God i love being a walking target with no counter tools

only zhule·Oct 16, 2018·7 votes·2,711 views

I tend to play a lot of support, more specifically a lot of enchanter support like and . Nothing quite says "fun" like knowing basically every other character in your role (and many outside of it) have some combination of mobility, a hard CC, some kind of survival tool, and/or reliable damage to pressure with.

playing against an engage champion, good thing their engage range is roughly equal to my offensive range. Playing against a damage support, good thing their damage ability have equal or greater range then me, while also often having better damage/ cooldowns/ mana costs. Playing against say ? Great i love the champion who has engage tools + mobility + stealth + hard CC + survival tools, while i have none of these things and am made of glass.

I'm all for champions having counters, but low impact champions with no engage or disengage tools really need to not be slow as hell AND delicate.

25 Comments

BLACK REALM GODOct 16, 20184 votes

Soraka - movement on passive. crowd control on q and e... Sona - movement on e. crowd control on r... Nami - movement on passive. movement on e. crowd control on q and r Kayle - movement on w. cc on q Lulu - movement zippy. cc adorabis and hugify Rakan - movement w e r. cc e r.

umm... wtf are you talking about?

BloodnachtOct 16, 20182 votes

- movement on passive. crowd control on q and e... Agreed - movement on e. crowd control on r... Disagree, why you may ask? well if she's getting hit by any one ... including the AIR, her E is fucking useless, its like boots of mobility and her R ... well, if some one Dash, Flash, Jumps or w.e the have apparently her R doesn't stun them ... the fuck? Also, if you're airborned but let's say Yasuo and you already used your R ...not only he won't get stun, you'll get your Cooldown on R ... cause he E + Q on you ... bs at its finest. She's by far the most nerfed Support. - movement on passive. movement on e. crowd control on q and r Agreed - movement on w. cc on q Agreed - movement zippy. cc adorabis and hugify Agreed - movement w e r. cc e r. Agreed

only zhuleOct 16, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=BLACK REALM GOD,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=44OlZEYP,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2018-10-16T08:23:18.907+0000)

- movement on passive. crowd control on q and e... Sudo crowd control at best. Q and E don't stun the enemy meaning they can still easily kill you after getting hit. - movement on e. crowd control on r... Yeah E would be great, if it didn't turn off the nanosecond you took ANY damage. also nothing says "crowd control" like a 2 min cooldown on your stun (which also has a short start up time to come out + a travel speed meaning it can be reacted to) - movement on passive. movement on e. crowd control on q and r - movement on w. cc on q I haven't seen a support Kayle in ages. maybe they still exist but i personally haven't seen her. - movement zippy. cc adorabis and hugify - movement w e r. cc e r.

umm... wtf are you talking about?

I specifically pointed to Sona and Soraka. The 2 enchanters who do not have crowd control or dashes.

EleshakaiOct 16, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=only zhule,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=44OlZEYP,comment-id=00030001,timestamp=2018-10-16T16:54:55.561+0000)

Sudo crowd control at best. Q and E don't stun the enemy meaning they can still easily kill you after getting hit. Yeah E would be great, if it didn't turn off the nanosecond you took ANY damage. also nothing says "crowd control" like a 2 min cooldown on your stun (which also has a short start up time to come out + a travel speed meaning it can be reacted to) I haven't seen a support Kayle in ages. maybe they still exist but i personally haven't seen her.

I specifically pointed to Sona and Soraka. The 2 enchanters who do not have crowd control or dashes.

Soraka has crowd control. Slow on q, silence and root on e.

Sona also has crowd control, but it's generally a waste to use powerchord E, and R has a fairly length cd...

only zhuleOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Soraka has crowd control. Slow on q, silence and root on e.

Sona also has crowd control, but it's generally a waste to use powerchord E, and R has a fairly length cd...

A 30% slow for 2 seconds is not enough to counter a mobility skill. A 30% slow does not stop the enemy from simply casting on you or auto attacking. The silence on her E is great until the enemy walks out of it and you have to hope that 1-2 seconds was enough for you to haul ass away. The root requires her E to end, meaning it's not reliable as CC.

