User blog comment:PrayforDawn/What is Difficulty?/@comment-10257787-20140112214109

Interesting point you got there, but i think there's much more about what defines a champions skill level:

I would see it like this:

Your points are all valid, but there's a little bit more: its also about sustain/build in tankiness: Mundo has to land many skill shots, but he's not considered very hard because he got both: sustain (life-reg) and tankiness and it also decides if a champions is hard or not

safety is another point. how safe is champion when he does what he does best? lee sin is on the one hand a pretty difficult champion, but because especially pre six he can't be killed hes not always considered a pro champ but a noob champ. why? because you can make huge mistakes with him, you'll still escape with ease were others would've been killed. Thats why malzahar is so hard: you have NO escape, not even the smallest and you automatically push which means, if you play him bad with bad decision making you gonna die a lot, which makes him hard. What also has to be mentioned here is that champions that are always played full tank are pretty safe, so they get called noob champ more often

range has also to be considered. you could argue its the same as safety but im going to explain this never the less a second time because its imo one of the, if not the biggest factor for champion difficulty: a fitting example here would be ziggs: his passive is easy, but still has to be managed and everyone of his skills is a pretty hard to land skillshot. so i think you can agree with me that ziggs IS in fact hard. the problem is, he really requires skill, but if you don't have it you can still play him quite good because he wont punish you for your mistakes, he has a huge range and can also farm at it. theres no real risk for ziggs, hes so damn safe that hes still called a noob champ sometimes although hes one of the hardest champs to master imho.

a pretty little point is immortality. there are some champs out there with immortality ults or passives out there. kayle and especially aatrox have been called noob champ a lot because of it, but the worst case of this is trynda

and at last we should consider how strong the champ is: has he bad matchups? is there a chance that he gets countert? you really CAN make plays with riven, but the fact that she has no real bad matchup makes her in the eyes of some to a noob champ

so if you want to know if a champion is a noob champ, then just ask yourself following questions:

is there some kind of micro in the champions?

has he mobility? if yes, can he use it to escape?

does he have skillshots? if yes, is he really reliant on hitting those?

do you have to know the enemys champion in order to play effective? (for example what can be blocked by yasuos wind wall)

does he have inbuild sustain/tankiness?

how high is his range? (or range of gapcloser for melees)

does he have an abilities which prevents him from getting killed (easily)?

and last one: how many good and how many bad matchups has the champ (if there are any bad ones)

so lets test it:

ryze: he has micro, but thats just knowing in which order to spam his skills, so this is a no (-). he has inbuild sustain, but not early, where it is the most important and even later on its not that reliable for just sutaining, so lets just say no here (+). does he have mobility? no, i don't count that filthy ms boost from hes ult (+). we all know, ryze has not a single skillshot (-). ryze HAS to know his enemy, because otherwise he won't come close to them (+). his range is pretty low, especially considering that hes a midlaner (+) he has no defense boost, no immortality, so if he gets caught hes dead, he can't really rescue himself then (+) and last one: he has so many bad matchups that i consider him a pretty bad pick if you can't play him pretty good.

conclusion: to start against bots with ryze is easy, but to play him good against real enemies is pretty hard, so no, he's no noob champ

aatrox: he has no micro and doesn't require knowing much about him (-) he has tons of sustain (-), he has also very good mobility (-) (he has 2 skillshots (+) he doesn't have to know his enemy, can end every trade when he wants (-) for a melee he has a strong ranged spell and a strong gapcloser too (-) we all know aatrox passive, he is sort of immortal (-) last one: he can lose lane of course, and he isn't an auto win against everyone, but he can farm pretty safe if he can't win so no, there aren't really bad matchups for him (-)

conclusion: the fact that he has 2 skillshots doesn't save him: he is DEFINITLY a noob champ

i don't claim that this method is perfect, but seriously, next time before somebody screams: omg, sucha noob champ! pls show them this, it'll help a little bit (hopefully)