I think jungle WW isn't that good (compared to like 7 other junglers), but top is great right now.
What makes you think this? Have you had bad experiences with WW jungles post 4.5?
Nah I just don't think he utilizes flare as well as some others, and that even flare junglers are equal to or outclassed by some spirit stone ones (seems a lot of people think the good flare junglers are all > non-flare ones). And yea I've seen some carry lategame.
I think the problem is that a bunch of the spirit stone junglers got nerfed pre-Feral Flare. Vi, Elise, Wukong, and Kha'zix were all nerfed to different extents pre-FF, and Pantheon was nerfed a bit before that. While I agree that the spirit stone junglers are probably underplayed right now, I do think they're in general worse. You have to be really good to play Kha or Elise and make a big impact imo, and Wukong and Vi's number nerfs hurt just enough that people want to play other junglers. They're still both great junglers, and Wukong's ult is still the biggest impact any jungler can bring to the game, but they're just not as strong in the mindset of "It's solo queue, I'm gonna put my carry pants on."
Eh I disagree that WW is very considerably better late - he does scale better but not that much. Whatever though.
Have you played with WW lately? He's so strong that he's bannable, even up to high elos. Meanwhile the few Vi nerfs she's gotten have made her a really risky pick, particularly since she's bad with Feral Flare, which is the best item they've released since preseason 3 Black Cleaver. I've been playing 4.5 more and I'm convinced that in the hands of a skilled player WW is stronger than Xin Zhao, who I have been unimpressed with despite the popularity. Also with the popularity of Lucian, Vi's anti carry role is less necessary than normal, as she is not particularly good at killing him especially with just a bit of peel, and can give her a face full of culling after disengaging. I love Vi, my winrate pre nerfs with her was about 87% this season across 15 games. I still think she's good. But claiming she's comparable to WW late game or better than him currently are both patently false.
If all champions have been equal for years, then that is equivalent to a stale metagame. And I think that a shifting metagame is better than a perfectly balanced one to be honest.
The question is much more about DotA being Legacy and LoL being Standard. The metagames do change in legacy, but it's usually a slower process, because there's a lot of established archetypes that you need to deal with. Compare this with frequent rotations of Standard that cause constant fluctuation. I mean, does anyone happen to remember the Triforce buffs? Right before a certain important tournament? I would say the key point here is threat diversity: There are more viable angles of attack towards a upcoming strategy in Legacy/DotA than there are in LoL/Standard. Often these attacks can be brutal in the former two, be it Outhouse Decorator or Wasteland/Crucible.
I should also note that evolutionarily stable strategies exist in LoL as well. Tanky bruiser in toplane has been one for ages now, and squishy-magic-dealer in mid. Usually there are candidates that cement themselves as the best option for the role for each given patch pretty quickly, and then precede over others until nerfs fix it. Gragas and Shyvana are two recent examples, Renekton is another. Personally I see the ability for the metagame to change without enforced change as a good indicator of depth, but that might just be me.
I don't know how many different answers you have in DOTA for any given strategy, but I would like to point out that there are plenty of strong options in LoL that exist that never get discovered, or get discovered months after they are powerful enough to show up. It's not just about meta shifts, even with millions of experienced players trying new things, not every powerful strategy is discovered for every patch, particularly when the amount of high level team play going on in LoL is not that much compared to the development of the solo queue metagame.
I will also say that while those stable strategies exist to an extent, because of how much more items mean for defining a role in league and how many champions can fill the role you want from a mid or top champion in different capacities. Tops can be straight tanks, bruisers, assassins, fighters, or straight lane bullies like Teemo, Quinn, and Urgot. Mids can be the typical burst mages, siege clear, tanks, anti-mages, assassins, and supports.
DOTA is probably a deeper game than LoL. But to enjoy how deep a game it is you really need to get heavily into DOTA. League can be a pick up and play game for a lot of people. I'm sure some people have done so for DOTA as well, but to me it just seems the game necessarily takes up more of your time to get full enjoyment from it.
