He is either a duskblade assassin or a full tank when he's supposed to be somewhere in between. Rather than nerfing his damage, which is what everyone complained about, they nerfed his tank stats instead. Utterly ridiculous. He's not an assassin, he's not a full tank, he's a fighter. Make it happen, riot.
Ratpie40 votesDusk blade can just be gone. It causes so many imbalances. Problem is that in between does not work right now. You be glass cause everybody (even tanks) are melting in seconds. If he was in between, it just means he would get melted without being able to put out enough damage to kill them first. This game has almost completely gone to a comic level of everyone being an assassin. Look at the top tier junglers/adcs/top they are almost all champs who can pop people. If you cannot kill people in 1-2 seconds, you are the punching bag.
PB4UAME8 votesWe literally have burst carries, and tanks, with the occasional enchanter support. Everything else is nonviable due to the hyper damage meta, and RIOTs gutting of defensive items, and constantly buffing and overloading ADC/assassin items to the point where defensive stats can not hold a candle to offensive scaling formulas after about 1.5 items, or 10-15 minutes into the game.
You need the massive CC, shields, and resists that tanks have innately for any defensive purchase beyond Zonhya's/GA (due to their uniques) to have any actual affect on your surviability.
Auz the Ripper1 votesIt’s not the ADC/assassin items that cause the surplus of damage, it’s the runes. The amount of basically free damage you get from them is pretty insane
BLIGHTBRINGER5 votesI can't express in words how true this is. I remember how back in season 5, when I played a tank, I could actually tank damage and now I take about 3 Auto's from ADC and a 2 abilities from Midlane, and Toplane and i'm already at 20% of my HP.
The only reason why I can see why people would say that it's still possibly the tank meta is because Tanks deal more damage, rather than being able to tank it.
HarrowR2 votesIts funny how we experience the same things differently,i quit during season 5 since i'm an adc main,it was horrible,tank items were dirt cheap while zeals and ie were like 3600 3700,and even so tanks were buffed like mad,i remember feeling completely useless since mid game,especially if fed,the tank would have basically 2 items over you,it felt so hopeless being chased down by a tank with 3k hp and 250 armor while your autos do like 50 damage to him,truly the most horrible league era for me,even with full build you still couldn't kill a tank in less than 25-30 shots,thats literally 20 seconds of pouring damage into him,you know how often it happens for you to be able to deal that damage freely? Never.. i mean ziggs was played bot lane instead of adcs,thats how bad it was
BLIGHTBRINGER3 votesReminds me of the 'ADC in 2017' meme when you talk about ADC's beig useless. Those are some dark times.
Battalion1 votesDon't know why you're getting downvoted. Everyone was a tank of some kind in S5. Everything gave HP, Sustain, or Defenses of some kind with damage items being stacked to hell so you only needed 1 or 2 to compete 1-2 damage items, boots, and 2 off tank items (B. Cleaver usually was one of them) and then you're good to build whatever after that.
TheHappyReaperz1 votesRemember when Riot added an item to the game that gave you Thornmail's passive and GW on your attackers? Man, I hate it when they gut defensive items like that.
PB4UAME2 votesRemember what thronmail's passsive actually is?
Here, let me give you a reminder: "30% of the damage from incoming attacks are reflected to your attacker"
Tell me when they made an item that had that plus GW?
You can't because they never did. They destroyed thronmail first.
then nerfed its destroyed version twice. Then nerfed it a third time, while mixing it with Warden's Mail and a ruby crystal, then made Bramble Vest with an even more hilariously weakened version of the twice nerfed faux-Thornmail passive on it, and gave it GW too, before now nerfing that item 3 times, including nerfing the faux-thronmail passive even more.
Like, were you ironically trying to prove my point further, or. . .?
Battalion2 votesI wouldn't give the benefit lol
Jaygo413 votesIt's simply insanity the kind of extremes duskblade* has made some champions go to. Some of Jarvan's most successful builds involve warrior and duskblade simply so he can one-shot someone. Does he look like the kind of champion that looks to one-shot? Not only does the character fantasy fail in this regard, he has a goddamn attack speed buff and a shield. Clearly the intention was for him to tussle, not QR-Auto someone and kill them instantly. What a joke.
