You’re bound to have a ton of stuff under your belt when you’ve been out for over 13 years (yes, it’s been that long). League of Legends has garnered almost 160 Champions throughout this decade-and-a-half-long journey. These Champions are not always hit – some are borderline bad, while others are entirely overpowered.
The latter is the topic of this article, which will detail the most broken Champions in League of Legends. Being broken can mean many things – overturned stats, overloaded kit, utterly broken scaling, or all of those at once.
Whatever the reason, broken Champions continue to plague the Summoner’s Rift with no fix in sight. Riot loves their broken Champs – it brings them money from skill sales due to the artificially inflated pick rates.
And, since Riot doesn’t care about fixing anything, we’re here to talk about it. To complain seems to make no sense, and thus we’ll discuss these Champions, their quirks, strengths, and (rare) weaknesses.
Without further ado, let’s begin!
Yone
Yone is a Champion that I frequently mention when I speak power. He’s one of the strongest Champions ever to release in League and represents the absolute worst balancing they’ve ever created. He has all the shields, heals, damage, and escapes that a Champion could want or need. Balancing a Champion isn’t that difficult – as long as you don’t give them EVERYTHING, you should be good.
However, Riot seems to have wholly forsaken that design philosophy. They consistently release Champions with way too much stuff going on about them. So many different spells, effects, passives, etc., that immediately make them the most popular pick. Yone is a Champion with a high pick and ban rate due to how much impact he can have.
Yone is truly a misfire. Though some other overloaded Champions might have considerable weaknesses that can be exploited, Yone has next to none. A good Yone player, with a good Jungler on hand, can achieve an impeccable win percentage. If he doesn’t win the game, you can be sure he will make achieving victory hell for the enemies.
Able to singlehandedly win games, beat entire teams, and just be broken to the core – Yone is, honestly, Riot’s biggest design mistake.
Yasuo
Yasuo, Yone’s half-brother, is also half the brokenness of the previous entry. When he was released back in 2013., Yasuo has represented a sort of nemesis for me. I’ve always hated him and continue to do so, but I have also learned to appreciate what the Champion offers. Though he can achieve a broken status, the keyword is achieve.
Yasuo requires a ton of skill to play. As so many Champions have been released since he did, he lost a lot of his domineering prowess on the Rift. The sheer fact that he has retained an insane level of popularity speaks volumes about how well he’s designed. He has mobility, damage, utility – almost everything you could ask for.
Even that god-forsaken shield that he carries around can protect him from most harm. Once he builds the Immortal Shieldblow, Yasuo does get quite tedious to play against. However, it’s not as bad as Yone or others on the list. If you let any Champion get fed, they’ll be as strong as ever.
The problem is that Yasuo tends to get fed too often due to players not knowing how to play against him. Even seasoned veterans of the game will find it hard to beat Yasuo in the Lane consistently. There are some direct counters to Yasuo, but his snowball always gets the better of everyone who tries to face him.
Despite me including him on the list of most broken Champions, Yasuo has some sense of balance within him. To that end, I will recommend him to Mid and Top Laners who appreciate speed.
Ezreal
Perhaps the most challenging entry on the list, this ADC-Mage is something else. Like Yasuo, Ezreal does require a ton of skill to play, which makes his brokenness worthwhile. I don’t have that much of an issue with Ezreal since, as I’ve said, his full potential is not so easily realized. You’ll have to be well-versed in his inner workings to get to his final power level.
He has a lot of damage and mobility that helps him dominate the Lane while remaining perfectly safe. When combined with particular Supports like Yuumi or Lulu, Ezreal can be a formidable foe. But there’s a huge downside – almost everything is a skill shot. To land all of them, you’ll need a lot of practice and effort with Ezreal.
This makes his brokenness completely balanced. People always love to scream about how Ezreal is broken. And yes, it is true; this Champion’s values are so beyond overtuned that it’s insane. However, there will be 2 out of 5 players achieving such damage with Ezreal on average.
