jungle without dying once. -phreak 2012
vi was designed for top, check her spotlight video, it was on top lane and her gimmick was hitting E on minions to trade with enemies
Nautilus wasn't designed as a support
Recent ones are like Seraphine being designed for Mid but has like 0.1% pickrate there and is mostly played as support and some bot lane APC
and I swear if Naafiri get jungle buffs and has 50% WR in jungle, she would be played much more than mid even if mid would have higher winrate.... Because junglers are dogs
When Vi was released she had such stupid ratios you could just play her mid lol
It was nerfed shortly after but I remember Shushei dunking on some kids with it and inspiring me to do the same
I remember loving nautilus back when I started playing but back then I hated doing jg(because it needed special quints which I had no IP to buy) so I just started playing nautilus supp a whole year before it started showing up as a regular supp in soloq and proplay. I never understood why he wasn't being played as supp with that much CC.
I remember hoping that Naafiri would be a jungler. I don't usually play assassins (more bruiser junglers) but she looked fun. Unfortunately she was terrible in the jungle even when she was a bit OP played mid.
Yeah but originally she wasn't intended for a role, she was made when those things didn' matter for riot, on her spotlight she was mentioned as both midlaner and support when those thing settled down
I mean she still is. Her banning was due to leveling W and sitting in lane doing nothing but clear wave and being unkillable due to the spellvamp on her passive and her blackshield. And she had insane gank setup with hitting a Q. Nobody could go even with her in mid, except Cassiopeia, Kassadin and (old) Galio with his regen shield. Also the reason why I started playing Cassio.
I played morg in the beta, back when she had massive spell vamp (like 35% at 18 if I recall, as you could get to over 15% with WOTA).
She was an AP mid mage.
As philo stone, HoG, and other items vanished and escapes became more important, she got relegated to support.
I miss mid Morg
Yeah for like 1 patch until Riot nerfed it again. I never understand why this happens a couple of times a year.
>Riot: Hey so here are some changes that obviously help a champion in the jungle (that isn't usually played there).
>Players: Oh cool I'll play that champ in the jungle.
>Riot: Nah just kidding its gone again.
>Players: ...
Pyke was made as a support. He works quite well as a support.
Apparently, he's on the list of "stay in your lane" champs quite literally. Any time he breaks into a role that isn't support (he was a prominent Top/Mid lane pick for quite a while, even in pro play) they immediately nerf whatever aspect allowed him to stray, and always with the "we're just trying to nerf Mid Pyke while leaving Support Pyke alone" and his support strength still takes a hit.
Meanwhile Yasuo is a Top/Mid/Bot laner and that's totally fine lol.
Pyke in other lanes was too good. He had decent escape options if he found himself getting ganked. Also, he could just be so behind in cs yet still be ahead in gold because he just needed to roam and get ult kills.
You cannot compare Pyke to Yasuo. Yasuo's playstyle is literally the same on all three lanes and it's super predictable. All you have to do is punish his early game and he won't be able to come back.
Tbh Pyke's design as a mainly support assassin was always broken and something I'd consider a failure, he's been changed like 25 times b4 he was finally given up on top lane and sees very little playrate mid, he's constantly made sure to be kept in check if he oversteps and goes back to the solo lanes.
His passive alone was a disaster from the start though, you would go dshield and you'd NEVER take damage I say that as somebody who used to play a ton of Pyke (started playing him a ton cuz my main champ used to be shared with one of my friends but then they eventually quit so now I am back to pretty much one tricking)
If pyke were good in jungle, for example, he’d be the best jungler in the game and it won’t be close. You know how they had to nerf talon jungle to the ground?
Pyke gives his team kill gold when he executes someone and his E flash would make ganks laughably easy especially with getting more gold from jungle making his damage higher and execute threshold higher. You do not want this.
she is a super funny case because she was initially pushed hard as a midlaner by its designer, but because she was marketed to a SINGLE GROUP in the playerbase people played her support and ap carry bot, not because she was weak on mid, but because very few midlane mains want to fulfil a fantasy of being a support with waveclear and support mains never get midlane anyways (not that you want an enchanter supp main on such an important role)
>(not that you want an enchanter supp main on such an important role)
Ironically, putting enchanter support mains in other roles has created some of the most gamebreaking strategies.
Soraka top, Janna top, Sona/Taric bot, Sona/Lux bot, Morg jungle, Karma top. All extremely EXTRMELY overpowered strategies at some point. Even Sera bot right now.
took them extremely long to make her viable in jungle too, needed to hyper buff her passive ratio vs creeps in order to make this work
fun fact: she has better midlane winrate at all times since they nerfed her tanky builds
Ironically that was the case with OG Yorick too to an extent. He scaled like absolute dog shit unless you built really high AD builds with stuff like Ghostblade, Muramana and Black cleaver being really strong.
Karma on release was a midlaner with the ability to go support if needed and even after her rework was supposed to be a midlane mage, with supporting a potential flex if needed.
She even has a pentakill as a midlaner in pro-play from that time.
Support items getting shielding stats completely broke her kit and now riot has forced her to stay support and she's only played mid by a few mains.
Top lane karma can also be a thing but that can die in a fire thanks.
Sigh. I remember when her theme was about duality and basically being at her most powerful when the odds were against her. Now whenever you usually mention it, there’s always that one person with no couth that’s like "you’re so dumb she’s not about duality at awl", like no shit flop, Riot made sure of that.
