Twitch Rework Concept, Riot Style

Sup fellas, I'lll be describing how I would go about reworking Twitch, Riot style. WARNING: obviously there's a lot of text, and there will not be a tl;dr. This is not to say Twitch is in any need for a rework at the moment, but he will eventually need another rework because his current identity is muddied by other overlapping marksmen that do a lot of what he does, but better, stealing his thunder on a massive scale. What are Twitch's identities?

Well, a bit of history first: Twitch was reworked once before. During the time before the rework, he could stealth for very long periods of time, his expunge did insane early damage, and his ultimate did full damage to all targets but only lasted for a specific number of shots.

The rework (As I recall, my memory is a bit fuzzy) served to make Twitch more poison-oriented and more of an opportunity taker rather than a scout, by changing his stealth duration from 10-50 seconds to 4-8 seconds and giving it movement speed, and by changing his w from point-blank massive aoe slow to poison-stacking small aoe skillshot. Riot wanted to remove his stealth, which was oppressive at the time due to the whole map being in danger once he disappeared from the mini map. Now, I will begin talking as if I were Riot. I will refrain from trying to insert numbers into the abilities, because numbers are determined by the balance team, however if all goes right twitch's base stats will have to be nerfed from abysmal to garbage to make up for him having actual good abilities. This is also assuming Riot is okay with making special exceptions as they have recently been doing with all their reworks and champs.

Hello community! RiotMcPizzaFeet here, and I'm here to reveal our plans for the upcoming Twitch rework! Alright, now don't be afraid; we're going to keep all of Twitch's current mechanics in play while adding new ones. A very similar playstyle will be kept, and we hope to give old Twitch players something new to play with while attracting others players into playing Twitch!

Starting off, let's isolate why he's getting a rework. For starters, his current identities are of -Stealth assassin/ pick character -Surprise burst damage via Contaminate -Team shredder with AoE crits through Rat-ta-tathbbt. However, each one of these identities is already taken by characters that do it better! Rengar, Talon, and Evelynn are better at being stealth assassins. Contaminate is a worse version of Rend, and a similar mechanic is seen in Darius's ultimate. AoE crits is done better by Jinx, who gets full damage on all targets with a toggled ability, and Miss Fortune provides much more wombo-combo team shredding with her ult, which is usually much safer and more effective anyways, able to decimate a team from a long distance.

There's no reason to keep Twitch in a state where he tries being many other characters at once, but doing worse than every single one of them. Even his passive is underwhelming, easily countered by a health pot at early levels and then scaling into an ignorably small amount of damage come late-game.

It's time for an upgrade. Are you ready? All of our intentions with every change will be explained.

Passive: Ambush: Stealth in the same manner as Evelynn, with identical detection radius. After leaving stealth, gain attack speed for a short time. All of Twitch's attack speed growth is on this ability as well, in order to keep him from being oppressive in lane with his new kit.

Reasoning: Stealth is such a core concept on Twitch, that we did a 180 and changed it back from an opportunist re-positioning spell to an extended tactical ability to search for openings and wait for weaknesses, instead of being activated when an opportunity is found. Essentially, this is the same stealth gameplay that Evelynn works with, waiting for opportunities rather than just going in quickly. This will feel much nicer than the brief stealth that Twitch currently has. The attack speed growth factor will be explained shortly.

Q: Spray and Pray: Fire a linear pass-through skillshot that applies on-hit effects to all enemies hit, can crit. Works on a charge system, scaling up to 5 shots at rank 5 and having a moderate recharge time. This ability does not interrupt auto attacks. The casting cooldown on this ability is the same as Twitch's attack speed.

Reasoning: This move may seem very, very similar to his current ultimate; However, there are major differences. Being able to aim it stops fast characters from sidestepping his autos, and allows him to shoot into bushes without having vision of a target within the bush. Additionally, you may have noticed that it doesn't stop his auto attacks, and it can be cast as fast as he attacks. You guessed it, if he lands every Q, he can essentially put out double damage on one target for 5 attacks, by shooting them with auto attacks and Spray and Pray simultaneously. This is why his attack speed is all on his passive, because attack speed gives him so much burst power through this ability that letting him have it in lane trades is like letting him have a cake and poisoning it. Moving on!

W: Debilitating Poison: Slow all enemies in a large area around Twitch. The slow is minimal and short-lived, but rapidly scales in strength in duration with more stacks of Deadly Venom that can take effect after the initial cast.

