Talk:VPBE/@comment-1138914-20141107133723/@comment-1330314-20141111041705

I disagree that phase-by-phase power progression constitutes an adequate weakness by itself, and I think it's a style of balance Riot has moved away from. A champion can be weaker or stronger at certain parts of the game, and can even scale infinitely, but there shouldn't be any point where your champion feels so weak as to be unplayable, or so strong as to be impossible to deal with. Champions like and  have incredible late games, but also have clearly-defined weaknesses (Vayne is squishy and dies to CC, Nasus has low mobility and can be kited in teamfights) that makes it possible to deal with them even when they're far ahead. and have extremely pronounced power curves, but also have counterplay in their kits that can be exploited at all times. On the flipside, champions like or, who are overwhelmingly dominant during the early game but who scale terribly into the late game, follow a balancing model that Riot has condemned and is trying to rectify.

While this is tangential, I disagree that has a weak early game, as the strong base damage on her E, plus the mobility on her W, give her an extremely safe, harass-heavy play pattern that gives her the strongest early game out of all the hypercarries in League. She's at her weakest during the mid game, which is when her spell power falls off but her damage output isn't quite as good as that of other marksmen yet. However, the changes to AD itemization and the focus on rushing severely mitigated that weakness.

On the topic of Rammus: I feel he could afford to have an amazing late game and keep a decent early game, provided his taunt gets changed to something a bit more interactive. When against lone targets, Rammus doesn't offer that much counterplay (he can outrun your gapclosers and locks you for a long duration), and as any kind of AD damage-dealer it's impossible to so much as attack him as he's fighting you late-game. This may also be a problem linked to, which generally lowers counterplay in tank vs marksman fights, but generally I think Rammus should have tools to lock people down and initiate teamfights that can be avoided or mitigated in some way.