How to measure utility

Just another question on how the game works. How is utility measured? What makes a character a utility god compared to one who has nothing? Is it just the sheer amount of things they can do/counter, or is there more to this?

Comments

BringPopcorn

Play the Champ and figure out if his kit is useful.
Does he have power control? Debuffs? Immunities? Shut down other champs?

DUHveed

The dictionary’s definition of utility is “the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial.” So basically any champ that has an ability to bypass, ignore, turn off an ability etc has some type of utility. Granted, some champs have far more extensive utility.
Example: OG Abomination is poison immune but it doesn’t mean he’s likely ever going to be your first choice against a 400k health pool Ibom.
Another example: Warlock a lot of times considered a Swiss Army knife of utility. Triple immune champ, he has passive heal block, power drain, and big damage on sp2s while infections are up. And if he’s awakened he punishes the opponent with degen while attempting to heal while infected.
Part of determining a champ’s utility depends on reading through their kit, practicing matchups and game knowledge of who works and who doesn’t.

DNA3000

Just another question on how the game works. How is utility measured? What makes a character a utility god compared to one who has nothing? Is it just the sheer amount of things they can do/counter, or is there more to this?

Historically, the term "utility" was used to describe champion abilities that involved anything other than directly dealing damage. Healing was utility. Stuns were utility. Power control, ability accuracy reduction, anything else besides damage. Star Lord, back in the day, was considered a high damage low utility champion.

In more recent times, that definition has relaxed a little bit. For example, Fury buffs increase attack rating, so that's very obviously a damage dealing ability. But nowadays we have nodes like Caustic Temper where you deal 90% less damage unless you have Fury buffs. Some people would argue that a champ that is poison immune and has fury buffs has utility - that utility being the ability to deal with Caustic Temper - that goes beyond their ability to just deal damage.

No two players are going to 100% agree on what is utility. The playcontestofchampions website lists Hercules as having moderate utility (3 out of 5). It might have even been lower than that initially. But given how wide a range of situations he's useful in (besides his obvious benefits from immortality he also has true sense which allows him to bypass auto block and miss mechanics) you could argue his situational utility is huge.

These days, I think a more commonly accepted idea behind utility, at least in the upper to end game, is a measure of how many different situations can the champ deal with effectively. Utility is roughly synonymous with "counters.:" The more things you counter, the higher your utility. But precisely how you get there is a very debatable thing.

DUHveed

Thanks DNA. That was the point I was trying to make with the Warlock example