User blog comment:Sifter66/What makes a late-game champion?/@comment-4091261-20150601204731

There are some surefire indicators for a late-game champion. One dead-on indicator is scaling ratios, i.e. ratios that increase as skill ranks rise. This combines level dependence with item dependence; which implies that the champion has to farm a lot to become strong.

Another indicator is the amount of innate synergy. For example, has very little innate synergy due to his random attack speed boost that is even less effective due to a channeled ultimate. on the other hand has and insane amount of innate synergy due to one of his abilities being attack speed dependent and another giving attackspeed while reducing enemy armor and magic resistance by a percentage. He also has a slow and vision to allow him to get more attacks in.

In any case, the way to tell someone is a late-game champion is due to their dependency of farming. This is especially true for what makes, , and late-game champions. Although the main reason is that there is both skill and item dependence combined in late-game champions, causing them to require a lot of levels and gold for their own various reasons.