Talk:Camille/@comment-11218751-20161212221505/@comment-25832031-20161213200356

You are incorrectly assuming that Riot is tacking existing mechanics onto new champions because they are "out of ideas." That is not the case. Rather, they are trying to limit the amount of knowledge necessary for people to enter the game. If every champion has four unique mechanics that you need to know by heart in order to play against them, then a new player entering the game will be overwhelmed. If instead a champion is defined by one core unique ability and three other abilities that use existing mechanics, then it is far easier for to introduce to new players.

For instance, say my wife (Silver 4 last season, hasn't played since then) was going ADC and noticed the enemy team had Camille. She asks"Hey, what do I need to know about her?" And I have a single loading screen to explain it.

I would say "She's melee. She's got an Auto-attack steriod, a conic AOE with a decent telegraphing period that slows you if you're near max range, and super long range dash that requires a nearby wall and has a stun at the end. She likes to be on your face eating you. Her schtick is that her ult is a giant hexagon that traps you in an arena. It's kinda like Panth's ult, but you can't escape it at all, even by flashing, so don't try, just kill her before she kills you. Oh, and she gets shields sometimes; shoot her when she doesn't have a a red crystal around her." Bam. Done. All in the loading screen. Try explaining Lee Sin like that.

Obviously, that's not enough info to tell a plat how to counterplay other plat players, but it's enough to help a silver playing against a silver know what's going on. This is totally fine given that less than 3% of players are in plat or above. (Math: 9% of ranked is plat or above, and only 1/3rd of players play ranked)  Camille's timing thing is going to be very important in high-level play, but that's all hidden complexity; my wife doesn't need to know that immediately. She just needs to know not to try and flash out of Camille's ult like a noob.

If Riot made a game ONLY for people willing to no-life LoL, then yes, you could have completely different mechanics for each ability on each champion and it would be more fun than it is now. But being able to sum up categories of different abilities very simply (linear colliding skillshot, telegraphed ground-targetted AOE, etc) is NECESSARY for players who only play once a week or who take long breaks. And frankly, if LoL becomes a wall of mechanics so intimidating that no new players can feel successdul in playing it, than it will eventually die due to lack of player turnover, and nobody wants that.