Mage, Bruiser, Tank, and Assassin, League has many options to choose from! In this piece, we break down the best of the best of each of League’s primary playstyles and classes. Then, we give you a suggested Champion that best embodies this playstyle right now!
Hey folks! Today we’re talking classes in League of Legends, but we’re doing so in the context of discussing their playstyles. As we break down their playstyles and talk about what defines them, we’re going to give you a Champion recommendation to go along with them that can truly define what the class embodies while giving you the edge with a successful pick in Solo Queue. So, let’s just get right in!
Mages are defined by their ability to drop crowd-control onto their enemies while also heavily influencing zone-control and movement options. The Class itself is broken down into three archetypes that take a piece of the overall Mage design and push it forward with a little extra emphasis, sub-class archetypes being Battle Mages, Artillery Mages, and Burst Mages.
Battle Mages are short-range Mages that thrive in the center of a teamfight. They often come with unique durability or avoidance abilities that allow them to act nimbly in a fight while they apply down equally unique damage in the form of burn or DPS-esque effects. Most Battle Mage abilities are highly rewarding and impactful since they have to put themselves at more inherent risk than the other Mage subclasses for this reason, so this makes them both a highly rewarding albeit a smidge more difficult subclass to grasp.
Recommended Champion: Our recommended pick is a recently rebalanced Champion that’s established himself firmly in the Mid Lane in Swain. Swain brings crowd-control, DPS, and sustain in his kit. He’s a great Champion to pick to bully short-range matchup, in cases where you need that extra layer or tank shred, or in situations where you want a little added utility when it comes to approaching objectives. In the scouting regard Swain’s W is second to none, and his Ultimate and E provide unparalleled DPS, self-sustain, and crowd-control respectively. You can’t go wrong with the Noxian Grand General right now since he's a great pick for Mid, Top, ADC, and Support.
Artillery Mages, otherwise known as Poke Mages, amp up range in comparison to Battle and Burst Mages and focus strictly on whittling down their opponents. They are a class that focuses on victory in inches, or in their case, victory in successful skillshots. Their damage output is high since most of their primary outlets are skillshots, so they’re rewarded for succeeding, but their utility in comparison to Battle Mages and their upfront damage in comparison to Burst Mages are relatively low.
Artillery Mages are a little worse off than Battle Mages right now, but they certainly outshine Burst Mages in most instances in Solo Queue since their damage is always rapidly being dumped out, and they usually pack some respectable wave clear.
Recommended Champion: Our suggestion for Artillery Mages to pick up and master is Vel’koz. Vel has always been in a respectable spot in regards to Solo Queue winrate from Mid, and he is also a decent option for Support play as well. With True Damage being packed into his kit, in this tankier meta, Vel’koz is more poised to shine than ever.
Burst Mages are defined by upfront damage. They aim to find a primary target and delete their health bar before they even have the opportunity to influence a fight. And their kits rely a lot on well timed aggression and snowballing to get off the crowd. They, like Battle Mages, bring some very impactful CC to the mix to deal with, but they lack comparative utility and when compared to Artillery Mage’s range.
Recommended Champion: With Burst Mages being the lowest tier of Mage you can play right now thanks to everyone being a bit beefier after 12.10, it’ll boil down to what else a Burst Mage can do besides burst that really drives forward our suggestion. And in that case, it’s Annie.
When optiing for Predator over Electrocute, Annie can become a mapwide terror in the early phases of the game, akin to Twisted Fate or Galio. Back this up with easy farming, then she can reach this early spike quickly and start snowballing before anyone can stop her. Plus, a Flash-Tibbers is always going to be a fight changer.
Fighters are Champions defined by their eagerness to get in and be in the fray of combat. They’re stout Champions with damage and durability, but are largely limited by their range or their one-dimensional approaches to fights. They’re broken into two subclass Juggernauts and Divers that approach fights in extremely different ways.
