So Riot, how do we balance Jax? (Besides banning him...)

Remlap1223·Jun 19, 2014·3 votes·704 views

As it stands right now, is the fifth most popular champion in the game, and probably would be #1 if he isn't currently banned in 85% of draft picks, followed by at around 80%, despite the removal of her silence. While I think LeBlanc is still a very big problem, and only a Nidalee-esque rework is going to fix her, this is mainly directed towards the Armsmaster of the League, who in my opinion is the most unbalanced champion in the game at the moment. Here's my reasoning behind this...

1. Jax is the only champion in the game that has a passive that can proc off itself. Garen, Mundo, Singed, and Vladimir are some champions whose passive scales with their builds, but Jax's also scales off the passive itself. Whenever Jax autoattacks's a minion or champion, he increases his attack speed. Which means that as he gains attack speed, he can attack more times, which in turn gives him more attack speed. This allows Jax to easily hit 6 max stacks of his passive late game in no time at all, allowing him to burst down and outduel any champion 1v1.

2. Like LeBlanc, Jax has a gap clear and an immobilize. Remember how Riot was talking about completely reworking Lee Sin on account of the fact that he could jump away from any situation? Jax is like that except even worse. His Leap Strike cooldown is significantly lower than that of Lee Sin's Safeguard, and at level 2, it is equal to that of Lee Sin's Safeguard pre 4.5. So basically once Jax levels that up (which everyone besides me does first) Jax gets a gap clear on 6 seconds that can jump to wards and minions at no trade-off. Sure Jax doesn't get a shield during that time, but that's where my next point comes in.

3. Jax has a 2 second INVULNERABILITY to auto attacks, that scales off of how much attacks it blocks, AND a hard crowd control. This is a big problem. It is easily one of the most overpowered abilities in the game right now, and coupled up with a Leap Strike, Jax can lock down even the fastest of champions. Unless your name is Olaf or Gangplank, you are not safe from the almighty power of Jax slapping you silly with his Counter Strike Leap Strike combo.

4. Jax has a perma ult that makes him do magic hybrid burst damage all the time, and gives him huge defenses if he builds all damage. Jax is meant to be a duelist, but as it stands right now due to his Empower and Grandmaster's Might, he's a tanky burst AP casting AD assassin that excels in literally leaping in and autoattacking champions to death, then lather, rinsing, and repeating for the Pentakeelz. But isn't Jax is extremely squishy if he builds all damage? Correct. But that's why you can build him as a tanky bruiser. His Grandmaster's might active may suffer as a result, but your defenses are permanent anyways, so it doesn't matter. You can activate the ultimate to literally be the front line of an all out assault in a 5v5, and STILL pick up a pentakill. But Jax has SOME form of counterplay right? Of course. But...

5. Jax's true counters are either not viable in the current meta ( ), or he outscales them late game where his true power shines ( .) And let's not forget the multitude of champions he counters top lane (not even going to bother listing all the champions he counters, cuz it's almost all of them.)

In conclusion, if I had to sum up Jax's biggest problem right now, it's the LeBlanc issue of having your cake and eating it too (going all in, and still having an escape option afterwards.) I have a couple ideas on how to fix Jax...

**1. ** Have Jax's passive scale whenever he gets hit by a champion ability or autoattack, and allow his basic attacks to refresh the duration, but not the ability to stack it himself.

2. Double Leap Strike's cooldown, and either give it a reduced cooldown when he leaps to an enemy champion, or refresh the cooldown when he kills or assists one.

3. Have Counter Strike block ONE autoattack or ability for 2 seconds, or have it stun when he autoattacks an enemy, and have a stun duration of the remaining time his ability. No cancelling it out himself, no increased damage for blocking an enemy attack.

4. Switch the active and passive parts of Grandmaster's Might. Lower Jax's base health and health scaling so he isn't the #2 highest health champion at level 1 behind Gangplank, and #3 highest health champion at 18 behind freaking Sion and Alistar, two of the tankiest champions in the game.

