Thoughts on the Shaco rework from a Main of the Mad Jester

So, I've played Shaco basically non stop since Pre-Season 6 and have quite a bit of master on him Quarter of a million i believe ATM. And i have to say that these changes are NECESSARY.

Before People rip my head off and say that i cant be a Shaco main because i don't denounce riot for the changes hear me out.

Shaco's Passive Back stab: (Innate) Shaco deals 20% bonus damage when striking a unit from behind with his auto attacks or abilities.

Changed to: Back stab (Passive): Damage when attacking from behind changed to 120-145% mini crits from 20% bonus damage. Damage bonus no longer works with Two-Shiv Poison (E) [NEW] Back stab now deals 200% damage vs monsters. [NEW] Enemies can not be back stabbed more than once every 3 seconds (cooldown modified by CDR)

Thoughts - Out of all the changes i believe this is the worst one and should be done away with entirely, It doesn't GIVE Shaco anything and feels a lot worse to play as and against due to the general DPS loss.

Shaco's Q : Deceive : (Active) Shaco instantly blinks to a target nearby location and enters stealth for up to 3.5 seconds. His next auto-attack in the next 6 seconds will critically strike with modified critical damage (normal critical strikes are 200% damage), dealing physical damage and ending his stealth.

Changed to: Deceive : Stealth classified as Invisible Stealth duration changed to 1.5/2.25/3/3.75/4.5 from 3.5 Cooldown increased to 14 seconds from 11 seconds Mana cost changed to 60 from 90/80/70/60/50 Damage changed: NEW: 20/35/50/65/80 (+100% total AD)(+50% AP) [NEW] Attacking during or shortly after invisibility will reduce Deceive's CD by 2.5 seconds.

Thoughts: I agree with Q changes overall when it comes to the stealth duration and CD. But the changing of the Q from the Auto crit to a Auto Steroid that amounts to 80+AD+.5 AP is ridiculous in how much of a nerf it is

Lets take a Shaco with 300 AD and 300 AP. If he gets a BACK STAB Q crit ATM he does 700~ Damage With PBE Shaco a BACK STAB Q does around 500~ Damage, It doesn't seem like much but combining the net DPS loss of Back stab and Nerfs to Q all around Shaco Cant dish out a good amount of damage, Also note that the Q doesn't add ADDITIONAL AD to the ATK it just adds the AP and Base DMG.

W: Jack in the Box : Pasting the entire patch notes and stuff for JitB will take the entire post so i wont bloat this further and simply say they didn't change much except a slight duration and HP buff that amounts to very little and the removal of the Box stacking mechanic most Shacos know and love.

Thoughts: I enjoy the changes to JitB However they arent perfect, The duration increase of + 1 second per 20 AP is Great and the HP buff is cool but utterly useless as late game people will still one shot the boxes or walk away from them so that it doesn't matter. I completely Agree with the removal of Box Stacking however because it gives a bit more thought and counter play for both involved (the Shaco and enemy)

E: Two-Shiv Poison : (Passive) Shaco's attacks poison his targets, reducing their movement speed for 2 seconds. It will also slow the attack speed of monsters.

(Active) Shaco throws a dagger to target enemy dealing magic damage and applying his slowing poison to them for 3 seconds. The passive is deactivated during the cooldown. Cooldown: 8 seconds Range: 625

Changed to : [REMOVED] No longer slows minion and monster attack speed by 20-30% Movement speed slow increased to 20/22.5/25/27.5/30% from 10/15/20/25/30% Damage Changes OLD: 50-210 (+100% AP) (+100% Bonus AD) NEW: 5/35/65/95/125 (+90% AP) (+85% total AD) + [3-8% of target's missing health]

Thoughts: This has to be my LEAST favorite change in the entire assassin rework as it really neuters Shaco for no real reason, They already nerfed a lot of other things so why nerf this? #1 Looking at PURELY the damage spectrum of things we see that at MAX rank the BASE damage is lowered by 85 points along with a 10% AP ratio loss and 15% AD ratio loss. I can agree that the ratio was high 100% on a duo scale? But lets look at the thing they ADD to negate the loss an execute of [3-8% of target's missing health]. Lets take a Champ who has 1100 HP for easy math and say hes missing 1000 of it at MAX rank of E that adds 80 damage to the shiv, Which is about what they removed Lets go with an example of 3100 and say missing 3000 that is 240 bonus, at the best possible conditions but we all know this ignores MR so the numbers would change a lot with that added in. I think the early game damage of his shiv (which was already pathetic) is now completely worthless and definitely needs some tweaks.

And last but not least the thing that Shaco is most well known for his ultimate

(Active) Shaco stealths for half a second and creates a clone of himself next to him that will last for up 18 seconds. The clone deals 75% of Shaco's damage and receives 50% extra damage. This clone deals 50% damage to towers and inhibitors. At the end of its duration or when dying the clone will explode dealing magic damage to nearby enemies. Shaco's Hallucination randomizes its facing on spawn (rather than always facing the same direction). Cost: 100 mana Leash Radius: 1125 AoE Radius: 250

Changed to : [NEW] Now drops 3 mini Jack in the Boxes on death Mini JitB deal 25/50/75 (15% AP) damage and make enemies flee for .75/1/1.25 seconds. These 3 mini JitB trigger together and share health.

Thoughts: Completely worthless and overall unnecessary change. The boxes do less damage than normal boxes STILL have an ARM time where they can be attacked and take AOE damage, and considering they share health if one dies they all die which with AOE or a late game (Or mid game) ADC they die immediately and basically don't do anything

Overall Opinion and Final thoughts: i give this rework a 4/10 the new Shaco feels really weak looks really weak and (i feel) has lost what made him the demonic jester.

TL;DR

Passive should go back to the old way

Q Changes are fine but need some STRONG number tuning

W changes are solid and feel good to me.

E definitely needs some love in its base damage

R feels Gimmicky and the addition feels useless.

4/10 in my opinion.