Update on Teemo changes

RiotJag·6/19/2019, 7:44:21 PM·1 votes·121,485 views

Hey all, wanted to update you on where we're at with the Teemo changes we were experimenting with.

After a lot of feedback from players, we're going to pull out the changes. Some Teemo players liked them, some hated them, and we weren't comfortable shipping something for Teemo without his entire playerbase being happy about it. I'm looking into a few small QoL changes we could try as a follow-up in the near future.

Thanks for everyone who played him on PBE, we really appreciate it!

124 Comments

Aatrox Airlines6/19/2019, 8:05:55 PM45 votes

we weren't comfortable shipping something without the entire playerbase being happy about it

flashback to aatrox rework

Caitlyn FTW6/19/2019, 7:48:53 PM34 votes

[deleted]

fraggleroc6/19/2019, 11:00:45 PM18 votes

Teemo needs a new passive -

Global Immunity to Big Streamer and "friends" (tm)

Sukishoo6/19/2019, 8:50:49 PM18 votes

Teemo without his entire playerbase being happy about it

You realize that is never going to happen right? There's always going to be someone that dislikes or likes something vs someone else.

Cosmonaut Teemo6/20/2019, 2:58:17 AM10 votes

As a Dedicated Teemo main who has played him for many years, I have mixed feelings. I am glad that you considered the feelings of the playerbase, and that you took time to communicate and work with us. But I also believed the gameplay proposal you made was looking in the right direction for Teemo, and I thought that the rework really had potential to fix some of his most glaring and dated weaknesses, like mobility (it says something when the swift scout isn't, you know, swift).

All I can say with certainty is that if Teemo ever gets a visual update in the future, please stay true to Teemo's identity as a champion. The elements that make Teemo, Teemo. Staying true to those iconic pieces of his character such as Shrooms, Poison, Blind, and Stealth will keep him the champion that people love. I think that some of the ideas you already proposed were good in that regard, and I think if he ever does get updated, I hope that he feels like the same champion he has always been, and never loses what makes him fun and unique in League's roster.

Citizen Insane 96/19/2019, 7:51:59 PM8 votes

I think Teemo would be much better suited for a VGU in the next couple of years. He's an incredibly dated champion. (visually and gameplay wise)

Satans Yordle6/20/2019, 6:17:10 AM5 votes

..... so fucked up.... I really liked teemo rework u shouldve just changed his W a little and the rework was good... But no lets make another aatrox and ryze rework.... lets do morde rework, lets do akali rework but if its teemo lets drop it ... like thanks a lot. The champ is pretty weak right now. I main him and I kinda do a lot with him but that is because I have 1 000 000 points on him nothing more nothing less. Morde is OP as shit right now but no worries u are happy with it ... U kinda really lost me with that one I was looking forward for his rework...

One april fools joke that started February so people could think that till april will be live..... and continued 5 months.... GG rito gg...

AnOaklandRaider6/19/2019, 10:00:06 PM5 votes

Why couldn't we do this with the Akali rework? You guys just pulled the trigger on that one all willy nilly. I lose respect for this company more every day.

Mr Ponty6/19/2019, 8:04:49 PM4 votes

thanks, i like the humility of stepping down. Teemo could use some love on his W, but that's about it, the spell is lack luster and somewhat decent at max rank, reduced cd and mana cost per level could be all he needs right now.

C9 Squeeky 6/19/2019, 9:51:22 PM4 votes

Meh. Some people just hate change.

G30SF6/19/2019, 10:39:28 PM4 votes

crying in blue boi: "ya just shipped it regardless of our community."

HubeartheGrizzly6/20/2019, 1:16:37 PM4 votes

I think the number one thing Teemo players were looking for with a Change to Teemo was updating his W and everything else was fine. Any chance of still looking into that as a mini rework in the future? I saw some suggestions for it which imo were real creative.

Best of luck for future developments.

Mecoes6/22/2019, 4:50:49 PM3 votes

Hey Jag,

Ive been playing teemo a long time, 2m+ mastery, I could give you some really good tips that arent unbalanced..