Juggernauts are titanic Champions that are lumbering killing machines that lack the mobility to get into fights without support, or their opponents slipping up. When enabled by either of these though, Juggernauts display exactly why you don’t want to be in their range by crippling you and then knocking you down with comparatively higher burst damage than Divers. Additionally, to enable their slower approaches to fights, Juggernauts tend to be on the bulkier spectrum of Fighters so they can soak a little bit more punishment to get into the right spot.
Recommended Champion: Dr. Mundo is an excellent Champion to pick up right now since Grievous Wounds, the effect that reduces healing, has been massively nerfed and that’s Mundo’s major shtick. Mundo wants to slow his opponents down with his thrown skill-shot cleavers, then get in range to really wallop his foes with his autos. Then, when things get sticky he sustains himself back up and through enemy damage by regenerating his health pool while increasing his damage and speed with his ultimate. To top it off, Mundo is an extremely easy Champion to learn yet rewarding one to master. So, take some time and invest in the crazed self-proclaimed Doctor and you’re sure to find success.
Divers are a bit more agile in comparison to Juggernauts and they are defined solely by how they get into fights. So, they come packaged with a little extra zhuzh to get them into the range of their desired targets. Once they are there, they’ve got softer CC to stay on top of their opponents and a more DPS related approach to knocking their foes down. Typically though, since they have better tools to get in, Divers are more fragile in comparison to Juggernauts.
Recommended Champion For our Diver selection, we’ll say try your hand at Irelia. Irelia has easy farming, high damage, and is very slippery to put down in a fight. The 12.10 changes affected her slightly, but Irelia being one of Riot’s poster children for ‘fun and interactive gameplay’ means she’s never going to be down for long. Proven by the fact that she got some hotfix buffs right after the patch. But, in addition to some Riot based favoritism, she’s always going to be a decent option due to her flexibility to go Top or Mid, so give her a try if you were looking to be as flexible of a player as possible.
Controllers are your quintessential support class, and you’ll find many of them riding side-saddle in the Bot Lane. But, some Mid and Jungle related picks can be well-described by their common traits. Overall, Controllers up the supportive layers of the game by promoting zone-control, damage mitigation, or flat out CC.
Enchanters really drive home the damage mitigation aspect of controllers and are defined by their ability to heal, shield, and buff their teammates with unique effects. Some Enchanters, like Janna, also come packaged with powerfully impactful CC as well, but the trade off for all this mitigation power is that they entirely lack mobility and are extremely squishy as a trade-off.
Enchanters really drive home the damage mitigation aspect of Controllers and are defined by their ability to heal, shield, and buff their teammates with unique effects. Some Enchanters, like Janna, also come packaged with powerfully impactful CC as well, but the trade off for all this mitigation power is that they entirely lack mobility and are extremely squishy as a trade-off.
Recommended Champion: Janna’s got everything you want out of a Support. She can mitigate damage with well timed shields, she applies a movement speed buff as allies run towards helping them around the map easier, and her CC is highly impactful and very debilitating to her opponents. Her only weakness is her fragility, but she enables some of the best carries in the game right now like Zeri, Lucian, and Twitch which can all really punish opponents that go after a Janna without factoring in their presence.
Catchers are a bit on the beefy side of things and are nearly entirely defined by their ability to, well, catch opponents out. This means they’re granted high CC tools that can some define the course of a lane in its early stages, or how a fight plays out entirely. And they’re typically given tools that enable them to get into position for their higher impact ability as well. But, as a trade off, once they blow these tools out, if they get nothing for them they’re punished by longer cooldowns and lacking utility otherwise.
Recommended Champion: When you see a list like this, you’re never not going to see Thresh as your recommended Champion to master. And that’s simply because he’s the best of the best in terms of not only being a Catcher, but also as an overall Support. He brings more utility to the table than most Catchers do, which makes him more difficult since you have to learn how to apply that utility, but mastering Thresh gives you mastery of every other pick in the Catcher category and most within the Tank category as well, so he’s a pristine pick to truly learn the Support role from and is going to be good in nearly every situation.
