League of Legends is a complex game with various champions fulfilling different roles, and this difference displays in both playstyle and what that champion should be doing when forced into a fight. This difference is more clear when looking at tanks and marksmen for example - one is ranged, the other is generally melee, one builds damage and the other builds nearly only defensive items. This distinction becomes blurry when looking at what function a champion needs to fulfill in its own role. Support is a crowded role with many different leaves. There's tanks, initiators, peelers, disengagers, secondary mages (Leona, Annie and Thresh, Braum, Janna and Zyra as examples respectively). But for a role where there isn't as much diversity, this line becomes very vague very quickly. And that role is the mid laner.

Basically, team comps have other champions function as the core of a team comp. Teams with marksmen like Kog'Maw for example generally have a lot of disengage and supporting tools to protect said Kog'Maw, whereas a marksman like Ezreal allows for a much more diverse team comp around him because he has less trouble fending for himself. But the mid lane fulfills its own role that generally doesn't inflict all that much influence on a team comp. Surely a champion like Orianna has the possibility of coupling with an initiator (the godly Aphromoo-Link Ball Delivery Cow) to make a nice wombo combo, but mid laners generally fulfill either one of two roles. They either infulence team fights through base damage and sometimes through crowd control, allowing them to whittle down enemies throughout the course of a teamfight. Assassins on the other hand should scale well into the late game and take out one priority target if they position poorly, but on the flipside, they don't have access to copious amounts of base damage to fall back on if they perform poorly in a game. They have to work hard to be successful.

And while this line seems clear enough in and of itself - assassins have good scaling, mages have good base damage - this line gets crossed more times than I can remember. Xerath is, for all intents and purposes, an archetypal mage. His prominence in LCS came after HotshotGG put his name behind Xerath, growing 'famous' for his skill on the champion. And after the rework, he's become even stronger. His insane range and base damages make it so he can safely whittle the enemy down from way out of harm's way.

But where it all goes wrong is his ratios, because those are quite insane. While 240, 180 (270) and 200 base damage doesn't sound amazing, ratios of 75, 60 (90) and 45% are pretty insane, making his EWQ rotation have a 210% AP ratio: 700AP means 2180 raw damage. That's pretty insane to me. Not to mention his 900 + 129%AP damage ultimate which deals 1800 damage with 700AP. He has high mana costs paired with his Q and W, and his ultimate is on a decently long cooldown, but I believe Xerath could do just as well with a few slight taps on the ratio-wrist.

On the other side of the spectrum resides LeBlanc. Ever since Reginald returned for that week that Bjergsen had Visa problems, LeBlanc came back into spectrum because Reginald was known for his LeBlanc play. HotshotGG's return to the scene did the same, and after that, LeBlanc became known for her slipperiness, her insane damage potential and her lane bully potential. Sporting an averaged 75% pick/ban rate in the 2014 Spring Split of the LCS (both regions combined), she's been a powerful pick ever since, and for good reason.

Her ratios are pretty much what you'd expect from an assassin: 80, 60, 100 and anywhere from 90 to 120% on her ult. A fully successful skill rotation gives her a 360%AP ratio. Pretty insane. However, if you were to pair this with 310, 245, 280 and 600 base damages, only one of which is actually a skillshot, you have a very different champion; one that lies more in the mage spectrum. Whereas Xerath's EWQ combo would be his go-to, LeBlanc's would be QRW or QWR, which (in lane) does anywhere from 425 + 240%AP to 465 + 260%AP in damage (assuming maxing W first).

Not exactly damage she has to work incredibly hard for (since QR is a double single target nuke combo). What LeBlanc needs to remain a healthy assassin is a nerf to her base damages since those are just too high for an assassin. An assassin has to skillfully get herself a lead in lane (or in other lanes for that matter) and snowball from there. Anyone who has played against a LeBlanc knows that QW and QWR/QRW are just too high burst combos with too little counterplay.

But not all is saddening and bad in the lives of assassins and mages. Orianna is a shining example of a great mage. She has very controlled and predictable power in lane because her QW is her only real form of poke, and in teamfights she brings a huge contribution through protection with her shield, and her teamfight-changing Shockwaves.

This is in turn countered by her innate slowness as she, along with a vast group of others, holds the lowest base movement speed in the league, and aside from Command: Dissonance, she has no mobility, meaning once caught, she relies on her Zhonya's Hourglass and her allies to make it out.

After his most recent (and last) nerf, Talon has actually been in a really good spot. Though not quite as overwhelming and close-to-broken as he used to be, and his playstyle is really what it's supposed to be. You Cutthroat in, use your basic abilities to get someone low, then use the high movement speed on Shadow Assault to get to safety as you take them down.

Should it fail, you either have the movespeed as backup to escape safely, or you die miserably but that only happens if you're really far down. Not only does the removal of his silence make him less overpowering, the addition of a slow allows the Noxian Diplomacy-enhanced auto attack to deal increased damage, which is nice - this because Cutthroat resets the auto attack timer, and so QE means it goes off immediately after Cutthroat).

Riot knows what makes a mage a mage, and what makes an assassin an assassin. But for some reason, certain champions that are supposed to fulfill one of those roles get ignored when they are too prominent or too safe - read: Zed. He repeatedly gets away with nothing but a slight slap on the wrist whereas other assassins undergo the full wrath of the Nerf Hammer - read: Kassadin. Mages tend to be created much more conservatively, which is reflected by a higher amount of mage buffs - Orianna is no exception. Hope you enjoyed the read. Coballz out.