Obviously the one major problem is his movement. His base run speed is the lowest, for a swift scout, he should be closer to Nasus base starting speed. I think his 'w' shouldnt be there to bring his speed up to par, it should be something that gives him a combat advantage. Right now, the w passive is semi decent, but the active is just horrible. I think maybe turning the active into something with more duration, more boost, and maybe allow him to jump walls (like a talon) would make his active w not completely worthless. Today the active w is close to worthless, while the passive is jsut bringing his speed to par. Most other champs have stuns, shields, and other attack boosts associated with their speed boosts. Even, if you didnt do any wall jumping, i think making all his attack be true damage during this sprint phase would help the w.

Another thing that would just seem like a fix, would be the range on his ults. Not one other champ is limited in range on his ult. In the early game its really hard to use the mushrooms because he has to get really close, and with his w as it is, it invites death. I would really like to see someone extend the mushroom range to be the same for all 3 levels levels. I dont think breaks teemo, it will reduce alot of the deaths/damage he takes which is unnecessary though.

What you did with the 5 mushrooms on the PBE was also a step in the positive direction, i would keep that change and extend the time on the shrooms. People destroy shrooms all the time and it does make his ult avoidable quite easy, extending the time on them isnt game breaking. Maybe try 2 mins longer and see how much more ult damage he does over the course of a few games.

Teemo has a huge problem with gear dependency too, his base stats are really poor, including the regens. His base mana pool and regen should be higher. Again, nothing really game breaking here.

Also, please add the invis sticking for couple seconds after leaving a bush. That is a super fun change.

Giani Georgian6/20/2019, 7:58:09 AM3 votes

I liked the idea of switching the Passive with his E, it really gave Teemo an actual ability and not a second passive. Also, the interaction with other poison debuffs and making his Q a poison debuff as well were pretty good and I want them. Would love if his R gets more shrooms to carry as he levels up the ability.

Everything else, however, was pretty harsh for Teemo: lowering his AP ratios, stealth duration, base damage and attack speed... Indeed, they were targeted at reducing frustration when facing him, but don't gut his damage.

Hopefully you'll find a better way to make Teemo a better champion for everyone, either to play as, with or against.

Altonius Amakiir6/20/2019, 8:25:38 AM3 votes

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo...

Really bums me out to see all those cool changes that just make the kit feel more alive and really bring out the guerilla warfare thematic he has going, just for it to be thrown away. Like you had it sitting on PBE for literal months without giving us an update on it, then you tell us you would take it down to try a slightly different iteration based on feedback... then it's just done.

If you guys do this in the future I think it needs to be handled better, it was dead silence for months and every decision about it was made behind the scenes it feels. Either way this had gone (shipped or dead) I feel like there would have been severe outrage simply because there was no communication. People are going to feel they had more of a majority towards their own opinion and feel jipped on this.


Specifically getting into what I feel I've been jipped on:

We were told it would be a slow burn.

We were told that it was being taken off PBE to try another iteration based off of feedback.

It was insinuated along with these that because it was slow burn and feedback was being taken carefully over it that time would be taken to get it right.

Given all this, we had no reason to believe it would just be dropped. I expected more communication than what we got, maybe talking about what was and wasn't liked. It feels like some parts of the kit and the basic concepts were okay seeing as a lot of it stuck around in the second iteration. Why isn't that being worked with?


This whole message feels like a suckerpunch honestly. From my point of view you dangled some changes (that while they weren't perfect, I liked) in front of me for months in silence, changed it slightly, then threw it in the trash. No explanation as to what wasn't promising in it/disliked, why there was only one change of it, why the first one was untouched for months, why you even bothered with those changes if you knew the direction was disliked, and why it's just being dropped instead of trying a different direction or putting it on hold until you have a better one.

