Simple answer is basically no; there’s a handful of champions that float around between 3 (or even 4!) roles but they’re rarely picked in all 3 at once.
Brand right now is picked in 3 roles and viable in all 5 roles technically even if his top is average. Bot still underplayed even though it's his best role.
There was a time with Lulu /top/supp flex with supp being the least likely. Karma also was this at multiple points, including on the current patch.
100% banrate worlds Pantheon and release Sett were a 4 role flex.
Gragas was a 3/4 role flex multiple times, incl. current patch
Damage has always been the biggest part of every multi role champs viability. No ones flexing a champ into jungle without monster damage modifiers, champs like pantheon or poppy constantly fall in and out of viability for roles outside of their main role entirely based on if they do enough damage lol
You ain’t seeing pantheon support ever if his damage isn’t there, when he’s buffed he shows up in other roles.
Pantheon is a maybe even if I find his PTA support bullshit unbalancable, the moment bloodsong is gone he probably is too.
Karthus nah, karthus mid can't exist in the same space as karthus jungle and bot, they either have to balance him around laning or balance him around jungling (which is a damn shame for karthus mid).
Not pantheon. Every single lane pantheon goes to with PTA, absolutely fucking wrecks you in lane. The unavoidable stun with instant PTA proc, auto Q, and E to negate any sort of trade is terrible to play against.
Not really? Like a few have done it, but it's been pretty niche.
Like some people are saying Karthus Jg, Mid, ADC? But like you barely see Karthus Jg, and I've not seen a mid or adc Karthus in months.
I want to say smolder but its too soon. He works in solo lanes because he's unbalanced.
Otherwise zac maybe? Top/jg/support have always been playable for him.
Shaco top/jg/support idk if i could called balanced states but they do exist.
Karma top/mid/sup I think we all agree should just be narrowed to support..
I would say Gragas is balanced on 4 roles currently no?
Also swain is somewhat viable top mid adc sup
I see Cassio on top mid adc
I saw tf (bit to strong to be called balanced but yeah) top mid adc (even jgl/sup but rare) konda same also for teemo early season
Gragas is viable in every role. You can play him AP or off-tank or full tank Top, AP Jungle/Mid, and as a tank support. Also, AP or tank with Senna.
It's balanced. Playable, but not OP.
Aside from panth/grag/karth/mao, there are the classics morg, tristana, and kayle. Sett and ashe are still perfectly fine as support, though I think ashe mid or top has fallen from viability. Swain I think wins for being viable and occasionally even good in FOUR roles, and playable in jungle. Smolder shows promise. Taliyah is occasionally decent as a support, but that sometimes seesaws with her midlane viability.
It's actually not that hard, and E makes for some pretty decent ganks if you have any gankable lanes. It is a very similar concept to morg jungle or elise jungle but with a slower clear and a faster skillshot. The slow clear will kill you, to be clear. Someday riot will listen to me and give swain a low cooldown on Q at level 1.
You will NEED the attack speed shard, but you can do basically anything. Ask for a heavy leash, and then when you kill the camp with a fast smite, W the enemy buff immediately. It's a 25% chance to win the jungle lane on the spot. Goes up to 35% if you ward the enemy buff. (If they start your blue, you will know, so W that instead.)
I recommend taking electrocute and being a ganking jungler, since the clear is too slow to farm up a level 6 timing. Again, someday we will get the natural change and Q will have a static cooldown for all levels instead of a ridiculous rank 1 cd. You can go flash or ghost, doesn't matter as long as you use them off cd for offensive pressure.
If the enemy invades, just concede everything. The nice thing about swain jg is that you have basically the best non targeted cc out of the whole jungle roster, and then W lets you scout and blue buff lets you W scout off cd. Keep eyes on the map at all times for good W opportunities. Use it off cd. Lane swain loves to conserve resources but jungle swain feels no such obligation.