If you don't agree with the nerfs by themselves, here's some style points to make Jax's currently awesome kit cooler.

When Jax empowers Leap Strike, have it do magic AOE damage within 200 or so units. Jax literally hits an enemy so hard it explodes.
Allow Jax to Empower Counter Strike, have it knock up and have him spin to win (like a mini Wukong ult.)

So Riot please? I don't want to see Jax turning into Kassadin 2.0. And if you're not willing to at least tone Jax down slightly, at least buff Garen, Gangplank, Malphite, and Olaf so that they can curb the old new top lane god.

8 Comments

NeofederalistJun 19, 20141 votes

According to Lolking, his winrate across divisions doesn't seem that oppressive. So it seems that his perceived power is a lot greater than his actual ability to translate into game wins

If I were to make a change to Jax, it would deal with his ult. Riot likes to talk about "windows of opportunity" where champions are vulnerable, i.e. periods of time during which they trade much less effectively (generally when they burn their long cooldowns). The problem with Jax, as I see it is that, once he hits 6, he wants to fight you every 3 auto attacks, pretty much regardless of his other cooldowns, because the passive from his ult. In most lane matchups, a good Jax can consistently win 1v1s without even ulting once.

What if the passive was removed and just lumped into the active (maybe the active duration is increased, and the cooldown decreased a little)? Make him ult if he really wants to trade hard. Then once his ult is on cooldown, the opposing laner has a much better window with which to contest him.

Remlap1223Jun 19, 20141 votes

Winrate doesn't mean crap, it just shows how easy or hard a champion is to play (outliers like Urgot don't count because he is legitimately underpowered). LeBlanc has a 45% win rate pre-4.10 for a while because she isn't an easy champion to play. And like I mentioned, some of the stuff that makes Jax OP, LeBlanc has in her kit as well (after the silence removal, she's still a burst AP assassin with ranged attacks, gap clears and snares.)

Kyleman143Jun 19, 20141 votes

Wanna beat a team with a jax do ya? here is the key... beat down the rest of his team into a pulp while having your top laner fight him off by late game it doesnt matter if he is really strong if the rest of his team is no threat its gg you win

WorgslargJun 19, 20141 votes

IMO, removing his aoe stun and adding a braum type passive to his ult passive, say every 7 seconds it can stun a target again would go a long way toward balancing him.

His passive's seem fine to me, and no less imbalanced than tryndamere's.

I could see him not having the attack speed steroid, and his ult passive becomes his normal passive.

utDOOMJun 19, 20141 votes

Jax may be strong in numbers, but hes not actually that strong in game (just like poppy). If you look at him when he's played in the lcs, you don't see him carrying.

"1. Jax is the only champion in the game that has a passive that can proc off itself. Garen, Mundo, Singed, and Vladimir are some champions whose passive scales with their builds, but Jax's also scales off the passive itself. Whenever Jax autoattacks's a minion or champion, he increases his attack speed. Which means that as he gains attack speed, he can attack more times, which in turn gives him more attack speed. This allows Jax to easily hit 6 max stacks of his passive late game in no time at all, allowing him to burst down and outduel any champion 1v1."

He is meant to be strong in 1v1s. Since he's not amazing in teamfights unless he's really far ahead (my brother mains jax, so iv'e, seen alot of his gameplay), he is forced to splitpush. If he can't win most 1v1s, then he's useless. That is his biggest strength.

The main difference between leap strike and safegaurd is that leap strike costs mana. Jax devours mana in lane, especially if he spams abilities. If he has to spam leap strike to escape, he will usually run OOM fast. Maxing it for its cooldown reduction makes him even weaker early on then he already is. He also has to carry wards around wherever he goes, which takes gold away from his super expensive build. (he takes about 100 cs to just get his core)

This 2 second invulnerability is the main reason jax is a good bruiser. It keeps him from being completely kited and destroyed by adcs and allows him to stick to people a little bit better (name one bruiser that doesn't have any type of hard cc or alot of mobility). Jax's main weakness, as a bruiser, is that he can't stick to people like a riven or shyvanna. Attacks also only add a max of 50% damage to his counter strike.