This whole thing honestly smells fishy to me, I don't think you guys are dumb, but it feels like this is being handled in a dumb way. To me it makes no sense how things were done. I assume the silence and the duration for the first iteration was to gather as much feedback as possible, make sure you had an accurate opinion on Teemo for all regions. Fine. But if that was the case you would know exactly what people do or do not like about the changes and how many approve/disapprove of individual changes (you should be able to say they like the E moved to passive, but not the implementation of the new stealth for example). But you went ahead and did another change that was very similar to the first one. This should indicate a general liking of the direction, and that it only needs some tweaks. But now you're message says it was very split. So why was that change done then? Why wasn't there a whole new direction/changelist like with Ryze recently on the PBE? People showed dislike for the first iteration and the next day a completely different direction was put out, even went live. How could there not be a change on that level of magnitude from the original on the PBE, when the Teemo changes had months for feedback and data collection? It doesn't make sense to me.

PopcornBunni6/21/2019, 12:33:08 AM3 votes

Cool so you're putting AD ratios and multi on-hit procs back on Evelynn then?

Kermlit6/19/2019, 8:48:34 PM3 votes

Cough give us back ryze

NodirjonSattarov6/23/2019, 8:15:18 PM3 votes

we weren't comfortable shipping something for Teemo without his entire playerbase being happy about it

so its okay to not do this for Ryze?

Bastilean8/4/2019, 2:49:28 PM2 votes

Teemo needs a visual rework. You really can't address how out dated he is without that.

Chronabis6/20/2019, 9:18:22 AM2 votes

So when it comes to Teemo feedback is very important, but when it comes to the "biggest gameplay update Riot have ever done" no one cares. Nice.

Tsubaki6/20/2019, 11:17:25 AM2 votes

Thanks, hated the changes. Glad you listen those of us who likes current version more.

Elnur6/20/2019, 12:38:21 PM2 votes

I honestly don’t think you can make the entire play base for teemo happy but as long as the majority is fine with it then it should be good

A Scuttle Crab6/20/2019, 4:01:18 PM2 votes

Random River Crab Here.

Why is Teemo so special? This seems like a lot of attention. Other champions have left PBE to live servers in far worse states then this version of Teemo on the PBE. Fans crying out against an update is not a new thing it will almost always happen as champions get updated to more reasonable standards.

ZaneShadow6/20/2019, 11:07:22 PM2 votes

Hello Jag!

So, I was curious myself at how the rework was received and popped over to TeemoTalk and made a post asking questions. After what I read, I want to say it seems like everyone liked the core concept of what you were working on, the E/passive swap. While their opinions varried, people were happy with what you were attempting, even if they let their critiques sound louder than their praise

I know it can be discouraging canceling a project, no matter what the reason is. With League it can be extra tough as people get empassioned about something they really care about. But you did a great job, and I think the community (while negative) was excited about your attempt at a really difficult project.

Lookin forward to whatever you work on next!

https://www.reddit.com/r/TeemoTalk/comments/c2pzhm/your_thoughts_on_teemo_changes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ios_share_flow_optimization&utm_term=control_1

Agent 386/21/2019, 12:30:17 AM2 votes

This is a really great stance to revert a rework because the community isn't happy about it.

So I'm just wondering where this frame of mind was when you destroyed Evelynn for about half of her dedicated playerbase. Because I miss my old main and this new one is still, and will continue to be, hot garbage.

DrM9346/21/2019, 7:29:18 PM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Jag,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=3P4eu1WV,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-06-19T19:44:21.999+0000)

Hey all, wanted to update you on where we're at with the Teemo changes we were experimenting with.

After a lot of feedback from players, we're going to pull out the changes. Some Teemo players liked them, some hated them, and we weren't comfortable shipping something for Teemo without his entire playerbase being happy about it. I'm looking into a few small QoL changes we could try as a follow-up in the near future.

Thanks for everyone who played him on PBE, we really appreciate it!

Thank you for not nerfing his damage. Hopefully we still get the total mana and mana regen buffs. It would be nice to eventually switch his passive and E. That would have given him so much more versatility.

Can we at least get a reduced W cool down its so long at 17 seconds. Kennen E has a 10 seconds CD at rank one and goes down with rank. Riven E starts at 14 second CD and also goes down with rank. Renekton E has a 18 second CD at rank but still goes down with rank. Garen's Q has an 8 second CD. Tryndamere E has a 12 second CD rank one which goes down with rank, plus the CD refund on crits.