I actually disagree. It's true that Vi has a very strong early game with heavy nuking potential, but outside of lockup specialized ultimates her and warwick aren't comparable at all. Warwick just does enormous sustained damage and becomes very difficult to kill late game. He can get a decent mix of AD and magic damage going, and his regen allows him to get very tanky. With Wit's End and Feral Flare he can outduel most champions and his ultimate actually does end up doing tons of damage. Throw a visage and a sunfire cape on him and his innate stats and go to town. If you have a team who wants to hold early, and transition into successful mid->late after farming hard, then WW does that well. He also isn't particularly bad at anything anymore.
Frankly outside of feral flare, most of those are pretty unimportant differences. Also I don't know why you're talking as though Vi can't become an insanely powerful tank & duelist...
That wasn't the point of that post. Read the second sentence. WW and Vi perform different roles. Vi is early->midgame focused, WW is mid->late focused. WW is sustained DPS and chase/cleanup with some target lockup, Vi is hard engage anti-carry. If a fight drags on WW takes over, he works well with multiple threats. Vi works well with a pick lockdown team with supports such as annie or leona, but I would rather stick WW with a Karma or Lulu, and Shyvana or Trundle are WW's friends whereas Vi works better with Renek or Nid or some other heavy burst top laner. They're just different. If anything I would say that WW has supplanted Udyr and is more powerful than Udyr was. The point is you don't pick WW instead of Vi. If your team wants what Vi brings to the table, you pick Vi, if you want a champ that does what WW does pick WW. I love Vi and have done extremely well with her, and only rarely play WW. This isn't a fanboy thing. This is just what I've seen from WW since 4.5 hit.
I actually disagree. It's true that Vi has a very strong early game with heavy nuking potential, but outside of lockup specialized ultimates her and warwick aren't comparable at all. Warwick just does enormous sustained damage and becomes very difficult to kill late game. He can get a decent mix of AD and magic damage going, and his regen allows him to get very tanky. With Wit's End and Feral Flare he can outduel most champions and his ultimate actually does end up doing tons of damage. Throw a visage and a sunfire cape on him and his innate stats and go to town. If you have a team who wants to hold early, and transition into successful mid->late after farming hard, then WW does that well. He also isn't particularly bad at anything anymore.
That would be quick to judge, but thankfully it's not what I'm saying. I'm saying where the top teams are at, not the cap. Plus the draft was just one part, another part for example being an individual's huge play has a bit more impact in DotA than in LoL.
Skill-cap was poor diction on my part. But now I'm even less sure what it is you're trying say. Are you saying that DotA isn't as deep as LoL because, at the top level, the game rewards team selection more than actual play?
I would say that the gameplay itself, the thing that players see is less deep yes. LoL has more interactions at a faster pace in general than DOTA does. There are less kinds of interactions, but as far as spectating is concerned that's probably a positive. Like auras, team compositions winning games is usually more of a hidden factor, at least compared to individual flashy play, which is what draws a lot of people. I wont say DOTA 2 is worse than LoL, but LoL has quite a few legs up on in that make it more popular for good reason. And the implication that time allows you to perfect a metagame would indicate that the metagame itself is stale. This is somewhat a reply to Doku, but is also something to keep in mind in general. If DOTA's metagame evolves as much as LoL's does, which I am not at liberty to say as while I am quite aware of DOTA's mechanical functions, its high level play is something I have not been able to donate as much time to, then the metagame should shift regularly and wins should exchange hands as certain teams pick up currently powerful builds faster than others. If all champions have been equal for years, then that is equivalent to a stale metagame. And I think that a shifting metagame is better than a perfectly balanced one to be honest.
decided by say a star player running away with a lead or a team with a draft advantage and not seeming as though they need super-detailed plans as the game goes on.
That's called a 1 core lineup, and traditionally it has been very popular in DotA. However, within the past couple of years, that has changed a lot as Icefrog/Valve seem to favor making the game more action oriented in the mid game. Running a 1 core these days is extremely risky, and it comes down a lot more to the people supporting the 1 player rather than the player himself. Teams tend to run 2-3 core these days, depending on the team.