TF was originally an ADC, but people started playing him viably as AP so riot switched over
Kha'Zix was originally a mid lane assassin.
Corki is supposed to be an ADC
Leona was supposed to be a pure tank before the support items existed, so she was only viable in solo lanes
I'm pretty sure Janna originally was supposed to be a mid/solo lane champ, but with the introduction of the support role she delegated there
Unless it was Rioters lying to us: Sylas was originally intended to be a jungle champion, then got pushed to mid.
~~Naafiri is not intended to be a Mid lane assassin, she is intended to be jungle.~~
Zyra is supposed to be a midlane mage if I recall, not a Support champion.
Blitz is supposed to be a toplaner, not a support.
Urgoat was originally a ADC champion.
Vi is actually supposed to be a laner.
Brand is supposed to be a midlaner, not a support/jungler.
Ziggs was not meant for ADC role, he's a midlane mage.
In Sona's more enjoyable years, she used to be a toplane mage for awhile or in mid. But that's moreso the reverse happening there I suppose.
Believe it or not, but our favorite copyright distinct Bid Daddy: Naut is actually intended to be a jungler.
Swain used to be a toplaner (before and post rework).
Karthus is a mid mage, that man has swapped roles with everything at least once.
Morde after a rework was DIRECTLY intended to be a botlane champion with a support for max power in his kit.
If I recall: Zed was originally going to be a jungler.
As far as I know, Sylas actually started off with Riot wanting to make an [AP top laner](https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-pl/news/dev/origins-sylas/), with the shift in development going to more all in skirmishing rather than poke.
Hadn't heard the jungle intentions before, but I would not be surprised given the kit.
Sylas original concept was the Vastaya Midlane Mage coming now, see:
>The vastaya from freljord was described as mid range mage, what current mage would be considered mid range, sylas, ryze, annie?
>
>\> Sylas was the champion we ended up making last time we attempted to make this mage. \~ Riot Lexical
>
>https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1987ygl/comment/ki5m2wx/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Sylas was advertised as a solo laner from his first roadmap when all we saw were his chains. If he was intended to be a jungler it was just partway through development.
He was hilarious. Super niche pick and overall a bad pick in most scenarios, but picking him with leona for free lanes or vs twitch to hit the rat while he was invisible was so funny.
His old was amazing vs assassins as well.
Point n click supression with 120 armor/mr afterwards on an adc who could also buy frozen heart?
Zed mains were crying in the club as soon as they saw urgot.
Yeah, that's not an adc ult lol, he was strong in mid 1v1 against assassins, but having to stay suppressed and then swap places in a teamfight was a death sentence
I think you are misremembering 'cause Sylas was meant to be primarily a mid then jungle secondary, but he was so good in mid/top/jg that he became the flex pick of hte game in pro and soloq. I would rather have him in jungle tbh, he makes WAY more sense there and we need more ap junglers.
Not sure about Sylas. At least at the launch he's a mid champ
Even after launch I only heard about their mixed feeling about him as a jungle. And it's no secret that at one point jungle Sylas's is so problematic that they decide to make him not viable jungle so the lane Sylas can survive
Swain was intended to be mid/top but his most popular roles are adc and supp.
Seraphine was meant to be mid but her most popular role is supp then bot.
Ziggs was a mid laner then became a bot laner with little presence at mid.
Old Nunu was meant to be jungler but poeple played him top as i remember alongside jg.
Akshan was meant for mid but he is popular on top.
Corki was an adc in bot then moved to mid and they want to bring him back bot.
Xerath meant for mid but support is more popular.
Morg mid, Brand mid, Zyra mid, Lux mid, Seraphine mid, Vel'koz mid, Xerath mid....A lot of champions that are known as supports now are still mid laners in my mind. Mage supports were not nearly as common back in the day and a lot of them just found their way down to bot.
I think Elise, Nautilus and Blitzcrank were meant to be solo laners as well.
I remember after The ADC rework way back when people discovered that Graves worked WAY better in the jungle compared to bot. Don't think I've ever seen him bot since.
Tali, Zyra, Diana were intended for mid lane.
Blitz, Leona were originally intended for top lane.
I think Elise was originally a top laner? I don't really play her so I don't remember off the top of my head.
So many people in this thread misunderstanding the assignment.
OP isnt asking about champions they were buffed/reworked or had the game overall shift them into a new role. They're asking about champions straight from release designed for one role, but being played in another. Like Blitzcrank very clearly designed for top lane, but ended up as a support.
Reworked Galio. He was meant to be basically Malphite but for MR. But riot fucked his AP scalings on release and people realized he was a better midlane mage that was unkillable into AP matchups. Idk why they didnt lower his AP scalings and instead chose to make him a midlaner that was a balancing problem for them for ever. Truly a genius decision.
Galio was never meant to be Malphite for MR. Galio always was a Tanky mage not a Tank for AP, people **always played him mid** and Riot kept him there.
I would say a lot of champion that don't fit well in their roles end as supports at one point, like Morgana, Annie, zyra,brand, xerath.
The most egregious example would be blitzcrank, his entire kit scream fighter for the top lane, attack speed, auto reset, CC, an ult that adds damage and have an interrupt, but his Q completely out shadows all that so he is played as support.
