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Fiora Needs Some Big Changes

Stephenizgod··6 votes·462 views

So I think we can all agree Fiora is one of the most frustrating champs to fight against, it doesn't feel fair almost the entire fight. Every time she trades she heals a crap ton thanks to her Passive and Grasp of the Undying. She can build straight tank and out-damage pretty much anyone in the game. Her kit doesn't even really portray her as The Grand Duelist, its not a Duel if its entirely one-sided.

I know there are currently nerfs for her on the PBE but i think she needs more than just nerfs, there are some things in her kit that don't need to be there. If you haven't seen them here is a link: http://www.surrenderat20.net/2016/03/39-pbe-update.html.

#Duelist's Dance

Fiora identifies the Vitals of nearby enemy champions, marked as an arc around their character. Vitals take 0.5 seconds to identify and last for 15 seconds. After a Vital is triggered or times out, Fiora identifies a new Vital on her target.

Basic attacks and damaging abilities against a Vital deal 3% (+ 2.8% - 4.5% (based on level)% per 100 Bonus AD) of target's maximum health bonus true damage, heal Fiora for 25 - 110 (based on level) and grant her 20 / 30 / 40 / 50% bonus movement speed that decays over 1.75 seconds.

This is an interesting passive but in-game it creates a lot of pressure on her opponents for free. When used with her Q it is probably the most frustrating part about laning against her. The reason being she can just hit Q on you, hit your Vitals and run away with the MS boost before you can even hit her back. Makes things worse because it also heals her, with Grasp of the Undying, it make it damn near impossible to trade with her. Your other option, other than taking the free Vital hit, is to stand back for 15 seconds and wait for it to appear not facing her, which is ridiculous... she will just run around you.

Solution: Remove the Heal and MS Boost. Fiora needs to take risks to pop those Vitals, the current risk is damn near nothing and the rewards are health and a lot of free damage on enemy. It should be equal risks for the reward, if she wants to deal True Damage based off my Max HP that also scales with her AD, she needs to put herself into a situation that puts her at risk.

#Lunge

ACTIVE: Fiora dashes a short distance in the target direction, then stabs a nearby enemy if one is present while moving into attack range of them. The stab deals physical damage, applies on-hit effects, and prioritizes exposed Vitals, followed by enemies who would die to the strike and finally the nearest target, prioritizing champions.

PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 65 / 75 / 85 / 95 / 105 (+ 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 / 115% bonus AD) If Lunge hits an enemy, its cooldown is reduced by 60%.

This ability is the really annoying because it offers her a lot of mobility and it can hit your Vitals. Personally if her Vitals didn't offer so much this ability wouldn't be all that bad, although I honestly don't think she should be able to use it to run away. At max rank it has an 8 second CD, 60% of that is 3.2 seconds if she hits an enemy, with 20% from cleaver it gets down to 2.56 seconds. Not that bad except every 3 seconds she is dealing Max Hp% True Damage and healing off you.

Solution: None. If you fixed the balance of her passive, this ability is actually an interesting, albeit frustrating to deal with, ability. If you were going to nerf it, I'd suggest lowering the distance travels when using it away from enemies, The Grand Duelist does not retreat.

#Riposte

ACTIVE: Fiora poises to strike in the target direction and then enters a defensive stance, parrying all incoming non-turret damage and hostile crowd control effects for the next 0.75 seconds. After the duration, Fiora stabs her sword forward, dealing magic damage to enemies in a line.

MAGIC DAMAGE: 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 / 250 (+ 100% AP) The first enemy champion struck also has their movement and attack speed Slow icon slowed by 50% for 1.5 seconds. If Fiora parries at least one immobilizing effect, Riposte Stun icon stuns the target for the same duration instead.

This ability is so grossly overloaded I can't even begin to understand how it was allowed. The threat of this ability is the main reason she can be so dominate with her Passive and her Q's mobility. All I will say on this ability is it needs to be changed first, if someone at my elo can consistently pull it off then it must not be that hard.

Solution: Change "parrying all incoming non-turret damage and hostile crowd control effects" to "parrying the first incoming non-turret damage and hostile crowd control effects". This would retain the current feel of the ability but is more fair because it offers counterplay. I'd also like the base damage to be removed unless she actually Ripostes something, this ability should not be used to poke or kill a low hp target. If she failed to kill them with the rest of her kit she does not deserve the kill.