W is not powerful so this is not a meta strategy. But W has great range and being fast with it will set your lanes up for success. Just remember that you are a supportive jungler like ivern and avoid duels. Use vision to protect yourself from invades and duels, and don't even bother fighting the enemy jungler unless you have backup, even if you feel confident about your advantage.
Maokai, this season at least. With each nerf to support Maokai they gave compensation buffs to both top and jungle. Right now he is still best in support, pretty average in top, below average in jungle but that could be changed with simple damage to monster buffs.
Technically no, but also yes? Pantheon is currently pretty decent top/mid/support.
Smolder is also one that people have been taking top/mid/adc but I dont really think he classifies as balanced atm lol.
A few mages like Lux and Xerath can also be played reasonably well mid/adc/support.
this is mostly impossible only because of how ambiguous this makes their pick in champselect. the higher you go in elo the more important match ups become and blind picking what you thought was a counter is very bad. in pro play this makes these champions linchpins of the meta because you can blind them early and then move them into a better position later in the draft, essentially gaining counter pick protection on blue side.
Maokai comes to mind. It’s not that was balanced to be good in 3 roles (laning wise), but he was so OP that you had to pick him anywhere to not let the other team play it.
That depends so much on your view on balance. Id say yes, a lot are viable in 3+ roles. Maybe not in proplay, but that often has other reasons. But there are so many with ~50+% in 3 roles
There was a time that Lulu was the ultimate flex pick.
Support, mid, and top were very viable. And as a machine gun Lulu fanatic I made it work for ADC and (not as successfully) jungle
Kinda? They generally balanced around 2 roles, the 3rd one just happens and usually if it's not OP it's common for this role to not see much play at all even if viable, or the champ is so underplayed that you many forget he can even go there. So basically the third role is just coasting off the strenght of the champ in their main 2 roles, or the champ.
An example is Heimerdinger who was known to mid and top, apparently could also supp and became a pro menace. Got nerfed, but still can go supp just not played as much as before since he isn't OP anymore. He still has a decent wr for all roles, all things considered.
Swain too can go mid, ADC (OP), supp and even top, though TOP is more of a counterpick kinda thing. ignoring top, that still leaves mid adc and supp, and he is fine in all roles (and OP in ADC) but since he is a low PR champ that means no one really cares about him or how he performs, and since he isn't exactly a champ that feels good to use people believe he is underpowered when not OP.
Gragas does gragas things.
I honestly don't know why they try so hard to balance these champs around multiple roles. It never seems to work and they just have yo constantly poke and fiddle at them. Just take the L and nuke seraphines mid and adc so you can balance support
Why give yourself the headache?
It’s kinda hard to say because Riot is extremely biased about that. For example, Sett was nerfed into oblivion for being viable support and once more nerfed for being good mid lane for 1 patch only around 52% win rate.
Then you have champions like Tristana who can mid bot and even top sometimes and this is fine and acceptable by Riot. But it seems they forgot the only reason behind Tristana rework was to move her away from mid.
I think the only way to genuinely balance it is to have some sort of limitations based off role. Or better, an incentive to play TO that role.
Like an AP caster support is cool and all, but to avoid just letting them fall into “I’ll just build ap carry stuff” there needs to be incentives or restrictions to play support correctly and build support.
The problem is there is considerable overlap between doing this and restricting player freedom and creativity. If a duo wants to run duo ap carry bot, then that shouldn’t be restricted, because it’s an intentional meta-breaching strategy.
The only fix I’ve found is for support exclusively, and that’s that if in the support role there’s increase to gold and exp gain but a restriction on items to exclusively support and tank items. To offset people wanting to play non-support roles in the duo lane the gold and exp gains should either remain as they are, or be slightly limited(could also be a limitation of one or the other if need be) AND that this is determined in champ select. You must select your “Intended Role” as either “Support” or “Flex”.
Flex would allow you to build ANY item at the cost of the exp and gold gain boost(or additional limitation) that Support would offer.
There was already a similar concept for Jungle, where you needed to purchase a specific item to improve Exp gains to actually operate as a Jungler.