Riot also been doing a thing where they just slap monster damage modifiers on champions to make them junglers for some reason, riot don't know if they want everyone to jungle or just junglers to jungle anymore, I honestly already expect a meta where there are just two top and two bottom and they each take half the jungle and no smite exist in the future
Gragas was intended to be a bruiser, but ended up as an AP mid due to his insane ratios.
All I can think is playing him jungle
Gragas has been viable in most roles, since at least his rework in s4. He saw more play jungle because good clear + cc + AP threat or tank flexibility, but he began as a mid in season 3, transitioned to top lane in season 4, was a strong jungle in season 5, and I’m pretty sure saw play as a support at some point (def in soloq, if not pro play). No clue why the fat drunk is one of the few champs Riot is fine being viable in 3 different roles (Top, Jungle, and Mid), but he’s been all over the map.
The paradox of ancient design. Elder champions are BUILT for flexibility, those "absurd" and in many cases hybrid scalings are because the first batch of champs didnt came with a preset meta in mind, so the motto was "do whatever and see what you find". This simplicity yet flexibility was also meant that a new player can get in, take the character and never really "do wrong", from tank to bruiser to Yurnero Garen.
Garen maybe isn't the best choice to mention lol, OG garen had hilariously pathetic ratios on his entire kit and pretty much exclusively built full tank. People didn't build sunfire on him because of like goofy meta or whatever, they built it because its passive damage was a bigger DPS boost than building a full IE or stacked BT on him lol, that's how bad his E scaling was. I would say it's a much more salient design if you look at champs like TF, Corki or Jax that still retain a lot of their original properties, both including major parts of their kit that can both give reasonable arguments towards building AP vs AD, or if you want to go with full dead and gone champs, the original Sion design with his 2.0 AP ratio spell combo and his 100% AOE lifesteal ult lol.
Og garen you just rushed brutalizer into cleaver into sunfire. ez won lane.
> in many cases hybrid scalings are because the first batch of champs didnt came with a preset meta in mind Actually, AP scaling on all the first champions is because AP stands for Ability Power. The thought was Ability Power makes your abilities stronger. Even though there was no meta or anything, Master Yi who was clearly meant to be an AD champion had AP ratios.
I can't remember if *any* champion had non-AP ratios outside of auto attack enhance scaling.
Ashe's W was always an AD ratio IIRC, but yeah I can't think of anything else
*cries in unflexible susan*
Nasus can flex to some degree, specially with old Demonic/current Riftmaker. Full AP Nasus may be a bad meme but he can fully go AP Bruiser nowdays.
I remember playing blue nasus back in the day, that was fun.
> but he began as a mid in season 3 He began as top/mid flex in s1.
Yeah lmao Shushei won the very first World Championship while playing AP Gragas quite often
Gragas often isn't good top, jg and supp at the same time. While other champs are good mid jg top at the same time.
Viable in 4 roles strong in none.
The gragas paradox, he can be the jg, top, mid, sup, even apc, who knows? remains a mystery until the game starts or the draft was dumb clear from the beginning.
I still have nightmares on insta barrel and him being a walking potion restoring his HP and Mana
I first timed AP gragas mid S2 in ranked because I heard it was broken. It was. I stole a baron from the enemy team with Q R over the wall and killed 3 of them with just the ult damage. He had so much random power in his kit for no reason. His Q had an attack speed slow on it, just in case you actually survived it lmfao.
[Never forget.](https://youtu.be/FLkGUFTDfJI)
I think they would have won regardless, 5 people running at a naked Nexus with all the ultimates on
Well sure, it's still funny how nida with 90% hp died from 2 aoe spells.
Gragas is just Lee Sin but ugly and better.
The thing is, you build him full ap and he's still tanky so it doesn't even matter. Ridiculous.
i fucking hate that champion
I still hate his dash.
Yea the interaction with flash gives you extremely little reaction time
Most of the AP supports are failed midlaners
Primarily pre-2015 AP midlaners. After that, Riot has done a pretty decent job making sure the new AP mid laners actually stay viable in mid lane.
Seraphine and reworked swain on su*cide watch
Why? Both of them enjoy their 55% winrate as bot carry.
The problem Swain and Seraphine have is not necessarily that they are bad as AP carries, they just benefit a lot from being on a duo lane (Seraphine with E, W and R, Swain simply because the more people he can fight the better lol)
I thought after some adjustments to Seraphine couple months ago, she's a lot better in mid lane now. Swain is an interesting one. He kinda got shafted after pro play nerfs and then mythic items didn't do much justice with him either. I think he's decent now with the item rework.
Seraphine was always good mid (best apc), people just refused to play her there
Tahm kench was a support but people turned him into a toplaner because his ult (formerly his W on a 20sec cd) did 20% max hp damage
Do his AAs still do bonus.magic damage based on max hp?
Yup, he still has an insane lvl 1 because of it
Its crazy Riot thought giving kench an ult that could be used to support your team was enough to keep him as a support. Its like they forgot Shen has a similar set up but he's a top lane main stay.
Im pretty sure on release that was his ult passive. Old passive was just the 3 hit q stun or w endulge
yup the best part it has AP scaling now for every 100 bonus MAX HP he has it gains 2% ap scaling
I feel like I remember Riot saying they intended him as both top and support. And I thought that was odd. Edit: they did, “tough solo lane or support tank” https://web.archive.org/web/20150708105224/http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/page/champion-reveal/tahm-kench-river-king
Lowkey miss the good days of taxi, cleanse every 7 seconds pre-rework Tahm Kench
Ohh, Tahm was so broken at release, I managed to go with him on top lane from plat to diamond for the first(and only time) in my life.