Death by Glamour16 votescan you add vi and wukong to this list aswell
Son Foku2 votesThey said Wukon is on a list for a gameplay update (along with 11 others). As it is though, he doesn’t really function as anything but an assassin. Maybe the update changes this.
Dasdi9612 votesI am guessing riot wants either full glass cannon or full tank, nothing in between. They think having both some tackiness and some damage is "stat checking".
PB4UAME13 votesWhen really, its the ranged Marksman right clicking you from 550-over 700 range away (oh man such skill) that is the epitome of stat checking.
Well, you have 3k hp and 100 armor? You get to live for about 4 seconds before they stat check you into oblivion, anything less than that and they can legitimately 1-3 shot you. Have fun! :)
Oh, and remember that fighters who have to gap-close, stick, know when to go in, bait out, or wait out CCs and cooldowns and usually require another initiator/tank to lock up the enemy team for them? They are clearly just stat checking and are obviously an abomination. So what if they need to combo or land skillshots and time things properly? Anything that can threaten the precious ADC overlords needs to get utterly gutted. (see mages, tanks recently, junglers now, fighters/juggernauts for two years, assassins with their rework, itemization changes, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc ad infinum)
Prison AnaI4 votesWhen really, its the ranged Marksman right clicking you from 550-over 700 range away (oh man such skill) that is the epitome of stat checking.
Well, you have 3k hp and 100 armor? You get to live for about 4 seconds before they stat check you into oblivion, anything less than that and they can legitimately 1-3 shot you. Have fun! :)
Oh, and remember that fighters who have to gap-close, stick, know when to go in, bait out, or wait out CCs and cooldowns and usually require another initiator/tank to lock up the enemy team for them? They are clearly just stat checking and are obviously an abomination. So what if they need to combo or land skillshots and time things properly? Anything that can threaten the precious ADC overlords needs to get utterly gutted. (see mages, tanks recently, junglers now, fighters/juggernauts for two years, assassins with their rework, itemization changes, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc ad infinum)
4 seconds is really generous
Jaygo413 votesYeah having to hit a single high-value combo skillshot that is 50% of a person's kit is definitely stat checking. People ALWAYS had issues with Jarvan doing way too much damage with his ultimate and high ratios. Why isn't some power loaded into his auto attacks via a new passive and his ratios cut to shit whilst upping his absolutely miserable base defenses? He's absolutely pathetic to play into way too many matchups now. That 4 armor was a really heavy nerf, despite what people think about 4 armor.
TS Media6 votesHonestly, getting so sick and tired of this fucking balance team. I'm not even joking. I'm actually losing lane to silver players as it stands due to champ differences now. It's fucking retarded. LOL.
Mig892 votesThe balance team isnt making you lose to silvers lol
TS Media1 votesYeah they are. They took out the skill portion of this game and stuck it on the teamplay portion. When champion differences make up the gap in skill, that's when you know there's an inherent problem with the game.
I use to be able to crush lane in silver. Now I'd play some norms, be vs some silver player on a tank, and struggle to punish the lane. LOL.
That's like playing CS:GO with a global elite vs a gold player and they struggle getting kills because of some gold player. Like that's ever gonna happen.
Mig891 votesHave you ever considered the meta shifted away from your champs? That silver players now might be better than they were years ago? I dont mean to come off completely callous my friend but Im only gold and still crush silvers easily when playing flex. Im almost a OTP and ive come to realize my champ pool isnt META which is discouraging but i wouldnt blame it on the balance team. A plat players macro should easily make them plat. You've gotta realize that some silver players are good at some things and just terrible at others. Figuring out the enemy's weaknesses is half the battle in ranked. If im playing in silver against someone who is kicking my ass in lane i still know in my head theyre silver for a reason. Sure enough, they wont rotate, wont help with objectives, wont ward, wont work with their team, or a number of other things thats keeping them from climbing. Climbing isnt hard until you cant figure out why someone is beating you. I know youre not complaining about the climb, im just pointing out every silver player doesnt have silver level lane skills or silver level trading patterns. They might be plat/diamond in some aspects of their game and wood 5 at others.