Drafting is part of the game. Getting severely outdrafted means you will probably lose the game. Kind of like how in Magic, some matchups are nearly unwinnable. However, that doesn't happen very often at the pro level to such an extent that the game is already decided any more so than it is in LoL. Think of it like this: a team draft is a plan, and the gameplay is the execution of that plan.
Like I said earlier, picking and counterpicking comes down to a lot of hidden power, that also comes with the burden of knowledge of knowing both laning and teamplay matchups against your counterparts for all the unique 108 champions. While the draft phase of DOTA is very deep, it may be a bit much for the casual player to take in. I will invest more time in research into the DOTA pro scene, as I am a bit uninformed, at least compared to my League pro scene knowledge, but it basically boils down to the fact that more people enjoy competitive League because of how it's catered towards being watchable.
A lot of the people in this thread seem to be bubbling over in the arguments.
Matter of fact is, LoL is being built and formed so that in can be watched. Riot wants to take over with League, so they're building it to be an entertaining spectator sport that looks fun, so that even mediocre players will then log on, buy a new champ or skin or rune page and try to replicate that awesome play they saw the pros doing on Twitch. The reason people like League of Legends more than DOTA is because it is in the process of being changed into one of the biggest cash cows the world has ever seen. It was built to make people like it, and they do. It's exciting, it's fast-paced, pros make lots of cash off it, it's got some nice visuals that aren't hard on the eyes like DOTA is, the bright colors naturally amp up viewers. They have tons of big name sponsors for their teams at this point, and all your friends are playing it, so you should to.
Moving past the very obvious point that I felt needed to be said, I've played LoL since right after it left Beta. I love League of Legends. Lots of changes have happened, I've probably played 4000~ games. I consistently watch competitive matches. I'm not even in platinum yet. LoL has a very deep mechanical skill ceiling, and I find that interesting. DOTA is cool in a lot of ways. The champions all feel very different, and do very different things. You have a lot of freedom. But that puts a large burden on you to know what you should be doing all the time, and it can vary from game to game. Combined with the large dearth of knowledge looming over your head, even greater than League's or other MOBAs I've played like Smite, HON, or Demigod, this feels like a larger barrier to entry than other MOBAs. It also feels very slow paced when everyone knows what they're doing. Playmaking with twitch mechanics, snowballs, and the tough fought comebacks that ensue, have been criticized in this thread, but they're some of the reasons I love League.
I will say that in some 5 or so years now, the community has changed a lot. I remember seeing Pendragon, Veigar the Horrible, Phreak, and even the occasional Tryndamere posts on the forums for some awesome community stuff that was going on. We still have some really awesome people in the community, but now it gets drowned out a bit by the dregs that inevitably eek in when you have a player base this large. The game is less complex than DOTA as well, I don't think you can argue that. But complexity creep is a thing that DOTA has to worry about. Adding more heroes with unique abilities will become a problem. And complexity isn't always a good thing. Simple gameplay executed well is very appealing, and the way the game has changed over 5~ years is very interesting. Some people in here have been toting DOTA's balance, but the rise and fall of champions in a metagame is a usual thing for competitive games, and if you don't have a metagame with tiers of picks, then your high level players aren't working hard enough to break the meta. NA didn't really understand how important objectives were until teams like Gambit and Korean teams like Najin Black Sword came in and instilled in the pros here the idea that kills should always lead to objectives. Because of that some champions who aren't able to secure objectives well have fallen out of favor at points. Take Garen, in solo queue his kill potential is high when played correctly. He also farms well. He isn't picked because he offers nothing to sieges, or monster control, and his teamfight presence is dependent on how fed he got in lane.
I'm rambling, so I'll stop for now but please reply with any thoughts. I'd like to hear some more arguments.
Ok, I just started watching Oreimo. I'm at episode 3 so far, but it's good. A slice of life comedy. It's a good change, different from K-On on some aspects. Drawings are good and smooth, plot is interesting and the music is catching our attention without falling into annoying (like in some games and animes). A bright anime made for afternoon watching when you just want to relax on a sunny day.
