If you played League of Legends,
especially toplane, you might have faced a champion with what many like to call
an “overloaded kit.” What does that mean? Well, according to this guy on reddit, and he has 500
upvotes so he’s definitely a reliable source, an “overloaded kit” is one that just
has way too many things going on. These are the guys who have spells with essays
for descriptions, conditional added effects, and random bull- that just got added in for
seemingly no reason. When facing such a champ, you’re likely to be left asking
“Who the f- gave this greenlight?” With 168 champions in League, and counting,
there are definitely going to be a few that raise an eyebrow here and there. But
I’ve identified three Champions that just made me question what the
hell were Riot’s devs smoking. This is K’Sante. A champion with high HP, Armor,
and Magic Resistance. He’s a tank that focuses on being his team’s shield, frontlining, facetanking
skillshots, and protecting his teammates… Until he presses R, kidnaps your ADC, dunks
on him, and hits him with the “Too Small.” K’Sante is a tank that can not only
turn into a damage-dealing bruiser, but can also isolate a
squishy into a 1v1 situation. He also has a passive that gives him Max%
Health damage, meaning he will always hurt, a close-range spell that slows (that
after hitting three times in a row, becomes a projectile that sends targets airborne
while pulling them back), an uniterruptible dash that also stuns and reduces incoming
damage, and another dash that gives a shield, but also has increased ranged and when used on
an ally. Also, that ally gets the shield too. Did I mention that his DPS scales
off of his armor values? So unlike other tanks who would have to build
damage items to deal more damage, he builds armor items, which he’s supposed
to be building anyway, to deal more damage? He is a tank that took all of
the class’ weaknesses like low mobility and low solo-kill potential
and said he’s having none of that. We also have Yone. A scaling fighter
that gets stronger with items. His passive makes every 2nd autoattack deal
partial magic damage instead of just physical, which means he’ll still hurt even if
you build full armor against him. He also gets free crit rate from items,
at the cost of dealing slightly less crit damage. He also turns extra crit rate
into additional attack damage cause why not? Like K’Sante, he has a short-range damaging
ability, that after hitting twice, sends out a projectile that knocks up enemies. It also
functions as a gapcloser as it makes Yone dash in the direction of the projectile.
This is his primary damaging spell, and it gains a shorter cooldown and cast
time the higher Yone’s attack speed goes, which means he doesn’t need to build
ability haste to cast it more often. His 2nd skill is a sweeping slash that deals
both physical and magic damage, scaling off of the target’s Max Health, that also gives him
a shield which also gets stronger the more enemy champions hit. Its cast time also scales
with attack speed. Because of course it does. Much of Yone’s power budget also comes from his
third spell. Which places a spirit upon casting, makes Yone dash forward, because why
not?, and gives him bonus movespeed. After 5 seconds or if recast early, he returns
to his spirit (which is an uninterruptible dash, because Riot Games), and deals a
portion of the damage he’s dealt during the cast as TRUE damage. Also
it cleanses any and all CC effects. Remember, Yone is supposed to be a
scaling champion that gets stronger with levels and items but his basic
abilities are all strong trading tools, allowing him to poke, win trades with his
shield, deal damage then get out for free. The cherry on top? NONE of his spells cost mana, so he can just spam everything without
worrying about managing an extra resource. Finally, let me introduce you to the last
overloaded kit offender. Meet Akshan. He’s a ranged assassin, who’s all about getting
in, dealing quick damage, then getting out. Akshan’s attacks always shoot twice, with the
second shot dealing less damage. At any point, he can cancel the second shot to
gain a burst of movement speed. Also, upon damaging an opponent three times with
either his attacks or any of his spells, they’re dealt bonus damage and he gets
a shield. And that’s just his passive. He also throws a boomerang that deals
damage both ways, extending its range for each enemy hit. Upon hitting a champion,
he’s also granted a movement speed buff. He has a grappling hook that lets him swing
around terrain, shooting a barrage of attacks at the nearest enemy while swinging. It
also gets a cooldown reset upon takedown. For Akshan’s ultimate charges a barrage of bullets
that deal more damage the lower the enemy’s HP is. But that doesn’t matter because it’ll almost
always be blocked by minions or structures. But then we get to his 2nd skill, which lets
him turn invisible when he’s near a wall. But also passively marks people who kill his
teammates as Scoundrels. When he’s invisible, he gains bonus movespeed and
mana regeneration when moving towards Scoundrels. Upon killing
a Scoundrel, he gets bonus gold. And brings back his teammates from the dead. That’s right! This Champion’s kit is so
overloaded that he can reverse DEATH ITSELF. You can get a Quadra Kill, but as long as
Akshan’s still alive and you’re Low HP, you best be careful because he
can completely hijack a game. And he doesn’t even have to be
the one that gets the kill! He just needs to be involved and be part of
the takedown. That’s already crazy–and then you realize that this is a PASSIVE
COMPONENT built into a BASIC ABILITY. And you know what the worst part is??? Here’s my hot take: I think it has a place in the game. The overloaded kit is an intentional
design choice that adds a little bit of spiciness to League’s roster. I mean
if every champ played like Annie or Garen, League wouldn’t be as fun and dynamic as it is. These champs may have powerful kits, but to get
the most out of them, you need to have strong mechanical skill and macro decision making.