Wild Geese6 votesJarvin IV was specifically designed to be a hybrid between fighter +iinitiator(tank), I don't understand why you'd have a problem with this. If J4 is just going one extreme build or another, this is due to J4 is working exactly as he was intended! He can build situationally.
Jaygo413 votesBut unfortunately he's been balanced around people going assassin. Riot's response to the community picking the playstyle for the champion was to say "Fine, you picked your poison, you lose the other one. You're now squishy and have a WORSE (already not great) first clear. -4 armor."
And right then, J4 was lowered to Gragas tier while his competitors, Elise, Hecarim, Graves, Kayn (thusly compensated for Duskblade nerf), Kha'Zix (similar to Kayn), Rengar, Lee Sin (thusly compensated for tracker's removal), and Volibear (given an anti-dash mechanic) were buffed. Was this necessary? He was forcefully removed from the meta.
Furthermore, his tank build which involved Aftershock was also nerfed, AND Cinderhulk was nerfed. EVERY SINGLE avenue for Jarvan to make it back into the game as something other than an assassin was nerfed.
Wild Geese1 votesBut unfortunately he's been balanced around people going assassin. Riot's response to the community picking the playstyle for the champion was to say "Fine, you picked your poison, you lose the other one. You're now squishy and have a WORSE (already not great) first clear. -4 armor."
And right then, J4 was lowered to Gragas tier while his competitors, Elise, Hecarim, Graves, Kayn (thusly compensated for Duskblade nerf), Kha'Zix (similar to Kayn), Rengar, Lee Sin (thusly compensated for tracker's removal), and Volibear (given an anti-dash mechanic) were buffed. Was this necessary? He was forcefully removed from the meta.
Furthermore, his tank build which involved Aftershock was also nerfed, AND Cinderhulk was nerfed. EVERY SINGLE avenue for Jarvan to make it back into the game as something other than an assassin was nerfed.
I see what you mean, sorry. So I think at this point maybe Riot needs to stop nerfing/buffing J4 and take a serious go-over of his kit. Maybe something along the scale of a mini-rework (without the rework) where they go over all his numbers. Get him back to where they designed him to be.
Jaygo411 votesVersatility is one thing. But when the community picks one playstyle because it's stompy in solo queue, it doesn't make sense that they go "Oh ok well that's the one you guys picked! Bye bye tank j4, we'll leave him in his ridiculously frustrating binary state in exchange for the other viable playstyle. Those of us who actually want to build a black cleaver and peel/tussle/tank/CC just aren't supported.
Wild Geese1 votesVersatility is one thing. But when the community picks one playstyle because it's stompy in solo queue, it doesn't make sense that they go "Oh ok well that's the one you guys picked! Bye bye tank j4, we'll leave him in his ridiculously frustrating binary state in exchange for the other viable playstyle. Those of us who actually want to build a black cleaver and peel/tussle/tank/CC just aren't supported.
Maybe his stats should be more like, those champions who build a few damage items+tank items and seem to get the job done... Darius, Kled, Irelia, Yorick, Camille, Xin, Vi. As I said, if they just go over the numbers (Including the numbers in his abilities), can probably balance him out properly, since all these little reactionary adjustments just keep messing with him.
Jaygo411 votesI think we're in agreement here... Definitely should be tuned in that direction, with the lack of sustain and high mana costs being taken into account for his early game clear but the high ratios being brought in later in the game.
Wild Geese1 votesI think we're in agreement here... Definitely should be tuned in that direction, with the lack of sustain and high mana costs being taken into account for his early game clear but the high ratios being brought in later in the game.