I love Oreimo, but it jumps the shark a bit in S2. I would still recommend you continue with it.
Just finished watching B Gata H Kei & reading Bakuman. B Gata H Kei had a lot more heart than I thought it would. If it was in season it would be very enjoyable, but as something I cleared about my backlog it was only okay. Very fun show though.
Bakuman was great. I had a few problems with it but I found it much more enjoyable than Death Note. It was a great shounen I'll look back on fondly.
Also watching Welcome to the NHK finally. Just finished episode 4. Honestly my backlog is running low, I'll need to reload soon.
Watching IEM 8 and Millenium just dropped the ball against Fnatic hard. Both teams played very poorly and the game went to 72~ minutes. EU has been very, very lacking lately. I hope Gambit at least has a strong showing against TPA coming up. Anyone else following the pro scene at the moment?
2 straight games in which my "support" was a burst mage and took farm from me every single chance they could and never warded. I had to buy a Sightstone because it was that bad. When I tried to go to another lane to farm they followed me and did the same thing.
Then they starting asking me why I do no damage while the enemy team adc does damage. I just wanted to destroy their computer when they said that.
If people really don't want to play support or at least play the role properly they should just dodge and save me the trouble of wasting 20-35 minutes.
I would try maybe taking the role of support. I know it's the one hated role where you're the scapegoat, but it's way better than having a troll throw your game. Hope it helps
This. Especially because right now is a great time to get into supports. They're extremely powerful right now, and very satisfying to play. You can carry the lane on your back and make plays mid game easily with roam. It's a support paradise right now.
Something I've been wondering recently: why don't they do something about Kassadin? As far as I can tell, he's quite literally on permaban status in LCS. I can't recall seeing a game where he wasn't banned out. That can't be healthy.
They do have PBE things on him, but I feel like he needs a rework: flashes every 9 seconds looks and sort of feels overpowered. Although CC is great against him, no one seems to use it Or you can use a 100-0 AD assassin against him. When he riftwalks, you have a 7 second window till he can flash again. Kill him in these seven seconds. If he Q's, you have a 4.5 second window to kill him. I find that Talon and Kha-Zix are great against him. And buying banshee's really helps
The PBE changes ARE a rework. They're never getting rid of Riftwalk, so they'll balance him around it - much like Twisted Fate is one of the weakest champs in the whole game except for his ult (which is gamebreaking).
This is kind of a problem with a lot of the original forty. They have kits that can tend to be a bit outdated, except they have one ability or piece of their kit that really just destroys the game. Twisted Fate was actually the exception originally, he had three skills that would be laughed out of the room in terms of balance at this point. A 60% global slow that revealed all your enemies, a global teleport on a low cooldown, like Ashe arrow low, and a 2 second aoe stun on a 5-6 second cooldown with a good ap ratio that stunned towers and wasn't a skillshot. But look at the other original 40 champs who see play, it's almost always because of one specific part of their kit and not the synergy of it. Ali's q->w is like a malph up that does more damage to one person on a 14 second cd. Annie's passive gave her insane power early and in trades, besides that she's just a champ with mediocre scaling on 4 decent abilities. Veigar was just played in LCS because Event Horizon is both huge and an incredibly long stun. Fiddle's pre-nerf fear was insane, as was Rammus' taunt. Highlander is a tough ability to balance. Trynd's ult is really dangerous as well.
The list goes on. The design philosophy for League has changed a lot since then. You can really see it even now, and it puts the balancing team in an awkward spot because what used to be commonplace is now discouraged. It really sucks to see some of the old cool champs get punished for it, but thems the breaks.
Top tier is Amumu, Rammus, Vi, J4, Elise, and Kha Zix
Wu & Olaf have seen competitive play within the last week. They're two of the strongest contenders on that list, barring Kha'Zix. Rammus, Amumu, & J4 to a lesser extent dominate lower brackets due to the power of their kits and do powerful things, but are easy to work around, and in the case of J4 probably too weak numbers wise at this point.
