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Buffing Rakan- Making him play better without Xayah

Grace Of Kaizen·5/30/2017, 9:59:22 AM·3 votes·806 views

Firstly I love Xayah, and my fiance loves Rakan. Great champions. Seem relatively balanced. Love the kits and lore.

Xayah seems to be alright in balance so far, does high dmg but has low range. Dmg is gated behind an important but slightly awkward ability so you can show skill. Wonderful ultimate.

One of my top two favorite champions, so much so that I play her Mid.

Her kit also doesn't feel like it changes if i'm playing with a support that isn't Rakan.

Rakan also isn't doing too poorly in balance, but with a slightly lower win-rate some buffs might happen.

Rakan has good cc, good catch potential, sustain for laning, and ok shields. He has very little dmg, his heal is a skill-shot, his cc is delayed or on his ultimate which puts him in harms way. All around i'd say he's very balanced in how he works.

My fiances only complaint is that when he's playing Rakan without Xayah he can feel the difference. The impact that having no Xayah has on a Rakan changes the ranges and feel on his E drastically. I get this is lore relevant, Xayah being more independent and Rakan a bit needier.

Rakan is a very squishy, short-ranged, catcher that relies on mobility and good timing, with Xayah his E takes away a large portion of the risk if the Xayah is paying attention and knows when to step forward to help him escape.

My suggestion is that since Xayah doesn't feel the impact of not having Rakan as drastically as Rakan does, if he needs buffed maybe reducing the differential on his E so that it isn't halved when he doesn't have Xayah ((or doubled when he does) would help Rakan players to feel more consistency in their play, and give him nice boost.

TL:DR; Make the range on his E slightly longer, but reduce the bonus he gets from using it on a Xayah to bridge the gap that Rakan players sometimes feel between having a Xayah and not.

10 Comments

Grace Of Kaizen5/30/2017, 10:29:28 AM2 votes

For reference, since the usual wave of downvotes have commenced per usual.

The base range on Rakan's E is 550. It goes to 1100 when targeting a Xayah.

That's more of a range difference than an Akali Q. (600 range) And a Lux Q. (1175 range)

It's broken when there's a Xayah to target, and feels very short if there isn't. I don't think adding 200 range to the base E and nerfing the bonus down to 1000 would be too obnoxious.

Considering Rakan's total cc time with a full rank ultimate is 2.5 seconds. Leona's is 3 seconds and she can survive after an engage, plus deal more dmg.

He doesn't build ap because he can't afford to with how close range he is, so his damage is barely anything.

His shielding just got a serious nerf, and if you cc him he's usually not the tankiest support there is, adding this buff doesn't have the risk of overloading him with dmg, cc,or tankiness.

It does however make him both less broken, and stronger at the same time.

The amount of Rakan's I see that dive in only to realize their E is a lot shorter than they bargained for and getting blown up is really high. His kit revolves around engaging, but he's not good in the middle of a fight afterward.

He's not the typical diver that wants to stay in a fight after getting a five man ultimate.

Maybe his first E range could remain the same, but his second could get a slight buff so that it doesn't affect his engage ability as much.

ChaddyFantome5/30/2017, 11:17:26 AM2 votes

been saying this since the PBE. the difference between his E when he does and doesn't have Xayah is too big. Make it so the range for Xayah is a bit shorter but his E without her is a bit longer.

he can Engage from Fog of War with E when there is a Xayah on the team but barely can air teammates that aren't Xayah in plain view. Also, revert his Q range change and E shielding nerf, or at least lower it a bit to in between current and before the buff.

it wasn't the change he needed at all.

Psyrix5/30/2017, 10:55:43 AM1 votes

...TBH people most likely will always feel the difference. If Rakan had been released before Xayah and their interactions hadnt been known not as many people would be complaining about it. I honestly don't think he really needs a range increase buff, sure it'd be nice, but I've mainly played without a Xayah and it's pretty fine. And lol yay another person that plays her mid. Ive only played her bot 4 times, got lvl 7 playing her mid

Aria Storm6/1/2017, 6:02:32 PM1 votes

I feel like the bonus shouldn't be on his E at all and instead made a mid range between xayah and normal range.

I think it should be on his q, and heal xayah twice as much as any champion.

Here's why: rakan's q is short ranged with as long cool down, the heal doesn't heal that much, even with windspeakers. It heals more if you build ap, but I found it just doesn't really do that much even then, since There are two challenges with his q. Hitting a champion and actually hea king your adc. More often than not, my ads run from my heals, and I have to blow mana on my e to actually heal their butt.

I feel it would also make more sense story wise, since he fights to protect her, so having a stronger heal would be kinda nice for the rather abysmal landing phase.

FiddlesOnTheRoof6/1/2017, 6:03:57 PM1 votes

As fun as unique interactions are, they should be removed. It's a balancing nightmare. Her w and his e can't be touched when attempting to balance the individual champ, because of how it would affect the other.