Powercord E is not crowd control. In the same way that Nami 's E is not a crowd control ability. Low impact slow that requires you to auto attack the enemy is not a viable form of CC. Her ultimate has 2 big issues, first it's her freaking ultimate meaning you don't have access to it during most of the laning phase. Second it's a very long cooldown for a rather low range, low length stun.

EleshakaiOct 16, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=only zhule,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=44OlZEYP,comment-id=0003000100000000,timestamp=2018-10-16T17:14:36.607+0000)

A 30% slow for 2 seconds is not enough to counter a mobility skill. A 30% slow does not stop the enemy from simply casting on you or auto attacking. The silence on her E is great until the enemy walks out of it and you have to hope that 1-2 seconds was enough for you to haul ass away. The root requires her E to end, meaning it's not reliable as CC.

Powercord E is not crowd control. In the same way that 's E is not a crowd control ability. Low impact slow that requires you to auto attack the enemy is not a viable form of CC. Her ultimate has 2 big issues, first it's her freaking ultimate meaning you don't have access to it during most of the laning phase. Second it's a very long cooldown for a rather low range, low length stun.

Soraka and Sona are MEANT to be champs where positioning and map awareness are big components as you have few peel tools.

only zhuleOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Soraka and Sona are MEANT to be champs where positioning and map awareness are big components as you have few peel tools.

With how the game has changed since their creation, i feel like they have to many built in weaknesses.

Honestly it doesn't even have to be in the form of gap closers or hard CC. Simple changes like making it so Sona's E doesn't stop working if you are damaged, this means she has at least some ability to escape from an enemy who has a higher base movement speed but failed to land their slow/CC/engage tool. Higher base health pool and/or health regen, in one of my last games during lane phase a support Teemo was chunking me for a good 20-35% of my health with a single blinding dart. Give them a base movement speed increase so they are near the middle of the pack (if not on the high end), you still have to dodge the engage tool but at least they enemy can't outpace you till their mobility skill is back up.

The idea isn't to make them impossible to kill, it's just that it would be lovely if getting caught didn't equal death during lane phase & it would be nice if you outplaying your opponent give you an actual window to escape, rather then just prolong your death.

HotarµOct 16, 20183 votes

Enchanters are on the weaker side right now. Keep that in mind.

playing against an engage champion, good thing their engage range is roughly equal to my offensive range.

Well, that's kind of the point. If your range is larger than the distance they can engage from, you could just consistently win every trade without fail.

Playing against say ? Great i love the champion who has engage tools + mobility + stealth + hard CC + survival tools, while i have none of these things and am made of glass.

And you know what Soraka , Sona , Nami , and Janna have? Amazing disengage tools, amazing peeling tools, the ability to shut down Pyke's chain ult with a well-timed heal, the ability to lock down entire teams / Pyke if he overextends, lane sustain, decent poke, and great support tools in general, such as shields and slows.

Pyke cannot shield his allies. Pyke cannot heal his allies. He's not the best at peeling. His ult gets shut down insanely quickly if you play smart. I know it's very easy to hate on Pyke, but he's not a god-tier do-all support.

Enchanters will eventually get buffs or reworks, be patient.

ShadWoooOct 16, 20181 votes

Okay, some good points but.

If Pyke will ignite the target and the target is on 10-20% hp, you can't heal him enough to prevent Pyke ult. Theoretically Soraka with both R+W might get him over the required 30% hp but there is really short window and casttime of both abilities will be probably longer than that window. Also Soraka R has one of the longest cooldowns of all abilities in game 60sec higher on first rank than Pyke. Sona heal is so weak I wouldn't even call it a heal, lets rather reference that as a shield and shields won't prevent Pyke 30% hp execute. Pyke can also heal his allies with item 3302 , he is often played with coin but he can heal with this if he wanted.

Btw, playing Soraka vs Pyke looks like this:

Pyke is lurking in bush trying to catch you with Q everytime you try poke with Q
if you hit Q you deal nonexistant damage that enemy marksman heals with doran shield or sword in no time, hitting Pyke has no value either unless you started with spellthief as he gets massive selfhealing on a dash paired with invisibility everytime he is low.
if he hits Q you are dead unless you can flash. (But this isn't exclusive to Pyke, being hit from any engage/pick support is certain death in less than 1.5 second with no counterplay other than flash.)
so in the end you hug tower, stand behind your marksman who gets killed everytime Pyke hooks him because that 1 heal you might be able to do before he dies is not going to be enough.
since you are hugging tower and are unable to poke, enemy marksman has basically free lane, and he doesn't need Pyke to heal or shield him because when both you and your marksman are zoned you can't trade.