Wukong has the most powerful AD ultimate in the game, with massive damage potential on top of potent cc and he combos insanely well with Yasuo coming out of mid lane. You take him jungle to avoid his weak laning phase, and late if you're losing teamfights while going even with a Wukong you need to change things about your team. This even holds true in solo, as a Wukong that goes even gets strong enough to carry fights hard. You'd have to be very behind or very uncoordinated to lose a fight after a solid Wukong ult.
Olaf is a powerful diving champion and a great answer to both tanks and assassins, which make up most of the current meta. He ignores the single cc most assassins have, and the multitude of cc tanks have, is bulky, hits hard and chases hard. He's just solid against the current meta of cc and burst winning fights. He also gets on to Jinx well who has a hard time peeling him off.
So what are good junglers? I've wanted to get kha for days in ranked, and if I don't pick him, the other team does (damn 4th pick).
So last game, after being harassed by a premade in the champ select, I decided to just take amumu (which I haven't played since season 2, and never really more than a handful of games)
11/2/9.
Elise, Wukong, Kha'zix, Vi, Udyr, Lee Sin, & Olaf are what I would identify as the strong junglers at the moment.
Implying Harem can't make great anime?
I think the problem is that a bunch of the spirit stone junglers got nerfed pre-Feral Flare. Vi, Elise, Wukong, and Kha'zix were all nerfed to different extents pre-FF, and Pantheon was nerfed a bit before that. While I agree that the spirit stone junglers are probably underplayed right now, I do think they're in general worse. You have to be really good to play Kha or Elise and make a big impact imo, and Wukong and Vi's number nerfs hurt just enough that people want to play other junglers. They're still both great junglers, and Wukong's ult is still the biggest impact any jungler can bring to the game, but they're just not as strong in the mindset of "It's solo queue, I'm gonna put my carry pants on."
What makes you think this? Have you had bad experiences with WW jungles post 4.5?
Have you played with WW lately? He's so strong that he's bannable, even up to high elos. Meanwhile the few Vi nerfs she's gotten have made her a really risky pick, particularly since she's bad with Feral Flare, which is the best item they've released since preseason 3 Black Cleaver. I've been playing 4.5 more and I'm convinced that in the hands of a skilled player WW is stronger than Xin Zhao, who I have been unimpressed with despite the popularity. Also with the popularity of Lucian, Vi's anti carry role is less necessary than normal, as she is not particularly good at killing him especially with just a bit of peel, and can give her a face full of culling after disengaging. I love Vi, my winrate pre nerfs with her was about 87% this season across 15 games. I still think she's good. But claiming she's comparable to WW late game or better than him currently are both patently false.
I don't know how many different answers you have in DOTA for any given strategy, but I would like to point out that there are plenty of strong options in LoL that exist that never get discovered, or get discovered months after they are powerful enough to show up. It's not just about meta shifts, even with millions of experienced players trying new things, not every powerful strategy is discovered for every patch, particularly when the amount of high level team play going on in LoL is not that much compared to the development of the solo queue metagame.
I will also say that while those stable strategies exist to an extent, because of how much more items mean for defining a role in league and how many champions can fill the role you want from a mid or top champion in different capacities. Tops can be straight tanks, bruisers, assassins, fighters, or straight lane bullies like Teemo, Quinn, and Urgot. Mids can be the typical burst mages, siege clear, tanks, anti-mages, assassins, and supports.
DOTA is probably a deeper game than LoL. But to enjoy how deep a game it is you really need to get heavily into DOTA. League can be a pick up and play game for a lot of people. I'm sure some people have done so for DOTA as well, but to me it just seems the game necessarily takes up more of your time to get full enjoyment from it.