And, since he’s so bound to the player’s skill, I’d say he’s worth the strength. I recommend him to everyone who has the time to devote to mastering this skill shot beast.
Akali
Akali is well known for being nigh unkillable. Her ability to play as a Tank while still maintaining obscene damage is insane. She can 1v5 an entire team, healing so much that it makes everyone scratch their heads. Though she has a significant weakness, and that is a high skill cap. Like Ezreal, not everyone can achieve these high-power levels with Akali.
But still, most players will be able to realize most of her potential. She has a fantastic Laning phase, able to do a ton of damage and dominate her opponent. As the mid and late games come around, Akali only grows in strength, being able to fight multiple enemies at once like it’s nothing.
She’s also infamous for one-shotting enemies, no matter their defenses. Her damage can get brutal, allowing Akali to shred through the enemy team like butter. Akali can escape any altercation without breaking a sweat with a ton of mobility and utility. Being so difficult to pin down makes her pretty elusive and will create a bounty on her head.
Low-death games with Akali are the usual, and only in rare cases does anyone manage to kill her consistently. With a ton of defense, damage, and everything else, Akali truly deserves her place on a list like this one.
Tahm Kench
Ever since he was reworked, Tahm Kench has maintained popularity and dominance in the Top Lane. A simple change to his kit shifted the entire Top Lane meta to his favor, making him one of the most broken Top Lane Champions in history. With so much defense and yet so much damage, Tahm almost has no counterplay and can beat most matchups he is faced with.
No one could anticipate that switching places between his two spells would create such lasting consequences. It gave Tahm unprecedented mobility and CC, allowing him to bully any opponent into submission. Ranged, melee, or whatever else – Tahm could be up in their face with the press of a button.
If they try to retaliate, he has his reliable shields and defenses at his disposal. He can comfortably go for a complete Tank build and still do insane damage. The base stats on his spells are so completely overtuned that I don’t know what Riot was even thinking. A few basic attacks and a Q will render you unable to duel him, almost forcing a recall.
With the hopes of Riot fixing him in the nearest future, I had to include him on this list. I also have to recommend him to Top Lane players as he is the current meta. Though that seems to be shifting, thankfully, I still believe you can use him for some comfortable climbing.
Sylas
Like Akali, Sylas is best known for his ability to stay alive no matter what. With so much healing, damage, and sustain, Sylas can comfortably fight for minutes on end. He’s also one of the most powerful Mages in the game, capable of using the enemy’s tools against them. That Ultimate makes Sylas a unique Champion whose design I quite like.
He was most certainly based on Rubick, a DOTA hero with similar abilities. It’s nice to see Riot draws inspiration from their former field of work, which contains many great and exciting designs. Sylas can steal the enemy’s Ultimate spell and use it against them. Beating the opponents with their own means is fun, but we’re here to speak of his brokenness.
It comes from the utterly overtuned nature of his abilities. Sylas simply deals way too much damage and heals too much from them. As I’ve mentioned above, he can safely fight for as long as he needs, being almost unkillable. This can cause Sylas to get multi-kills without breaking a sweat, which is what no Champion should be able to do quickly.
Sylas requires a quick nerf that would see his scaling brought down. He gets way too strong, too fast, and has a poor design. If that was to be fixed, I’d actually go to say that Sylas is one of the best Champions that Riot has ever released.
Lulu
I know you didn’t expect to find Support here, but there are excellent reasons for her inclusion. I had to add at least one Champion from each role, and Supports aren’t precisely the kind to be found on lists like this one.
With so many Supports that could be considered broken for whatever reason, Lulu stood out to me the most, and here’s why. Also, even though she’s not that popular at the moment, she’s still considered as one of the best off meta supports in the game.
She can keep her team alive and mighty for as long as she needs. She can select an ally, the most powerful one, and render them immortal using her spells. By the late game, Lulu can effectively be the winning factor in her team. She can have so much impact that players will often choose to focus on her instead of vital targets like ADCs or Mages.