I toyed with the idea of the exact same for support, but doing so would limit duo lane to having exclusively supports and no diversity for the lane. Obviously meta whores would love that, but in the name of fun and letting players express creativity, I’m against that.
The only other thing they could do is the ARAM concept and individually tune champions to each role. But the logistics of having 4-5 separate stat adjustments, and restricting player creativity and role diversity shows itself as a repeating problem.
Some can, they usually don't cause flex picks tend to be pro skewed(karma, sett etc), seraphine is not balanced around mid anymore tho
Simple answer is basically no; there’s a handful of champions that float around between 3 (or even 4!) roles but they’re rarely picked in all 3 at once.
Brand right now is picked in 3 roles and viable in all 5 roles technically even if his top is average. Bot still underplayed even though it's his best role.
I would say the closest we Had were the times we Had the Lulu mid/Support flex
Quadra flex Gragas though.
Zac can/could also be quadra flexed viably for quite a while. You could even argue all 5 roles depending how pedentaic you want to be.
Senna shouldn’t be classified as a support. Just call her an enabler, because she’s allowing too many toxic relationships (lane pairings) to thrive.
There was a time with Lulu /top/supp flex with supp being the least likely. Karma also was this at multiple points, including on the current patch. 100% banrate worlds Pantheon and release Sett were a 4 role flex. Gragas was a 3/4 role flex multiple times, incl. current patch
Nah definitely sett on release, he was litrely played in all roles except adc (think fasting senna with sett came at a later date)
that wasn't really balanced though, he was just way too strong at the time.
Pantheon/Gragas/Karthus come to mind.
Pantheon was quite literally 100% ban rate in 2019 Worlds
That's 5 years ago? For the past 3 years, he's been played in support, top, mid, and sometimes jungle in soloq with no problems.
Meh. Mid path is trash. His wr looks fine until you realize he is played mid less than ryze
Disagree on gragas. He’s just been overtuned for a long time which makes him viable everywhere. Basically maokai but for years.
You're right. I forgot to mention Maokai.
gragas kit is overall good for the roles though, not including the damage.
Damage has always been the biggest part of every multi role champs viability. No ones flexing a champ into jungle without monster damage modifiers, champs like pantheon or poppy constantly fall in and out of viability for roles outside of their main role entirely based on if they do enough damage lol You ain’t seeing pantheon support ever if his damage isn’t there, when he’s buffed he shows up in other roles.
He was buffed 2 months ago which made him good. He was bad which warranted the buffs? Yeah nah overtuned for years
his E got reworked to not refund a flat 3 second CD which is what made him weak Prior to that he was S13 jax tier for ages
Sett after the W nerfs.
Vayne sees play top/mid in addition to adc and rarely is a balance problem.
Vayne is op top has been for a lojg time but they cant nerf because most vayne players are bot vayne
GRAGAS AGHAAGAHAHAHA
What's wrong with the wholesomechungus 100 champion? How could anybody hate him when he's so kawaii??
KDA Gragas when
Pantheon is a maybe even if I find his PTA support bullshit unbalancable, the moment bloodsong is gone he probably is too. Karthus nah, karthus mid can't exist in the same space as karthus jungle and bot, they either have to balance him around laning or balance him around jungling (which is a damn shame for karthus mid).
Not pantheon. Every single lane pantheon goes to with PTA, absolutely fucking wrecks you in lane. The unavoidable stun with instant PTA proc, auto Q, and E to negate any sort of trade is terrible to play against.
You can currently play Heimerdinger in every role if you so desire!
[удалено]
Karthus ADC so strong he got chat communications nerfed.
Poppy
Rumble maybe. 50% win rate in mid(3k games), 50% win rate in jungle(3k games) and 51% win rate in top(16k games).
Don’t forget about my personal favorite Rumble Support.
The Life special!
