Thoughts on Marksmen Changes + Ideas

A lot of the recent PBE changes have sparked a lot of conversation recently and I want to address some of those points and offer some suggestions. As stated in some of those threads, Riot has hit the mark on some of their goals (but not enough), and missed the mark entirely on others. Some concerns are that Marksmen are still doing the same damage to squishies. was intended to be built as one of your last items, but it is being built as a second items still because you get 60% crit instead of 50%, you have more AD, and you do the same damage to squishies if not more. The price changes are not enough to stop them. Riot has not hit the some core issues such as and stacking, Fleet Footwork still works too well because its sustain is catered toward marksmen and it causes little interaction in the laning phase. And lastly I will briefly discuss some champions who are sore points for players atm. Below I am going to list some suggested changes and keep in mind these changes are based off the current PBE changes. Let me know what you think.

ZEAL UPGRADES -I am going to change the pricing, effect, and build paths a little because I am going to make each of these items fall under 2 of 4 categories. These categories serve specific purposes and are the following: Single-Target, Multi-Target, DPS, BURST.

-Price increased from 1300 to 1400 -New Recipe: Brawler’s Gloves (400) + Brawler’s Gloves (400) + Dagger (300) + 300 gold

Upgrades (Burst): Statikk Shiv, Rapid Firecannon, and now Stormrazor (I will get to this later) no longer proc on the same attack. They will now proc one after the other in order based on their order in your item slots. They will all charge at the same rate still, but at slightly different times, and to remove confusion, each of them will also get a new icon to display what their charge is at. Fleet Footwork will still proc on the first attack with the first Engergized item effect. I am not opposed to having more than one of these items in the same build, but they become a problem when multiple proc on the same attack, and Shiv crits, and you crit with IE.

-Price increased from 800 to 100 -Combine Cost decreased from 500 to 400 -New Recipe: Dagger (300) + Dagger (300) + 400 gold -AS increased from 15% to 25%

(Multi-Target)(Burst)

• Price increased from 2800 to 3000 -combine cost increased from 700 to 800 -AS increased from 35% to 40% -SHIV LIGHTNING can no longer critically strike -SHIV LIGHTNING now deals 50% increased damage to minions -SHIV LIGHTNING no longer proc's on the same attack as other Energized effects, other than Fleet Footwork -SHIV LIGHTNING damage changed from from 60-140 to 60-120 (+25% bonus AD) based on level.

(Single-Target)(Burst) -Price increased from 2800 to 3000 -combine cost increased from 700 to 800 -AS increased from 30% to 40% -FIRECANNON no longer proc's on the same attack as other Energized effects, other than Fleet Footwork -FIRECANNON damage changed from 60-140 to 60-120 (+25% bonus AD) based on level

Upgrades (DPS): Phantom Dancer and Runnan's Hurricane will now be built from Recurve Bow. With the loss of early AD, and the fact that these two items don't have a useful second item in their build path make them less than desirable on most ADC's, so I'm doing this to set them apart more from Shiv and Firecannon, while also giving ADC's a new item to build in the early game to help their DPS play styles.

(Single-Target)(DPS) --Price increased from 2800 to 3000 -combine cost increased from 700 to 800 -New Recipe: Zeal (1400) + Recurve Bow (1000) + 600 gold -New Passive: +20 on-hit physical damage.

(Multi-Target)(DPS) -Price increased from 2800 to 3000 -combine cost increased from 700 to 800 -New Recipe: Zeal (1400) + Recurve Bow (1000) + 600 gold -AS increased from 40% to 45% -New Passive: +20 on-hit physical damage.

OTHER ITEMS AND RUNES

This item is causing some problems and to be honest I am not sure how to fix its bigger issues. As it stands, ADC should have more AD in the late game if I remember the base AD changes correctly, this item gives more AD, you get 10% more crit chance from 2 items, and you can hit 100% crit chance from just 3. I am not sure how to address its ridiculous item recipe or its passive but I do believe it needs a slight nerf, whether it is a decrease in AD (and a change in its item recipe to accompany this), or a decrease in its True Damage % which is what I am leaning more towards.

-True Damage decreased from 20% to 15%- his is just a simple nerf that I think is justified. There are a few threads already that show that this item does the same damage to squishies. This changes should alleviate that issue a little but, and it will still be stronger than live against tanky targets so that is not an issue. This would also hit Yasuo, Tryndamere, and Yi's true damage shenanigans on the PBE right now.

