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A CRITICAL analysis of Blade Work, Fiora's E

DHNinja·8/7/2015, 8:53:39 AM·3 votes·2,481 views

You know... because... it let's you Crit? I'm bad. Ugh.

http://i.imgur.com/YvdH1i2.png

  • The image above is inaccurate as the slow is 40/45/50/55/60%. League Wiki be the source. Don't always trust Wikis!

I've been playing Fiora pretty regularly since about 2012 and have been very harsh on the status of her old kit and this rework seems like a breath of fresh air. I'm mostly pleased with what I've seen so far and while I have a lot of things I want to say about each ability I also want to focus on something here that I REALLY don't like.

So previously Burst of Speed was an ability that was a Speed Steroid that was in a very weird place because it was meant to be used as a tool in order to chase an opponent and give her a little more mobility but it required you to hit enemies in order to actually utilize it but in order to hit enemies you needed to lose momentum to hit thing. It didn't make a lot of sense but it refreshed on kill and half on assist which made it a really good steroid. At max rank though, it was pretty crazy because it gives 120% Attack Speed for 3 seconds which is an okay length for what it was. With attack speed items it felt even more impactful.

Even though I didn't neccessarily like this ability because it was boring and not very interesting to use, it felt at the very least useful and after a while it grew on me. It was good for pushing and good for fighting but hit and miss with chasing.

But overall the ability was underwhelming because it didn't fit well. It was meant to be a mobility boost and only did half of its job. How does Blade Work stack up?

Blade Work is an ability design to help immobilize opponents through soft CC and following up with Critical Strike Damage that scales as you put ranks into the ability.

Playing her rework today after doing a few matches I started to realize that this ability is really, really **lack luster. ** And doesn't really prove to be a good substitute for the former, Burst of Speed.

This ability is weird, there's a non-scaling attack speed boost on an ability that has a cap limit of **two auto attacks. ** 50% is a lot of attack speed but it's **less **than what the old ability initially gave and you don't really feel that much of a difference in the auto attack because it's only two attacks which in fight amounts to an EXTREMELY short boost in speed in the middle of an actual fight which actually becomes less as your attack speed goes up. Why bother even giving it the extra attack speed when it amounts to only 1 second worth of auto attack gain?

The slow is a substitute for the movement speed boost that ordinarily helps you chase. The duration is short, one second. At its earliest ranks, a 1 second slow of 40% is okay and scales slowly to 60% offers little in terms of incentive to take more than one rank alone. A one second slow with tenacity probably won't feel much in the way of doing much though but it's at least something. You'd primarily be scaling this for the forced critical.

There is only one other ability that comes to mind that can force a Critical, and here it is, I think?

https://i.gyazo.com/21363e5983f3f7f26cab1ff64c698048.png

One thing I notice immediately is that Shaco's ability scales past 200% critical but also offers something very powerful in terms of incentive to rank this ability up and that's his blink which also offers stealth, which also allows him to set up his Backstab passive. This isn't exactly fair to compare a slow to but I feel that it's worth pointing out. This ability does a lot and has caused a lot of you grief. (Me included). Damn Shaco ganks.

But back on target. Prior to rework I found myself building something along the lines of item 3074 item 3035 item 3153 item 3047 And then situational items like item 3142 item 3139 item 3143 item 3026 item 3071. I never really went the critical route with Fiora and it seems to play well without the need for it because Fiora had burst and a rather hard to get around ultimate.

I even built Sword of the Divine when it was there because of how many auto attack resets Fiora had. 3 guaranteed criticals in a row followed by an ult makes many people cry. It was the same premises as Rengar and this forced critical thing reminds me of that, only its not good.

Now I find myself trying to build Fiora differently in an attempt to relearn her. Critical items like item 3031 item 3046 are things I'm considering. When combined with these abilities in a fight, it doesn't feel like an ability that is worth using when you have critical strike in your build. It doesn't feel good to use in the middle of the fight because its soft CC and you're in melee range. It doesn't even use Fiora's critical animation during the forced critical (Is this an oversight? I saw it pointed out in PBE?). It amounts to a little extra damage that I would sometimes already be getting, I'm just hitting E to cut out a dice roll on a second attack but chances are if I already have critical strike I have a 50/50 chance of getting it anyway because of RNG.

Blade Work is an ability that's used to chase. To prevent fleeing but when put into practice, the ability doesn't offer much in the way of bringing much to a fight beyond a critical considering the attack speed boost is extremely short lived. Sure, it's an auto attack reset but it still doesn't feel very good to use because it barely gets noticed. It's clunky and while I can't argue that it's less useful because you have a form of CC now, it doesn't necessarily feel that way.

Where Burst of Speed does half its job Blade Work manages to do even less.

**TL DR: **Blade Work looks good in theory but as far as an ability goes its worse than Burst of Speed and doesn't offer her much in terms of an ability at all. It's boring, it's not fun to use and while a critical strike looks AWESOME in theory there's more to making an ability that forces it cool and worth using. Just look at Shaco.

Can I recommend anything to make this ability better after whining about it? Maybe a few things? Why not remove the cap on the amount of attacks the attack speed remains on? Why not play around with the idea of the ability resetting on kill? Why not offer something interest for Fiora's kit?

I think it would be pretty awesome if Fiora could "Disarm" other Champions on her first hit since that could be rather thematic. Do I know what the mechanics of it would detail, I'm not entirely sure but something similar for a silence for auto attacks?

In any case, I feel like for Fiora to have a better place right now, something needs to be done about this ability.

4 Comments

Knight SoIaire 8/7/2015, 9:10:47 AM1 votes

you know that you compare similar skills but on 2 entirely diferent kits with diferent purposes

you cant do that

Baby Ghoul8/7/2015, 9:49:09 AM1 votes

I agree with you so much.

I have mixed feelings about the Fiora rework. I love that they added actual depth to her gameplay, and changed her from a feast or famine champion. That was needed. Her ult is great, but unreliable. It takes a lot of skill to trigger the heal, but I feel like it's appropriate for what she gets out of it.

Her Q isn't that amazing to use anymore, and it puts you in more danger for what you get out of it in most exchanges with melee carries. It's definitely not as intimidating as it once was either. People used to always complain about her ult, but her QAAQAA combo is what killed people most of the time. I can live with it though. It's not terrible, but I'm comfortable with it being revisited some day down the road.

My real problems come in with her E and W. Her W is not reliable, and it's comparable to Irelia's E, but it's harder to make work and has a long cooldown. There's no reason for it to have such a long cooldown. Fiora's E has the same problem. E has a long cooldown, short duration AS buff, soft slow, and cannot crit on the first hit. It's a mediocre ability, and Fiora's old E was much better, and I didn't like it very much either. Why can't she crit on the first hit? I feel like that's ridiculous.

What I think she could use is lower cooldowns on W and E, and a buff to her passive and E ability. She needs something to make up for her terrible wave clear, and weak escapes. The laning phase is just terrible right now. The AoE heal on Fiora's ult is not enough of an incentive to pick her over a bruiser like Irelia. She is just not as strong, and feels clunky. The reward for effort you put in to play her correctly should be much higher than it is currently, and the only reason it's not is because she needs a few tweaks.

I feel like they did a great job with her rework, and gave her so much potential. However she feels not nearly as satisfying to play anymore, so I'm hoping Riot gives her these buffs in the coming patches.

DHNinja8/7/2015, 10:23:56 AM1 votes

I'll be honest. Her Q isn't a bursty but it has a lot more mobility to it now than it ever has. I used to be able to use it for farming but that's a little more difficult now. It's late so I can't give a wall but her having a dash now actually feels pretty neat.