That wasn't the point of that post. Read the second sentence. WW and Vi perform different roles. Vi is early->midgame focused, WW is mid->late focused. WW is sustained DPS and chase/cleanup with some target lockup, Vi is hard engage anti-carry. If a fight drags on WW takes over, he works well with multiple threats. Vi works well with a pick lockdown team with supports such as annie or leona, but I would rather stick WW with a Karma or Lulu, and Shyvana or Trundle are WW's friends whereas Vi works better with Renek or Nid or some other heavy burst top laner. They're just different. If anything I would say that WW has supplanted Udyr and is more powerful than Udyr was. The point is you don't pick WW instead of Vi. If your team wants what Vi brings to the table, you pick Vi, if you want a champ that does what WW does pick WW. I love Vi and have done extremely well with her, and only rarely play WW. This isn't a fanboy thing. This is just what I've seen from WW since 4.5 hit.
I would say that the gameplay itself, the thing that players see is less deep yes. LoL has more interactions at a faster pace in general than DOTA does. There are less kinds of interactions, but as far as spectating is concerned that's probably a positive. Like auras, team compositions winning games is usually more of a hidden factor, at least compared to individual flashy play, which is what draws a lot of people. I wont say DOTA 2 is worse than LoL, but LoL has quite a few legs up on in that make it more popular for good reason. And the implication that time allows you to perfect a metagame would indicate that the metagame itself is stale. This is somewhat a reply to Doku, but is also something to keep in mind in general. If DOTA's metagame evolves as much as LoL's does, which I am not at liberty to say as while I am quite aware of DOTA's mechanical functions, its high level play is something I have not been able to donate as much time to, then the metagame should shift regularly and wins should exchange hands as certain teams pick up currently powerful builds faster than others. If all champions have been equal for years, then that is equivalent to a stale metagame. And I think that a shifting metagame is better than a perfectly balanced one to be honest.
Like I said earlier, picking and counterpicking comes down to a lot of hidden power, that also comes with the burden of knowledge of knowing both laning and teamplay matchups against your counterparts for all the unique 108 champions. While the draft phase of DOTA is very deep, it may be a bit much for the casual player to take in. I will invest more time in research into the DOTA pro scene, as I am a bit uninformed, at least compared to my League pro scene knowledge, but it basically boils down to the fact that more people enjoy competitive League because of how it's catered towards being watchable.
Matter of fact is, LoL is being built and formed so that in can be watched. Riot wants to take over with League, so they're building it to be an entertaining spectator sport that looks fun, so that even mediocre players will then log on, buy a new champ or skin or rune page and try to replicate that awesome play they saw the pros doing on Twitch. The reason people like League of Legends more than DOTA is because it is in the process of being changed into one of the biggest cash cows the world has ever seen. It was built to make people like it, and they do. It's exciting, it's fast-paced, pros make lots of cash off it, it's got some nice visuals that aren't hard on the eyes like DOTA is, the bright colors naturally amp up viewers. They have tons of big name sponsors for their teams at this point, and all your friends are playing it, so you should to.
Moving past the very obvious point that I felt needed to be said, I've played LoL since right after it left Beta. I love League of Legends. Lots of changes have happened, I've probably played 4000~ games. I consistently watch competitive matches. I'm not even in platinum yet. LoL has a very deep mechanical skill ceiling, and I find that interesting. DOTA is cool in a lot of ways. The champions all feel very different, and do very different things. You have a lot of freedom. But that puts a large burden on you to know what you should be doing all the time, and it can vary from game to game. Combined with the large dearth of knowledge looming over your head, even greater than League's or other MOBAs I've played like Smite, HON, or Demigod, this feels like a larger barrier to entry than other MOBAs. It also feels very slow paced when everyone knows what they're doing. Playmaking with twitch mechanics, snowballs, and the tough fought comebacks that ensue, have been criticized in this thread, but they're some of the reasons I love League.
