Hardest League of Legends (LoL) Champions
Last week, I brought you who I thought are the easiest champions to play in League of Legends. For the sake of continuity (and maybe talking about champions that I can’t play, at all) this week I’ll bring you who I think are the hardest champions to play in LoL.
Disclaimer: These are champions that I believe are the most mechanically difficult to play and master. This doesn’t mean you can’t play them, it just means that they take a lot of practice and expertise to use them to their full potential.
Rumble
Hardest League of Legends (LoL) Champions
Although Rumble has fallen out of favor in the current meta, he is still one of the harder top laners to learn to play well. His Overheat passive has to be taken into account in order to use his abilities to their full potential and players often struggle with farming effectively while also using his Flamespitter ability. Being useful in a teamfight with Rumble is also almost entirely dependent on landing his ultimate in both a good place and at a good angle. When Rumble does do well though, he can be quite the damage dealer for his team and offers a lot of teamfight utility with his ultimate.
Zed
Hardest League of Legends (LoL) Champions
If you’ve played League of Legends for at least a few months, you’ve probably seen the highlight video for the Korean Midlaner — Faker’s — Zed. Watching that video makes you think “Wow, I should really play Zed.” When you do finally play as Zed however, you realize it just isn’t as smooth as you thought it would be. Zed is a champion that requires a lot of forethought and micromanagement in order to play effectively. Being able to keep track of his shadows when you use your ultimate ability and when you use “Living Shadow” can be a lot to think about for the novice Zed player. When you finally master Zed however, any time you make an awesome play, you’ll probably see a lot of “Faker pls” in your in-game chat.
Lee Sin
Hardest League of Legends (LoL) Champions
The blind monk is considered to be one of the most balanced champions in the game. Lee Sin’s mobility and sheer damage is balanced by his difficult transition into the late game and just how difficult he can be to use effectively. Good Lee Sin players are often able to use his passive to achieve maximum damage and ward jump in order to make full use of his mobility. His mobility is exactly what makes Lee Sin one of the “flashier” champions. When you’re a good Lee Sin player, people are impressed by the things that you do. A good play on Lee Sin might just warrant an “Insec pls” in the chat.
Draven
When there’s a Draven in your League of Legends game, remember that you’re no longer playing League of Legends; the game becomes the League of Draven. Draven’s ax-catching mechanic is what makes him one of the most difficult AD carries in League of Legends. Catching his axes requires both forethought and the utmost care on the part of the player. Positioning as an AD carry can be made more difficult when you have to constantly think about moving toward your next ax, but when you’re finally able to master the ax-catching AD you’ll be doing tons of damage. Draven is one of the most aggressive carries in the game, and mastering him may be worth it simply because he does insane amounts of damage.
Thresh
The Thresh Prince of Despair is definitely one of the most difficult, yet rewarding support champions in League of Legends. As one of the most utility-oriented supports there are, Thresh’s abilities all cater to helping the team. His hook is one of the more difficult skill shots to land since it has a wind-up time to get used to and using the flay correctly can take a lot of practice. In order to be a good Thresh player, you also have to master his lantern – which involves anticipating an allied player’s intended path in order to bring them to safety. All in all, Thresh can offer a lot to a team, but he’s definitely not an easy support to play.
Vayne
Vayne may not have a complicated juggling mechanic like Draven, but she’s one of the most difficult champions to truly master, and what’s worse is that in the hands of anyone less than a master, she’s a trainwreck.
Her short range and low health make Vayne incredibly vulnerable to enemy attacks. Adept players will have to kite to perfection, while constantly repositioning using her roll. And to add more spatial awareness on top of it, she needs to perfectly position in order to land a stunning condemn on an enemy. For those that perfect these mechanics, she’s a true-damage monster that can shred through any enemy.
All in all, League of Legends players looking to pick up Vayne should be extremely wary. She’s one of the toughest challenges out there, and definitely contends in our ranking of the hardest champions.
Azir
Azir, like Vayne, will wreck all the faces in the right hands. Unfortunately, few hands are right for the desert bird.