The nerfs to Bladework currently being worked on are just fine in my opinion, this ability has clear windows of strengths with distinct weaknesses in that its melee range. Add in some of my Solutions and this ability is fine, maybe a bit overtuned.

#Grand Duelist

PASSIVE: Duelist's Dance's bonus movement speed is increased.

ACTIVE: Fiora challenges the target enemy champion, highlighting all four of their Vitals for the next 8 seconds. While Grand Challenge is in effect, Duelist's Dance does not identify new Vitals on her target. The ability also creates an area around the target, in which Fiora gains Duelist's Dance's bonus movement speed.

If she triggers one Vital before her target dies, she creates a victory zone that heals her and allied champions within over the next 2 seconds. The duration is extended by 1 second for every extra Vital hit, up to a maximum of 5 seconds. 「 HEAL PER SECOND: 80 / 110 / 140 (+ 60% Bonus AD) 」 If she triggers all of the Vitals and her target is not dead, she will still create a healing zone that lasts for 5 seconds.

This ability is suppose to represent Fiora's Duelist persona, she challenges her opponent to a duel and dukes it out, should she win she will be rewarded with healing. What really happens is her target uses everything they have to run away from her, they have nothing to gain from fighting her and everything to lose. You should change the name to the Grand Chasest, because basically thats all she is doing. I said it earlier, its not a Duel if it is entirely one-sides. There needs to be a reason for her opponents to fight her, a reason not to just run until it wears off.

Solution: Give her enemies a reason to actually duel her instead of running. This is suppose to be a Duel, a challenge! Currently it doesn't feel like that, its an extreme annoyance and it leads to her opponent just running away because there is no point in fighting her. She has more Vitals to hit, gains bonus MS, and will get healed if she kills you. To give you an idea of what could give her opponent a reason to fight her, something like killing her will heal you the same it would have healed her.

I know I dropped a lot of crazy ideas out there, plus im probably going to get downvoted by the "gitgud" people, but I seriously think Fiora needs some changes to her overloaded kit. I'm not saying my Solutions are the correct ones nor am I saying to do them all, just one or two changes. Her Passive and Ultimate need the most change in my opinion, they are free damage/stats with extremely high rewards and very very very low risks.

Anyways thanks for reading, those of you that did, and I'd love to get some feedback and ideas from you guys. I will also accept your personal experiences with her. If you enjoyed or agree with me please don't forget to Upvote, otherwise feel free to Downvote. If you do comment, regardless of whether you agree or not, please keep it civil this is a discussion not an argument.

14 Comments

Stephenizgod3 votes

The reason I don't mention her %MaxHp True Damage as being a problem is because I don't think it is, it's her ability to proc it for absolutely no risk that is the problem.

Astôlfo1 votes

Shhh, the % max health true QQ'ers will downvote this into oblivion.

Stephenizgod1 votes

That's fine, I don't make posts to get upvotes, I just like expressing my opinion.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

She doesn't need any fixes like that they're already doing enough to move her from bruiser to normal AD

Stephenizgod1 votes

Her entire kit is what makes her work as a Bruiser, not her Bladeworks. Her Passive offers damage that cannot be counter-built and sustain for staying in extended trades. Her Q can be used every 3 seconds on an enemy and her Ult allows her to burst, gives her bonus MS, and heals her. Those alone do enough damage she doesn't need to build much damage, she just needs to stay in the fight long enough to proc it.

The general idea behind all my changes were to take her away from that kind of playstyle.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

No it isn't it's just that her passive had good base while the AD scaled too slowly which enabled bruiser built. They're lowering her base and increasing ratios which will enforce squishier fiora the way she was before.

Her playstyle is fine, all she needed was lowering base to increase ratios which is what it's doing.

5050BS1 votes

her bonus damage on her procs needs to be Ether % Hps OR True damage NOT BOTH. Riot has kids on the balance team.

Stephenizgod1 votes

I don't mind the %hp True Damage, its her ability to proc it without me being able to retaliate, that is an issue with me. If she wants to come in to hit my Passive she needs to take the risk of me hitting her back, but right now her Q is too safe.