The bonus AD ratios are completely ridiculous. 120% of bonus AD on Q, 160% (!!!) of bonus AD on Ult.. No wonder it's screwed up. He's got a huge incentive to just build AD. What if instead they like half these ratios and make it total AD, something like that..
inplane5 votesThey would need to rework 
's passive. It basically encourages an Assassin playstyle since it's useless as a Fighter against anyone who knows how to peel.
Jaygo411 votesI agree 100%. I wanted it to do something with spell-weaving and making his autos quicker and stronger in exchange for the upfront burst. I'm just quite tired of the 100-0 or you're useless playstyle with a champion that's covered in armor
Teklm2 votesIf Jarvan doesn't have enough damage to one shot, he's always just gonna build tank. His entire kit is frontloaded with decent cooldowns and no auto attack steroid. Instead, he has a large engage range (sought after qualities of both assassins & tanks), high AD ratios (encourages bursting), and decent CC + cataclysms lockdown (sought after qualities of a tank). It's like trying to be a sustained damage threat as Lux, instead of a pick oriented burst/utility mage. Their kits just don't support a DPS playstyle.
Sad Tyrant1 voteswhat do you mean by "No AA Steroid" ?
Teklm1 votesI meant nothing to encourage him to keep auto attacking; his passive only helps you for the first auto so it's really just a burst tool like a Zed passive. I guess his flag gives attack speed too but bleh, your ADC'll probably appreciate it more.
BLIGHTBRINGER2 votesThe same can be said about other champions that are being nerfed.
Examples: Rammus, Poppy and etc..
Instead of Riot nerfing their damage they nerf their defensive stats and defensive stats from abilities.
Dâk2 votesWhy would you want to change him when people played him like 3 different ways in every other season. Makes the champion diverse and fun rather then becoming brain dead play only one way
The Spicy Crit3 votesWhy would you want to change him when people played him like 3 different ways in every other season. Makes the champion diverse and fun rather then becoming brain dead play only one way
Because no matter in which way someone plays him, you gonna get fucked if he has 1 or 2 kills. He's gonna build Cleaver + 5 tank items (Idk honestly what do they build nowdays, i didnt play league for a long time) and he's gonna slaughter you in one spell rotation even tho he's got crazy amounts of HP and armor. Orr.. He's gonna build full glasscanon, but he is going to be fairly tanky due to his retardedly broken base stats and he is going to oneshot whatever he likes. That is the problem and that is why he should be changed. Let's not lie each other, he is literally cancer braindead champion RN. He has to be one; tank, fighter or assassin. Not all of it, not hybrid. I'm just glad that he's not as popular. There are alot of annoying champions that are still viable, but people forgotten them, and i am glad that it's the way it is.
LordNavarog1 votesnerf his scalings, add base dmg and hp scalings, maybe some armor/mr scaling
Hethalean1 votesI thought J4 was always either going to pop someone or be a tank. At least that's how he was when I joined the game which was right after Kalista was released.
Mig891 votesI read Kaisa the first time and thought you were making a joke lol
Wînter Fox1 votesLeave J4 alone. His ult damage hasn't changed since the dawn of League.
These champions are supposed to DIVE in and obliterate you, especially if they go full AD. That's their one job. If they can't do that, they're useless. It's sad that Fighters are so obscure these days that no one knows what they do anymore.
PopcornBunni1 votesLeave J4 alone. His ult damage hasn't changed since the dawn of League.
These champions are supposed to DIVE in and obliterate you, especially if they go full AD. That's their one job. If they can't do that, they're useless. It's sad that Fighters are so obscure these days that no one knows what they do anymore.
Isn't Olaf more of a Juggernaut, and Xin/Panth skirmishers? Them doing yuge damage makes sense since they are more fragile (and olaf lacks an actual engage tool); the others are meant to be meaty fighters with stronger engages and staying power in a fight, with lower outright burst.