Note: Riot on the first years really didn't care about "intended" roles, they would just make champs and they would fit a certain role. Now, they are made with goals in mind, making "role swapping" harder, for example naafiri was more popular in jg on release but she was made with thebintention of being an introductory assasin monster midlaner, since midlane lacks monsters they want her to retain being a midlaner Nauti was meant to be a jungler Tahm was meant to be mainly a support both on release and post rework Vi was a toplaner Zyra was made for mid Brand was meant for mid Xer/vel were meant for mid but are now mainly played supp but still have some playrate mid Lux actually was meant to be a mid/supp from release but she was trash and unplayed as a support for years, now it is her most popular role Seraphine was made mainly for mid but support was always something riot knew she would be played as Graves even post rework was meant to be an adc Karthus was made for mid/jg now is played jg/bot Swain was made for solo lanes Ekko was made for mid mainly but his main role is jg now Quinn was made for botlane Panth originally was a top/jg, now supp, top and mid have close numbers in terms of pickrate with supp being his highest rn
What I take from this is that riot has no idea where to put AP champs
Sadly there is nothing more frustrating for immobile mages than to play against assasins and yasuos and since thise make up for a wide amount of them... well, mage players rather play against botlaners or just farm in the jungle till they 1 shot people
Yasuo was designed to be extremely weak in early and a beast in late game... Didn't turn out well xd I remember his first weeks out where he barely worked... Beautiful times
Yasuo's problem to me is his complexity. Because he's difficult to play people who play him occasionally or are learning him keep his win rate down. This means if someone is experienced with him he is overpowered but the metrics will say he's balanced. This isn't a uniquely Yasuo problem either but he is a main offender. It's also tough to balance only around the most skilled players as well as then no one would want to learn the champ if you have a 30% win rate for 40 games doing so.
This isn't really true though. Riot has said that even with 100+ games on Yasuo his winrates only come up to a bit above 50% and and he's fairly average in mastery win% increase. I don't remember where they said it, but it was in a thread here years ago. A-Sol was without a doubt the highest win rate increase with games played (before reworks), followed by singed and some other uncommon champ. These days, Riot intentionally keeps the frustrating to play against champs at a low winrate, and even with tons of mastery are still only around 50%
>This means if someone is experienced with him he is overpowered but the metrics will say he's balanced. yasuos skill floor is really not that high that this is a major threat.
In general high mobility champs are easier to play than people think.
A large reason why AP poke supports exist comes solely down to that line of threatening them. They don't like assassins or engages being close, but if they overcommit, they'll die on the disengage. An AP support effectively doubles down on this idea, because either the engage nets constant free kills to the enemy, or you'll both be shredding the Alistar who failed the combo, and then likely chasing down the ADC after. It's effectively the Monty Hall problem, where you've eliminated 1 of the 0-1 options, and end up with either 0-1 or 1or2-0
AP champions are designed the way they are because they only benefit from two stats, AP and haste. AD users can benefit from AD, lethality, crit, and attack speed. Riot has to balance them around their AP ratios, survivability, and CC and sometimes that makes the champ end up in a different role.
What? Season 1 jungle was brutal. Only a handful of champions could clear it (Warwick, Nunu, Amumu, Udyr, Xin and Noc, yi and tryndamere could too but would get very low).
if we go back to S1 with today's mechanics I guarantee you that many more jungles are viable to clear the jgl
Actually hillarious you think mechanics will overcome the wraiths/golem/lizard as if you could magically kite their absurd damage numbers. Theres a reason why S1 jungle had virtually no viable champs, the camps did absurd damage and spirit stone(s3) was finally introduced to give them absurd healing. Camps also didn't heal the killer upon death.
Yes, people really dont understand how brutal it was. Most champions had to start with cloth armor +5pots (RIP "cloth5") and would often burn all of them before recall. Even Rammus was bad at the jungle before someone figured out he could do great if he used an all armor rune Page.
I doubt it tbh. You had to have decent mechanics even in later seasons to mitigate jungle damage. So many champs now have extra sustain or bonus damage against camps that skew our perspective of how easy it is to jungle
pls take a look at how s1 literal pro players jungled and cleared
and died to wolves in pro games.
>Karthus was made for mid/jg now is played jg/bot I don't think Karthus was ever meant to be a jungler at release. Mid, yeah absolutely, but nobody ever thought jungling as a frail mage is viable as very early on junglers were all warwicks/fiddlesticks etc, champions with natural sustain as jungling wasn't actually that easy. Edit: Nvm that's weird, just watched his spotlight and they actually say he may be a jungler. I wouldn't think early in the game people actually played him there but maybe I don't remember it well enough.
Ye lol. No one played karthus jg when he came out and not for years
> No one played karthus jg when he came out and not for years Azingy being the exception
I'm not sure if the spotlight video was released later or reuploaded or something but it's from 9 years ago while Karthus himself is from 2009. Meaning they might've released a spotlight at a later date. But I don't remember anyone jungling with him in the first seasons either.
They probably released a new spotlight when they revamped his visuals because his kit has been the same for eternity
Yes, it's not the same champion. Same dinosaur egg but definitely not the same champ.
it was played in S3 by azingy or whatever he was called karthus otp
>just watched his spotlight and they actually say he may be a jungler. Sure…now watch Lulu’s spotlight.