I was split between including her, Soraka, or Yuumi. And though those two are pretty insane in their own regard, neither can do what Lulu can. On a side note, Lulu has also enjoyed a ton of play recently. Her pick rates only seem to grow, and people have started recognizing her potential.
A Yordle capable of much more than her size, Lulu is genuinely the broken Support. But do not be fooled; the Support role hides a lot of little monsters that get pretty deadly when they show their true faces.
Kha’Zix
Kha’Zix is his own League when it comes to the Jungle. This Champion is the sole reason I’m able to climb consistently in this game. Able to creep around the map and apply pressure on the enemies, Kha is just a Jungler that everyone wants to have. When you add his insane damage to the mix, you get a lethal Jungler capable of doing great things.
Kha is broken in more ways than one. He’s mobile and fast when moving around the Jungle and has an excellent early game. By the time he reaches level 6, Kha starts venturing into the broken territory by upgrading his spells. Each spell upgrade (levels 6, 11, and 16) increases Kha’s power and reach exponentially.
I think that the actually broken status is achieved when Kha upgrades his E. It resets every time he gets a kill and acquires insane range. This allows Kha to play Super Mario in League of Legends. He can jump to an opponent, absolutely eviscerate them in seconds, and jump back out. Rinse and repeat until you have 30 kills and a victory.
I don’t even want to mention the amount of damage he can do. To say he deals thousands is an understatement as he can comfortably kill most enemies with a single Q and basic attack. This gets even more insane by the late game, and you should just know that it’s deadly. All in all, he’s an amazing, if broken, Jungler that I highly recommend.
Zeri
League’s recent addition, this borderline overpowered ADC, is something else. She can play on Top, Mid, Bot, just about everywhere. Though she finds the most comfort in the Bot Lane, Zeri is a Champion that can waltz around the map and drive the enemy team insane. Whenever I face her in the game, I know that I just want to gouge my eyes out.
Making basic attacks into a spell is something that I’ve never even thought of. Obviously, the same isn’t valid for Riot’s design department, which is so detached from reality that I don’t even want to know what they think at night. They’ve designed Zeri, a Champion able to shoot at five attack speed on average. And if that doesn’t scream broken, I don’t know what does.
I don’t have much knowledge of Zeri to be able to offer a considerable analysis of her. However, it is enough to say that she suffers from the same issues that most recent releases do. Those issues are overtuned stats, way too much stuff in the kit, and an overall lack of balance. Riot has done it again, released a Champion that is so strong that everyone will rush to play her AND BUY SKINS.
The “make it strong, so we can sell skins” mentality that Riot has adopted severely hurting the game. I hope this Champion gets the well-deserved nerfs that are way off schedule already.
Zed
Zed has been around for a while and has remained super overpowered despite all odds. He has had a period of being not that useful some Seasons ago. However, everything is drastically different today, and Zed can be insanely powerful from start to finish. This exceptional Assassin can achieve some formidable map presence and pressure the enemies into submission.
Zed only needs a bit of farm to get to his core items. His scaling is excellent, but how his spells are designed matters most. With high base damage and some significant passive effects, Zed can kill opponents’ tankiest without an advanced build. Zed requires only an item or two to reach his primary power spike, and it can only get better from there.
He is pretty straightforward, despite requiring some skill to master. Thus, I don’t have to say much about him at all. Zed focuses on doing damage, picking off enemies, and efficiently removing vital targets from the fight. He has great Laning and an even better roam and is an excellent Champion to have on the team.
What makes him broken is that his Ultimate can deal thousands of damage literally, with 3000 or more damage being the usual against massive Tanks.
Conclusion
League of Legends has had many Champions released over the years. With so many releases, hits and misses are bound to happen. Whether the ones above are hits or misses is up to you to decide, as they are some of the best-designed Champions in the game. The fact that they have some glaring issues that can be easily fixed is sidelined when you think of how well they’re made.
I hope you’ve found this list informative and fun to read, and I wish you all the best on the Summoner’s Rift!