Talk:Vladimir/@comment-27019624-20160818031458/@comment-5211662-20160826044440

Champions who just deal damage are actually the hardest to balance. This is because if you nerf their damage they become useless. If you buff their damage they become OP. This may sound obvious, but since the only thing that they offer is damage, this damage must be very high, otherwise there is no reason to pick said champion instead of others that can do the same thing but have way more utility. This can lead to situations where a champion is incredibly powerful, then after a nerf this champion becomes worthless.

Look at old Fiora. She did a bunch of damage, but she had no utility at all. This made her incredibly snowbally and easy to counter by champions who could build tanky and CC her. (in fact, just by building Thornmail you would counter old Fiora) - She had an extremely overtuned damage to compensate for her lack of utility, and thus once she snowballed she would become out of control, but if she wasn't ahead she would be useless for her team. Her rework solved this problem by adding utility to her kit (ability to shred tanks, a heal on her ult, ability to counter CC)

This is also the reason why Riot added an utility ultimate to new Ryze. Old Ryze's ult was just a bunch of free stats that made him impossible to duel if ahead and didn't really helped when he was behind.

And this is also the reason why assassins in general are so problematic.

Champions which have utility on top of their damage are easier to balance, since if the damage is the problem you can just nerf that and they still have their utility to compensate, they don't become instantly worthless. The reverse is also true. There are exceptions to this rule, though, example include Ekko. But this is mostly because of his ability to build tanky and his mobilty and stickness.