Why did we stop playing Olaf again?

sanassi·7/26/2014, 3:34:49 PM·1 votes·1,076 views

So with a few buffs upcoming in the pbe, I was considering picking up olaf again. However, now that I am doing this, I'm starting to wonder why I ever set him down in the first place. I know that the general consensus was that he was nerfed into obscurity a while back, but I can't for the life of me understand why as the last nerf I can see to him happened in 4.1 where his q had its slow slightly brought down. I don't feel like a small chip off his Q slow should have brought him all the way from central jungle dominance with good top lane potential to being completely unplayed... Is there any other nerfs I missed, or did something in the overall meta shift to make him weaker?

4 Comments

12tales7/26/2014, 7:46:39 PM1 votes

He scales very poorly into the mid and late game, basically regardless of how well you do in lane. With nothing but a weak, long cooldown skillshot slow, and no mobility, he's more or less incapable of peeling or diving, and if you build him to deal damage, you just explode under focus because you're an immobile melee.

TecToNiiC7/26/2014, 11:47:30 PM1 votes

Sivir.

When she stopped seeing play so did he as she was his best way to quickly get into the enemy team

Mansana7/27/2014, 2:25:49 AM1 votes

After his reworked and buffed kit they kinda nerfed him again cause he was too good of an aggressive jungler/top. His skills kinda contradict each other on his role of being a tanky bruiser. Build tank, you do no damage. Build full AD you get bursted and destroyed. The AD bruisers that build full damage and are useful at least have mobility and/or have some type of defensive tactic which Olaf doesn't. Riven, Tryndamere, Shyvahana, Renekton are prime examples of top laners that do goods amount of damage and yet can take a lot of it. Jungle Olaf seems quite out of place since his small nerf. He's basically back where he started at season 3 and for the same reason.

TL;DR: Olaf was OP S2-S3, Riot Nerfed, Riot tried to correct their mistake via buff, didn't quite work out in the long run.

IMO, he just has a badly designed kit that doesn't realistically work together. It's pretty hard to balance.

ZXDYKioaMx7/28/2014, 3:47:01 AM1 votes

The same reason Sion isn't played. Both Sion and Olaf are still within the top 5 or so duelists in the game. The problem is the other duelists have better mobility. I recently played Olaf (to much success). I was able to face to face outduel a Fiora and Lee Sin who jumped on me simultaneously. I blew my ult, all 3 of us sat there using our skills, no one dodged anything, And I wrecked them both as Olaf. Now the problem is at a certain level an opponent will recognize that although Olaf is not meta he is still unduelable 95% of the time and they will just kill you at range and kite you to death.

If Olaf had a dash he'd jump from UP (Underplayed) to OP (Overplayed) or even PP (Proplay). He needs to somehow keep his slow while gaining a dash/gap closer.

And personally I think Olaf's kit synergizes decently. Its a bit tricky since his passive and true damage lean you to build tanky with built in damage. But his true damage passive and built in attack speed/life steal lean you to build damage/attack speed. Olaf item 3153 item 3071 item 3143 item 3065 item 3074 item 3111 item 3047

I recommend a build similar to that. You get 3 offensive items and 3 1/2 defense items. The item 3153 great since it adds sustain it also adds attack speed which is amazing on Olaf. Every basic attack lowers Olafs true damage burst by 1 second so the attack speed from means you get to use the true damage more. And the active on it allows you to stick to your target better since that is Olaf's biggest weakness. The item 3074 and item 3071 add damage which makes you unbeatable in a face to face duel due to your passive. Also the health from is good in general. The remaining items are the most common defense items and are just good in any situation.