Overpowered LoL Abilities That Never Made It To Live… | RiftFeed
And you think what we have in game right now is overpowered?

Overpowered LoL Abilities That Never Made It To Live Servers

Champions 14-03-2024 14:25

We've all screamed at our monitors in a rage, wishing they were the blocky old ones that could take a punch, because of one League of Legends ability or another that, seemingly, has no counterplay. Still, when taking a look back, things could've been much worse.

Morgana Exiled Skin
The annoying sisters strike again | © Riot Games

If you're an engage support main, you are well aware of the pain brought about by Morgana's Black Shield or Lulu's Polymorph, while Mordekaiser's ultimate is the bane of both the best junglers and top laners alike. Moving even further, with the new Veigar changes, his ultimate became even more of an "outplay button" than it previously was.

While on the topic of overpowered abilities, there is no end to what League of Legend champions can offer, especially the more modern ones such as Renata Glasc, or even Akshan with their revive mechanics. However, what we have in mind is something even worse, that Riot never even allowed it to reach live servers, so they wouldn't have to remove it the way they did with Chemtech Drake.

Top 3 Most overpowered abilities Riot Rejected

When thinking of overpowered, we immediately turn towards new champions. however, it's the older ones where Riot had such crazy ideas, that even they realized how game-breaking they would be.

3. Ekko

One of the first iterations of Ekko's ultimate was to rewind time. And yes, we know, it's what Ekko does, however, his version of his ultimate was supposed to rewind the game by 4 seconds for everyone involved, excluding champion deaths.

Sandsturm Ekko
The sands of time could've broken the game | © Riot Games

After realizing just how broken, and a double-edged sword that could be, the second version was supposed to be tamer, targeting only Ekko and one champion, but that was scrapped as well. Just imagine ambushing a fed enemy carry, only for your Ekko to ult and make your preparation worthless.

2. Olaf

While we are not denying that in the current meta, Olaf is a broken champion due to his healing and immunity to crowd control, he could've been much worse.

Glacial Olaf skin splash
At least it was up to Nordic mythos standards | © Riot Games

While it's not fully clear at which part of Olaf's designing process Riot were experimenting with this, they have revealed that at one point Olaf had a passive called Ragnarok, which applied true damage based on maximum health to all champions on the map, after fulfilling certain, undisclosed criteria. Talk about the end of the world.

1. Kayle

Kayle's evolutions based on her levels are scary enough, making her one of the best scaling champions in the whole game. And while her rework created waves in the game, it's nothing compared to what could've been.

Transcended Kayle
What are her wings for then | © Riot Games

During the development of Kayle's rework, one of the ideas for her evolution was to tap into her flight capabilities, and, upon her reaching level 16, allow her to fly over terrain. The only restriction was that it could only be done when out of combat. So, she wouldn't be Talon or Kayn, but does she really need to be?

LoL Abilities that Never Made it to Live Servers: Honorable Mentions

While the top 3 overpowered abilities belong to these older champions, and we cannot imagine them being balanced in the game, there are more that Riot Games have rejected on the basis of being overpowered, and here are the honorable mentions:

  • Viego - Ever-expanding mist
  • Bard - Global Silence Ultimate
  • Morgana - Evolving Ultimate with additional effects
  • Shaco - Ultimate which made him into a projectile
  • Jhin - Unlimited Q bouncing
  • Quinn - Global Valor suppression

So, the next time you think of raging at the unfairness of some abilities, such as infinite stacking, remember that things could be far worse. And isn't that a depressing thought?

Rijad Kamberovic

Graduating from Sarajevo university in 2020, with a Bachelor's Degree in Islamic Theology, I never believed that my fascination with comparative religions and their myths would mesh so well together with the fantasy genre of the video games I play....