User blog comment:Ysana/Champion Versatility/@comment-1990160-20130127205617/@comment-5194571-20130128113319

What about Sion, then? Though only 2 of his 4 skills scale on Ap, they scale highly and are the only skills that do scale on something. Therefore, a large majority of Sion players go AP and believe that he can ONLY be played AP. "OMG NOOB! SION AP LOOOK Q + W! SION NOT AD!"

^Sound familiar? If that was the case, why would he get attack speed and lifesteal from his ult and an AD sterioid from E while also making himself tankier? Clearly, he was intended more more than AP.

The same applies to Leona, Alistar, Blitz and Shaco. They all are played primarily in one role, whther that be jungle for Shaco or support for the other three. For that reason, people are under the impression that they can ONLY be played in that single role. I for one, play Leona and Blitz as top lane (general) counterpicks. Want to camp top with your jungle to shut down their top or draw their jungler away from mid/bot? Then pick Leona/Blitz and keep those ganks coming! They have so much CC it's near impossible to escape. I play Ali top as a disengage tank. As a counter to champions with gap closers, I deny them kills and free up space for a squishier and more damage based jungler or a different support while keeping a team tank on the roster. "Darius used E? I'm gonna lose half my health to his combo? Bitch please, I'm Alistar! Headbutt away for wasted Darius E." You may have read my blog a week ago about Shaco solo top too.

What I'm trying to say is that EVERY champion is versatile and can do more than one thing. It's the minds of the players that aren't versatile. Champions end up in only one role because people can't think of many more, if any for champions than one. Those like Teemo, Ezreal etc are the lucky exceptions. When Riot balances and releases champions, they do so around this train of thought the community have,

Take Thresh for example. He is being called a support. Granted, he can be a support and a good one at that. I prefer to play him as a "you will never get away from me" top lane off-tank. Some people play him as an anti AP mid laner, others prefer AD Thresh. He can do anything, but because of people thinking "oh, Thresh is support" he will be promoted that way from now and and when Riot make changes to him for balancing, those changes will revolve around his role as a support.