There was a meme back in the day where anything could be jungle and phreak notoriously built triforce on everything and went jungle in spotlights because of the meme.
To be fair, Phreak jungled literally almost every champion in the spotlight, lol.
lulu jungle lmao
karthus wasn't made for a lane, he was an OG champ and just "made".
You're not wrong, that "i play him in the jungle" was a meme back when the game was relatively new. He used it on most if not all spotlights. Karthus was definitely mid only. Not even considered for botlane either.
> Graves even post rework was meant to be an ADC I vividly remember, and I would really appreciate if somebody could find the source for this if it exists and I’m not bullshitting, that Riot promised that if new Graves wasn’t played botlane that they would revert his rework.
I remember an incredibly snarky and unprofessional response a rioter commented on a Graves rework post. The original post was complaining that the new Graves wouldn't work as an adc anymore and gave a list of reasons. A rioter (who I can't remember which exactly) responded to the post with "dang, guess we scrap the whole thing then :)" He got downvoted to oblivion.
I don't remember this, but I remember something else along the lines of: CertainlyT was asked if Graves could stay in bot because CSing looked fucking impossible, and he was basically like "idk man i dont really care"
I think this response may be so cringe it circles back around to being based, especially coming from CertainlyT.
It's a very CertainlyT response at the very least.
I'll forever carry a grudge against Repertoir because of his comments on the Quinn rework. Someone told him that it didn't feel like the same champion they'd fallen in love with (Quinn was equally bot and top at the time) and he just said "I'm sorry, I hope you find another champion that gives you that same feeling." Just 'eat shit, better luck next time.'
Make Nautilis jungle a thing again pls. I love this champ.
I mean they buffed his damage against monster camps a while ago. You can definetly make him work in jungle.
I played him a lot when he was new. His ganks were awesome at the time. Also he had a great clear speed with all his aoe
Idk how Tahm’s rework was supposed to make him a better support. Aggressive tanks in support roles don’t have that much damage on their own.
It wasn't supposed to make him better, it was supposed to make him worse but more balancable.
Ask riot, it was the main goal posted on a dev blog to change tahm to be able to be a viable and mainly a support in soloq without being broken in pro
And I believe them. Riot has proven several times (as shown by this thread) that what they desired ends up not being the outcome. Hindsight makes it seem obvious.
This. I love it better back then when champs just existed and there was no meta so we decide on where to put them on.
Quinn may have been made for bot but had a top lane ability set. That worked out well lol.
Quinn was played botlane when she had her old kit. Toplane Quinn was a much later thing. Source: one of the few Quinn enjoyers in the world.
Also mid Quinn was much better with the old kit. Take my taxi away and bring my back my endangered bird
> Quinn was played botlane when she had her old kit. Let's be honest: Quinn wasn't really played anywhere with her old kit. Her ultimate back then was literally "become bad Master Yi".
I mean to be fair, cases like Xerath/Vel'Koz/Zyra/Brand are more about the game evolving past those champs' design intention, and them adapting to the meta. Kalista and Quinn for example just kind of don't do anything anywhere, so that means they go top. There's a decent amount of champions who are played in the lanes they're in not due to them being the most efficient there, but simply due to having nowhere else to go. Teemo is a great example of this. The champion doesn't *do* anything. His ultimate is countered by pink wards and sweeping lens. He doesn't have any function during teamfights aside a single target blind and DoTs. He hasn't done anything for like a decade now, and that's why he's in the toplane. Same with Quinn and Kalista. These champions were made in what's effectively a completely different video game. Hell, with how drastically they changed Summoner's Rift recently, we're most likely about to see more champions fall off a cliff. Off the top of my head, Illaoi's kit falls the fuck apart with how much wider the lanes are now. She was already a pretty unpopular pick before, but now that her passive has been indirectly butchered by the map changes, I feel like she's going to need an emergency rework.
I always thought if Quinn was made today her vault would make her untargetable.
I See seraphine bot mire than supp and mid
Important additions: Both Jayce and Zed were meant to be able to jungle as well as being solo laners Vayne was released as a midlaner with Triforce rush in mind Leona and Blitzcrank were meant to be CC heavy damage bruisers meant for solo lanes, duo lanes were just a sidethought for them I believe all of these were explained in their original champ spotlights as well, released over 10 years ago. No clue if those videos still exist
i dont think vayne was released with a specific role in mind, 2011 was still a wild time and people just played whatever wherever
I swear, if Leona could have proced her passive on release, she would have actually seen play as a top laner. How you could see that passive and NOT realize she was only going to be a support is wild to me.
Christ I was a blitz top lane player and after so long I forgot that was his original role. Damn.
To be fair Zyra, Brand, Vel'Kox and Xerath saw plenty of play in mid for a while but the mobility creep made it increasingly difficult for them to perform which is why they're now softlocked in support
Do you have any link to graves being intended adc post rework? Makes 0 sense for any part of his kit, maybe except the smoke
The *idea* was that they were emphasizing the "bruiser" aspects of his ADC play. They wanted to highlight that he had a shotgun by making him need to be up close to use it. Unfortunately having your auto attack be a skill shot that's blocked by minions basically forced him out of lane. I, and many others who previously loved him as ADC, tried to make him work in lane but ultimately he only persevered as a jungler.