I will say that in some 5 or so years now, the community has changed a lot. I remember seeing Pendragon, Veigar the Horrible, Phreak, and even the occasional Tryndamere posts on the forums for some awesome community stuff that was going on. We still have some really awesome people in the community, but now it gets drowned out a bit by the dregs that inevitably eek in when you have a player base this large. The game is less complex than DOTA as well, I don't think you can argue that. But complexity creep is a thing that DOTA has to worry about. Adding more heroes with unique abilities will become a problem. And complexity isn't always a good thing. Simple gameplay executed well is very appealing, and the way the game has changed over 5~ years is very interesting. Some people in here have been toting DOTA's balance, but the rise and fall of champions in a metagame is a usual thing for competitive games, and if you don't have a metagame with tiers of picks, then your high level players aren't working hard enough to break the meta. NA didn't really understand how important objectives were until teams like Gambit and Korean teams like Najin Black Sword came in and instilled in the pros here the idea that kills should always lead to objectives. Because of that some champions who aren't able to secure objectives well have fallen out of favor at points. Take Garen, in solo queue his kill potential is high when played correctly. He also farms well. He isn't picked because he offers nothing to sieges, or monster control, and his teamfight presence is dependent on how fed he got in lane.
I'm rambling, so I'll stop for now but please reply with any thoughts. I'd like to hear some more arguments.
I love Oreimo, but it jumps the shark a bit in S2. I would still recommend you continue with it.
Just finished watching B Gata H Kei & reading Bakuman. B Gata H Kei had a lot more heart than I thought it would. If it was in season it would be very enjoyable, but as something I cleared about my backlog it was only okay. Very fun show though.
Bakuman was great. I had a few problems with it but I found it much more enjoyable than Death Note. It was a great shounen I'll look back on fondly.
Also watching Welcome to the NHK finally. Just finished episode 4. Honestly my backlog is running low, I'll need to reload soon.
This. Especially because right now is a great time to get into supports. They're extremely powerful right now, and very satisfying to play. You can carry the lane on your back and make plays mid game easily with roam. It's a support paradise right now.
This is kind of a problem with a lot of the original forty. They have kits that can tend to be a bit outdated, except they have one ability or piece of their kit that really just destroys the game. Twisted Fate was actually the exception originally, he had three skills that would be laughed out of the room in terms of balance at this point. A 60% global slow that revealed all your enemies, a global teleport on a low cooldown, like Ashe arrow low, and a 2 second aoe stun on a 5-6 second cooldown with a good ap ratio that stunned towers and wasn't a skillshot. But look at the other original 40 champs who see play, it's almost always because of one specific part of their kit and not the synergy of it. Ali's q->w is like a malph up that does more damage to one person on a 14 second cd. Annie's passive gave her insane power early and in trades, besides that she's just a champ with mediocre scaling on 4 decent abilities. Veigar was just played in LCS because Event Horizon is both huge and an incredibly long stun. Fiddle's pre-nerf fear was insane, as was Rammus' taunt. Highlander is a tough ability to balance. Trynd's ult is really dangerous as well.
The list goes on. The design philosophy for League has changed a lot since then. You can really see it even now, and it puts the balancing team in an awkward spot because what used to be commonplace is now discouraged. It really sucks to see some of the old cool champs get punished for it, but thems the breaks.
Wu & Olaf have seen competitive play within the last week. They're two of the strongest contenders on that list, barring Kha'Zix. Rammus, Amumu, & J4 to a lesser extent dominate lower brackets due to the power of their kits and do powerful things, but are easy to work around, and in the case of J4 probably too weak numbers wise at this point.
Wukong has the most powerful AD ultimate in the game, with massive damage potential on top of potent cc and he combos insanely well with Yasuo coming out of mid lane. You take him jungle to avoid his weak laning phase, and late if you're losing teamfights while going even with a Wukong you need to change things about your team. This even holds true in solo, as a Wukong that goes even gets strong enough to carry fights hard. You'd have to be very behind or very uncoordinated to lose a fight after a solid Wukong ult.
Olaf is a powerful diving champion and a great answer to both tanks and assassins, which make up most of the current meta. He ignores the single cc most assassins have, and the multitude of cc tanks have, is bulky, hits hard and chases hard. He's just solid against the current meta of cc and burst winning fights. He also gets on to Jinx well who has a hard time peeling him off.
Elise, Wukong, Kha'zix, Vi, Udyr, Lee Sin, & Olaf are what I would identify as the strong junglers at the moment.