It's time you figure out how to balance stealth or remove it from the game

slippykitten·Oct 6, 2015·64 votes·4,561 views

Nerfing Eve and Twitch into the gutter every time they are even remotely viable is BS. Shaco gets to be a niche pick at best, but is certainly not a competitive pro pick - God help him if he ever is. Half the champions with any kind of stealth mechanic are either op or useless at any given point in time.

People love these champs, and play them, and they shouldn't have to wonder if they will just get nerfed to oblivion any time they work simply because you don't want to figure out how to balance stealth.

These aren't new champs, this isn't a new ability, either figure it out, or just remove stealth entirely.

93 Comments

LankPantsOct 6, 20157 votes

Not sure about other champs but one of the better ideas I've heard for Akali is that enemy units outside of Twilight Shroud shouldn't be able to see into it, kind of like a reverse Smoke Screen.

This way there's no actual stealth involved and it makes the counterplay to her (in this case walk tanky guys into the shroud to peel her off) both harder to execute and more obvious, which would help to close the gap between Akali at high levels and Akali at low levels.

High5Oct 7, 20152 votes

There are a number of champions that can debuff Akili, granting vision on her while inside the shroud.

Vlad's e also hits anything in range, whether he can see it or not. Perfect for poking people hiding in the grass or shroud.

Silver FluffenbuOct 7, 20154 votes

the reason I like item 2043 as a counterplay to akali, but not specifically to twitch or eve is because akali's invis in confined to one specific area at a time.

WarlockLawOct 6, 20157 votes

The problem isn't the stealth but the fact that every stealth champ is primary or secondary assassin. If a champ can consistently pop out of stealth and 100-0 somebody then they are going to have balance problems.

That said I actually feel that the stealth champs are mostly balanced right now with a slight lean towards being weak.

DrCyanideOct 7, 20153 votes

They give any champion that has a stealth the Assassin title.

Teemo isn't going to be 100-0ing you the moment he pops out of stealth. Vayne ... well, it will take 3 autos and her being fed first.

A Miss FortuneOct 7, 20153 votes

Vayne doesn't need to be fed lol.

YumaS2AstralOct 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

They give any champion that has a stealth the Assassin title.

isn't going to be 100-0ing you the moment he pops out of stealth. ... well, it will take 3 autos and her being fed first.

Actually, MonkeyKing is the only champion in the game which has stealth and is not an assassin. He is a Fighter/Tank according to Riot.

However, due to way his kit works, he can be built as an assassin and act like one.

WarlockLawOct 7, 20151 votes

I forgot about Teemo, but his stealth isn't generally why people complain about him so I feel his stealth aspect is balanced if not weak.

Vayne is an assassin as condemn + two autos will kill most champions late game.

Battlecast SonaOct 7, 20153 votes

Evelynn's identity as an assassin has been completely gutted though. Every time that Evelynn actually HAS been capable of assassinating people, she was instantly nerfed repeatedly into the ground, into this weird hybrid magic/physical damage scaling abomination that she is now. Her ability to oneshot people is SUPER low unless you're very, very far ahead and itemize specifically into this sort of a build - the only kind of real "assassin" success I have with her is going gunblade with luden's and runeglaive for jungle item - you ult, then gunblade when the slow wears off while weaving in autos and E/Q spam - they die pretty quick.

This is SIGNIFICANTLY more work than a normal assassin would have to put in from a similar role (See: Elise), and in order to maintain this kind of threat Eve needs to continue to invest heavily into damage items to remain relevant. Then she falls off late game anyway because they gave her mixed damage. I understand that the permastealth is strong (and that Evelynn with DFG was busted as fuck), but I feel like a lot of the Evelynn nerfs could've been reverted after DFG's removal without significantly hurting the health of the game.

WarlockLawOct 7, 20151 votes

Evelyn and Shaco are, imo, the closest to being balanced right now. Being able to 100-0 somebody with no warning is something that can't be balanced for. At least you can see Zed or Fizz coming before you die. Evelyn and Shaco fall off late game. They dominate the early and mid game, but if you can survive you will start to outscale them. They won't normally be 100-0'ing people at full build. Evelyn has a rocky start and requires a lot of experience to pull off.

