2016 Champion Tier List - Solo Queue - Patch 6.8 Update

Preface Chatter

The Tier List

God Tier [Highest Influence]:

Tier 1 [Strong/Preferred Choices]:

Tier 2 [Viable/Balanced Choices]:

Tier 3 [Needs Higher Skill/Knowledge Than Usual]:

Tier 4 [Low Benefits for Effort Used]:

• Ekko [God Tier Top] - You would think that  taking away some of his base damage and nerfing Iceborn Gauntlet is enough to drop Ekko from blatantly overpowered to a balanced state, but it really wasn't. He's clearly not the whimsical frenzy that he was in the prior patch, but he's still very strong in his own right and is easily one of the best top laners on the rift at the moment. His build path hasn't changed at all, and he's still perfectly powerful as a damage soaking tank.
• Ezreal [Tier 2 Marksman] - Meanwhile, Ezreal took a big hit with the Iceborn Gauntlet nerf since a large part of his poke damage and success stemmed from his blue build an IBG procs. As a result, he's in much more of a balanced state compared to before.
• Fizz [Tier 1 Top] - Fizz top came a little late to the party, but when he arrived in all this tanky glory, the Sunfire Cape + Iceborn Gauntlet combination really shined through. By building full tank and maxing his Seastone Trident (W), Fizz deals a considerable amount of magic damage while simultaneously maximizing his playful trickster's damage mitigation. With high cooldown reduction, Fizz is very difficult to ignore or kill in team fights.
• Graves [Tier 1 Top/Tier 2 Marksman] - The standard Graves build contains very little in the way of critical hit chance other than the 30% from Phantom Dancer. As a result, switching his damage from all autos to criticals this patch was a clear nerf for the standard Graves. We'll see over time if it turns out it's worth switching to a more crit oriented build, but the super tanky Deaths' Dance/Sterak's Gage/Maw build is still extremely powerful and fun to play. As a close range champion, it's difficult to see how a glass cannon build would be viable unless he's one-shotting people.
• Master Yi [Tier 2 Jungle] - This patch gave us a ton of Master Yi nerfs, and essentially made it more difficult to hit the first reset in time to snowball. He needs to be much more careful with running in now, and plays somewhat more like an assassin or standard Yi clean-up crew.
• Nidalee [God Tier Jungle] - After nerfs to Graves and Master Yi, Nidalee is now comparatively much stronger. Her utility was always undisputed, but these rival jungle nerfs combined with nerfs on man poke-based marksman allows her to have a more niche role as a poke-based harass champion.
• Pantheon [Tier 2 Mid] - Some people noted that Pantheon mid has the highest win rate mid this patch. He's a very good lane bully against most mid laners and decently strong at the moment, but really not much more than a balanced state. What you're seeing is a very low percentage statistical anomaly. If it continues we'll take another look, but I don't think it warrants any concern at the moment.
• Taric [God Tier Support/Tier 2 Jungle] - The new Taric appears to be insanely strong. A great pick-up and go type champion, he's very intuitive to play and also has amazing utility for his team. As a support, he can make full use of his double Dazzle since his marksman is always in lane. However, he seems strong in the jungle as well due to his ganking power. His low clearspeed seems to be the major set-back as a jungler, but we'll see which roles he turns out to be more popular in over time.
• Zed [Tier 1 Mid] - Zed in his current state is a 1v1 master that can turn tides of games if people are caught unaware or the enemy team lacks peel. However, in games where 5v5 fights are common and occur sooner rather than later, Zed lacks a lot of impact power. His waveclear requires him to use spell cooldowns that are mandatory for allowing his ultimate to be effective, and so he needs to save them judiciously for the right moment. If you want to take the time to master him, he's definitely still very much better than most champions, but there are a lot of similar strength champions that take less time to master.
• Zilean [Tier 1 Support] - Zilean support is still highly underrated. As a champion that can quickly snowball teamfights via his double bomb-stun utility, he's a good cross between a damage based caster and a standard Aegis based support. Depending on the enemy team composition, he can quickly switch between the two, and always provides his potential game-changing ultimate.