A good K’Sante is a nightmare to deal with, but a bad one will have lost their team the
game from the champion select screen alone. Overloaded kits don’t necessarily mean unbalanced, and they’re aren’t just a result of Riot’s
game design. In fact, DotA has them too. This is Dawnbreaker. She’s a tanky Strength
Hero who wields a big hammer that she can swing around to slow and then knock opponents
up in a three hit combo. Sound familiar? She can also yeet the hammer to deal
damage from a distance. When she does this, she creates a trail of fire when the hammer
returns to her, dealing damage again and slowing enemies. She can also recast this ability
early to dash to the midpoint of her hammer throw. She also has a passive ability that
guarantees a critical hit every few attacks, and this crit heals her for up to 50% of
the damage dealt if against another hero. Finally, Dawnbreaker’s ultimate lets her
create a healing field on a teammate which also damages opponents. After a short delay,
Dawn slams into the ground of the field, stunning enemies caught inside
and dealing even more damage. Oh, and it can be cast on any teammate,
regardless of where they are on the map. That’s right, it can heal your
entire team, deals great damage, stuns, and has a global cast
range. It’s Shen Ult on steroids! Speaking of steroids, this is
Marci. Don’t let her looks fool you, this girl is secretly Icefrog’s
take on making a Jojo character. She has a flip, and while her version
doesn’t deal Max% HP damage like Singed, it has its uses. When used on an enemy, it deals
damage to them and in an AoE upon landing, slowing all opponents hit for three seconds. You can also
flip allies, letting you save them or… troll them. She can also dash to a teammate, leap off of
that teammate and deal damage and stun in the landing AoE. Also, the teammate gets a movement
speed boost cause IceFrog. So this single basic ability gives her damage, reliable CC, insane
engage range, an escape tool, and a teammate buff. And a passive that gives her and a
chosen nearby teammate bonus damage, lifesteal, and shared lifesteal as
long as they’re near each other. THEN we get to her ultimate which gives her
a movespeed buff and turns her basic attacks into Hail of Blades with a 1.5 second gap between
flurries. And each of these flurries releases a shockwave in a massive AoE that deals damage
and slows both movespeed and attack speed. It doesn’t sound that oppressive until you
realize that Dota has an item called Basher, which gives you have a chance to stun with your
autoattacks. With a minimum of 4 hits per flurry, you’re pretty much guaranteed to
proc it on a target every time. Oh, and you can also build crit in
there too to just delete someone. And speaking of deleting someone,
please let it be Nature’s Prophet, the final hero that I’ll be talking about. If
you’ve played DotA in the past year or two, you’d know how oppressive this guy is both
in lane and throughout the course of a game. Also I’m salty about TI3, Na’Vi should’ve won. This smelly old man can spawn a ring of trees at will and enemies caught inside the
trees will take continuous damage. This sounds simple, but if you don’t have
certain items or a built-in escape tool, you don’t really have a lot of options. He’s
a ranged hero, and can just attack you while all you can do is stand there while he whittles
away at your HP bar. That’ll teach you to litter. Next, he can teleport anywhere on the map.
That’s honestly already a really strong ability, but then Icefrog decided that it needed more
power. So now, you’re given a buff to your auto attack damage after completing the teleport.
And for some reason, that damage buff becomes an increasing armor buff. Why is that a thing? I
have no clue. Icefrog works in mysterious ways. He can also convert trees into controllable
treants. Most people will group select them and A-click them to the nearest tower, but
creative NP players will use them to scout, stack camps, farm, tank
spells, and bodyblock enemies. And for his ultimate, he creates a bouncing
bolt of energy that increases in damage with every target hit. With global cast range and
bounce range. It’s an insane tool for farming, pushing, and counter-pushing because its
cooldown is so low for an ultimate ability. Sounds like he can do it all. That’s
because he can. He’s been played in every position, from Carry to Hard Support, and always finds a way to stay relevant
in the pro scene and high level pubs. And recently, people have started playing him
as a ranged assassin with global presence, TPing in, making some trees, and
right-clicking someone to a slow and painful death because they were to
cheap to shell out 100 gold for a hatchet. And then you get caught out like the squishy
you are because you have no mobility. And that’s where League and DotA differ when
it comes to overloaded kits: DotA heroes have a clearly defined weakness that no matter how good
you are as a player, you won’t be able to overcome them. These exploitable flaws in their kits are
what prevent them from being completely broken. Let’s take a look at Dawnbreaker and
K’Sante. Both are beefy bodies that have no problem frontlining their team.