Meanwhile other stealth champions scale well into late game. Wukong has the single highest ad scaling. Twitch and Vayne are hyper carries. Kha'Zix and Rengar have one of the higher single target bursts late game. Even Teemo can scale better by blocking off a portion of the jungle to the enemy team.

Battlecast SonaOct 7, 20151 votes

Twitch has definitely been nerfed too much to be called a hypercarry. And this is the problem - Evelynn doesn't really dominate any part of the game right now. I'd rather her have a weak early game and actually scale as an assassin into the mid and late than be kinda halfway decent early and then fall off hard. They just definitely need to revert some of those crazy nerfs from back when she was destroying people in mid lane... D=

WarlockLawOct 7, 20151 votes

Twitch is still a hyper carry. All a hyper carry is is a champion that scales incredibly well with items. He just has an extremely pathetic laning phase that usually prevents him from getting there.

As for Evelyn, there is no way to make her early game and her late game strong while still having her be viable. At least not with her current passive. Permastealth as a passive is huge early game pressure as there is no safe way to find out where she will gank. As long as she can clear her jungle camps while keeping enough health that would stop her from dying to every invade, her early game will be strong. The mere possibility of a full health champion appearing mid trade is strong during laning phase. If you want Eve to scale into late game she needs to lose permastealth or she will be unbalancable.

Battlecast SonaOct 7, 20151 votes

Her early game can be weak, that's fine. I want a midgame spike into decent endgame scaling. I mean, she has tools to kite around and be slippery so she doesn't have to do insane damage or anything, but it'd be nice if she could at least be capable of dealing meaningful damage in a burst combo lategame. Currently her early game/midgame is decent because her ganks and flanks are decent, and then she transitions into a tank/bruiser lategame... Which is not really the play pattern that I think best fits her fantasy.

WarlockLawOct 7, 20151 votes

What I'm saying is that with her current passive the only way to balance her is to give her strong early/mid and bad late game power. Anything else and she either dies to an Amumu invade or is blatantly overpowered

The Bearded BardOct 7, 20152 votes

Shaco having a bad late game is a myth. The dude's got three 1:1 ap ratios, one 1:1 bonus ad ratio, a .75:1 total ad ratio, and a whopping 2.2:1 total ad ratio. On top of that, he's a phenomenal split pusher and has the most hard cc on any stealth champ

WarlockLawOct 7, 20151 votes

Wukong has a knock up and Vayne has a stun, both are also stealth champs.

As for late game Shaco, he loses his ability to kill people later in the game because his burst won't 100-0 most champions late game. Couple that with a grouped enemy team and upgraded trinkets and Shaco can't teamfight anymore. His split push is good but he is also usually the jungler and doesn't have tp so he gives up jungle/baron pressure.

TyaldanOct 7, 20151 votes

Thats why i like shaco top lane, with tp ignite. If you can ward and make picks before team fights, or even after team fights, you can then split push. Also, late game isnt an issue if you can rock item 3141 and keep it at 20. hard as hell to do as they start closing in on late game though.

The Bearded BardOct 8, 20151 votes

Whoops you got me on the wukong and vayne, changed it to 'most' hard cc on a stealth champ since he's got the ability to place multiple fears. Anyways, I'm mostly a top lane AP shaco player. His strengths being that he's damn near unkillable solo and ungankable as well. Also has potent bot lane TP ganks. Where AP Shaco's power in teamfights comes from is his ability to prevent flanking, and insane zone control. Boxes go on a 10 second cd with 40% cdr, that means you can have up to 6 of them, each fearing for 1.5 seconds and doing around 600-1k damage. He's also got a lot of potential to stall out enemy teams and waste enemy time, summoners, and ults. I can't tell you how many times the enemy team has near aced us, with only me left and they waste it chasing me through mazes of boxes through the jungle.

Shaco's late game all depends on the Shaco player. Good ones will show you how good his late game is, bad ones will show you why that rumor started in the first place.

YumaS2AstralOct 7, 20152 votes

{quoted}

The problem isn't the stealth but the fact that every stealth champ is primary or secondary assassin. If a champ can consistently pop out of stealth and 100-0 somebody then they are going to have balance problems.

That said I actually feel that the stealth champs are mostly balanced right now with a slight lean towards being weak.