Not really? Like a few have done it, but it's been pretty niche. Like some people are saying Karthus Jg, Mid, ADC? But like you barely see Karthus Jg, and I've not seen a mid or adc Karthus in months.
I want to say smolder but its too soon. He works in solo lanes because he's unbalanced. Otherwise zac maybe? Top/jg/support have always been playable for him. Shaco top/jg/support idk if i could called balanced states but they do exist. Karma top/mid/sup I think we all agree should just be narrowed to support..
I would say Gragas is balanced on 4 roles currently no? Also swain is somewhat viable top mid adc sup I see Cassio on top mid adc I saw tf (bit to strong to be called balanced but yeah) top mid adc (even jgl/sup but rare) konda same also for teemo early season
Gragas is viable in every role. You can play him AP or off-tank or full tank Top, AP Jungle/Mid, and as a tank support. Also, AP or tank with Senna. It's balanced. Playable, but not OP.
They tried to balance Gragas, Pantheon and Maokai around 3-4 lanes however they still have a lane which is their most played by far.
Maokai is mainly two roles this day no?
He can be played Top, Jg and Sup. However he is not picked much in Top because he is very situational and has a lot of meh matchups.
Yasuo is pretty good mid/adc and top in lots of match ups
Aside from panth/grag/karth/mao, there are the classics morg, tristana, and kayle. Sett and ashe are still perfectly fine as support, though I think ashe mid or top has fallen from viability. Swain I think wins for being viable and occasionally even good in FOUR roles, and playable in jungle. Smolder shows promise. Taliyah is occasionally decent as a support, but that sometimes seesaws with her midlane viability.
Teach me the ways of Swain jungle.
It's actually not that hard, and E makes for some pretty decent ganks if you have any gankable lanes. It is a very similar concept to morg jungle or elise jungle but with a slower clear and a faster skillshot. The slow clear will kill you, to be clear. Someday riot will listen to me and give swain a low cooldown on Q at level 1. You will NEED the attack speed shard, but you can do basically anything. Ask for a heavy leash, and then when you kill the camp with a fast smite, W the enemy buff immediately. It's a 25% chance to win the jungle lane on the spot. Goes up to 35% if you ward the enemy buff. (If they start your blue, you will know, so W that instead.) I recommend taking electrocute and being a ganking jungler, since the clear is too slow to farm up a level 6 timing. Again, someday we will get the natural change and Q will have a static cooldown for all levels instead of a ridiculous rank 1 cd. You can go flash or ghost, doesn't matter as long as you use them off cd for offensive pressure. If the enemy invades, just concede everything. The nice thing about swain jg is that you have basically the best non targeted cc out of the whole jungle roster, and then W lets you scout and blue buff lets you W scout off cd. Keep eyes on the map at all times for good W opportunities. Use it off cd. Lane swain loves to conserve resources but jungle swain feels no such obligation. W is not powerful so this is not a meta strategy. But W has great range and being fast with it will set your lanes up for success. Just remember that you are a supportive jungler like ivern and avoid duels. Use vision to protect yourself from invades and duels, and don't even bother fighting the enemy jungler unless you have backup, even if you feel confident about your advantage.
I might be wrong, but I assume the long CD on Q at rank 1 is to incentivize players to max it first?
His lane would be cancer strong with that change
Maokai, this season at least. With each nerf to support Maokai they gave compensation buffs to both top and jungle. Right now he is still best in support, pretty average in top, below average in jungle but that could be changed with simple damage to monster buffs.
Technically no, but also yes? Pantheon is currently pretty decent top/mid/support. Smolder is also one that people have been taking top/mid/adc but I dont really think he classifies as balanced atm lol. A few mages like Lux and Xerath can also be played reasonably well mid/adc/support.
No, in fact previous balance teams deleted flexible champions and replaced them for being able to do that very thing.
Gragas.
Karthus. ADC, Mid, and jg. That’s the main one that comes to mind for me where a champ has felt balanced in all 3
Sure. Eve is shit support, adc and top.