(continued in next post)

utDOOMJun 19, 20141 votes

First of all, the defenses aren't permanent (not sure if you really meant to say that though). He is a hybrid bruiser. He is supposed to do alot of hybrid damage. Unless he's ahead, empower and grandmaster's might won't be able to kill you instantly, but if you try to sit and fight him then you will lose. He also can't be the front line unless he buys some sort of defenses, which, lowers the amount of damage he does. And i'll say it again, he has to be fed to wreck entire teams. He just snowballs hard.

%. But Jax has SOME form of counterplay right? Of course. But... Jax's true counters are either not viable in the current meta ( ), or he outscales them late game where his true power shines ( .) And let's not forget the multitude of champions he counters top lane (not even going to bother listing all the champions he counters, cuz it's almost all of them.) In conclusion, if I had to sum up Jax's biggest problem right now, it's the LeBlanc issue of having your cake and eating it too (going all in, and still having an escape option afterwards.) I have a couple ideas on how to fix Jax...

Pantheon, once he's ahead, takes a long while to fall off; which means, he can still kill jax throughout the game (keeping jax from snowballing) and snowball the game. Renekton does the same thing as panth except that he becomes a good tank late game that can still zone most squishies. Teemo serves the same purpose as jax; he is a split pusher with great 1v1 and pushing potential. He doesn;t fall off. In fact, his shrooms are even worse late game, and he can nuke squishies with his Q. He can even build a DFG so he can melt tanks too.

DR;TL: His mobility is gated by cooldowns (early on)and mana costs, and he is forced to buy wards (he needs maor gold), his passive and E gives him the 1v1 potential he needs, he needs to be fed for his ulti and empower to deal significant burst, and he is counterable. (didn't realize how long this got lol)

Remlap1223Jun 20, 20141 votes

First of all, the defenses aren't permanent (not sure if you really meant to say that though). He is a hybrid bruiser. He is supposed to do alot of hybrid damage. Unless he's ahead, empower and grandmaster's might won't be able to kill you instantly, but if you try to sit and fight him then you will lose. He also can't be the front line unless he buys some sort of defenses, which, lowers the amount of damage he does. And i'll say it again, he has to be fed to wreck entire teams. He just snowballs hard.

Never said the defenses were permanent. And like I mentioned beforehand, Jax isn't going to give you the option not to fight him unless you're hella good at kiting (Gangplank, Quinn, Teemo, and that's it.) As for the build I use, I build him with Feral Flare (or BORK), Trinity Force, Randuin's Omen, Spirit Visage, and Atma's Impaler. Over 3000 health, 25% crit chance, over 50% reduced magic damage with increased HP5 and 20% increased lifesteal, over 60% reduced physical damage and attack speed slow, and a 2.02 attack speed with fully stacked passive. The attack damage is only around 200, and the ability power is only around 60, but that's more than enough to melt the squishies, and easily regenerate all the damage they did so you can smack around some tanks.

Pantheon, once he's ahead, takes a long while to fall off; which means, he can still kill jax throughout the game (keeping jax from snowballing) and snowball the game. Renekton does the same thing as panth except that he becomes a good tank late game that can still zone most squishies. Teemo serves the same purpose as jax; he is a split pusher with great 1v1 and pushing potential. He doesn;t fall off. In fact, his shrooms are even worse late game, and he can nuke squishies with his Q. He can even build a DFG so he can melt tanks too.

Pantheon falls off instantly once the laning phase ends. His bread and butter is the ability to lock and burst down squishy (which all champions are early game) champions. After that he pokes and chases waiting for his Aegis to come back off cooldown. Renekton is just a tank after laning phase, nowhere near as effective, once again, as he was in laning phase. And Teemo is worthless in team fights. Unless you are stepping over a shroom field, or he blinds you and runs away, or autoattacks you when you have no magic resistance, Teemo is very limited in teamfights, and due to his natural squishiness and his team fight timebomb self, he's often focused first. Teemo is a carry yes, but he's no different from any other carrie in terms of lack of defense. The only two champions that can outduel Jax are Malphite and Nasus, and there's no way a Jax is going to let Nasus get farmed up in laning phase.

