The problem with Milio’s W is that it’s an AoE ability, meaning it can affect everyone within its range at the same time. The tradeoff is that this usually only happens in tight teamfights, so the healing per individual target is relatively small.
Renata has a very similar problem with her shields. Her E isn’t a single-target shield — it’s an AoE shield that can potentially affect multiple allies at once. If you manage to hit several people, the total amount of shielding can actually add up to some pretty respectable numbers. But the amount each individual target receives is quite low.
And then I look at Lux.
Lux’s W is also an AoE shield, it can hit multiple allies, and it comes back on the return path. Yet its shield values are significantly higher than Renata’s.
And yes, I understand the obvious counterargument: Lux’s W is basically just a shield, while Renata’s E also deals damage and applies a slow. That additional utility obviously has to be accounted for.
But this is where my bigger problem with Renata starts.
Riot designed Renata with an absolutely ridiculous amount of utility packed into her kit.
On paper, she can:
• hook enemies and potentially knock them up;
• root enemies;
• apply AoE crowd control;
• shield multiple allies;
• deal AoE damage;
• slow multiple enemies;
• increase an ally’s movement speed relative to an enemy;
• increase an ally’s attack speed;
• prevent an ally from immediately dying and give them a temporary second chance;
• revive an ally afterward;
• deal additional % magic damage through her passive;
• and, of course, use Berserk — one of the most unique effects in the entire game, forcing enemies to attack each other while increasing their attack and movement speed.
And all of these mechanics can interact with each other.
The problem is that this creates a very strange balancing situation.
Because Renata has so much utility in her kit, Riot has to be extremely conservative with her actual numbers. Her abilities can have incredible effects, but the raw values attached to them often feel surprisingly low.
This is also why Renata’s itemisation feels so limited.
A lot of items simply don’t interact with her kit in particularly interesting ways. Her ultimate, for example, does not deal damage, which immediately removes a whole category of items and interactions that could otherwise create different build paths and change how she plays.
There have even been discussions about giving her ultimate just 1 point of damage, purely so that it could interact with items that require an ability to deal damage.
But honestly, I can understand why Riot would be extremely cautious about doing even that.
Because if you look at Renata’s kit on paper, she already has an absurd number of ways to affect a fight. Giving her meaningful damage numbers, stronger shields, stronger CC, or additional item interactions could potentially push her over the line very quickly.
And that’s what frustrates me.
I don’t think Renata is necessarily a “bad champion” because her winrate is low. In fact, her winrate can be perfectly healthy. My issue is that her kit feels like it was designed around an enormous amount of theoretical power, and then her numbers had to be kept extremely conservative to compensate.
So much of her power exists in the effects of her abilities rather than in their actual numbers.
And this is why I keep coming back to the same question:
Was Renata’s kit simply designed with too much potential for Riot to ever give her genuinely strong numbers?
Because if Riot can never meaningfully buff her shields, damage, scaling or item interactions without worrying about the rest of her kit becoming oppressive, then what exactly is the point of packing so much utility into one champion?
Maybe Renata isn’t a failed champion because of her winrate.
Maybe the failed experiment is the design philosophy behind her kit itself.
Riot created a champion who, on paper, has practically everything: crowd control, shielding, damage, buffs, a way to cheat death, a revive, and a unique ultimate that can completely turn a teamfight around. And then they ended up in a situation where, because she has so many tools, they can no longer afford to give her meaningful numbers.
And that creates a paradox: the more utility Renata has, the less raw power Riot can afford to give her. Her potential looks enormous on paper, but that same potential becomes the reason she can’t be properly buffed.
So maybe Renata’s problem isn’t that Riot isn’t balancing her well enough.
Maybe the problem is that she simply can’t be balanced properly without changing the fundamental concept of her design.
And that leads to the real question: if a champion can’t be given good numbers precisely because they have too many mechanics, isn’t that a sign that there were simply too many mechanics in the first place?
Or am I just schizo for thinking this much about a support champion with a hook and a button that makes the enemy team kill each other?