Marksmen are a unique lot that don’t exactly have a subclass system to follow since they are at their core defined by the same play pattern: farm as much as possible, and do as much DPS as possible. Naturally, you can get picky and define them between Marksmen that do damage with auto-attacks and Marksmen that do damage with abilities, but for the sake of our discussion we’re going to avoid that and instead reference you towards the hottest Marksman you can play right now.
Recommended Champion: That Champion being Jhin. Jhin, while not possessing the higher levels of DPS that Champions like Vayne or Zeri have, while also not packing as much burst as say a Draven or Lucian has, comes as a unique flexible package that works against most every composition that doesn’t feature multiple tanks. Tanks aren’t entirely in the best place right now so that’s not much of a concern. Jhin has good burst with his 4th shot, solid pick potential with his W, great fight openings with his ultimate, and decent shove with his Q. The only thing that he lacks is DPS and mobility, but his ability to enable everyone else on his team is divine and since he’s a relatively easy Champion to get a hold of, he’s our suggested pick for you to learn.
Slayers, as their name suggests, are all about the kills. And they’re broken into two subclasses that each go for Champion kills in unique ways. At their core though, they embody a high risk, high reward playstyle and forgo any team utility to lay down big damage against their opponents, meaning that if these picks don’t get going, they might have a rough time getting stable footing in slow or behind games.
Assassins, the first subclass, are distinct in their ability to insta-pop their opponents. Assassins are high burst, high mobility, and highly annoying to anything that doesn’t naturally build health and resistances. (So, Marksmen and Mages basically.) And they aim for squishier targets in fights to remove their influence entirely. They share this role with Burst Mages in a way, but unlike Burst Mages who can utilize their CC for other purposes, Assassins gear it all towards laying down big and thick damage onto their target.
Recommended Champion: Assassins are a little bit worse for wear since burst damage has gone down after 12.10, but there are a few still holding true to the style due to their ability to play towards Solo Queue’s most disruptive style, “Push, Roam, and Gank”. So, for that playstyle, we’re suggesting Talon as our pick of choice due to his overwhelming pressure and slipperiness in larger fights and smaller skirmishes.
Skirmishers are a mixed bag of a lot of short range or melee classes, but they’re primarily defined by their ability to layout DPS within melee range on either opponents or neutral structures and monsters. Additionally, they have unique defensive abilities that allow them to be evasive or sticky in the middle of fights, with these abilities sometimes being fight warping or compositionally influencing opponents in draft. They’re great selections against comps that have beefier targets that really need an extra layer to shred down, but they themselves aren’t as sturdy as the Fighter frontliners that also occupy a similar space.
Recommended Champion: With the resistance changes of patch 12.10, Assassins have suffered and Skirmishers have largely remained in a similar or in some cases more successful spot. We’re recommending Yone as our Skirmisher of choice for this patch since he, like his brother Yasuo, has been a terror since before the changes and has only gotten better after.
Yone’s playstyle is an auto-attack centric one where he does a unique mix of AD and magic damage that is enhanced through crit-focused build paths. His Q is a good trade tool that enables all-ins when it's enhanced, his W gives him a little fight mitigation in a sweeping cone, and his E allows him to move in from safe positions to take risky trades that are rewarded on the snap back if you successfully output damage. Package all this with his ultimate’s ability to cover a choke and snag multiple opponents at once in a fight, and Yone’s a great selection if you’re lacking that extra layer of DPS your team needs in a meta that can feature multiple Mage-esque playstyles in various lanes.