HotarµOct 16, 20182 votes

If Pyke will ignite the target and the target is on 10-20% hp, you can't heal him enough to prevent Pyke ult. Theoretically Soraka with both R+W might get him over the required 30% hp but there is really short window and casttime of both abilities will be probably longer than that window.

That's the case for any champion. If I was Zilean and got you that low with ignite, you're dead. Same for Bard Karma Thresh Lux Zyra and more, it's not exclusive to Pyke.

Also Soraka R has one of the longest cooldowns of all abilities in game 60sec higher on first rank than Pyke. Sona heal is so weak I wouldn't even call it a heal, lets rather reference that as a shield and shields won't prevent Pyke 30% hp execute. Pyke can also heal his allies with , he is often played with coin but he can heal with this if he wanted.

Pyke's ult is an AOE execute that usually will kill one person at a time. It can be easily prevented by summoner 7 Soraka Gangplank Kayle Nunu or literally any other champion in the game that has some sort of heal. Shutting down his ultimate turns him into a joke of a teamfighter. Item healing doesn't matter when talking about champion kits, but for the record, barely anyone takes Targon's on Pyke anymore.

Soraka's ult is a global heal that at rank 1, heals almost the same amount as summoner 7 . Not to mention the fact that Raka ult gives bonus healing when below a certain threshold, the same threshold of Pyke's ult. Soraka's ultimate alone counters Pyke's ultimate. Even without her ultimate which cannot be blocked like Pyke's, she's a decent teamfighter and not targetting her can lead to easy losses.

Btw, playing Soraka vs Pyke looks like this:

I know how the matchup goes. It's not easy for Soraka, but you're making it sound impossible. If you or your ADC gets caught by a hook, it's your fault and you're going to be punished for letting Pyke engage.

Ward the bush? How is this different from any other support?
I will say the one thing I hate is how near unkillable he is for the majority of the game, but one round of CC is enough to instakill Pyke at any point of the game. You chose Soraka, who isn't a good matchup into Pyke. It's not Pyke's fault you can't lock him down efficiently for your team.
Pre-6? No. A flash at best, but definitely not an insta death. I've hooked plenty of people on Pyke and anyone with decent mobility, a good escape tool, or good disengage tool will stop that from happening. You chose an immobile, squishy healer into a mobile snowballing assassin.

You know what Pyke can get punished by? Long range poke, mobility, and healing.

He can't spam heal his ADC like you can, he can't effect teamfights on the other side of the map, and he can't disengage or peel as hard as Soraka.
Sit behind minions. Same playstyle when fighting . He has one all in engage.
Save flash for ultimate. I know that seems like a cop-out response, but instead of flashing from his Q-E, disengage with shields, slows, hard CC, or take the bad trade instead of insta flashing as you claim. The key to destroying Pyke is to shut down his ultimate.
Pick a different support. I HATE going against because they destroy your entire engage, completely wall you out of fights, and can lock you down to kill you. Your support/all supports should not be a counter to every single support that's going to be in your lane.

ShadWoooOct 16, 20181 votes

Well said, just one clarification about my statement of dying instantly after being hooked by Pyke. If he hooks you, especially when he did it from bush or any other place where is terrain it is nearly 100% guaranteed stun from his W. Without flash, you can go only in one direction and his W hitbox is fat enough - without boots it is nearly impossible to dodge that W stun. The hook will displace you and with the following W it can be what 2seconds from the moment Q hit? That is plenty of time for enemy marksman to get into position to follow up. If he follows up and uses 1-2 abilities + 2 autoattacks and Pyke is also going to use ignite, then thats a combo that probably no mage or enchanter support can survive without access to ultimate. Marksmen might survive it as they generally have a way to dodge Pyke's W, have access to heal and overally bit more hitpoints and resists.

But sure, this is not exclusive to Pyke every pick support can do this to enchanters.

I play Lux and she works quite well into Pyke.

EleshakaiOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Okay, some good points but.

If Pyke will ignite the target and the target is on 10-20% hp, you can't heal him enough to prevent Pyke ult. Theoretically Soraka with both R+W might get him over the required 30% hp but there is really short window and casttime of both abilities will be probably longer than that window. Also Soraka R has one of the longest cooldowns of all abilities in game 60sec higher on first rank than Pyke. Sona heal is so weak I wouldn't even call it a heal, lets rather reference that as a shield and shields won't prevent Pyke 30% hp execute. Pyke can also heal his allies with , he is often played with coin but he can heal with this if he wanted.

Btw, playing Soraka vs Pyke looks like this:

Pyke is lurking in bush trying to catch you with Q everytime you try poke with Q

if you hit Q you deal nonexistant damage that enemy marksman heals with doran shield or sword in no time, hitting Pyke has no value either unless you started with spellthief as he gets massive selfhealing on a dash paired with invisibility everytime he is low.

if he hits Q you are dead unless you can flash. (But this isn't exclusive to Pyke, being hit from any engage/pick support is certain death in less than 1.5 second with no counterplay other than flash.)

so in the end you hug tower, stand behind your marksman who gets killed everytime Pyke hooks him because that 1 heal you might be able to do before he dies is not going to be enough.

since you are hugging tower and are unable to poke, enemy marksman has basically free lane, and he doesn't need Pyke to heal or shield him because when both you and your marksman are zoned you can't trade.

Not saying I'm GOOD with Soraka yet, but I'm decent at laning… and you odn't poke Pyke with q... you use q to keep yourself healed up. You poke with E. When I started playing Soraka more I did some research and I noticed that MOST Soraka mains max E first, because it's how you win the lane. E's damage scales REALLY well in early levels, is instant, has a large aoe and good range. Use E to poke and you'll find yourself winning lanes a lot more often. E + Aery + Spellthief is a significant chunk of poke damage. You can quite reliably get the pressure edge. The best part is that a good use of E gievs you the opportunity to augment the trade with q by silencing the person you're trying to trade with.

ShadWoooOct 16, 20181 votes

There was this "max and poke with E" trend recently due to LCS. Imo poking with E is worst idea you can do unless you are hugging tower and you are sure they can't tower dive you. Sure, E has longer range, no delay and quite good damage however it is also the only protection Soraka has beside the small slow on easy to dodge with dash Q. And it has very very long cooldown. Poking with E is just terrible idea and I don't care pros were doing it in LCS (and there were certain special circumstances to make it work at that time which you won't get in soloQ). Everytime I play against Soraka and she uses E to poke me, it is a free all in or if you can't all in a 15 sec window where she is ultra vulnerable to gank.

Also. Last season lot of Soraka mains including me were maxing Q for strong poke. With few ranks in Q the poke start being meaningful. But riot said no, you shall not poke with enchanter and nerfed Soraka hard, hugely increasing cooldown on W in first ranks thus forcing Soraka players to max W. If you max Q or E now it means you won't be able to heal in 2vs2 fight often enough.

So no, even if we remove the fact that using the E as poke would be good idea, it won't be worth it because of the cooldown on W.

Atm I usually put 2nd point into W at lvl 4, then depending how lane goes put 1 or 2 points into Q then fully max W. E last because I only use it to counter enemy engage/play/gank/chase.

EleshakaiOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

There was this "max and poke with E" trend recently due to LCS. Imo poking with E is worst idea you can do unless you are hugging tower and you are sure they can't tower dive you. Sure, E has longer range, no delay and quite good damage however it is also the only protection Soraka has beside the small slow on easy to dodge with dash Q. And it has very very long cooldown. Poking with E is just terrible idea and I don't care pros were doing it in LCS (and there were certain special circumstances to make it work at that time which you won't get in soloQ). Everytime I play against Soraka and she uses E to poke me, it is a free all in or if you can't all in a 15 sec window where she is ultra vulnerable to gank.

Also. Last season lot of Soraka mains including me were maxing Q for strong poke. With few ranks in Q the poke start being meaningful. But riot said no, you shall not poke with enchanter and nerfed Soraka hard, hugely increasing cooldown on W in first ranks thus forcing Soraka players to max W. If you max Q or E now it means you won't be able to heal in 2vs2 fight often enough.

