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Fiora in NA LCS

ShwaShwaBaggins·2/3/2016, 5:40:19 AM·35 votes·3,327 views

For those who don't know, Fiora has a 73% pick/ban rate in the NA LCS, with a 90% win rate (10 wins, 1 loss).

Sure, people my level aren't LCS level talent-wise, but Fiora mains or those at least somewhat competent with her parry (i.e. waiting for animations and making sure she doesn't waste it) can still make it impossible to win lane.

Edit: Thanks to some of the advice and criticism on this thread, I got matched against a Fiora and, although I did not even attempt to 1v1 her as Cho'Gath, I did not have too much trouble in lane. I also found it useful to reset her passive if it was directly towards her, as, if she lunged and missed it, I would just w-auto-walk away and out-trade her. Thank you all!

When I see Fiora, I think to myself "This game is going to suck so hard". When I see Fiora and a strong support, such as Zilean who can make focusing her OR ANYONE pointless (basically, if she gets ahead, she cannot die), I think to myself "I'm going to try, but I'm probably not playing any more normals today" (I have tried zoning Zilean but then I have to be in their backline, where she can easily turn around and make me flee/kill me). She is as toxic as a fed Tahm Kench and can beat most if not all top-laners. I really hope she gets some sort of nerf/weakness.

I know she is supposed to be a "master duelist", but does that mean she should not have 1v1 counters? Aside from maybe kiting by Teemo or Gnar, but then again she can just parry his very obvious Toxic Dart, or fight Gnar when he is in melee form. A competent Fiora seems to always win her lane.

On a side note, does anyone know why I have seen Nautilus , who is apparently a very annoying and hard to deal with, virtually unkiteable bruiser with seemingly low early mana costs, in every game I have played today? At first I was excited and even commended the enemy top-laner (who had 1100 wins to my 160, not sure why that happened in my solo queue but, ok) for playing a champion I think is really cool and don't ever see. I have won a few games against him, but usually he dominates team fights by simply standing in the middle and not dying while dealing massive bursts of damage with Titanic Hydra.

58 Comments

Juggernaut6282/3/2016, 5:49:12 AM13 votes

Any Nautilus who gets Titanic Hydra is retarded. He is literally there for cc and shouldnt be autoing that much. I do agree Nautilus is strong right now though. Tons of cc OP. Similar to why Malphite is strong right now. Tanky with cc.

Koechophe2/3/2016, 9:30:36 AM8 votes

(Cue downvoting into oblivion) Fiora's laning phase is actually somewhat terrible. Her passive only adds 3-4% max health true damage, which is not a whole lot (20-40 true damage at 500 - 1000 hp, which are pretty average numbers for early laning phase). The heal is almost negligable, and is usually canceled out by minion harass she takes for autoing a champion. Her E doesn't add a whole lot without levels, and her W is negligable in damage early on, and is her only CC. She has no real sustain until she gets Hydra, and she can't outdual anyone unless she lands all 4 vitals (And sometimes not even then) on her ult.

Unfortunately, she is near-unkillable unless she makes a mistake. No, the name of the game is poke. Poke her down so she misses CS and then build armor (most of her damage is actually physical). Once fiora gets 3 items plus boots, she's going to be terrifying. But before then, she's dealt with easily if you A) Don't try to engage, just poke, B) recognize that you won't be able to kill her and C) don't let her get hard cc on her W. Notice this pattern in LCS: Fiora doesn't actually get fed in lane. She's usually behind in CS and she's not terribly powerful until she gets later into the game.

The thing is, Fio is only problematic on the pro scene 1) because NA doesn't know how to respond to her (in Korea and EU she's a non-entity) and 2) because split pushing is the new pro meta for a top laner, and she excells at that. In regular games, split pushing isn't as much a thing because it takes extreme coordinaton to pull off; something most blind teams don't have. Instead, more likely than not, people will converge on the split pusher and kll them, and their team won't take any advantage from it.

I honestly don't have a problem with Fio. She's frustrating to play against as a tank, but manageable. I do think she does a bit too much damage with tanky builds, but I don't think she's gamebreaking or anything. It's just that people are too afraid to take advantage of her objectively weak laning phase.

KillerKell2/3/2016, 4:50:43 PM7 votes

You are limiting your view to the NA LCS.

In Europe, she's at 44% Win Rate.

In the LPL she's at 22% Win Rate.

I'd strongly suggest resorting to YouTube, pulling up some Euro and LPL, and seeing how they deal with Fiora.

I'll give you a hint... until Huni took Quinn Top... most NA teams were playing Against Fiora WRONG. But our beloved NA tends to be the last ones to figure out how to counter 'OP' Champions, because generally NA is the most resistant to finding New Metas... which is why you didn't see NA with a Kennen/Shen Duo Bot among other things in Season 5.

It's not so much the Mechanical Skill that keeps NA down... since most of Europe and NA is actually Asian Players now... it's the Concepts that hold us back.

