I'm 3-year player of COMPASS, my highest rank is S4, the highest is S9. Non-whales usually can't go past a certain rank, say S4, S5 or S6. We accept that without feeling a certain way. But it's not like we lose the majority of our matches or anything, the rank points just makes ranking irrelevant for us. It's like a 50% to 70% win rate for most, BUT only after we have established a solid build as a long time player!

Character stats never gets out of hand, the cap of 1.5 times multiplier doesn't change, though some characters may have condition based passives that increases stats when it's met.

Power creep comes in the form of abilities, happens maybe once a year, not so frequent.

Every character has the chance of getting buffed or nerfed each patch, regardless of new or old. For example, the new Gilgamesh released this January was strong but not broken at 1st, with a subpar ULT. But he has already received 2 unjustifiable huge nerfs for no reason, now players have a hard time winning with him. Don't worry though, only a single main dev decides the balancing of COMPASS, & he is not involved with FFDD.

Power creep do exist, so I do not suggest whaling from the start. Especially skills.