How important is it to the design team that a champion's kit thematically makes sense with their lore?
The high level answer is that it is important. Beyond that there are a lot of caveats. For example if we absolutely had to choose between good mechanics and good thematics, the former would probably win. Second, if the lore is pretty bad (Nocturne is a personal pet peeve for lore, though he's a cool champion overall), we'd rather update the story at some point than sacrifice the thematics in the short term.
As always, I tend to answer in terms of design philosophy not the current state of the game. You shouldn't use my answer to say "X's thematics don't match her lore, therefore we expect a change next patch." Just because something needs to be changed doesn't mean it's going to immediately be changed. Our wish list is probably as long or longer than yours.
As always, I tend to answer in terms of design philosophy not the current state of the game. You shouldn't use my answer to say "X's thematics don't match her lore, therefore we expect a change next patch." Just because something needs to be changed doesn't mean it's going to immediately be changed. Our wish list is probably as long or longer than yours.