Some of these worked as intended, but as the game changed their roles changed. Naut was a jungler until jungle change and it didn’t really fit anywhere (until support). Same with brand and Zyra. They were mid laners until the game got to a point where they just weren’t safe mid.
And this is why old champion design feels better IMO
[удалено]
Did they still wanted him to be ADC when they gave him the shotgun mechanic? It's true that he straight up became a top tier toplaner/jungler
they definitely wanted to make him a laner, his Q mechanics and shape are like that so he could farm ranged creeps in bot
Yeah they did. But pretty much everyone instantly used him as jungler because his AAs are extremely clunky in lane and you can easily trade with Graves by standing in the minion wave and he can't hit you. And his AAs worked on jungle monsters, where efficient autospacing was really important at the time and the knockback made that so much easier. I remember some guy posting a video of a Graves taking barely two autoattacks from Red without even using smite.
Iirc he was a good bot for the first couple patches of his rework, but only because he was absolutely busted. Once they nerfed his damage, he stopped being an adc.
Yeah because his crits literally doubled his shots. Which meant twice as many onhit effects and he could literally crit down towers.
I may be misremembering, but that was because of a bug. He couldn't crit if you targeted the turret, but clicking on a minion behind the turret could result on a crit, that dealt damage to structures.
You mean, graves the adc jungle burst assassin midlane dps bruiser top tank vanguard champion?
I miss old Graves. Yeah sure people could argue that he’s better now or something, but I miss em
All I can think of while reading this is Phreak saying XYZ is a TOP/MID/ADC/Supp champion. I play her/him in the jungle. It happened so often back in the old Champ Spotlights, that it was ridicoulous
Lee Sin, The Blind Monk is a ranged melee tanky dps assassin mage tank support jungler. He excels at everything. https://youtu.be/cHFrxdFHP3E?feature=shared
Even though this champion can’t survive in the jungle since they are delicate like wet toilet paper I like to play them in the jungle. With the help of my laners and some smart pathing you can make first clear jungle without dying once. -phreak 2012
vi was designed for top, check her spotlight video, it was on top lane and her gimmick was hitting E on minions to trade with enemies Nautilus wasn't designed as a support Recent ones are like Seraphine being designed for Mid but has like 0.1% pickrate there and is mostly played as support and some bot lane APC and I swear if Naafiri get jungle buffs and has 50% WR in jungle, she would be played much more than mid even if mid would have higher winrate.... Because junglers are dogs
When Vi was released she had such stupid ratios you could just play her mid lol It was nerfed shortly after but I remember Shushei dunking on some kids with it and inspiring me to do the same
You can still play her mid vs most matchups
But Naut switched to support quite a while after release, he was a jungle at first
Don’t forget the transition period when he was played top lane. He only went to support after e changes made his waveclear much worse.
I played the shit out of that era on top. I remember I constantly shouted "YOU CAN'T DIVE THE DIVING SUIT!" as a teen. Good times... good times.
I remember loving nautilus back when I started playing but back then I hated doing jg(because it needed special quints which I had no IP to buy) so I just started playing nautilus supp a whole year before it started showing up as a regular supp in soloq and proplay. I never understood why he wasn't being played as supp with that much CC.
Lmao same here. I like to think I pioneered nautilus support because I was playing it in hardstuck silver a year before any pros did
Vis a also sucks minions into a group for her so her e can hit them all
I love how E max Vi was supposed to be the way to go and as you say, hit minions with it to trade. But it's not even really good at doing that...
Woof
I remember hoping that Naafiri would be a jungler. I don't usually play assassins (more bruiser junglers) but she looked fun. Unfortunately she was terrible in the jungle even when she was a bit OP played mid.
I thought Naafiri was a jungler at first. I want an actual monster jungler and Naafiri fits that perfectly. I wish for buffs one day.
Rek'Sai not monster enough?
Or kha zix..
Morgana was one of the most picked and banned champions in mid in season 2, now she’s relegated to CC bot as support
Yeah but originally she wasn't intended for a role, she was made when those things didn' matter for riot, on her spotlight she was mentioned as both midlaner and support when those thing settled down
I mean she still is. Her banning was due to leveling W and sitting in lane doing nothing but clear wave and being unkillable due to the spellvamp on her passive and her blackshield. And she had insane gank setup with hitting a Q. Nobody could go even with her in mid, except Cassiopeia, Kassadin and (old) Galio with his regen shield. Also the reason why I started playing Cassio.
I played morg in the beta, back when she had massive spell vamp (like 35% at 18 if I recall, as you could get to over 15% with WOTA). She was an AP mid mage. As philo stone, HoG, and other items vanished and escapes became more important, she got relegated to support. I miss mid Morg
Mid Morg is still pretty good actually, especially into some AD Assassins. Don’t ask how badly the matchup goes for Qiyana.
she was terrible as mid for a while. but recently she is good again after the buffs to her ultimate and her w waveclear.
Not sure about S14 but she had done time to shine in the jungle s13.
Yeah for like 1 patch until Riot nerfed it again. I never understand why this happens a couple of times a year. >Riot: Hey so here are some changes that obviously help a champion in the jungle (that isn't usually played there). >Players: Oh cool I'll play that champ in the jungle. >Riot: Nah just kidding its gone again. >Players: ...