Well, it makes sense for assassins to have stealth, since they are the ones who make the best use of it. No other class is going to make good use of stealth, maybe marksmen, but all marksmen who have stealth are secondary assassins, and in fact have a lot of assassination potential.

WarlockLawOct 7, 20151 votes

You could give stealth to tanks for surprise initiations or to mages as a means of escape (a la LeBlanc). Otherwise yeah it makes the most sense on assassins.

YumaS2AstralOct 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

You could give stealth to tanks for surprise initiations or to mages as a means of escape (a la LeBlanc). Otherwise yeah it makes the most sense on assassins.

Surprise initiations is really the only reason for a tank to have stealth, since stealth is actually counterproductive to one of the main roles of a tank, which is to be... a tank.

Uf7Xbbg3gYOct 6, 20155 votes

ennable item 3348 and item 3185 item 2047 in summoner rift and problem solved

LankPantsOct 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

ennable and in summoner rift and problem solved

Not really, Stealth is even more useless once someone finishes one of those items.

Murlock RagerOct 8, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Not really, Stealth is even more useless once someone finishes one of those items.

did you really say that stealth is uselss??? just last night i was playing rengar, and could just walk up to the enemy adc in stealth and kill him/her in .01 seconds (taken from the ingame timer) their team would have no time to react to it, and i would use the extra move speed + youmuus to escape, or with old rengar you would just stealth to a turret and F*CK it in the A**, stealth has always been useful.

QueenAquaOct 6, 20152 votes

Yes. This guy. Ever since they got rid of Oracles on Rift, it has been annoying to deal with invis champs and traps. Not to mention it was the time of the stealth champs when they first got rid of it until they got nerfed into the ground.

LankPantsOct 6, 20157 votes

it has been annoying to deal with invis champs and traps.

item 3364 and item 2043 . It's easier to deal with stealth tan it used to be.

QueenAquaOct 6, 20153 votes

But how many players actually use those? Support gets them, but the cd on the trink is ridiculous, esp if you need to use it for wards. Not to mention that most don't even bother to upgrade their trinkets half the time. And with the limit of only one vision per champ, it is difficult to see the invis champ coming, esp since you have to fight to keep the one you placed on the map on the off-chance the jung Eve decides to come knocking. Oracles is much easier to manage and has a good price compared to the other vision stuff. It's more expensive than both of those combined, but much more reliable.

High5Oct 7, 20159 votes

I'd rather Riot doesn't balance around stupid people.

Like many things IRL, just beause you don't use the tools you have doesn't mean something's broken.

The stock market is a good example. It provides you with enough information to make an informed decision. It doesn't force you to make a good decision. Losing all your money doesn't mean the market should be abolished.

ZargOct 7, 20152 votes

Any player with half a brain and a bit of common sense will pink a bush that rarely anyone goes in yet gives great vision.

Also, cd on upgraded sweeper is amazing. Lol. AND with the bonus of essentially having oracle after the initial use, it really makes the old oracle potion worthless.

QueenAquaOct 7, 20152 votes

But they almost always find the vision ward at some point. There are key locations you can put it in, but the end result is, it won't stay there all game and for the most part if it shows someone stealthed once, it will be taken out pretty quickly afterward. The Cd on sweepers is decent, not the best, and it only gets you so far. It isn't always going to be available to be used and you have to be psychic to be able to use it at the right time to reveal the stealthed person. Akali is easy to use it on and so is Eve, but for stealth champs like Teemo and Twitch, it's pretty much based on luck if you find them, esp Teemo since he can set himself up in a bush long before you even walk by. Twitch dominates with stealth early because scanner can't be upgraded until lvl 9 (not saying Twitch is strong or he wins lane, saying his stealth is almost impossible to reveal early without a vision ready to place when he does) Oracles was much more reliable. It lasted longer than the small amount of the same effect after sweeper's use and it was a constant presence for 4 minutes. You can't say that sweeper's is better than it simply because of that upgraded version. 10 seconds of the ability to see invis traps and champs isn't better than 4 minutes of the same ability. The cost was worth it in the long run, esp since you didn't have to wait for CD to be able to use it for traps and the like. Sweepers is Ok, not great, and certainly not better than Oracles was for revealing invis champs and their traps.