Reasoning: the poison cask was cool and all, but it feels terrible to use. It does no damage on its own, and only sets up for another ability that also does no damage if you only use poison cask, and in this new kit having 2 added venom stacks is not necessary. Instead, we're opting for a guaranteed teamwide-slow that gives Twitch several satisfying utility options, like saving allies over walls or popping spell shields before an important fight from a safe distance. Due to its weak power and duration without stacks, it will not prove to be particularly disruptive to the enemy team unless Twitch manages to get a lot of venom stacks on everyone immediately after casting this ability.

E: Deadly Venom: Twitch applies a stack of venom on every auto attack hit. This venom does small true damage over 6 seconds, scaling with bonus attack damage and getting stronger as the opponent gets weaker, now with no cap on how many stacks can be accumulated. Using Spray and Pray on a target with venom will ensure that all other targets hit get the same number of stacks as the first, unless they already have a higher amount on them, in which case it just adds one.

Reasoning: The passive was changed and made a normal ability. Given that capping the stacks served no special function like other stacking attacks (Example: Darius caps at 5 because at 5 his ultimate damage is doubled and he gets a buff), we removed the cap. Because the venom's highest moments are when somebody dies to it, and the current iteration of it really fails at that, we made it weak but strong against low health opponents, so that it really feels valuable every time it kills someone even if it overall does low damage. As for the Spray and Pray interaction, Twitch now has a method of spreading stacks onto multiple enemies without having to hit every single one with Spray and Pray every single shot; just once each. This also serves as an extra boost to harass in lane, allowing Twitch to make his Spray and Pray poke do a bit more true damage on the side if he hits an infected minion first.

R: Expunge the Plague: All infected enemies nearby explode, having their stacks of Deadly Venom removed and taking true damage equal to what the Deadly Venom would have done alone, times a value that scales with Twitch's attack power (plus a base value).

Reasoning: To give Twitch the true plague rat feel, we can't just have him poisoning their whole team for negative damage. Expunge makes a return, and gating it behind an ultimate-level cooldown allows us to give it the power it really deserves. This move is the end-all finishing touch to Twitch's face-melting barrage, a true damage nuke that gets increasingly powerful the more stacks the targets have (not % missing health damage, mind you!). The uncapped nature of Deadly Venom now also allows Twitch to stack as much as he pleases before suddenly ending your entire career, making for a very satisfying and very effective ability.

Now, overall, what do we have? What can we expect from Twitch?

Well, due to his new kit, his only slow and escape methods are even less reliable than before. If he gets caught, he's done for (Not that that's NOT the case at the moment, but now he's even deader than before) and being able to be seen at close range will make him weary about face-checking bushes. However, having double attacks at mac speed after leaving stealth gives him the power he needs to catch people off guard and remove them before their teammates come to help. In a one-on-one or well-planned one-on-two, Twitch can be a very high ranking threat. However, if he goes in at the wrong time and gets gooned or hooked or clicked on by the wrong enemy, he has no chances to save himself as his new kit is extremely mistake unfriendly. His stealth also does not reset, so while he may have very powerful burst potential, he cannot leave once he's in the fight; it's an all or nothing commitment now.

One of the effects that we hope this rework has is what we call the support effect: No matter how much it gets nerfed, it still somehow ends up being good a month later despite the nerfs being on par with Olaf'ing.

Teamfights will be about using Spray and Pray in combination with auto attacks and Debilitating Poison to slow and get as many stacks on the enemy as possible before Expunging and dying shortly after because you're an immobile squishy ADC who's within 2000 units of their CC gapcloser characters. However, Twitch now has the tools to get his damage out quickly due to rapid double-attacking so his opponents need to react quickly or else the damage will already have been done.

In lane, Twitch will be easily pushed around by his enemy until he gets significant damage items to poke with Spray and Pray. Should the enemy engage on him, he will surely lose if it comes down to who does the most damage, but if he gets the first blow with a stealth engage he will have the upper hand. The Twitch player relies on getting his damage out before he explodes, though, so if he can't kill them by the time his passive attack speed is over and he's used expunged, he will not win the fight. However, as with all all-in characters, he has the power to not be afraid of engaging when he sees an opportune moment.

In the early game, Twitch's ganks will be exceptional when well-executed due to high damage output, but an enemy who is expecting him will have no trouble popping him like a pimple when he shows his face. In the late game, Twitch will have enough damage to assassinate people on his own. The main things gating his constant assassination potential are the recharge times on his Spray and Pray bolts, and Expunge's ultimate cooldown.

What do you think, guys? Did it sound professional? Well-written? Did you actually like the concepts described? Tell me if you did or didn't.