Wînter Fox1 votes
DeusVult1 votesWithout completely changing J4s entire kit, he will always have the option to go AD burst or tank, simply based on the items that j4 purchases. His knock-up and ult mean that he can go tank if his team needs him too, and his Q damage + ratios mean that he can go assassin.
In a time when most alternative playstyles are being curbed, seeing a champ that can go multiple routs is a good thing IMO
Elkington VI1 votesCan't he also go Cleaver into tank items if he wants? I've even seen him rush Ravenous Hydra into tanky stuff, back when it was accessible to bruisers. He's very flexible in terms of builds, which means the overall balance of damage vs defense is likely more the issue.
Rainfall1 votesGenerally riot does not like champions like jarvan and malphite who go full tank and try to burst a carry target with just base damages,this is the kind of shitty gameplay that creates even more shitty gameplay because players pick lulu and janna to counter it.
Jaygo411 votesSo it's shitty gameplay to load a champion's kit onto a pair of telegraphed abilities so if they hit, they're highly impactful but if they miss, they're not very good? Versatile, because it can be used to escape, but long enough CD that it can't be thrown around willy nilly. Costly, but a single knockup can be the difference between winning or losing a fight, see Ambition in worlds last year. A successful gank comes down to whether or not you can land the skillshot, and successful before-hand positioning behind a target can make for a much easier knockup w/ Golden Aegis' slow. Duels are won by whether or not J4 hits his skillshot. Can be dodged and predicted quite easily, leaving him with little damage aside from his ultimate and rather boring/usual autoattacks. Sounds like actually solid gameplay, certainly beats the frustration of Camille (overloaded options), Trundle (W and Run), Xin Zhao (targeted dash, stat checky fighting) or any similar champions of his class. The only comparable analogue is Vi.
Please. Jarvan is VERY well designed in terms of gameplay. But clearly they don't want him playable, for some reason. Rather than nerfing what makes him frustrating, which is the high ratios and base damages that allow him to go full cheese Electrocute/Dark Harvest 
J4, they say "Let's just remove him as a viable top laner and make him extremely weak coming out of the jungle on his first and second clear, when he's designed to do good stuff on the map. -4 base armor."
It's a goddamn insult to people that were trying to play him as a tank or a fighter to begin with. He's much less tanky in the beginning of the games and he dies much more often than not on early dives, early duels, early invades. I thought he was an early game champion?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW-6HaoaZpM THIS takes a lot more skill than just being able to kite/orb walk someone into the floor. It's the kind of spatial knowledge and timing knowledge that FEW champions in the game command. All riot needed to do was fix what he was doing too much of, which was absurd high burst damage building only damage.
Rainfall1 votesOn the video you posted you see the healthy version of jarvan the tank jarvan who uses his abilities to engage in a fight,that jarvan does not need burst damage anyway.The usual full tank jarvan is the faceroll go in press all the buttons on the ADC which is why the champion will not be allowed to be meta until his rework,like malphite.
Jaygo411 votesThey clumped. Ambition took advantage of it by hitting his combo correctly on 3 people. He then saw them walk away from the fight and flashed behind them, Qing behind them to buy EVEN MORE cc for his team. That's solid, well executed play that few champs in the game can do. You don't just EQR the backline on tank or even bruiser/fighter J4. You have to pick what ults you take and which ones you don't.
Furthermore, there are champs that cuck him completely. There's also champs that bolster his success and synergize well. He's easily countered AND can have team comps built around him. He's capable of a lot of subtlety with his combo and his ultimate and requires solid timing to optimize. Where's the issue here? Oh yeah, his damage and his boring auto attacks. It's purely in his burst that he is frustrating.
PopcornBunni1 votesHis passive needs changed if he is ever going to be safe from becoming an assassin. Giving a diver massive frontloaded damage is just asking for it to be maximized.
Juicy Ðoge1 votesit's just ridiculous how j4 is just a one shot bot with 600 MS and 3k HP. Literally no fun at all unless you have human teammates that actually peel, but we all know that doesn't exist in solo q. So done with riot balancing the game around LCS ONLY and on top of that still making dumb decisions.