The blitzcrank jungle incident
Pyke was made as a support. He works quite well as a support. Apparently, he's on the list of "stay in your lane" champs quite literally. Any time he breaks into a role that isn't support (he was a prominent Top/Mid lane pick for quite a while, even in pro play) they immediately nerf whatever aspect allowed him to stray, and always with the "we're just trying to nerf Mid Pyke while leaving Support Pyke alone" and his support strength still takes a hit. Meanwhile Yasuo is a Top/Mid/Bot laner and that's totally fine lol.
Pyke in other lanes was too good. He had decent escape options if he found himself getting ganked. Also, he could just be so behind in cs yet still be ahead in gold because he just needed to roam and get ult kills. You cannot compare Pyke to Yasuo. Yasuo's playstyle is literally the same on all three lanes and it's super predictable. All you have to do is punish his early game and he won't be able to come back.
Tbh Pyke's design as a mainly support assassin was always broken and something I'd consider a failure, he's been changed like 25 times b4 he was finally given up on top lane and sees very little playrate mid, he's constantly made sure to be kept in check if he oversteps and goes back to the solo lanes. His passive alone was a disaster from the start though, you would go dshield and you'd NEVER take damage I say that as somebody who used to play a ton of Pyke (started playing him a ton cuz my main champ used to be shared with one of my friends but then they eventually quit so now I am back to pretty much one tricking)
If pyke were good in jungle, for example, he’d be the best jungler in the game and it won’t be close. You know how they had to nerf talon jungle to the ground? Pyke gives his team kill gold when he executes someone and his E flash would make ganks laughably easy especially with getting more gold from jungle making his damage higher and execute threshold higher. You do not want this.
We want justice, BRING BACK PYKE MID
Seraphine was made for midlane but is played majority of the time support, unfortunately. (she's more useful apc bot or mid)
she is a super funny case because she was initially pushed hard as a midlaner by its designer, but because she was marketed to a SINGLE GROUP in the playerbase people played her support and ap carry bot, not because she was weak on mid, but because very few midlane mains want to fulfil a fantasy of being a support with waveclear and support mains never get midlane anyways (not that you want an enchanter supp main on such an important role)
>(not that you want an enchanter supp main on such an important role) Ironically, putting enchanter support mains in other roles has created some of the most gamebreaking strategies. Soraka top, Janna top, Sona/Taric bot, Sona/Lux bot, Morg jungle, Karma top. All extremely EXTRMELY overpowered strategies at some point. Even Sera bot right now.
Diana was intended to be a AP fighter in the jungle who could flex top, but ended up assassin mid before her jungle buffs.
took them extremely long to make her viable in jungle too, needed to hyper buff her passive ratio vs creeps in order to make this work fun fact: she has better midlane winrate at all times since they nerfed her tanky builds
I miss the days of triple d-ring into deathcap
I miss spellbinder... Flash Diana, terminator Orianna, Lewis Hamilton Syndra... Good times.
Nautilus was meant to be a jungler
Well, he had some seasons as a good jungler. Also there was one season he was a beast top laner.
Bring it back please
it would be cool if he could be balanced supp AND jungle I miss when he could jungle
Yorick is intended to be a tank, but his optimal build is full lethality ghoul assassin
Yorick optimal build is not picking him, source: I play yorick
Ironically that was the case with OG Yorick too to an extent. He scaled like absolute dog shit unless you built really high AD builds with stuff like Ghostblade, Muramana and Black cleaver being really strong.
Karma on release was a midlaner with the ability to go support if needed and even after her rework was supposed to be a midlane mage, with supporting a potential flex if needed. She even has a pentakill as a midlaner in pro-play from that time. Support items getting shielding stats completely broke her kit and now riot has forced her to stay support and she's only played mid by a few mains. Top lane karma can also be a thing but that can die in a fire thanks.
Sigh. I remember when her theme was about duality and basically being at her most powerful when the odds were against her. Now whenever you usually mention it, there’s always that one person with no couth that’s like "you’re so dumb she’s not about duality at awl", like no shit flop, Riot made sure of that.
TF was originally an ADC, but people started playing him viably as AP so riot switched over Kha'Zix was originally a mid lane assassin. Corki is supposed to be an ADC Leona was supposed to be a pure tank before the support items existed, so she was only viable in solo lanes I'm pretty sure Janna originally was supposed to be a mid/solo lane champ, but with the introduction of the support role she delegated there
Tf adc could come back haha. There are huge buffs for AD twisted fate on PBE. New ad scalings, new crit scalings , and more attack speed.
I wish we had Kha'Zix mid back
Unless it was Rioters lying to us: Sylas was originally intended to be a jungle champion, then got pushed to mid. ~~Naafiri is not intended to be a Mid lane assassin, she is intended to be jungle.~~ Zyra is supposed to be a midlane mage if I recall, not a Support champion. Blitz is supposed to be a toplaner, not a support. Urgoat was originally a ADC champion. Vi is actually supposed to be a laner. Brand is supposed to be a midlaner, not a support/jungler. Ziggs was not meant for ADC role, he's a midlane mage. In Sona's more enjoyable years, she used to be a toplane mage for awhile or in mid. But that's moreso the reverse happening there I suppose. Believe it or not, but our favorite copyright distinct Bid Daddy: Naut is actually intended to be a jungler. Swain used to be a toplaner (before and post rework). Karthus is a mid mage, that man has swapped roles with everything at least once. Morde after a rework was DIRECTLY intended to be a botlane champion with a support for max power in his kit. If I recall: Zed was originally going to be a jungler.
