There is a line of thought that goes something like this:
Some heroes (or units, or strategies) are simply OP (overpowered). It’s very hard to get balance exactly right, and because the designers are human, they will inevitably make certain heroes (units, talents, etc) more powerful than others.
This simplifies player choice immensely: pick the OP thing! Anything else is throwing—there is no reason to pick anything else.
I don’t agree with this line of thought. Let’s look at why.
The biggest reason is that this assumes a single dimension of power. We could call this the “Dragonball Z Theory” of power, in which you can sensibly talk about someone’s “power level.”
In very simple scenarios, this works fine. Who can run faster? Who can lift more? Who has more cash in the bank?
But it doesn’t take much to complicate things. For instance: which is stronger: rock, paper, or scissors?
But here’s a much more interesting question: if the enemy has rock, and your two choices were scissors that were a little too powerful, or paper that’s a little too weak, which do you pick?
The paper, duh. Even with strong scissors, you’re not gonna cut rock. The way to beat rock is to wrap it up and cover it, period. You can try and cut the rock with OP scissors, if you want. Good luck with that.
In other words: more important than something’s “objective power level” (whatever that means), is whether it’s distinct. If it’s distinct, that means it has access to some niche nothing else does. It might not be a big niche. But within that niche, it is the best possible choice, and thus won’t be competed out of existence.
This is not abstract, idealist theory. This shows up in the red-in-tooth-and-claw world of nature as well:
Mathematical biologists have found that nature is rife with ad hoc “counter systems” (my phrasing, not theirs). From mating strategies of lizards to chemical traits of bacteria, rock-paper-scissors games (or “intransitive competition,” in the sense that A>B, B>C, does not imply A>C) from stable equilibria—in other words, they’re the rule rather than the exception.
Finding the Tao 