Azir’s entire kit requires a solid understanding of zoning and trading. He has to constantly arrange his soldiers around the enemy, and typically jump in alongside them when he’s ready to engage. You need to understand the range and movement of his abilities like the back of your hand, and maintain exceptional game knowledge to know when your deep dives will prove fruitful.
Those who spend enough time with Azir, though, will find he too wrecks the faces. His ultimate can serve as a game changing mechanic, and he can quickly gain lane dominance with the proper aggression.
Bard
There aren’t many difficult support skill sets, but Bard’s complex kit makes him extra liable to error. Landing his Cosmic Binding will either stun two champions or none. A Magical Journey tunnel can grant your team the perfect engage/escape, or it could prove completely useless. Travelling out to collect chimes can advantageously beef up his stats, or leave your ADC open and in danger.
But wait, there’s more.
His Tempered Fate ultimate will Zhonya’s everyone in its range. It COULD freeze the enemy and grant your team enough time to engage, or even save your team from a devastating AoE combo. It could also be completely missed, save the enemy from your team’s damage, or freeze your team long enough for the enemy to reposition on you.
Bard walks a fine line between savior and useless, making him one of the hardest support champions to use effectively.
Ekko
Ekko doesn’t get mentioned often in discussions of the hardest LoL champions, and for no good reason. His kit is extremely dependent on timing, with most of his abilities harboring some sort of delay. His damage output is difficult to manage, consequentially, and given his melee range, most players will struggle to trade responsibly with any enemy laner.
His ultimate is a new level of brain wrinkling, though. Rewinding Ekko four seconds in time, players are going to have to think backwards and construct a decent plan if they want to use this skill effectively. The most talented Ekkos can leverage this for amazing plays, but most people will activate it in panic and end up somewhere either totally unexpected or entirely useless.
LeBlanc
LeBlanc has been a trademark high skill cap champion in League of Legends for years. Though she’s received constant adjustments, her skills have remained the same set of combo-dependent bursts. Because her ultimate allows LeBlanc to recast any of her spells with added effect, players need to rationalize between multiple options, and almost always within split seconds. LeBlanc is incredibly dependent on chaining speed. Those too slow to jump in, burst, and escape without a trace will wind up doing next to nothing in team fights. The even slower players will just wind up dead.
As with most of LoL’s hardest champions, she requires an immense amount of tactical thinking and fast reaction times, but is an incredible threat in the right hands.
Ivern
Ivern’s difficulty comes with his unique ability kit — he’s unable to attack or be attacked by normal jungle monsters. Instead, he sets up a magical grove, and when it’s full-grown, he can instantly collect all of the minions in the camp for gold and EXP. It’s difficult to put his slow stature, limited attacks, and strange clear to use. In other words, most Iverns suck at Ivern.
Even a good jungler can have a pretty bad day on this champion. You truly need to be well practiced on just him to make an impact on the game. If you do master his route, manage a few safe invades, and learn to best utilize your utility-like abilities, you could have quite a fun time.
Galio
Galio has fairly simple mechanics. He’s got a damaging spell, a speed buff, a shield, and a damaging ultimate that taunts nearby enemies during its channel. Players new to Galio, however, will definitely struggle to put him to use, especially considering he’s a melee champion. Taking a melee swinger into the mid lane is never fun. If you’re not adept at safe farming and trading, you’ll end up majorly harassed by the (likely ranged) enemy mid.
The other half of Galio’s difficulty comes from his ultimate. It basically requires he put himself in the middle of as many enemies as possible, and avoid death before his channel is complete. Ultimately, you’ll need a brave Flash+R combo at just the right time to see success.
Galio’s range means he plays vastly differently than other mages, and that makes him a rough hurdle for plenty of midlaners (and the occasional top, way back in the day).
Kassadin
Much like Galio, Kassadin suffers from midlane melee life. He also is far more limited in the mana department, making for some fantastically challenging farming. On top of this is the fact that Kassadin’s ultimate is a teleport that costs twice as much mana when used in succession, but these later casts will also deal more damage.