Pawn of hearts1 votes

yea we don't need the ability information because we are fully aware, of it.
have you play fiora and manage to do as good? (im gonna be honest and say not me!)

her damage and be able to out trade an opponent if they time their ability right is what make her a duelist. she is slippery, similar to fizz yas, so ford one thing that can be easily counter to a fiora ult is just to get yourself to wall and prevent from proc the last vital, " The Grand duelist" which mean she the champion she the badass woman who wont lose. somehow many champ in league able to outrade her, which is COMPLETLY WRONG. she doesnt need a nerf. SHE NEED A BUFF but if you so complain on this much why don't you ask for the old fiora back because im sure we all love to have her back.

Stephenizgod1 votes

A) She does not need a Buff, she is incredibly powerful for how safe she is.

B) She is very easy to use if you have half-way decent reaction time.

C) The only people who counter her are also seen as problems by Riot and are getting nerfed or have already been nerfed.

D) I put the ability information for those who don't know her exact ability information, not everyone knows everything about every champion.

Astôlfo1 votes

On just a lore note, as a Duelist thing, I'd like to point out some things. (This is not agreeing or disagreeing with OP/UP/etc)

As for her Q, you mentioned the Grand Duelist does not retreat. Have you ever actually seen fencing? Your statement was entirely incorrect. They lunge in for quick, accurate strikes and/or back off and dodge/parry their enemy's strikes. Fencing duels are incredibly fast. It's not them just stupidly going all-in every single time they try to engage. The whole point of the really thin and sharp blade focused on the point was to slip between armor and strike at vitals. Actual vitals. As in organs. By getting those potentially lethally damaging strikes on their opponent, they essentially dance around and destroy their opponent by targeting their weakest spots. They are nothing like a soldier or some sort of gladiator that just all-in engages in full combat trading massively powerful blows to just smash their enemy down.

Her W is named Riposte. Now, this generally refers to a quick counter/return strike after parrying, which is basically what it does now. However, it is specifically the quick, return offensive action done (aka, the attack itself). Otherwise, it's still just a normal lunge-in and strike. I do agree with semantics however, but I'm not sure if disabling it outside of actual parryable things would help. I would say it probably shouldn't slow/give the other benefits unless it actually parries something, but it could still be essentially used as just an AA button, in my opinion (when not parrying). I generally think the parry itself is fine though, as the time to parry (0.75s) is so short it requires good timing to first realize when to parry, then actually parry, then make good use of it instead of just standing there doing nothing trying to figure out whether you actually parried/stunned/etc. Because outside of parrying CC, it really has no direct visible effect to you except the slow, because what Riposte does is REMOVE what said visible effect would have been (blocking the attack or whatever). The brief flash of "Parried!" is also a bit hard to catch in the heat of battle at times.

As for her passive itself, I think the vitals + % max true health damage is generally fine, because that's how important vitals are to any living thing. And it's not massive anyways. Also, it doesn't always make it easy for her to strike, meaning she either has to risk it or go back and then come back to make it reset (meaning loss in time). However, I don't think she has any reason to be able to heal from it. Rather than her getting bonus MS though, I think if anything, it should slow the enemy instead. I don't see why striking a critical organ or such would make you faster. If anything, it would make the enemy weaker/bleed out/slow/etc. Get what I'm saying?

Just my few cents.

Stephenizgod1 votes

Thats not retreating thats backing off to avoid taking a strike or repositioning to attack again, i was saying she shouldn't be using her Q to escape from enemies, it goes against her character. She should be able to use it away from enemies but at reduced distance.

Riposte is a quick return attack after a Parry, so thats why I think if there is no Parry, there should be no Riposte. I think it should still have the slow but no damage.

I agree the Vitals should retain their %Hp True Damage, but the Health regain and MS don't make sense and should be removed.

Astôlfo1 votes

I mean, she can sort of use her Q while retreating as a sort of kite. Maybe only give the lowered CD if it hits a champion? Otherwise she sort of just flies through a minion wave.

And yeah I generally agree with the rest of your points.

Stephenizgod1 votes

True it just goes too far in retreat. It should be only champions!

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