Talk:Braum/@comment-8506165-20140830004555/@comment-6061249-20140907213052

The reason is, it's better to pick something that grants utility AND damage, rather than a one ton of utility champ, like Shen is.

The point is, you aren't really going to need that much utility, or damage. That's why hard utility picks are unpopular, and hard damage picks still tend to win noticably less games than utility and damage combining ones. You can see that by simply comparing the two assassins you gave as an example - Yasuo and Zed. Which is more popular at this moment, and wins more games? Well, Yasuo is definitely more popular than Zed, and if things didn't change since some time, he's also victorious in more matches. Why? Because he has the damage, and with his abilities, he also brings more utility than Zed.

Damage is given the most revelance. In popular opinion, yes. In Rito's balance, mostly yes too. In game, actually not.

If it was like this, picks like Vel'Koz support would be played all along in a neverending pick rate train. But they are not. But, people aren't also playing the massive utility supports too often. Janna and Taric are quite underpicked at the moment, not to mention few more.

Then, the most popular support picks are?

Morgana. Massive utility, plus some nice damage.

Leona. Massive utility, fine, yet not high damage (at least for earlier stages of match), tankiness.

Thresh. Massive utility, nice damage.

Braum. Massive utility, some additional damage, good defense.

Those four picks, also feature a very important thing. Position safety. They're getting their hands dirty with keeping the enemies far, while ADC just chills out at rightclicking the entire enemy team. And when something gets to the carry, they still can go for another chance.

They are basically a mix of supporting effectiveness. They are neither full damage or full utility based.

That's the reason why Shen won't be popular. You need utility, but not that much utility, and you need something more than utility to win matches.

That's also the reason why the insane assassins are still standing on quite low win rate compared to their pick rate and opinion among the players.