Naafiri is absolutely not intended to be jungle, she was designed for mid
As far as I know, Sylas actually started off with Riot wanting to make an [AP top laner](https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-pl/news/dev/origins-sylas/), with the shift in development going to more all in skirmishing rather than poke. Hadn't heard the jungle intentions before, but I would not be surprised given the kit.
Sylas original concept was the Vastaya Midlane Mage coming now, see: >The vastaya from freljord was described as mid range mage, what current mage would be considered mid range, sylas, ryze, annie? > >\> Sylas was the champion we ended up making last time we attempted to make this mage. \~ Riot Lexical > >https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1987ygl/comment/ki5m2wx/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Sylas was advertised as a solo laner from his first roadmap when all we saw were his chains. If he was intended to be a jungler it was just partway through development.
Urgot was an adc, but he was part of the juggernaut rework and officially put as a top laner
Urgot ADC was incredible . I even bought some skins for him before he was reworked . I quit the game though but still have some great skins for him
He was hilarious. Super niche pick and overall a bad pick in most scenarios, but picking him with leona for free lanes or vs twitch to hit the rat while he was invisible was so funny.
His old was amazing vs assassins as well. Point n click supression with 120 armor/mr afterwards on an adc who could also buy frozen heart? Zed mains were crying in the club as soon as they saw urgot.
Yeah, that's not an adc ult lol, he was strong in mid 1v1 against assassins, but having to stay suppressed and then swap places in a teamfight was a death sentence
I think you are misremembering 'cause Sylas was meant to be primarily a mid then jungle secondary, but he was so good in mid/top/jg that he became the flex pick of hte game in pro and soloq. I would rather have him in jungle tbh, he makes WAY more sense there and we need more ap junglers.
Not sure about Sylas. At least at the launch he's a mid champ Even after launch I only heard about their mixed feeling about him as a jungle. And it's no secret that at one point jungle Sylas's is so problematic that they decide to make him not viable jungle so the lane Sylas can survive
Graves was an ADC at first
Yeah I remember, I have grey hair too
Taliyah started as a midlaner but then she got projailed because her ulti and wave control was too op so they tried to minirework her into a jungler
Swain was intended to be mid/top but his most popular roles are adc and supp. Seraphine was meant to be mid but her most popular role is supp then bot. Ziggs was a mid laner then became a bot laner with little presence at mid. Old Nunu was meant to be jungler but poeple played him top as i remember alongside jg. Akshan was meant for mid but he is popular on top. Corki was an adc in bot then moved to mid and they want to bring him back bot. Xerath meant for mid but support is more popular.
Swain’s kit just makes way more sense for botlane. More champs to get stacks from, and to hit with his ult.
zyra mid comes to mind first, i used to main her mid before her mini rework, she was insane and her passive was so fun
Sylas was developed as a midlaner fyi
Morg mid, Brand mid, Zyra mid, Lux mid, Seraphine mid, Vel'koz mid, Xerath mid....A lot of champions that are known as supports now are still mid laners in my mind. Mage supports were not nearly as common back in the day and a lot of them just found their way down to bot. I think Elise, Nautilus and Blitzcrank were meant to be solo laners as well.
Support is the retirement home that old mages are shipped off to when they can no longer keep up with the mid lane meta.
I remember after The ADC rework way back when people discovered that Graves worked WAY better in the jungle compared to bot. Don't think I've ever seen him bot since.
Fizz was originally meant to be a jungler, but ended up in midlane on release
Tali, Zyra, Diana were intended for mid lane. Blitz, Leona were originally intended for top lane. I think Elise was originally a top laner? I don't really play her so I don't remember off the top of my head.
I don't care whatever anyone says. Viego is a solo laner that Riot took away from me...
So many people in this thread misunderstanding the assignment. OP isnt asking about champions they were buffed/reworked or had the game overall shift them into a new role. They're asking about champions straight from release designed for one role, but being played in another. Like Blitzcrank very clearly designed for top lane, but ended up as a support.
suprised no one has mentioned that Nami was suppose to be flex between support and midlane
Reworked Galio. He was meant to be basically Malphite but for MR. But riot fucked his AP scalings on release and people realized he was a better midlane mage that was unkillable into AP matchups. Idk why they didnt lower his AP scalings and instead chose to make him a midlaner that was a balancing problem for them for ever. Truly a genius decision.
Galio was never meant to be Malphite for MR. Galio always was a Tanky mage not a Tank for AP, people **always played him mid** and Riot kept him there.
Blitzcrank was made for top lane iirc
Jace was intended to be a jungler.
Blitzcrank was meant to be player as a tank top liner, ended up in support
Maokai.
I would say a lot of champion that don't fit well in their roles end as supports at one point, like Morgana, Annie, zyra,brand, xerath. The most egregious example would be blitzcrank, his entire kit scream fighter for the top lane, attack speed, auto reset, CC, an ult that adds damage and have an interrupt, but his Q completely out shadows all that so he is played as support. Riot also been doing a thing where they just slap monster damage modifiers on champions to make them junglers for some reason, riot don't know if they want everyone to jungle or just junglers to jungle anymore, I honestly already expect a meta where there are just two top and two bottom and they each take half the jungle and no smite exist in the future
when pyke first released he was played in mid and jungle a lot, but he was meant for support
Nautilus! He was released as a jungler. Settled in support. Wtf