The new champion in LoL (League of Legends) was initially way too strong and has a crazy deep passive ability. In the past, champions in LoL were significantly easier to understand, as a comparison shows.
Who is it about? Samira has only been active in League of Legends for a few days. She came into the game as the new ADC in Patch 10.19 and was really strong right from the start. Even too strong. On day one, she had to be nerfed by Riot Games via a hotfix.
The developers reduced her base health points and her ultimate became weaker. However, anyone who wants to start playing her and understand the character must first wade through a lot of text. This was not the case with older champions at all.
Samira’s complex ability compared to other champions
The passive ability is that complicated: LoL champions are often equipped with 4 abilities. A fifth is passive. In Samira’s case, the peculiarity is that she can equip herself with guns or swords, making her either a melee or ranged fighter. With each hit on an enemy champion, she increases her style ranking from “E” to “S”. However, each hit must differ from the previous one for the rank to increase.
The higher you are in the style rank, the faster you move with Samira. Once you reach rank “S”, you can activate the strong ultimate ability.
To do this, Samira throws enemies into the air when they have been hit by hard CC within a certain range.
This passive ability also has some details that players need to consider. On Samira’s page on Fandom.com, the passive ability is explained as follows:
In comparison to other champions, it almost feels like an essay that you have to read carefully to understand what is actually happening.
With Dr. Mundo, it’s quite different:
Also with Kassadin, it is clear: He can move permanently through minions and takes less magic damage:
When playing the marksman Sivir for the first time, you quickly understand: Okay, if I hit an opponent with an attack, I run a bit faster.
All three champions compared, Dr. Mundo, Kassadin, and Sivir, were released early in LoL – They were released in 2009. At that time, such simple mechanics were still a unique feature.
However, over time, more and more new champions have been introduced to the MOBA. By now, in September 2020, we have reached 151 heroes in LoL. For the new characters to find a place in LoL, they must be unique. The developers had to move away from the simplicity of attacks. And this is evident, among other things, in Samira’s passive ability.
It gets more complex: The mechanics with which new champions are now released in the game are more complex than with some “old” champions.
- With Senna , you have to manage souls from dead units
- The ADC Aphelios comes with 5 weapons that affect his abilities
Players are noticing this as well and are posting memes as comparisons:
How does this affect? Especially for casuals, this is a significant shift in LoL. Those who logged in before and tried out a new champion like the bomb-throwing Ziggs quickly got the hang of it through trial and error. Q throws an AOE bomb, W throws a detonator that can be activated again with a second press, and so on.
Today, you read through the descriptions of the champions and immediately face many more situations and niches that you have to understand first.
What do you think? Do you also find that the heroes are becoming more complex, and is that good? Soon there will be a major change regarding critical hits in LoL, but players want to abolish the whole mechanism.