They both have a similar gameplan as well: don’t engage the enemy team, wait for them
to engage and counter with your spells. But here’s the thing: Dawnbreaker needs items
to fully enable her kit. Without Shard or BKB, she can get CC’d during her Starbreaker,
wasting it, and without mobility tools like Blink Dagger, she’ll have very few ways
of closing the gap on distant enemies. But by spending gold and
item slots on these items, she’s hurting her DPS by not spending
on things like Desolator or Harpoon. K’Sante doesn’t have such an opportunity
cost when itemizing. He can just build whatever tank items he wants, and
he’ll still end up dealing more damage than the enemy toplaner because
his DPS scales off of his resistances. When playing Dawnbreaker, you can’t just
go all in on utility, tankiness, or DPS. You need to itemize accordingly when using her,
otherwise you’ll be a tank that deals 0 damage, or a bruiser that gets stunned, kited, and killed
before she even has a chance to throw her hammer. While K’Sante can also get kited because of his
predictable engage pattern, he’s still a tank, and that’s time, damage, and abilities
being wasted on you instead of your teammates. You’re doing your job, but if
and when the enemy steps out of position, you can punish them and solo
kill them with your ultimate. Then we get to Marci who needs
items to scale into the lategame, but she does not farm fast. She has very
little farming tools built into her base kit, and she can’t reliably take neutral
stacks without committing her ultimate. Her win condition is to snowball from an
early to midgame lead. If you can’t make an early impact or end the game before your
enemy hits their powerspikes, you’re in for a rough time when the late game comes and you’re
underfarmed compared to their 6-slotted Sven. Yone, on the other hand, is meant to be a scaling
champ. His win condition is to not feed during the laning stage because he farms fast and scales
harder than most other champions. However, that’s not that hard when you have all the trading tools
he has like a shield, dashes, and a poke tool. If the Yone knows what he’s doing and doesn’t
die to anything short of a Jungler gank, good luck trying to outscale a
champ that gets 100% crit rate from building just two items. And
even when you do beat him in lane, he has the tools to come back from behind
because of how well the champ scales and farms. As powerful as it is, Marci’s ultimate is her
biggest downfall. The majority of her damage output is gated behind this single spell.
If the enemy team successfully disengages and waits out her ult time, they’ve
effectively rendered Marci a non-threat. This is in stark contrast to Yone, who can
whiff his ult and still end up doing the most damage in a teamfight because
of all the other tools he’s given. Marci also has high mana costs relative to
her mana pool. So even if her kit gives her a strong early game and laning stage, she
won’t be too dominant because she just can’t use her spells too much. Meanwhile, Yone
doesn’t even have a mana bar to worry about. Finally, we get to Prophet and Akshan.
Both are ranged heroes with high damage output through their autoattacks
and are highly active on the map. They’re also both quite squishy.
Prophet and Akshan will both get popped if someone gets on top
of them and locks them down. Yes, this is technically Akshan’s exploitable
weakness, but remember he has a grappling hook and can remain invisible indefinitely. So
who has the mobility to catch up to him, the CC to contain him, and the damage to
kill him before he kills you? Besides Yone. Also, Akshan’s grappling hook resets its
cooldown on takedown. So he can swoop in, get a kill, then get out. You’re supposed
to be able to punish assassins when they go for the all-in, so giving them a
get out of jail free after killing a key target doesn’t sound fair. I mean,
isn’t that why they removed Duskblade? Compare this to Prophet, who has to commit to a teleport as it
has a 30 second cooldown at max level. And that’s not even mentioning the fact
that Akshan’s kit still grants him a shield, movement speed, instant waveclear, mana
regen, and the ability to bring back the dead. Am I saying that DotA’s character design
is better than League’s? Not necessarily. I still think there are stellar examples
of well-designed League champions with clearly-defined weaknesses. For example,
Jhin, an ADC who is often hailed as the best-designed champion in the game,
can’t kill tanks and has no dashes. Now I also acknowledge that I’ve probably
made all of the champions listed in this video look way more powerful
than they actually are. Truth is, none of these champs are doing well in terms
of winrate (except Akshan because f- that guy) That’s because Riot, to compensate for these
champs having so much power in their kits, has to intentionally keep their numbers
low so that they’re not too oppressive. But to me? Simply messing with damage
numbers and calling it balanced sounds like lazy game design. I’m
looking at you, Bethesda. But I’ve gotta give credit where credit is
due. It’s nice to see that Riot are taking a step back and releasing champions with
kits that are much more straightforward, like Naafiri, an assassin who doesn’t have
a get-out-of-jail free card, and Hwei, who’s the first midlaner in
years to not have a dash. We know that Riot can continue to
create unique and engaging champions without having to resort to making another
K’Sante. So, hopefully they keep doing it! After all, what else are they gonne use those
200 years of game design experience for? If you liked the video, or are interested
in more DotA and League content, be sure to hit that like button, comment
down below, and subscribe for more! Ace Out!
