Riot Games has driven a dagger straight through one of the League of Legends community’s longest-held beliefs: That the developers purposefully ignores champions deemed “balance pillars” to build the metagame around them.
In theory, the massive League roster—there’s nearly 170 playable characters these days—having several core champions Riot can use as wayfinders makes a little sense; grounding the game’s constant balance patches would help design philsophy. In practice, however, there’s no such thing as “balance pillar” champs, with Rioter GalaxySmash shooting down the claim when it was mentioned after Patch 14.16’s big release.
“Not sure when that [idea] was said, if ever,” the surprised Riot developer told League fans this week, “but there are no champions we currently view as a ‘balance pillar.’”
The latest mentions of the League myth were first mentioned by players after the devs confirmed Orianna would be getting an ability power ratio change on her core Command: Attack ability—a move not changed since 2012. Eagle-eyed gamers claimed it was a perfect example of the “pillar” idea; a suggestion obviously shot down.
There are some characters Riot seems to favour and keep around the 48 to 50 percent win rate area as much as possible in any given League metagame, of course, but there’s a far simpler answer to why there: Some of the game’s 170ish characters just work better in professional play. Champs like Orianna, Renekton, and Jhin regularly find themselves squeezed into perfect balance through their competitive-geared abilities so the esports scene looks better. No big conspiracy there.
Considering the 2024 League World Championship is now appearing on the horizon, we can now expect many of these pro play characters to get some love from Riot. In fact, some have already begun getting tapped up in League Patch 14.17.
Over the next three updates (14.17, 14.18, and 14.19) a whole heap of balance buffs and nerfs should follow the same pattern as Riot preps the big Worlds update.
So, for anyone thinking that there’s some kind of block on their favored champion getting upgrades and buffs, the answer is: That’s pretty unlikely. Instead, you may have to wait patiently until Riot gets around to things—after all, think about how long champs like Skarner and Shyvana had to wait for their reworks.
Or—and I know this may be blasphemy—you could just play better balanced League champs while yours aren’t in favor. That can at least tide you over.
