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@Meddler: A healthy Heimerdinger rework, focussed around Upgrade

Kowe The Ewok·12/29/2014, 1:48:38 AM·1 votes·316 views

TL;DR: Scroll down to the last paragraph.

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Heimerdinger

Introduction: (Skippable)

Hey guys, I'm Kowe. After I random'd Heimerdinger in a premade 5 funmatch and scored a (really lucky) Pentakill with him, I took my time to learn more about this champion. I learned to value and love his unique playstyle - and especially the extreme flexibility of his ultimate. Now I play him on regular bases. In my average game I face players from high gold to medium diamond ranking. However, I've took my time to also spectate a few other people playing him at higher and lower Elos.

Heimerdinger's spot balancing wise: (Skippable, but valuable to understand why he is difficult to balance right now)

Heimerdinger is in a unique situation. He is extremely powerful at lower Elos, while being extremely weak at higher elos. Some possible reasons being:

  • New players without full rune / mastery pages AND
  • New players with beneath average farm

Often lack the (ability) power to clear his turrets properly. Meanwhile

  • Experienced players with a full rune build AND

  • Average or above average farm

  • Or any fed player

Can even 1HKO his turrets.

  • Another huge difference is that new players often lack the awareness to properly judge a situation and dive too deep into his turrets, tanking a lot of damage or underrate their importance for Heimerdinger and don't focus on "cleaning" and concentrate only on Heimer instead. More experienced player however will easily play around their poor (450) range or just destroy them instantly.

  • New players often get hit by charged lasers, while these are 100% easily avoidable by more experienced players.

Heimerdinger's main issue in "pro play" also is his lack of consistency - his skillshots (W and E) are:

  • Delayed with very specific hitboxes, making them easy to dodge
  • Have incredibly high cooldown

Considering how burst the meta is he will often not be able to use one of these ability more than once in a fight. This becomes especially problematic since:

  • W and E share their cooldown with his ultimate!

=> As a conclusion he's very oppressive for new players while being very ineffective against experienced players.

Counterpicks:

Heimerdinger suffers more than any other champion from "unbeatable" counterpicks. Azir MasterYi Nunu Syndra Fiddlesticks item 3713 . While no opponent ever is unbeatable all these champions basically rob him of any solid chance to fight back (sadly even without any further skill rquirement). No exaggeration. With the high cooldowns on W and E simply does not have the ability to choose another skill path and compete in lane. Be it Azir's invincible units, Yi's and Fiddle's instant killing of all towers with a single ability or simply Syndra's ability to throw (push) away his towers and 100-0 him due to his low base health. (Some people migth argue that Yi and Fiddle might need badly positioned towers, sadly that's not true since minionwaves tend to act as bridges). And Trailblazer.. well... Any Smite wrecks his R+Q.

The idea behind my concept: (I recommand to read this)

I am trying to take away what makes Heimerdinger's abilities oppressive earlygame and shift these components into a Kha'Zix style "Upgrade!" upon leveling his ultimate (The name couldn't be more fitting). As a compensation I lower cooldowns across the board to make him more flexible in lane and overall more consistent. This results in a significant best-case scenario nerf earlygame, but improved lategame and overall consistency.

Looking at the current state of Heimerdinger - What components can be considered oppressive?:

  • Q: The range, pushing power and damage of the charged shots.
  • W: The maximum burst damage upon hitting all 5 rockets.
  • E: The possible AoE stun.

(Finally) ** The rework suggestion:**

Upgrade!!! (R):

  • Upon leveling "Upgrade!!!" (lvl 6, 11, 16) Heimerdinger gains an upgrade point.
  • Upgrade points can be used to add additional effects to his abilities. (Like Kha'Zix)
  • Upon activation "Upgrade!!!" treats the empowered ability like it was upgraded (means: "R" itself not influenced by the earlgame nerfs, otherwise his ultimate would become useless)

H-28G Evolution Turret (Q):

  • Damage values & mana cost unchanged.
  • Now requires 1 upgrade point to unlock the ability to fire charged shots.
  • Cooldown lowered from 24 / 23 / 22 / 21 / 20 to 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12

Hextech Micro-Rockets (W):

  • Number of rockets reduced from 5 to 3.
  • Equals a damage reduction 24 / 36 / 48 / 60 / 72 + 0.18 AP
  • Cooldown reduced from 11 to 7 s
  • Mana cost reduced from 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 to 55 / 60 / 75 / 90 / 105
  • ** Now requires 1 upgrade point to increase the maximum amount of rockets from 3 **(back) to 5.

CH-2 Electron Storm Grenade:

  • Stun removed.
  • Mana cost unchanged.
  • Cooldown lowered from 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 to 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 -Now requires 1 upgrade point to unlock the 1.25s stun. Upgrading this ability also adds a projectile speed improvement (150).

The result. Conclusion:

  • Heimerdinger is less mana efficient
  • Heimderinger's best case scenario (early on) gets significantly worsened
  • (Much lower chance to get fed early on)
  • Worse early objective control (drakes) BUT
  • Skillpoint investments become more rewarding
  • Improvement of Heimerdingers overall consistency
  • Significantly improved lategame (you know that point of time ingame when carries 1HKO his turrets)

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