FurriesAreHotOct 6, 20153 votes

I see no issue with twitch, eve is slightly annoying, however, it's all a matter of, I hate to say this,

"I can't properly combat this champion so it needs a nerf"

Stealth < pink ward

slippykittenOct 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I see no issue with twitch, eve is slightly annoying, however, it's all a matter of, I hate to say this,

"I can't properly combat this champion so it needs a nerf"

Stealth < pink ward

Twitch was actually good last season, got nerfed crazy hard and hasn't seem competitive play since, and has been pretty useless in solo q as well. Twitch used to be pretty unique with his Q stealth being almost a whole minute, until that got nerfed as well.

DecritOct 6, 20152 votes

... let' s be honest, invisibility for a minute is quite ridicolus.

Not old Master yi ult levels but quite.

slippykittenOct 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

... let' s be honest, invisibility for a minute is quite ridicolus.

Not old Master yi ult levels but quite.

I wouldnt argue you on that, but that was his identity. Now his stealth is a gimmick/as boost and he gets nerfed into oblivion for it. They need to do something is what I'm saying, because clearly what they have done with stealth champs hasn't worked.

DecritOct 6, 20152 votes

honestly i feel more like having invisibility for a minute is more gimmicky than one for few seconds. Like "yeah you can go from bot to top if you want" thing, while now is more focused on the personal level. just my opinion.

or at least, if Ulti and Q were reversed i would inderstand more the use of a full minute invisibility.

AllHailWestNoxusOct 6, 20151 votes

In regards to Twitch They changed the time it took his Q to become stealth (Partially Reverted) because it was offering an escape that was to "reliable". Ill leave these here AOE spells, Pink wards, upgraded sweepers, Morgana Soul Shackle, or if you land it before twitch completes Q Karma Tether, TwistedFate RekSai Rengar .

So why do these Champions Lucian Ezreal Kalista Caitlyn Vayne Graves Tristana Quinn get movement that can actually dodge CC or get them out of a bad position but twitches stealth gets nerfed and brings on other nerfs. Well because "clarity" you can SEE them dodge CC or dash out of range.

Getting rekt by someone coming from stealth or seeing an enemy escape into it FeelsBadMan.jpeg and honestly that is the entire issue

I agree with you until riot implements a mechanic that is rewarding for the stealth user and somehow rewarding to the opponent when they outplay it champs will be gutted for having it.

A step in the right direction is Rengar's "!" even though that mechanic kinda only works on him, have you ever had a rengar repeat gank you with the same pathing and picked him out of the air mid leap with CC thats good stuff.

thats my two item 3301 on it Ahri Mwah <3

ShaabanglyyOct 7, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Wiley Is A Nerd,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3lB5zf1o,comment-id=00000000000000000001,timestamp=2015-10-06T17:28:49.440+0000)

In regards to They changed the time it took his Q to become stealth (Partially Reverted) because it was offering an escape that was to "reliable". Ill leave these here AOE spells, Pink wards, upgraded sweepers, Soul Shackle, or if you land it before twitch completes Q Tether, .

So why do these Champions get movement that can actually dodge CC or get them out of a bad position but twitches stealth gets nerfed and brings on other nerfs. Well because "clarity" you can SEE them dodge CC or dash out of range.

Getting rekt by someone coming from stealth or seeing an enemy escape into it FeelsBadMan.jpeg and honestly that is the entire issue

I agree with you until riot implements a mechanic that is rewarding for the stealth user and somehow rewarding to the opponent when they outplay it champs will be gutted for having it.

A step in the right direction is Rengar's "!" even though that mechanic kinda only works on him, have you ever had a rengar repeat gank you with the same pathing and picked him out of the air mid leap with CC thats good stuff.

thats my two on it Mwah <3

Just give stealthed champions a "shimmer" effect.

That way paying attention matters.

Horse GrenadesOct 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Twitch was actually good last season, got nerfed crazy hard and hasn't seem competitive play since, and has been pretty useless in solo q as well. Twitch used to be pretty unique with his Q stealth being almost a whole minute, until that got nerfed as well.

I'm pretty much a Twitch only account now since I got banned and get rewards. I love that champ. I have the most ranked quadra- and pentakills with him (2).

