Riot Games recently revealed League of Legends‘ newest champion Nilah and her prospective abilities. Unfortunately, Nilah’s kit is already setting her up to be a nightmare to balance, which could lead to her being either incredibly overpowered or completely useless every patch rather than maintaining a healthy middle ground, a fate which her fellow new champion Zeri currently suffers.
Nilah’s prospective kit features effects that Riot Games has already tried to make work and given up on in the past due to balance issues. She is also meant to be a melee Attack Damage Carry (ADC), which will make her even harder to balance in lower tiers of play as range advantages are much less punished. There’s a reason Zed gets banned so often in low ranks, and Nilah is on the path to becoming just like him.
Another Two-Part Passive
Ignoring the problem of ever-increasing word counts on champion abilities, Nilah’s two-part passive could be the hardest part of her kit to balance. The first effect, which enhances any heals and shields she gets from allies, could have easily been the entire passive. It fits well with a melee carry archetype and encourages players to use her in the bot lane. The second effect is where problems begin to arise, as experience, being fundamental to the game, is very volatile to balance.
If Nilah last hits a minion, which she will often do as an ADC, she and her support with both get extra experience. This will allow her and her support to hit the all-important level 2 powerspike before their enemies, which can easily snowball into kills and a won lane if used properly. Even if Nilah is zoned off from Creep Scoring (CS) early in higher tiers of play, this passive will have her hitting all the crucial level spikes, including getting ultimate before her opponents. If nothing else, she will certainly be good at completing the new lane dominance challenges.
Multi-Champion Counterstrike
Nilah’s W is similarly hard to balance. It is essentially Jax’s counterstrike, as it dodges all basic attacks and grants reduced magic damage. Though Nilah doesn’t get access to the stun that Jax has, she gains move speed and can grant the buff to other champions. It’s also important to note that in botlane where Nilah will be, auto attacks are far more common and necessary to win fights.
This ability is incredibly overpowered for winning early 2v2 fights, reducing damage for all allies in teamfights and even for escaping jungle ganks with the added move speed. An ability with just one part of this would have been fine. Balancing this ability to not be an auto-win in early lane fights will be extremely challenging, even if it does fit with her lore.
A Brutally Overloaded Ultimate
Riot Games’ decision to put damage, crowd control, area-of-effect, and healing in an ADC’s ultimate makes Nilah even more overpowered. Even if Nilah or one of her allies is full health when she casts, the excess healing is converted into a shield for them, meaning it never loses value from using the ability too early.
Getting this ability in lane before the enemies get their ultimates, because of her experience passive, will be devastating. It’s not unlikely that Nilah will be able to use it in a later teamfight either, as her auto-dodge and dashes will get her as close to the enemies as she needs to be. It’s understandable that a melee carry might need shielding or crowd control on their ultimate to make up for their low range, but having everything at once will make her a nightmare to play against.
With the ridiculous experience passive, auto-dodging, and fight-winning ultimate, Nilah’s kit is so powerful that she will always be broken until her numbers are nerfed so far into the ground that she becomes useless. Not every new champion needs to have everything, and this is the perfect example of how doing so harms the overall game.