Stormrazor This item is also causing some problems atm, but I have a solution for his one, reworking it. This item was supposed to be used to make your first attacks more potent as you enter a fight, but thats not what happened. Right now it's causing unfair advantages for some laners and making assassins deal ludicrous amounts of damage early. This entire problem comes from its guaranteed crit passive. Champs like Draven and Jhin can abuse this to burst squishies early and they can do it very often because you only have to wait 2.5 seconds to do it, which is an insanely low amount of time to wait. Assassins are using this to just one-everybody (Rengar, Zed, Shaco, Talon, Nocturne even). And personally I have been having TOOO MUCH fun using this on Riven because it serves as a for consistent and powerful version of Duskblade and Dark Harvest, makes my combos smoother, and lets me kill towers faster. As much fun as this item is (on Riven), there is no way it can stay like this and be healthy for the game. To fix this, I am going to make it build out of . This way it still packs a punch for the first few seconds you enter a fight, and I can make it a more consitent damage option for anyone who takes (this includes buffing its second passive and changing its duration and giving it a conditional cooldown).

_Rework _ Stormrazor 3300 gold Recipe: B. F. Sword (1300) + Pickaxe (875) + Kircheis Shard (800) + 325 gold +65 AD +30% AS Unique Passive: Moving and attacking generates Energize stacks, up to 100. When fully Energized, your next basic attack gains WIND SCAR. This cannot be applied on the same attack as other Energized effects from items. Unique - WIND SCAR: Your next basic attack (on-attack) deals 60-140 (+30% bonus AD) bonus magic damage to the target, and in an AOE around the target. Unique: WIND SCAR grants 35% bonus AS and 12% bonus movement speed for 4 seconds (15 second cooldown). Critical Strikes reduce this cooldown by 1.5 seconds.

Fleet Footwork: To be honest, I do not think this should apply on minions at all. It creates a stale laning phase and is non-interactive for other players. I would do the following:

-No longer procs on minions -- This would force more interaction in the bot lane and Riot could revert some of the sustain nerfs to the ADC's or even buff Lifeline (because this rune is garbage compared to Alacrity and Tenacity). -No longer grants an increased heal on critical strikes -- This was one of the dumbest changes that could have been made to the rune because it forced it into an ADC rune, and prevented it from being buffed for other classes. -_Base heal increased from 3-60 to 8-110 based on level _-- The numbers could be over-tuned, but keep in mind that this version does not proc on minions anymore so laners will have to take some risks to proc it for the increased heal. This would also make it a more viable option on a larger variety of champions, and make it more viable in the jungle (because I believe that more Keystones should work in the jungle in general, even if it has to be weaker against camps to compensate).

Hail of Blades: At first glance this rune does not look very good, especially compared to Lethal Tempo. While it does let more champions take Domination as their primary, and it does not have a delay to activate, it still feels too weak even if some champions synergize with it well (check our Youmuu's video on this, he lists 10 or more champions that synergize with this.) While Lethal Tempo gives more long-term DPS, this keystone was supposed to be for more up-front damage, but it does not really live up to that very well.

-Attack Speed increased from 50-100% to 55-140% based on level -- It should stand to reason that if Lethal tempo is for long-term DPS, and this rune is for Short-term DPS, that this rune should be giving more attack speed -Each attack now deals 10% increased damage -- this is the change that I am iffy on because it could mean adding more damage to the keystone than necessary, but this change does follow the theme 'doing for damage for your first few attacks'.

Champs

, , and are causing problems because while their early games are weaker (unless you are because he can now get 70% with one item), they are absolutely decimating everyone late game with the new . I am not sure how to address this right now, and I have not thought of anything reasonable for them. is a strange case and less of an issue compared to the other 2, because his early game was gutted. and cost more gold, and because of no longer building out of , has to have about 3000 more gold now before he can hit his damage power spike, which really, REALLY hurts if he gets behind.

For all the other marksmen, I am not sure what to do. All the changes I listed are subject to change based on how they would affect the marksmen with their current base AD changes. What I do know is that champions who built will likely need some help, some of these champs are , , and possibly and . and stand out to me because out of all the ADC, they build this item the most, and with the loss of its Crit Chance, they could lose out on a lot of damage. I could be wrong however, and its new passive, Essence Flair, might actually be powerful enough to offset the lost of Crit Chance, but I could be wrong on that too.

These are some of the changes I thought of to fix some issues with the PBE changes, let me know what you guys think of these changes and what else might need addressed or changed.