Tanks bring up the rear of solidly defined classes and, honestly, are one of the weakest classes you can pick up right now. The resistance changes were intended to benefit them, and they got a little extra oomph afterwards since they could really keep up to Fighters that were also tanking and doing damage in Solo Lanes. Truthfully, they’ve really been a more Support focused class and have really been successful in that role since Tanks are defined by -what- their abilities do (CC and utility) versus how much damage they do. There are a few notable exceptions, we’ll suggest ahead. But, Tanks are your quintessential pick if you want to soak up damage, start fights, or disengage them. They’re the stalwart wall between the enemies and the backline, and their kits are all about doubling down on that defensive focus.
Vanguards are the aggressive Tanks that amp up their stats so they can get into fights, which enables others to follow them. Their CC is typically near instant, highly impactful, and once they are in a fight they struggle to get out of it. So, they have to really pick their windows to go in, or they’ll be serving themselves up as a gold-payout for their opponents. While their kits can be utilized in a defensive and protect fashion, they are typically selected since the range of their CC is larger than Warden style Champions allowing them to start up picks and fights with comparative ease.
Recommended Champion: Right now, Wardens are comparatively weak to Vanguard as an identity and are really only picked in situations where there are multiple divers or assassins on opposing teams. With those classes being relatively weaker after 12.10, there’s less call for Wardens to be present, so they are also weaker. Vanguards though have stayed impactful. And the most impactful of these Vanguards is Ornn.
Ornn rocks his role as the Top Lane’s premiere Vanguard of choice. He’s got solid base damage in lane and ability to influence the push and pull of the lane. His unique passive which allows him to buy items from lane gives him an advantage over his opponents allowing him to stay in lane for longer, and his ultimate is a fight defining tool as both an adequate engage and disengage piece. But, what really separates Ornn is the unique item buffs he provides to your allies mythic options. He amps up the effectiveness of your team’s mythics and really pushes teams deeper into late-game scenarios if you get there. And he’s likely to get there as games typically tend to run on the longer side as we’ve mentioned before.
Wardens are the opposite of Vanguards and they truly exemplify the tanky defensive wall standard. They want to put their bodies between their team's carries and the opponents that would seek to do them harm, and they’re given highly impactful effects to put themselves in the right spot, or to disable their opponents if they get too close. They’re an overall more difficult approach to play in Solo Queue, but if a Warden can be played to perfection, they’re one of the most frustrating things to deal with.
Recommended Champion: For our Warden selection, we’re suggesting that you pick up Galio. Galio’s presence has diminished lately, but with flexibility between Mid and Support, he’s a viable pick to play towards that strong map-wide presence that the best Solo Queue champions bring to the table. Couple this with his viability against stiffer AP team comps which are more prevalent now, and he’s in a fine spot to see you soar.
Last but not least, there’s the specialist category. These Champions are so unique in design that they don’t fit into any of the above archetypes, or it's more that they fit into multiple and it’s really hard to define them accordingly. But they’re all Champions that are really unique to League itself and are some of the most defining play experiences that you can have when mastered. Naturally, most of these tend to skew in the more difficult direction, and though we’ve emphasized ease and strength before, we’re going to focus solely on strength and this time and encourage you to pick up Singed.
Recommended Champion: Singed is in a great spot right now since all of his items are extremely good, and his playstyle is highly conducive to Solo Queue since he doesn’t care about interacting with his direct opponent and instead cares about impacting the map via macro play. This means he’s roaming, proxy-farming, and just generally distracting to his opponents when it comes to what they want to accomplish. He’s like the Rift’s biggest mosquito that can also flip you into turret range.
But really, Singed is a unique approach to both Top and Mid right now due to his ability to speed around the map like no one else. Be warned though, his playstyle is so unique that it has been statistically proven that you get worse at every other Champion the better you get at Singed.
Closing Out
There you have it folks! The playstyles defined and the best Champions therein. We hope you try your hand at these picks to great success, and hope that this piece helps you figure out what playstyles appeal the most to you! As always, it pays to have a small flexible pool in Solo Queue, so don’t be afraid to pick up one or two more of these picks or classes to really flesh out your League of Legends repertoire!
