What is a Big Moment?
Here is what I mean by big moment: A big moment for a champion is when they are able to use one or more of their abilities in a way that provides a large, noticeable, and fun impact on the current situation. To give a few examples, Skarner using his ultimate to drag an enemy champion to their death is a big moment, Malphite Ulting into the middle of several enemy champions, setting them up for your team to land a kill is a big moment, Tryndamere surviving for a long time with his ult, and sticking to targets with his W and E, all while dealing large amount of damage thanks to his Q and passive is a big moment when successful.
The list goes on and on, as most champions in the game do have the ability to have these big moments, and they are often, but not always, tied to their ultimates. However, not all champions have what I would consider a big moment. Take Karma for example. She lacks a real ultimate, and none of her abilities by themselves, even with Mantra empowerment, really push it to the same state of a normal ultimate. The closest thing generally would probably be if she shield/speed boosted her whole team, but that is often not easy to do, and of course even then, it is not the same impact that someone like Janna can have on a fight.
Karma has what I would call multiple Moderate moments, where each of her abilities are fairly strong, but none of them are really game changing, or super strong on their own. She can help others engage and disengage fairly nicely, but she doesn't do the main work herself. She does a lot of moderately satisfying things for her team.
So why am I talking about this? Well, I believe that one oversight that a few champions have had in design, is not being able to have those big moments that so many other champions have, and this leads to low play rates. Look at Karma, she is even getting some competitive play as of late, largely thanks to the season 4 changes I would imagine, but I hardly ever see her in games that I play. Why is this? She is clearly strong and can do a lot for a team, so why is she so unpopular? Well, I think that it has a lot to do with the lack of a big moment.
As I said above, big moments add a lot of fun to playing that champion. It is really fun to ult a whole team as Galio or Amumu or Leona. It is really fun to assassinate someone in a few seconds with Kha'zix or Zed. It is really fun to execute someone with Garen's ultimate crashing down from the sky. It is much less fun to have much smaller indirect impacts in a team fight, that are dependent on others taking advantage of all of the things you do.
What Champions are lacking in Big Moments?
I have talked a lot about Karma here, but there are a few other champions that I feel lack big moments, or their big moments may be a little bit lacking compared to others. Here are a few that I feel lack the really big moments:
- Karma
- Trundle
- Udyr
- Gangplank (perhap arguable)
- Irelia (largely because of all of the nerfs, making her a jack of all trades, master of none champion)
- Maokai (kind of on the fence about this between no big moment, or a smaller big moment)
- Sion (AP)
- Taric (also on the fence)
I would also note that some champions have the ability to have big moments, but are really hard to execute in practice because of item build demands, or just simply the current meta. Such champions include:
- Rengar (ignoring his Q bug)
- Master Yi
- Fiora
- Sion (AD)
- Yorick
Now do keep in mind that I am not saying that any of these champions are not necessarily fun for some or many people, or they are imbalanced. At the moment I actually feel that most of them besides Sion are fairly balanced, and I have enjoyed playing several of these champions myself in the past. However, I can easily see why it is that many of these champions are not very popular, at least on the summoners rift, or are possibly champions that may be fairly popular, but a lot of players hate to have on their team (e.g. Fiora).
Taric is an exception to the popularity, and I wasn't exactly sure where to place him on the list, or if I should place him, as his stun can make for some big moments, and he can possibly be really tanky if he is not the support, and being really tanky can be really fun. However, his stun is really the biggest thing on his kit when he is played in his primary role, and it just seems to me that stunning a single target is often a more moderate moment, as opposed to a big one. I could see an argument against this being made, however.
Conclusion:
Champions should have what I call a big moment added into their kit in order to help them feel fun to their players. While having one is definitely not needed for balance, it adds a lot to making the champion a fun one for League of Legends', or any other Moba's, playerbase enjoy playing the game and that champion in particular. I personally feel that many of the above champions could use some changes to give themselves big moments, although that may be impossible for some, like Karma, who have such a defined identity of not having one. However, champions like Irelia that are the Jack of all trades champions could stand to lose part of their kit, especially any invisible power like her passive, to gain strengths elsewhere to make those big moments happen.
Feel free to discuss any of these suggestions in the comments!
Until Next Time!
"Never fear change."
-Rikukun