His melee range and costly ultimate make for an all-or-nothing champion that’s difficult to master. Kassadin can be a terrifying assassin, wisely building up a mana and AP pool that can decimate targets with a wise teleport. He can also easily wind up underfarmed, with few items, and completely useless as both a mage and assassin.
Kled
Similar to Ivern, Kled suffers from being super new and super different. This angry Yordle rides his trusty steed Skaarl into battle, and Skaarl will take damage for Kled until his health is out, and Kled must dismount and fend for himself.
His ultimate is a long, uncontrollable charge that will ram the first enemy he encounters. He also wields a short-range dash that works great combined with his bear trap ability. Unfortunately, though, all of this dashing usually means Kled winds up in a terrible position. People are still learning to master his double health bar, his wild ultimate, and his tendency to be an unreliable top lane pick.
Singed
Singed gets a reputation for being an easy climb champion, but there’s a lot more behind this top-lane troll. You may be used to seeing pro Singed players wave clearing the top lane, eating up farm while magically remaining unkillable to the enemy champion. It all looks rather effortless, but alas, trolling takes skill.
Singed fares very poorly in direct one-on-one engagements, with barely more than an autoattack to his name. That in mind, he’ll have to intelligently avoid brawls up top, especially early on and against champions with great engage tools.
Shaco
Shaco also gets the “easy one trick pony” rep, but is one of the trickier junglers to master. He’s quite squishy, and his abilities rely more on deception than overt attacking face to face — unless you’re fed enough to have built full damage, in which case, you are a head-on monster.
But to get to that fed state, you’ll have to farm despite your squishy nature, and gank lanes without a great gap closer or durability (or anything really helpful for your teammates). A good Shaco, however, uses the tricks up his sleeve to grab sneaky kills across the map, carrying that gold straight to the enemy Nexus.
Vel’Koz
A good Vel’Koz player has a great understanding of geometry. This champion’s primary attack shoots forward, and then splits at a 180-degree angle to both the left and right. Hitting this shot, therefore, usually requires a good angling and understanding of enemy movements.
Vel’Koz also has a difficult-to-perfect ultimate. It’s a long, slow channeled beam that does crazy true damage, but it leaves Vel wide open and can only turn a fight when unleashed at the perfect moment (and from the perfect position). Ultimately, this is a challenging mid laner or support to make effective, but he’ll be no problem if you learn to master his odd skillshots.
Yasuo
Nobody likes a good Yasuo, because players adept at this champion have some magically ability to wipe your entire team out at once.
Yasuo has a highly intricate kit, full of dashes, gusts, and a wall that blocks incoming abilities. Even though he’s a melee champion often played in the mid-lane, a smart use of these engagement and nullification tools can make him utterly terrifying. What’s more, Yasuo players must master the knockup, learning to knock up as many enemy champions as possible before unleashing his ult. A bad Yasuo, one that can’t handle the assassin-like gameplay and circus-like mechanics, will just prove a useless breeze. And sadly, there are a lot of bad Yasuos.
Kalista
Kalista, like all the other Marksmen on this list, is heavily reliant on movement. She’ll take a leap with every autoattack, meaning you need to direct her after every autoattack. This takes incredible attention, but also the knowledge of how your enemies can be hunted and/or avoided using this mechanic.
That’s much easier said than done, especially since her ultimate isn’t an outright burst ability. She’ll send herself and an ally launching towards a position, and if you’re not careful, this will almost always be used to start off a terrible engage.
Blitzcrank
Good ol’ Blitzcrank is a simple robot, and that makes playing him all the more challenging. He really only has one strength — using his extending arm to hook enemy champions towards his team. Unlike Thresh’s hook, Blitzcrank’s pull is much faster, but he also comes with far fewer utility abilities to make use of should he miss.
With such a long cooldown (and so little usefulness) awaiting every missed shot, it’s critical Blitzcrank players be fantastically skilled with their skill shots. This isn’t an easy trait to master, but you should not even attempt to play a half decent Blitzcrank without it.
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