DR;TL: His mobility is gated by cooldowns (early on)and mana costs, and he is forced to buy wards (he needs maor gold), his passive and E gives him the 1v1 potential he needs, he needs to be fed for his ulti and empower to deal significant burst, and he is counterable. (didn't realize how long this got lol)

You seem to forget that it's season 4, and warding trinkets are free. You really only need to buy 2 wards during laning phase (use the trinket to ward the tribush, and use the actual stealth ward to ward the river to secure vision.) Nobody is forcing anyone to buy wards either. Unless the enemy jungle has an unhealthy obsession with top lane (in which case say goodbye to bot lane, and report jungler for refusing to cooperate with team) Jax will survive early laning phase, and even if he's against his counter, he just has to farm under tower until jungler ganks and Jax can jump in to help. The arguments you make are against a Jax player's nightmare of having a perfect storm of bad luck via counterpicks and an obsessive enemy jungler.

TL;DR: If Jax gets fed, he steamrolls everything. If Jax goes even, he simply waits until late game where he is given a chance to carry. Unless Jax gets steamrolled, or the game ends early, Jax will be a threat if he builds properly and has any basic understanding of the game

Remlap1223Jun 20, 20141 votes

Jax may be strong in numbers, but hes not actually that strong in game (just like poppy). If you look at him when he's played in the lcs, you don't see him carrying.

Last I checked Season 3's Champions had a Jax on their team. And Poppy is very strong, Morello has flat out said that he prays to the gods of gaming that people don't figure out how to play Poppy well.

The main difference between leap strike and safegaurd is that leap strike costs mana. Jax devours mana in lane, especially if he spams abilities. If he has to spam leap strike to escape, he will usually run OOM fast. Maxing it for its cooldown reduction makes him even weaker early on then he already is. He also has to carry wards around wherever he goes, which takes gold away from his super expensive build. (he takes about 100 cs to just get his core)

Mana scales, energy doesn't. Early game, yes, spamming abilities trashes your sustain, but late game mana regeneration and total mana is nowhere near as crushing, especially when Jax builds items like Triforce. Leap Strike also deals high scaling physical damage that fully scales with AD, and more than halfway scales with AP. Leap Strike isn't just a cheap escape (it is cheap, 65 mana for a jump that has 100% AD and 60% AP scaling is VERY generous), but it hits hard. Not even taking into account when you empower that. And you're throwing out the situation where he's losing lane from when jungler gets top happy, not the typical matchup. Also, his build isn't anymore expensive than anyone elses.

This 2 second invulnerability is the main reason jax is a good bruiser. It keeps him from being completely kited and destroyed by adcs and allows him to stick to people a little bit better (name one bruiser that doesn't have any type of hard cc or alot of mobility). Jax's main weakness, as a bruiser, is that he can't stick to people like a riven or shyvanna. Attacks also only add a max of 50% damage to his counter strike.

You don't seem to get it. Jax has hard CC AND a lot of mobility. Let's take some other bruisers for example: Lee Sin has a lot of mobility, but has no hard CC outside of his ultimate, Riven has high mobility and hard CC, but doesn't have the sustain to make extended trades, Shyvana has no crowd control whatsoever, Darius has a pull, but is a sitting duck, Gangplank has a poke, crowd control removal, and is naturally fast, but has no hard CC, and Pantheon has hard CC, very fast movement speed, but no escape options after that. And bringing up Lee Sin again, he doesn't have any problem with being kited, despite not having a freaking autoattack invincibility. And I don't know what you're thinking when you say that Jax can't stick to people, he has a targeted leap on a 6 second cooldown. If you can't stick to an enemy with that, it's time to go back to beginner bots. At least with Lee Sin's Q you can creep block it. And another testament to how much you know about Jax, it flat out says on his champion page, and I quote: