Elise's Human Q is constantly kept crappy because of its "potentially toxic harass" potential (no pun intended). Wouldn't it be less oppressive if it weren't a burst attack?
Or am I missing something completely?
RiotMeddler6 votesBoth of Elise's Q spells were short duration DoTs during her development for a while. Being DoTs was more thematic, it made them both much less satisfying for Elise and harder to recognize the impact of as the target though. In terms of power it wasn't noticeably weaker either. As a result we chose to go for an upfront damage model instead and got much better feedback from playtests with that.
Linna Excel2 votesWhat about the complaint that the Q on her human form just doesn't feel all that satisfying?
Abyssphere1 votes[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=2U0nY9gM,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2016-03-28T19:12:40.944+0000)
What about the complaint that the Q on her human form just doesn't feel all that satisfying?
Well apparently it would have felt a lot less satisfying in DOT form.
RiotMeddler4 votesAs MotherTeresa1910 below mentions a DoT would exacerbate that problem. The other thing going on though is that Elise's Human Q is weaker than an average ability because she's got a double kit and a significant amount of (also hard to appreciate) power in minions. If you're comparing her human Q to the average champion's Q it's going to feel like its impact's low because its impact is low - her power budget's split between more things, leaving less power per ability.
Linna Excel1 votesI'm actually comparing her human Q to her spider Q. The spider Q is fun to use (I'd say her spider's kit is more fun in general). The human Q in comparison feels weak.
The other thing going on though is that Elise's Human Q is weaker than an average ability because she's got a double kit
This is something I really hate about the double kit champs. You've either got one skill with all the power (old nidalee spear) or else everything feels too diluted (current nidalee and elise). I mean elise overall is good when you know how to use her, but she and to an extent nidalee feel like extended combo champs where you hit one or two skills in the human form and then you pretty much have to transform. You have to because there just isn't enough power in one side ATM.
While I know both champs have a ton of fans, it seems like their current double kits hurt their gameplay overall. For my casual awareness of their kits, it doesn't seem like someone has any major choices when it comes to form use or how I want to approach a game. They both feel the same like that in that their shared big aspect is actually pretty mundane in terms of gameplay. Don't get me wrong, they can be good or bad in powerlevels, it just feels like they are both suffering from missed opportunities, particularly once you step back from the second to second level of gameplay. I mean neither really have much in the terms of decision making in terms of I want to focus on a ranged build this game or I need to be more of a melee champ this game.
As an aside I kind of miss the old nidalee because as bad as her spears were, they were at least iconic. Now she doesn't really have that major defining trait. Hitting that Q isn't satisfying anymore as it is basically a check skill to set up her cougar form.
Abyssphere1 votes[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=2U0nY9gM,comment-id=0003000000010000,timestamp=2016-03-28T21:57:58.290+0000)
I'm actually comparing her human Q to her spider Q. The spider Q is fun to use (I'd say her spider's kit is more fun in general). The human Q in comparison feels weak.
This is something I really hate about the double kit champs. You've either got one skill with all the power (old nidalee spear) or else everything feels too diluted (current nidalee and elise). I mean elise overall is good when you know how to use her, but she and to an extent nidalee feel like extended combo champs where you hit one or two skills in the human form and then you pretty much have to transform. You have to because there just isn't enough power in one side ATM.
While I know both champs have a ton of fans, it seems like their current double kits hurt their gameplay overall. For my casual awareness of their kits, it doesn't seem like someone has any major choices when it comes to form use or how I want to approach a game. They both feel the same like that in that their shared big aspect is actually pretty mundane in terms of gameplay. Don't get me wrong, they can be good or bad in powerlevels, it just feels like they are both suffering from missed opportunities, particularly once you step back from the second to second level of gameplay. I mean neither really have much in the terms of decision making in terms of I want to focus on a ranged build this game or I need to be more of a melee champ this game.
As an aside I kind of miss the old nidalee because as bad as her spears were, they were at least iconic. Now she doesn't really have that major defining trait. Hitting that Q isn't satisfying anymore as it is basically a check skill to set up her cougar form.
Unfortunately I don't think designing transform champions to be satisfying without transforming is a good idea. As far as I'm aware, Jayce was designed to be a transform champion that was designed to transform to fit different situations/games, but didn't necessarily need to use both forms to achieve a good result. The result of that design is that he spends the vast, vast majority of his time in ranged form despite a variety of incentives to use his melee form (mana return, resistance steroids) and when he was at his best, it felt like both forms were good enough to be individual champions on their own. On top of that, it meant crafting basically no synergy between his two forms which makes one wonder why he transforms at all and leaves him lacking a single satisfactory combo. While Elise and Nidalee can certainly feel linear (the ranged > melee combo is repetitive), it a) makes sure they're making use of the entirety of their kits to do their job b) introduces risk to their kits (they need to take risk to get their highest rewards) c) makes the transform aspect of their kit satisfying and sensible and d) makes "I caught this champion in the wrong form" a useful thing to have done.
To be clear, my experience with both Elise and Nidalee is that neither of them feel like they need to transform to do their job in every situation. Nidalee has sieging as a major strength which is primarily a ranged endeavour, but when it comes to roaming around the map, cougar is the one for the job. Elise if looking for picks, peeling or sieging, will spend extended durations in human form, but will use spider form for travelling the map, finding squishies that are particularly incapable of fighting back, and melting tanky targets (this is primarily post-Rylai's admittedly). To combo someone they absolutely have to do a set combo (which I would argue is healthy and fun), but neither individual form is lacking in "can be useful on its own" situations. Jayce I do not believe has any incentive to run around in melee form unless farming in an empty lane.
Regarding the dilution of power budget versus concentration of power into one skill, that is an issue but not too big an issue IMO. Nidalee's spears are arguably too weak to be defining anymore but you'd hope that players would enjoy how her whole kit works together. Elise has Cocoon which feels kit-defining without being kit-dominating and Jayce has his EQ combo but I would hazard a guess at that fitting into the "overwhelms the rest of the kit" category.
In the end I think transform champions just have different appeal to non-transform ones. Someone who loves combo-oriented play and "do one thing right, then go in" champions will love people like Elise because a EQWRQW combo is button-mashing madness. This is especially true if you actually like the theme of "Hi I'm a lady-HA I'M ACTUALLY A MONSTER DIE". Having a major iconic ability isn't necessarily something everyone finds essential either - some people will be more interested in a high moment with a whole kit working together (Nidalee's cougar form combo) than one ability being particularly amazing. It's probably OK if transform champions don't have the same appealing factors that more normal champions do as long as long as they have other fun traits instead (which they do) and people like them. For people who don't like transform champions, there are 120+ champions who don't transform.
Linna Excel1 votesUnfortunately I don't think designing transform champions to be satisfying without transforming is a good idea.
I see what you are getting at here but overall it feels to me that for both of them, pressing R is basically to extend a combo from human to animal form. I think that elise's kit at least allows her for some cooler plays of the two of them whereas nidalee's spear is more of a check skill with a binary decision.
To be clear, my experience with both Elise and Nidalee is that neither of them feel like they need to transform to do their job in every situation. Nidalee has sieging as a major strength which is primarily a ranged endeavour, but when it comes to roaming around the map, cougar is the one for the job. Elise if looking for picks, peeling or sieging, will spend extended durations in human form, but will use spider form for travelling the map, finding squishies that are particularly incapable of fighting back, and melting tanky targets (this is primarily post-Rylai's admittedly).
Interesting. I guess I don't same vibes as you. Nidalee's spear just isn't as satisfying to hit anymore and I think one of the major youtubers (redmercy I think) recently said there's no reason to try and hit a max range spear. There's just not the reward for standing back and spamming spears. As for elise, I like the stun on her human E but that's about it. I just don't like the neurotoxin and her suicide spider is meh.
Nidalee's spears are arguably too weak to be defining anymore but you'd hope that players would enjoy how her whole kit works together.
I kind of dropped her after they killed her spear. I know there are people who find her fun and when she's good she's good, I just don't like the new kit.
Abyssphere1 votesI see what you are getting at here but overall it feels to me that for both of them, pressing R is basically to extend a combo from human to animal form. I think that elise's kit at least allows her for some cooler plays of the two of them whereas nidalee's spear is more of a check skill with a binary decision.
I guess the perfect balance is for pressing R to occasionally be to extend a combo (IMO that is a requirement for a healthy transform champion, the two forms need to rely on each other to at least some extent), but for pressing R to also be an occasional "I want to be doing X for the next while" strategic decision. As I said in my original post, I think Elise and Nidalee both have that in different ways - admittedly heavily weighed towards their human forms. It could be a bigger thing for them, but that leads to people like Jayce who rarely transform and that's not good either. "I want to focus on X form for this game and build for that" isn't something I really like the sound of, because it is basically just "This champion is good in way more situations and is way more flexible than other champions" which is something transform champions already tend to show - pretty sure all of them have been called overloaded at one point or another.
Interesting. I guess I don't same vibes as you. Nidalee's spear just isn't as satisfying to hit anymore and I think one of the major youtubers (redmercy I think) recently said there's no reason to try and hit a max range spear. There's just not the reward for standing back and spamming spears. As for elise, I like the stun on her human E but that's about it. I just don't like the neurotoxin and her suicide spider is meh.
I think Nid could use power budget back in her spear, that's for sure. Nid's human kit in general has kinda been trashed since her jungle rework unfortunately, so I'd like to see some redistribution of power budget there. I like Elise's abilities for the most part (Neurotoxin is admittedly quite meh and certainly lacking in satisfaction but everything else I enjoy) but that is a matter of opinion so not really worth arguing.
I kind of dropped her after they killed her spear. I know there are people who find her fun and when she's good she's good, I just don't like the new kit.
That sucks :( Hopefully they'll go back on that sometime.
Thanks for managing to get through my original reply to youby the way - it was extremely long so it'd have been understandable to ignore it!
Thales2 votesElise to me really seems like maybe the most problematic of the transformers. She has some good gameplay to her with Rappel and Volatile Spiderling, but her other abilities all feel pretty low-impact and low-mastery. With the exception of Rappel, and possibly Cocoon, she doesn't do a very good job filling the thematic space a spider, or even a were-spider, has to offer. Balance-wise, she tends to vacillate between overpowering and terrible.
Right now, she seems in an okay state in terms of game-health, but I'm sure that'll change at some point this season, probably with the itemization changes from the mage update. She's from the era of a champion every two weeks, which produced no end of design nightmares (along with, to be sure, some really nice ones). Are there any plans to rework her?
Abyssphere1 votesElise to me really seems like maybe the most problematic of the transformers. She has some good gameplay to her with Rappel and Volatile Spiderling, but her other abilities all feel pretty low-impact and low-mastery. With the exception of Rappel, and possibly Cocoon, she doesn't do a very good job filling the thematic space a spider, or even a were-spider, has to offer. Balance-wise, she tends to vacillate between overpowering and terrible.
Right now, she seems in an okay state in terms of game-health, but I'm sure that'll change at some point this season, probably with the itemization changes from the mage update. She's from the era of a champion every two weeks, which produced no end of design nightmares (along with, to be sure, some really nice ones). Are there any plans to rework her?
Personally the only spell of hers I really find unimpactful is Neurotoxin, everything else feels like it pulls its weight. Thematically I would agree that she's lacking, even Cocoon which technically fulfils the "trap them in your web" thing doesn't do it in a very spider-y way.
Balance-wise Elise is quite a bit better than her reputation suggests. Her problem with balance is entirely down to how strong she is in co-ordinated play and if it weren't for that, she'd be considered balanced 90% of the time. There's nothing in her kit that actually reads "either way too strong or shit" (unless you disagree?), it's just that as long as she's at all good she's going to be a popular LCS pick and people will always register someone as OP when they're competitively viable. Elise has only been broken outside of coordinated play on two brief occasions over the last year - immediately after her major buffs last summer, and immediately after the release of Runic Echoes. Outside of that and the last few months before her buffs, she's spent the majority of the last year in a "usable but not overpowered" state. The mage update shouldn't affect her too much either given that it's primarily focused on mana itemisation which is irrelevant to her.
To make Elise more thematic you'd need a massive, ground-up rework. Given she's a pretty healthy champion in most ways and is considered fun by a decent chunk of the community, that seems like a bad idea. To make her more balanceable they'd probably just need to make her kit less valuable in coordinated play and more valuable in disorganised play because the gap between a Silver Elise and a Challenger Elise is what causes pretty much all of her balance problems. That'd probably not be the easiest thing in the world though.
Thales1 votesI did mean for competitive — I'm never scared to face an Elise (or a Lee Sin or a Nidalee) on the ladder. She's rarely strong outside of competitive, but she vacillates between being useless everywhere and too strong in competitive.
Personally, I'd be happy with a ground-up rework, although admittedly there are champions who need it more than she does. Granted, I don't play her, so I'm not exactly speaking from the perspective of someone who would be affected by the change. There's so much room for cool stuff in play around webs, around her flavor of deception, around properly spidery things. I just don't want all that crowded out by a slightly evasive AP fighter.
Abyssphere1 votesI did mean for competitive — I'm never scared to face an Elise (or a Lee Sin or a Nidalee) on the ladder. She's rarely strong outside of competitive, but she vacillates between being useless everywhere and too strong in competitive.
Personally, I'd be happy with a ground-up rework, although admittedly there are champions who need it more than she does. Granted, I don't play her, so I'm not exactly speaking from the perspective of someone who would be affected by the change. There's so much room for cool stuff in play around webs, around her flavor of deception, around properly spidery things. I just don't want all that crowded out by a slightly evasive AP fighter.
Riot seem somewhat happy to have competitive-exclusive champions but it is a pity. What I will say for Elise is that pretty much every balance change she's received from 2015-onwards has been either a bigger buff for low ELO Elise than high ELO Elise or a bigger nerf for high ELO Elise than low ELO Elise, so the gap between the two has shrunk a bit, but the difference is clearly still there and unhealthy to her performance in both types of play. Not something a full on rework is needed for, just a decent bit of tuning. It's tuning I imagine Riot is unwilling to do, though.
My personal opinion is that as long as a champion isn't a disaster it's not really justifiable to delete their old kit for almost any reason, particularly something as flimsy as thematics. Thematics contribute to being fun but Elise is already pretty popular so she's clearly succeeded in being an enjoyable champion as is despite her weak theme. On top of this, going very far with the spider theme is tricky as spiders are rather niche appeal at best - Elise was actually deemed too creepy due to her SFX in development and had to be toned down because of that, so I'd be cautious of really uping the ante here. Elise has some pretty unique mechanics and a somewhat unique place in the game (one of the only AP junglers and one of the only AP fighters in the game) so deleting that would sacrifice a lot more of value than is typical for VGUs. Elise is worlds apart from ... anyone that's ever gotten a full gameplay update.
Pyrodinium1 votesWould it be fair to say that these problems (low satisfaction and fuzzy output) are endemic to DoT abilities, or related specifically to Elise's kit?
I seem to recall a comment made during Cassiopea's first rework addressing the difficulties of balancing her DoT poke pattern(basically it said that when balanced numerically, the ability felt too weak, and when set to feel good, it ate a lot of her power budget).
RiotMeddler4 votesDoTs do on average feel worse because their power's harder to track. In a lot of single player games that's easily solved by just making a DoT incredibly strong if you need it to feel satisfying - doesn't matter if it's somewhat overpowered if it feels right relative to other direct damage abilities. In a competitive multiplayer setting like LoL that's not an appropriate option though, given the need to value ability balance really highly.
Hellioning7 votesPlease do remember the 'on average' part of that comment. Some people, like me, really like DoTs, and other hard to appreciate things (like auras.) I'm fine with them being niche, but they should still be extant for those that like them.
Zerfallen1 votesGo play Brand, Malz, and Swain then!
[slayer-jinx-wink]
DorkunedAuras1 votesother hard to appreciate things (like auras.)
I like to think I'm easy to appreciate (note name)
Abyssphere1 votesPlease do remember the 'on average' part of that comment. Some people, like me, really like DoTs, and other hard to appreciate things (like auras.) I'm fine with them being niche, but they should still be extant for those that like them.
I think it's partly down to variance in terms of what players like and in terms of difference between DOT spells. For example, I'm a big fan of Malz's E because it's an ability with interesting mechanics and a distinct visual/sound. I like Cass's Q because it has the "walk away while they die" gameplay to it and skillshot paradigm and I like stuff like Swain/Malz ult because it's nice to see people's health bars gradually melting while you attack them (I mean that's essentially no different to an ADC auto attacking someone continuously, really).
On the other hand something like Neurotoxin being a DOT wouldn't be enjoyable at all becuase it's a pretty dull ability overall and there wouldn't really be anything exciting about poisoning someone with it. They need to find the right abilities to make DOTs I think.
Teslalyte1 votesI'd also argue that DoTs scale WORSE than their direct-damage cousins because of late game regen scaling. Since DoTs require time to do their full damage, regeneration will make the full damage seem lower.
EnvyDragon1 votesWhat if you had an indicator of how much damage over time you can be expected to take/regeneration an effect will provide on your healthbar, like Heroes of the Storm does? It always feels shitty to die after you think you've escaped, but if you could look at your healthbar and go, "oh, the DoT has me, oh well," then it feels less abrupt.
It would also give lower-level players a greater appreciation for things like Volibear passive, Mundo ult, and potions.
Abyssphere1 votesWould it be fair to say that these problems (low satisfaction and fuzzy output) are endemic to DoT abilities, or related specifically to Elise's kit?
I seem to recall a comment made during Cassiopea's first rework addressing the difficulties of balancing her DoT poke pattern(basically it said that when balanced numerically, the ability felt too weak, and when set to feel good, it ate a lot of her power budget).
My guess would be a mixture of both. DOTs need to be really unique/strong to be satisfying and Neurotoxin/Venomous Bite are pretty simple spells with nothing to them outside of damage (and the gapclose on Venomous Bite obviously), so they're not fun enough to justify DOT - they need the instant "omg so much damage" gratification to be satisfying. On the other hand, even something like Cass Q has the "yay skillshot" fun and the great feeling of the speed boost, Malz E has the bounce mechanic and obscene damage, Malz ult is overall really fun, and so on. I think Elise's skills were just too simple both in function and in execution (just clicking on someone) to be fun with DOT.
67chrome2 votesWouldn't it be less oppressive if it weren't a burst attack?
not really.
Damage-over-time effects in general are less fun and a little more oppressive than burst. With burst you get a pretty good idea of how much damage is happening and what it's doing. There's no real foresight and planning necessary, and no real clarity issues. If you loose a trade vs. burst it's pretty obvious you lost a trade vs. burst. With Damage-over-time: the over-time thing makes it harder to internalize and really quantify when fighting various opponents. It takes a while to get the right feel for how much damage a DoT effect is going to deliver, when to back out, and when a DoT will deal lethal damage. All of this heavily favors playing a DoT champion and puts their opponents at a disadvantage, and it also forces playing against DoT champions to give such champions a bigger buffer and assume they'll do more damage than they actually will to be safe: which isn't particularly fun.
Zero Skill Tank2 votesIt wouldn't, it's still unavoidable damage for most champions.
Abyssphere2 votesNeurotoxin isn't a crappy spell, its mana cost is kept unreasonable because of top lane Elise but for jungle Elise it does everything it's supposed to do - it contributes to her burst rotation. They actually nerfed its damage in the middle of season 5 because it was too strong. In any case, there are two reasons it's burst:
The issue with Neurotoxin only applies to top lane Elise (it's a healthy spell for a jungler) and if it were a DOT it'd still have the top lane problem of being targeted, ranged harass that doesn't draw minion aggro. If anything it'd cause more problems for top lane Elise in being a DOT because the damage would have to be higher than on the burst version and it'd be more abusive with stuff like Deathfire Touch.
Aside from game health issues, Elise needs Neurotoxin to be burst because she's supposed to have an assassination pattern that's reliant on an execute. Neurotoxin as a DOT would contradict Venomous Bite very heavily, making her unwilling to transform into spider form even when she lands Cocoon on a priority target. She'd spend much more time playing safely in human form (not something they want a transform champion to be doing) and lose her assassination potential entirely. In exchange for what she's giving up, she would gain... nothing. DOT doesn't play into any of her patterns and wouldn't unlock anything new for her.
TallyZrg2 votesNeurotoxin works well with 
since it gives the full 40% slow duration given it's single target state.
(You want it to stay single target for this reason alone!)
It works at it's best when the target is at max health since it deals % current health dmg. This spell is to set up her burst combo for when in spider form.