So when you watch Fiora wrecking the NA LCS, but see her breaking less than even in Europe and being stomped in the LPL, it's because they are making the right adjustments to a Fiora being on the Enemy Team whereas the NA is generally not.

blfUvZ8Ybu2/3/2016, 9:48:11 AM5 votes

She needs nerfs promptly.

Abyssphere2/3/2016, 10:20:12 AM5 votes

She needs nerfs but it's not because of the NA LCS, the sample size for your argument is pathetic. She has crap win rates in other regions - should I argue that she needs buffs because she's doing badly in EU?

Shrîke2/3/2016, 12:00:35 PM5 votes

She needs nerfs not bc of LCS but bc she builds 2 damage items and does stupid ass damage while being insanely tanky. They nerfed Ekko for this exact reason.

Fjiordor2/3/2016, 9:17:53 AM4 votes

Ever pick the Donger into her? Its quite funny because he renders Fiora completly unable to to her thing and she will absulutly fall behind to a point where she has no longer an impact on the game. Also graves is great too against her for he can simply punish her for going for his marks.

Dengeden2/3/2016, 1:23:16 PM3 votes

When I see Fiora in LCS, she's at half health and stalling out the game, hoping for the split push game or a good ult in a teamfight.

Espy Psyche2/3/2016, 9:34:31 AM2 votes

I'll give an example: TSM vs Immortals.

Immortals' Huni picked Fiora, and TSM's Hauntzer picked Poppy into her.

Hauntzer won that matchup. TSM still lost, because of a bad Baron call, but Hauntzer won that matchup and Poppy beats Fiora.

TallyZrg2/4/2016, 12:57:11 AM2 votes

Nautilus is a sleeper pick right now.

Also his anchor hit-box doesn't match the visuals, I can't count the number of times I thought I was safe and out of it's range only to find out that the two feet of air in front of his anchor is magnetically charged and will bind to the iron in your bloodstream.

Whenever I have ban rights Nautilus is always my go to ban. Hard to win lane phase because he's so tanky (so you can't really focus him) and has 4 forms of CC (Passive, Anchor, Riptide, Ult) so it's almost impossible to get to the ADC to kill them.

Late game he has the sturdiness of a Mundo with the disruption of a Thresh.

If anyone has any tips for how to deal with Nautilus please let me know, I'm all ears.

SpecterVonBaren2/3/2016, 10:40:02 PM2 votes

{quoted}

On a side note, does anyone know why I have seen Nautilus , who is apparently a very annoying and hard to deal with, virtually unkiteable bruiser with seemingly low early mana costs, in every game I have played today? At first I was excited and even commended the enemy top-laner (who had 1100 wins to my 160, not sure why that happened in my solo queue but, ok) for playing a champion I think is really cool and don't ever see. I have won a few games against him, but usually he dominates team fights by simply standing in the middle and not dying while dealing massive bursts of damage with Titanic Hydra.

Whut?... Naut isn't a bruiser, he's a pure tank. And as someone that's tried Titanic Hydra on Naut, it's bad, his attack speed is too low to make getting it worthwhile. Naut dominates teamfights by being a tanky lockdown champ.

PiVoRx2/4/2016, 9:19:19 AM1 votes

I know her laning phase is a nightmare but in mid game i just get qss and shes useless.

elon wątroba2/3/2016, 5:14:13 PM1 votes

{quoted}

I know she is supposed to be a "master duelist", but does that mean she should not have 1v1 counters? Aside from maybe kiting by Teemo or Gnar, but then again she can just parry his very obvious Toxic Dart, or fight Gnar when he is in melee form. A competent Fiora seems to always win her lane.

Try him Pantheon , his shield counters her q'ing for vitals, great poke and targeted stun is funny too.

Axests2/3/2016, 8:58:17 PM1 votes

A friend of mine yesterday literally ragequit after having to lane vs a fiora. Let's just say that laning vs a champion with sustain, high dps, true damage, cc (along with counter cc), the ability to deal damage while building tank, and a huge AoE heal is kiiiinda op. She needs some mana cost nerfs to make trading in lane more difficult for her IMO.

Kaioko2/3/2016, 10:40:06 PM1 votes

I wonder why she doesn't have staggering win rates in the other regions. I'd love to say it's because we're obviously so much better but considering how well we do in Worlds... well...

FluxBound2/4/2016, 1:55:12 AM1 votes

Fiora and GP are on the same level and are getting no nerfs at all yet. It's been like this for a couple weeks, but it's still the same. Lissandra is also really good, but I believe that's because the meta currently lets people have 3 adc's on one team. Nautilus has been pretty good for a while, especially as a top laner. What he lacks is good mobility, but he makes up for it through CC. If you're having trouble, I suggest going Gnar against him. Gnar is able to keep distance from the E's and you can use E to dodge any all ins.