Talk:Janna/@comment-33647079-20181030183254

I'm sad for Janna. Going by just her win rate alone she's always seemed very strong, but the problem with mentioning a statistic, and not going into why that statistic exists, and what it truly measures, is you aren't getting the full picture. To almost anyone who's acutally played her you realize right away that she's not that strong: shield has too long a cooldown, costs too much, and is rather small early. her zephyr is too short range and (unless you're maxing it) has too low a damage. her gale is insanely easy to dodge (partially telegraphed and you can hear it) and if not charged has low damage and is slow. so why is this champion so high in the win rate.

Part 1: Because she's adaptable. there are three main types of lanes in bot: sustain, harass, and engage. an engage lane focuses on jumping on and trading/killing the enemy champions, most tank supports go with this one, having lots of stuns and dashes. a harass lane focuses on poking down the enemy and forcing them to retreat or eventually die, zyra, brand and other mage supports fall in this category. then there's sustain, you outlast any damage and generally farm. now engage lanes beat sustain lanes beat harass lanes beat engage lanes (generally, they are the counters). now Janna (and to a lesser extent lulu and nami) is a little bit of all 3, it makes her playstyle very adaptable. She's not that good at all of them but she can easily do all. if you're smart (and even if you aren't) you can leverage this in lane to mitigate the enemy's strengths (it makes you not die as much).

Part 2: in solo q you prevent your carry from doing dumb shit. the janna playstyle at base is one that prevents dying instead of encouraging risky plays. in solo q at no point do you dive in and try to get your carry to follow you. at no point do you focus on your own damage and leave your carry to die, your spells are either short range or have a charge time so they can be saved for when needed most (if your carry or team is in trouble), and your shield has a long range. Janna is a safe pick that forces your carry to play safer (unless they're a complete idiot) and even when they play risky you can help them to live through it, and they'll rarely go all in because janna isn't. this farming over diving playstyle is boring but wins games (getting farm wins games) https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/8d8ftz/the_reason_why_janna_had_a_high_winrate_for/ this specific playstyle has less to do with Janna herself being strong and more to do with your average player (and even pros too) underestimating the risk of the plays they are trying, and janna decreases incedence rate of misjudgement and increases your chances of escaping your own poor play.

Unfortunately this still leaves her with a high winrate. She's not overly strong, just adaptable and smart. nerfing her won't solve this problem, it will make her win rate go down, but only because she'll be so weak that she won't make a difference, or do much of anything, in an increasing number of games (a reality that makes it less and less fun to play her) and she doesn't deserve to be treated that way. "Your team is much more likely to win when they're not feeding.

That's like a super secret trick to free elo." -SailorMint