Riot Games design director Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street popped up in a /dev diary to chat about how champions are designed, and more importantly, what makes a good one.
To start of the video, he lists the five pillars that they try and balance with each champion:
- Satisfying to play
- A resonant theme
- Skill-expressive
- Fair to play against
- Unique
For each of these pillars, we can pick our own handful of favorite and least favorite champions to match there. In the video, Street discusses a number of champions attached to these pillars such as Morgana, Thresh, Jinx and Aatrox. There are lots of great insights and observations to be gleaned from this video, so if you have an interest in champion design, give it a look.
Toward the end of the video, Street mentions that the earlier parts of the year had unique champions that were frequently played, such as Kayn, Xayah and Rakan. However, in the later part of the year, he suggested that we will be witnessing more odd-ball characters that promote gameplay that we have never seen before. Could he be talking about the new freljord champion just around the corner? We will have to wait and see.