In the over 12-year history of League of Legends, Ryze can be considered one of the most important champions in terms of gameplay as well as storyline. In cinematic videos, Riot portrays Ryze as a “superhero” protecting the continent of Runeterra. In terms of gameplay, Ryze exemplifies the issue of poor champion balancing as this character has been reworked numerous times but still constantly faces complaints about its power.
Most recently, as Ryze’s power and win rate hit rock bottom, Riot continued to mistreat this character by issuing a very small buff. If you aren’t aware, currently, Ryze has a win rate of around 40-42%, which is far too low compared to other champions. However, instead of a comprehensive buff, Riot only slightly increased the power of his E ability – Arcane Mastery in the upcoming patch 12.11.
As soon as the information about patch 12.11 was announced by Riot, it immediately made players angry and criticized Riot in return. They even claimed that the way Riot treats Ryze has shifted from tragedy to farce. The complaint post below was published on the League of Legends Reddit forum and quickly garnered nearly 5,000 upvotes with strong community support.
As mentioned in the above complaint post, what frustrates players the most is that Riot has simplified Ryze’s gameplay rather than the champion’s power. Essentially, Ryze currently has almost only one damage combo: E followed by Q. Sometimes you might use W in combination with E to root opponents, but most of the time, the E-Q combo is what Ryze players will execute. Clearly, for a League of Legends player, playing a champion with only two buttons is not interesting at all.
Therefore, many people have suggested that it is time for Riot to rework Ryze’s skill set (once again) as they have ruined this champion. However, whatever happens with Ryze in the future, he may still be recorded in League of Legends history as evidence of Riot’s poor champion balancing.