SiytherOct 6, 20152 votes

this is what happens when i get pinks for the purpose of combating stealth, they stealth i drop a pink they leave it the rest of the damn game so now that trick is not useful anymore. As an adc main after that happens game over now im have an even bigger target on my head. MAx 5 pink wards on map but this champs stealths are either only when not in combat(eve) or on a low as shit cd (twitch and shaco) i can only drop 1 damn ward in the game if they are smart enough not to kill it. Probally not the same in high elo but in bronze/ silver it sounds dumb but cause no one wards much less buys pinks. Pink wards are not an effective strat against stealth. Stealth itself offers very damn little counterplay so im on the remove all stealth champs from the game period end of disscussion.

DezeMuffinsOct 7, 20151 votes

You can place another pink if you have one up, the original just disappears ...

NineTailedMysticOct 7, 20151 votes

Then the stealth champion finds the pink ward, leaves it, and goes the other way around, knowing you can only have 1 pink out.

Sire HippingtonOct 7, 20153 votes

I think for starters, we need to remove stuff that detects invisible champions. Invis detection is a 100% hardcounter, it removes it completly. It's the same problem as GW and heavy healing champs, it is really hard to balance around a hard counter, as either the mechanic is way to powerfull if not countered(pup-stomping akali), or it's somewhat fair if not countered but totally usless once countered....

With hardcounters removed, you could more easily balance around stealth, especially short-duratio/area-dependend as a defensive tool. This obvously has to come with balance changes for all current stealth users, as it's a buff for them.

If you leave stealth-detection vs champs in the game, you always have to balance with worst and best case in mind, beeing the differnce between haveing stealth, or not haveing stealth, which is pretty much bound to fail one way or another.

And for long-duration stealth like twitch, i think the eve.passive is a good example on how to get that done in a more interesting way.

BaunjoOct 7, 20151 votes

You cannot say " Let's remove stealth detection " and not actually give a substitute. Because that really IS the only counter play to champions like that.

Sire HippingtonOct 8, 20152 votes

if thats the only counterplay to those champs, thats already a massive design flaw. If the entire counterplay is a hard counter, thats a massive no-go.

They need their kits to be built around a stealth without stealth detection, else it will never be balanced. For short-duration stealth, thats easily doable, like untargetable for point 'n click + reposition.

For Rengar, i whish they used the first rework atemot and removed the stealth completly from him...but i guess the best would be to turn all long-duration stealth into something similar to eve...

FastAsHeckOct 7, 20152 votes

what do you guys think of the Heroes of the Strom stealth mechanic? If you didn't know, in HotS stealthed heroes can still be seen if you pay close attention to your surroundings, because there is a slight disturbance in the area, so keen eyed players can spot stealthed units but in the middle of a teamfight it is hard to see them. though I could see an issue with wards since League would have to do something there (in HotS there are no wards)

LightH0useOct 6, 20151 votes

There is no way to make a "balanced" stealth. They cant change anything other then time stealthed or the activation process as well as how the enemy can sense or not sense you. I do agree that some champions with stealth have a more effective one but it all comes down to how you make use of your champions stealth.

The Bearded BardOct 7, 20151 votes

Shaco's fine at our level, but he's never going to be strong at a competitive level because he makes plays off the enemy's mistakes. Twitch is fine right now, imo. Rengar and Kha'zix are really good examples of stealth champs that can be played competitively because their entire kits aren't based on stealth. Any champ that has the majority of their kit based on stealth isn't going to do well competitively because it's so easy to shut them down. 250 gold and some pink wards is all it takes, and pros consistently have 5 pink wards out at all times.

FiniteParadox22Oct 7, 20151 votes

I would like to mention that on the topic of Eve, if you deep ward her jungle you can track her general movements as with any champion. Her stealth isn't "permanent" it is depended on combat and while she is clearing she is not stealthed. I know and agree that this is a pain and a at low levels considered a waste of gold but seriously you should do this with every jungler. I also have to say I completely agree that stealth needs to be dealt with either through proper balancing, riot actually releasing Mandrake Ward (You'll always live on in my heart) or some other method I am not thinking of. But a pink ward and using it on the primary method of ganking is the primary way to deal with eve then putting deep wards in her jungle will reveal her clear route and general position. Just my thoughts on the topic.

h0tkarlOct 8, 20151 votes

i find that Vayne 's instant stealth is even worse than the time delay stealth that other stealthers get.