Designing a League of Legends Champion Part 2

In this part I will try to explain how a League of Legends champion kit functions. For every “rule” there is at least one champion that breaks it but this will hopefully serve as a generic explanation to someone who has never played League of Legends. This will be vastly oversimplified as it would take far too much time to explain all the intricacies. The basic kit for a League champion is three basic abilities which are by default bound to Q W E, one ultimate ability bound to R and a passive ability and although some champions now slightly break that convention, most follow it to some degree. Damage is split into two main damage types: Physical and Magical. Physical damage is reduced by the armour stat while magic damage is reduced by the magic resistance stat. There is also true damage which ignores all resistance stats but only a small amount of abilities and items deal true damage. Most champions will primarily deal one type of damage although some have their damage split between the physical and magical but usually not more than 70:30 ratio. Most abilities have stat ratios which increase how potent the ability is.

The three main stat ratios are Total Attack Damage (TAD), Bonus Attack Damage (BAD) and Ability Power (AP). TAD and BAD ratios are based on the attack damage stat and is split into two types as all champions start with a base attack damage, TAD takes that base attack damage into account while BAD only takes attack damage you have acquired through items and runes. As no champions have base ability power AP ratios take into account all ability power the player has. Even though an ability might scale with attack damage it does not always deal physical damage, some abilities might scale with attack damage and deal magic damage and vice versa with abilities that scale with ability power and some abilities have an AP ratio and a TAD or BAD ratio. All champions have a basic attack which is performed by simply right clicking an enemy, some champions have ranged auto attacks which can be used from varying distances depending on the champion and some can only auto attack from very close range and are considered melee champions. All auto attack damage is increased 1:1 by the attack damage stat and deals physical damage unless one of a champion’s abilities alters it.

Stats are primarily gained from buying items throughout the games. You earn gold through killing enemy minions and champions and spend this money on items that give you statistics as well as special effects. For example Spirit Visage gives your champion extra health, magic resist, cooldown reduction (which increases how often you can cast spells) and a passive ability that increases how much healing you receive from all sources. Items are offensive, defensive or a mixture of the two.

Champions are sorted into different classes by Riot based on how their kits are meant to function. These classes can also have subclasses and some champions occupy two classes.

Controller - Controllers are defensive casters who focus on helping other champions perform their role better

Enchanter - Subclass of Controller. Enchanters focus on buffing and defending other characters. They are usually very fragile.

Catcher - Subclass of Controller. Catchers have good crowd control and are good at catching people out. They usually do not have enough damage to kill enemies by themselves but set up for other characters to.

Fighter - Fighters are primarily melee champions that want to be in the middle of fights.

Juggernaut - Subclass of Fighter. Juggernauts want to be in the middle of fights and can take a lot of damage while dealing a lot of damage but they are low range and have limited mobility so it can be hard for them to stick to their priority targets and are prone to getting kited by ranged champions.

Diver - Subclass of Fighter. Divers are mobile champions that prioritise singling out high priority champions. They aren’t as tanky as juggernauts but can usually survive some damage. They are usually good at getting into fights but struggle to leave them so if they don’t kill their target quickly they can easily fall.

Mage - Mages are damage dealing casters that usually do ability power although some do primarily physical damage.

Burst - Subclass of Mage. Burst mages focus on trying to quickly kill vulnerable squishy targets in a single rotation of abilities. They often struggle to kill tanky characters as they will normally survive a rotation of their spells.

Battlemage - Subclass of Mage. Battlemages do consistent damage throughout a fight and have shorter ranges than other mages. They have more defensive capabilities than other mages usually through self healing or shields.

Artillery - Subclass of Mage. Artillery mages use long distance spells to whittle their enemies down from range. They usually have limited mobility and are squishy so if an enemy gets close they have a hard time dealing with it.

Marksman - Marksman are ranged consistent damage characters that primarily do damage through auto attacking. They are often referred to as Attack Damage Carries and have some of the highest potential consistent damage. However they are usually weak early game as they rely on a lot of items to deal damage.

Slayer - Slayers are mobile high damage melee champions that are also quite squishy.

Assassin - Subclass of Slayer. Assassins focus on ambushing high priority enemy damage dealers and killing them quickly. They usually have a way to get to their target and then get out when they have killed them.

Skirmisher - Subclass of Slayer. Skirmishers do heavy consistent damage but are melee and squishy so they often have powerful situational defensive tools.

Tank - Tanks are hard to kill champions that focus on disrupting the enemy instead of dealing high amounts of damage.

Vanguard - Subclass of Tank. Vanguards are the offensive tanks who initiate fights for their team with heavy crowd control.

Warden - Subclass of Tank. Wardens are the defensive tanks who specialise in stopping the enemy from reaching your damage dealing champions.

Specialist - Specialists are any champions that aren’t caught under the umbrella of the other classes. They usually have some form of unique mechanic or play very differently to other champions.

The 5 players on each team are assigned 1 of 5 roles which will usually limit what champions they can play as champions are designed around what lane they are intended to be played in.

Top Lane - Top lane is the lane in the top left of the map. Top lane champions usually consist of melee champions as it is the least safe lane and ranged champions can be easily ganked although some ranged champions are played top as they are oppressive into melee champions. Most top lane champions have an ability to split push and duel apart from tanks who scale towards team fighting.

Mid Lane - Mid lane is the lane that cuts through the middle of the map. As it is the shortest lane most champs played mid have some sort of wave clear as it is harder to punished for shoving minions under the enemy tower. This is mostly where mages are played however assassins and skirmishers are also played mid, trying to capitalise on their kill pressure on squishy mages.

ADC/Bot Lane - Bot Lane is the lane in the bottom right of the map. It is the only lane that is played with 2 champions from each team, traditionally an ADC and a support making it one of the more restrictive lanes for champion choices. However people have always tried to make off meta combos work in the botlane. Very recently Riot has tried to promote more variety in the bottom lane with some mages and skirmishers becoming more viable to replace an ADC.

Support - Supports play in the bot lane with the ADC/Bot Laner and are usually Controllers or Wardens. Supports usually try to protect their duo laner through the early phases of the game while they are weaker either through shields and heals, protective defense abilities or by bullying the opposing laners out of the lane.

Jungle - Instead of laning junglers farm the jungle which spreads between the lanes by killing neutral monster camps that reside there. Junglers main role is usually to "gank" other lanes which means to come to the lanes and try to outnumber and kill the opposing laner. Some champions are played in the jungle because they have weak lane match ups but with enough money can become very strong so they are played in the jungle to avoid these match ups. Jungler is the most diversive role in terms of champion class but almost all junglers have a way to mitigate damage from the neutral monsters as they attack the jungler directly.

In the next post I will start explaining my initial concepts.