These are such heckin’ frickin’ wholesome champions! I’m plat peak this year (season 13) despite not having much time to play (dad with 2 kids now, hehe, I still get some aram gaming time in with the wife once a week though! And that doesn’t stop me from analyzing balance and commentating on pro player performance like I’m LS! Riot also balances around people like me diligently!!!) and I just wanted to thank Riot for designing and upholding such balanced and wholesome champions that are in no way overpowered, overly versatile, etc.

The reason they’re balanced is because they don’t feel explicitly overbearing to play against in my platinum games, so I think they’re fine. They scale in a really wholesome, linear way too. They aren’t bad early, but they also can be played into the mid and lategame. They fulfill every identity, which I really like because it lets me play them whenever I want! Isn’t that wholesome, being able to blind pick these champions into virtually any team comp? I don’t want to think too hard about things, so having champs like these available to me is a much needed relief. In the end, I just want to have fun and play the game, so why should anyone take issue with that? Another thing I really appreciate about these safe, wholesome champions is that you get to take teleport on all of them! I don’t like playing aggressively because it kind of makes me feel anxious and uncertain, so I hug my turret and if I do unfortunately die (not my fault) I can always just tp back to lane and lose out on nothing! It’s a very accommodating feature which is something I will never omit my gratitude towards. I even bought a battle pass to support Riot’s excellent decision making! #votewithyourwallet. Phreak is doing an amazing job by nerfing all elements of early aggressive play (scary) and not touching teleport. He even commented that teleport might be an issue, but thankfully has withheld further judgment well after that patch proved the dominance of teleport. But hey, it’s okay. As Riot says, something will always be strong, so just like them, I shrug my shoulders like a lemming and nod along uncritically! Why bother trying? Something WILL always be good! :P At least the strong things right now are FAIR, and WHOLESOME.

The best part about these champions is that they’re actually fair, unlike so many other scary champions that can sometimes conditionally deal burst damage to me. It really disturbs me when I see something like an AD carry (the hardest, most oppressed, weak, terminally underpowered role, by the way!) die to an ASSASSIN–I mean what is that? Where’s the counterplay? How can an ADC outposition a role designed exclusively to kill it? The nice thing though is that recently Riot has seen the light and recognized the oppressive nature of assassins, and so now they can’t necessarily kill ADC’s. Even if the triggering, nefarious assassin player (probably immoral in real life) blows their whole kit, a lot of the time ADC’s get to survive AND out damage the assassin! Haha, how the tables have turned! #freakinepicandwholesomechungus

Speaking of oppressive things, one thing I really DISLIKE is scaling mages like Vladimir, Kassadin, Cassiopeia, Ekko, etc. These are examples of actually ovepowered champions because they feel unfun to play against and because in my games the games typically last 40 minutes. Also it’s unfair that scaling champions get to have a strong lategame despite having relatively underwhelming early games (if Kassadin hits level 16, my nexus unconditionally explodes, so that’s unfair). What’s fair however is my champion pool, which not only has a great early game, but can smoothly transition into other stages of the game with viability! This is distinctly balanced because these other champs that I decry as overpowered can just do nothing and then be strong 30 minutes later! How is it fair?! How is it fair that if the game goes long enough, I should be punished by champions specifically designed for that, who otherwise are completely terrible? My champions are simply effective at all stages of the game, which means they’re balanced because they’re consistently involved.

The best part? Riot agrees with all of this! They’ve effectively sanctioned my worldview, because they even admitted outright that my champion pool is ‘strong’ at the moment (not overpowered, though! haha, don’t get it twisted :P) BUT here’s the kicker! They won’t do anything about it! They just shrugged their shoulders, said ‘so what’ and left them alone! Haha, what a ‘gigachad move!’ That’s the white collar balance team that I know and love, ever deserving of their triple digit salaries (they work much harder than problematic laborer chuds. They also have degrees, which, rather than being an indictment of the education system, actually reaffirms my obsequious assumption that they must know what they’re doing due to their credentials. After all, if the people in charge aren’t meritocratic, that would undermine my sense of safety and sanctity in the goodness of the world, so I necessarily assume that, although noone is perfect, most people in authoritative positions must have my personal best interests at heart! This is not a naive worldview, in fact, scientific studies denote that it even correlates positively with intelligence! Holy, I frickin’ love science, which might also be why Orianna is so appealing to me as an Engineering student, since she’s a robot and scientific and stuff lol :p. *hits vape since we’re all just stardust chemicals anyways in the end*). If other champions are too strong, however, they should be nerfed, as they’re unwholesome and not very good for esports viewership (but remember, my champion pool is nice and fine). For example, if Kassadin was listed as ‘too strong’ by Riot but they allowed him to continue in that state, I think I’d feel nauseous and deeply unsafe–I’d even start an #activistpetition demanding Riot games be boycotted until nerfs are applied. I mean, that would just be absurd, to acknowledge something as meta warping and then just not touch it? Could you imagine?!

-Wholesome Orianna maining Reddit Dad (who has never typed a single ‘mean word’ to any other players in game and who derives his barometer for real-world morality off this standard) just wanting to show my appreciation to the lovely community and balance team!

If anyone disagrees with me or my outlook by the way, I will assume that they suffer from ‘mental health issues’ and terminate the argument prematurely.

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