It’s been around eight months since League of Legends welcomed its latest monster-like champion to the roster, Naafiri. Nearly a year later, players have started to dish out some hot takes around the pack leader and her unfortunate state in solo queue.
The Hound of a Hundred Bites has maintained a decent spot among the best-performing champions in the game, with a 51 percent win rate through Platinum ranks and higher, according to League stats aggregate U.GG. She has, however, held one of the lower play rates in the mid lane role with only a 2.8 percent play rate in the same ranked distribution.
She might look relatively strong on paper, but many players believe her kit’s lack of diversity and excitement don’t make her as interesting or appealing for many players. On the League subreddit, for example, one player called her “baby’s first assassin” and “extremely boring” since she doesn’t have any interesting ability combos and has very linear gameplay mechanics, making her far too simple for the assassin group.
Many assassin enjoyers are looking for more engaging skills that require a certain level of proficiency, such as Akali or Zed, who are known for their exhilarating outplays and fast gameplay. Naafiri, on the other hand, is relatively straightforward and doesn’t take too much to pick up and try.
To be fair, the developers did intend for Naafiri to be one of the easier champions to learn in the role, which might not appeal to experienced summoners. In fact, she was tuned more toward relying on her passive, which spawns in a Packmate and is used for a plethora of different situations and abilities.
Another issue that players haven’t considered is her overall look since Naafiri was one of the first monster-type champions to be released in a long while. According to Riot, non-human champions are usually less popular than humanoid champions, making Naafiri a less-appealing pick for most people across multiple factors—even though a cute-yet-destructive dragon named Smolder has quickly taken over solo queue.