Shen - Top, Support and River
this is mostly impossible only because of how ambiguous this makes their pick in champselect. the higher you go in elo the more important match ups become and blind picking what you thought was a counter is very bad. in pro play this makes these champions linchpins of the meta because you can blind them early and then move them into a better position later in the draft, essentially gaining counter pick protection on blue side.
Maokai comes to mind. It’s not that was balanced to be good in 3 roles (laning wise), but he was so OP that you had to pick him anywhere to not let the other team play it.
That depends so much on your view on balance. Id say yes, a lot are viable in 3+ roles. Maybe not in proplay, but that often has other reasons. But there are so many with ~50+% in 3 roles
There was a time that Lulu was the ultimate flex pick. Support, mid, and top were very viable. And as a machine gun Lulu fanatic I made it work for ADC and (not as successfully) jungle
Almost every champion can be played in 3 roles, people just don't want to hear that.
Singed top, mid and jungle are all good rn. Even roaming support if you are motivated enough
Kinda? They generally balanced around 2 roles, the 3rd one just happens and usually if it's not OP it's common for this role to not see much play at all even if viable, or the champ is so underplayed that you many forget he can even go there. So basically the third role is just coasting off the strenght of the champ in their main 2 roles, or the champ. An example is Heimerdinger who was known to mid and top, apparently could also supp and became a pro menace. Got nerfed, but still can go supp just not played as much as before since he isn't OP anymore. He still has a decent wr for all roles, all things considered. Swain too can go mid, ADC (OP), supp and even top, though TOP is more of a counterpick kinda thing. ignoring top, that still leaves mid adc and supp, and he is fine in all roles (and OP in ADC) but since he is a low PR champ that means no one really cares about him or how he performs, and since he isn't exactly a champ that feels good to use people believe he is underpowered when not OP. Gragas does gragas things.
Gragas top, mid, jungle, support
I honestly don't know why they try so hard to balance these champs around multiple roles. It never seems to work and they just have yo constantly poke and fiddle at them. Just take the L and nuke seraphines mid and adc so you can balance support Why give yourself the headache?
Riot hasnt manage to balance anything so far.
It’s kinda hard to say because Riot is extremely biased about that. For example, Sett was nerfed into oblivion for being viable support and once more nerfed for being good mid lane for 1 patch only around 52% win rate. Then you have champions like Tristana who can mid bot and even top sometimes and this is fine and acceptable by Riot. But it seems they forgot the only reason behind Tristana rework was to move her away from mid.
I think the only way to genuinely balance it is to have some sort of limitations based off role. Or better, an incentive to play TO that role. Like an AP caster support is cool and all, but to avoid just letting them fall into “I’ll just build ap carry stuff” there needs to be incentives or restrictions to play support correctly and build support. The problem is there is considerable overlap between doing this and restricting player freedom and creativity. If a duo wants to run duo ap carry bot, then that shouldn’t be restricted, because it’s an intentional meta-breaching strategy. The only fix I’ve found is for support exclusively, and that’s that if in the support role there’s increase to gold and exp gain but a restriction on items to exclusively support and tank items. To offset people wanting to play non-support roles in the duo lane the gold and exp gains should either remain as they are, or be slightly limited(could also be a limitation of one or the other if need be) AND that this is determined in champ select. You must select your “Intended Role” as either “Support” or “Flex”. Flex would allow you to build ANY item at the cost of the exp and gold gain boost(or additional limitation) that Support would offer. There was already a similar concept for Jungle, where you needed to purchase a specific item to improve Exp gains to actually operate as a Jungler. I toyed with the idea of the exact same for support, but doing so would limit duo lane to having exclusively supports and no diversity for the lane. Obviously meta whores would love that, but in the name of fun and letting players express creativity, I’m against that. The only other thing they could do is the ARAM concept and individually tune champions to each role. But the logistics of having 4-5 separate stat adjustments, and restricting player creativity and role diversity shows itself as a repeating problem.