So why do all of these manaless champs have such low CD mobility spells. You can't call teemo a mobile champion if most other top laners have these spammable mobility spells they can use more often the game goes on.

SuperShadonic6/23/2019, 8:28:11 PM2 votes

So Glad about this. I absolutely hated the rework. I'm fine with Teemo as he is. Just up his shroom damage should be great as you literally have free items to counter both his R and passive. Back then in the days Hai pushed TSM and abused Teemo 1 game and you nerfed his shrooms to oblivion. Its been so many years, and so many more broken champs are here. MAKE SHROOMS GREAT AGAIN! Why? Because Teemo has no heals, no 1000 escapes or dashes, no invulnerability moves, no Hard CC. If on top of all this... you are giving free items to counter his passive and R... he needs a massive massive damage boost for all those downsides.

The new Teemo I'm glad has been left. He was like a nerfed version of twitch... less duration on stealth, less range, less damage, less lategame potential... and the only thing going for Teemo (which was Shrooms and Q) got there damage nerfed to hell. Good riddance that rework is gone.

Every single champ that's been reworked, I didn't like them, except a few. Those being Sivir, Ezreal and a few others.

Rebel Phoenix176/25/2019, 3:44:08 AM2 votes

I'm thankful the changes aren't being rushed out, but I'm a bit sad we didn't get to see more iteration before the changes got pulled. It feels like we basically sat on the third pass for 3 months when tons of feedback came in within the first couple weeks.

If you look again in the future, please put some thought into making his W interact with his (presumably) E stealth. I suggested two things to this end.

  1. W leaves the footprints that were added in the second pass, but that the footprints also have a weak poison or slow "poison" and would be visible even if Teemo is not. So you can choose to gain MS while invisible, but leave a foot trail behind for rushing.
  2. E invisibility range has a bonus MS ratio, so building MS or casting W lets you travel farther. In its last iteration, using W during E felt awkward because the invisibility wore off faster as a result of traveling faster. It would feel much smoother if the range scaled on bonus MS so that if I didn't stop moving I'd be invisible for roughly the same duration regardless of whether I cast W, the difference being the distance traveled.

This serves to give the Teemo options for how he should use his W and E, and can create interactions between E and passive. It would also incorporate the footstep mechanic as an optional tradeoff during stealth and is a detriment that isn't an obnoxious self slow or losing your invisibility to skillshots.

Also, please don't make the QoL change be the bouncing shrooms. It's really not that fun or exciting. I'd much rather just get a slightly longer toss range.

Neeko Neeko Niii6/25/2019, 7:16:45 AM2 votes

Just please make Teemo the swift scout and keep his satan identity.

Neeko Neeko Niii6/26/2019, 7:25:38 AM2 votes

Please, Teemo is really special for me. I am right now diamond II with Teemo. I really like his play style and his satan identity, please keep it. But if Teemo is the swift scout, I think he should be little bit more mobile but without dashes. "Move Quick" should be updated, maybe add some synergy with his other abilitys. Or give it someting unique, like "when you activate move quick all slows will be removed" (only Garen have this). Or add something like dodge chance during move quick. Teemo mostly don't have any supports, even though he is marked like marksman/assasin and this whould help him on his solo missions. Also I like how you want switch his "Guerrilla Warfare" and "Toxic Shot" but keep his invisibility as passive on his E without mana cost, most of new champions have the ability to always rely on without mana cost (Zoe, Neeko, Akali, Yuumi, Urgot). And guerrilla warfare active should be just something like "(you can active it only while invisible) Teemo will be slowed but can move short distance" or something simillar like that. After that, idea in last rework was less damage on blinding dart and noxious trap but more damage on toxic shot, I don't think this is good idea because Teemo can't really autoatack that much, during team fight because Teemo is really easy to focus. It's marksman without support.

Please leave feedback on my ideas, thank you all. Teemo

Wolfinator6/19/2019, 7:52:31 PM1 votes

Any word on the Malphite and MonkeyKing changes?