So no, even if we remove the fact that using the E as poke would be good idea, it won't be worth it because of the cooldown on W.

Atm I usually put 2nd point into W at lvl 4, then depending how lane goes put 1 or 2 points into Q then fully max W. E last because I only use it to counter enemy engage/play/gank/chase.

I feel like you're underselling the champion, but do whatever works for you. At least until I reach a higher ELO where people are better, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. If it starts failing me, I'll reassess.

I'm USUALLY winning the laning phase by poking with e and just maintaining vision. I don't win as many GAMES as I'd like because I still haven't mastered the fine art of positioning and late-game map awareness, so I get caught out more than I should(and of course, there's the x-factor of 'other players' in the whole 'winning the game' thing that I can't control). But that's not relating to poking in the lane with E.

DragonsOct 16, 20181 votes

What is wrong with counters?

only zhuleOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Enchanters are on the weaker side right now. Keep that in mind.

Well, that's kind of the point. If your range is larger than the distance they can engage from, you could just consistently win every trade without fail.

And you know what , , , and have? Amazing disengage tools, amazing peeling tools, the ability to shut down Pyke's chain ult with a well-timed heal, the ability to lock down entire teams / Pyke if he overextends, lane sustain, decent poke, and great support tools in general, such as shields and slows.

Pyke cannot shield his allies. Pyke cannot heal his allies. He's not the best at peeling. His ult gets shut down insanely quickly if you play smart. I know it's very easy to hate on Pyke, but he's not a god-tier do-all support.

Enchanters will eventually get buffs or reworks, be patient.

Let's be honest here, Nami and Janna have good disengage tools. Sona and Soraka do not. This makes laning phase very annoying when Pkye can simply stealth up, start the stun move then dash forward locking you out of your escape path. If he misses that there is a good chance he can use his pull to catch you, thus giving him yet another tool to secure the kill for his teammate.

JackMcSnipeyzOct 16, 20181 votes

If soraka was hard to kill, she'd be bonkers. You are the adc of the support catagory - you relay on your team and if you position well your impact is unmatched in the right scenerios.

Regardless, enchanters are weak right now after the last nerfs to their itemization and kits (less soraka and sona).

DarwinTheoryOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

If soraka was hard to kill, she'd be bonkers. You are the adc of the support catagory - you relay on your team and if you position well your impact is unmatched in the right scenerios.

Regardless, enchanters are weak right now after the last nerfs to their itemization and kits (less soraka and sona).

Nope nope nope. That's why at high Elo enchanters have more impact than champs like Pyke.

So no. They're not. If they were stronger we'd be right back to an ardent meta type adc game wouldn't we?

ReWeebdownOct 16, 20181 votes

each champion has its counters, Karen

The thigh guyOct 16, 20181 votes

pyke is just stupid as is. you cant poke him out, so trading with him is worthless. you cant fight him because he has hard cc and more damage than anyone else. you cant catch him out, because lul stun-dash. and you cant risk anything because he has an execute.

The most you can do into him is cancel his q, which means nothing because he's just gonna pop his ms boost and dash-stun you.

Daddy AntsOct 16, 20181 votes

Most ADC's feel like a walking target.

Welcome to our world.

only zhuleOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Most ADC's feel like a walking target.

Welcome to our world.

You have damage output. Sona and Soraka do not

in many cases you have a disengage. Sona and Soraka do not.

You have a good gold income. Supports do not.

It's possible for you to get a kill on a weakened enemy. Sona and Soraka would die pointlessly trying to secure that kill.

DragonsOct 16, 20181 votes

Sona and Soraka don't win fights by damage normally, they win by supporting someone else's damage.

Also I've played against sona's and sorakas who have plenty of damage level 1.

only zhuleOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Sona and Soraka don't win fights by damage normally, they win by supporting someone else's damage.

Also I've played against sona's and sorakas who have plenty of damage level 1.

But how was their damage output around level 2-6? People often point out that they do a lot of damage level 1, but forget to note that their damage output jumps off a cliff after that.

I don't want those two to be some kind of damage / healing monster. I just wish they had more tools to work with in order to not be so easy to jump and kill.