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Kennen's Electrical Surge v. Twisted Fate's Stacked Deck

101100111000·6/12/2015, 1:09:42 PM·15 votes·2,095 views

Specifically, the passive portion of Kennen's W, Electrical Surge, and Twisted Fate's E, Stacked Deck.

Both passive states that after X auto-attacks, the next auto will deal bonus magic damage. Simple, and because they're both considered on-hit effects, they should work the same way, right?

Wrong. The differences are so obvious it hurts.

We'll start with their interactions with Dodge, Block, Parry, and Blind.

Twisted Fate - Bonus damage can be Dodged. Dodging and Blind will not consume the stack. Block will not prevent the bonus damage, and consumes the stack. Parry will not prevent the bonus damage, and consumes the stack.

Kennen - Bonus damage CANNOT be Dodged. Dodging and Blind WILL consume the stack. Block will not mitigate bonus damage, and consumes the stack. Parry negates bonus damage, but still consumes the stack and his passive mark is placed.

Like, really? The only consistency between the two is their interaction with Block. Exactly why do they interact so differently? Oh but it couldn't be THIS b-

Twisted Fate - If the target for his empowered AA is killed before hitting, the stack is not consumed. Twisted Fate can stack against towers, but the empowered AA is not consumed when attacking towers. Spell Shields will block ALL damage.

Kennen - If the target for his empowered AA is killed before hitting, the stack IS consumed. Kennen cannot stack against towers. Spell Shields will NOT interact with Kennen's empowered AA, therefore NOT mitigating any damage.

...what? Now Twisted Fate's Stacked Deck is functionally better than Kennen's Electrical Surge. Great.

Why do they even function differently? Is there some really, really, really, REALLY vague reason for this?

Or nah?

And don't even get me started on Leona's Q stunning through blind.

71 Comments

Frostbiter6/12/2015, 7:17:39 PM6 votes

Tl;dr Riot has a lot of "on-hit effect" abilities that are inconsistent, despite the use of the same wording. Whether this is intentional or not we won't know.

TF can also kill a minion with an auto and not use up a proc if the base AA damage would kill the minion without the extra damage.

The main issue is that Riot is very inconsistent with these types of abilities, while yes the characters are different they still use similar mechanics and these mechanics should be the same across the board especially when the wording is identical. You also have Shen's Ki Strike, same wording difference mechanics, it can't be blocked by spell shield and isn't applied or used up if the auto attack is blocked or avoided in some way. Ziggs passive is also not blocked by spell shields yet Kha'zix's passive is blocked by spell shield. Sona's Passive messes everything up too, as the bonus damage goes through dodged and parried but can be missed, blocked and spell shielded. Maybe because they are the champions' passive and therefore are different from other spells and that is why they have different interactions but having the exact same wording for any ability that does bonus damage on hit can make it confusing for people when first leaning the game as they are mechanically different.

I think the problem comes from that fact that some of these abilities are spells and not just on-hit effects, the spell portion bypass anything that would stop an auto attack from landing because the auto attack is basically replacing the point and click action of using a single target spell. I think that some of these abilities they are classified as spells because of the fact that they apply additional effects to the target when used such as Leona's stun. Why Kennen's W doesn't get blocked by spell shield is a mystery to me though. Although Sona's passive does not apply a spell effect, according to lolwiki, yet is blocked by spell shield and the bonus damage goes through dodge and parry. Another inconsistency is Udyr's tiger stance DoT application, it will be applied if the target dodges, blocks, or parries the basic attack, however, if Udyr is blinded, the DoT will not be applied AND the spell is used up.

Jungle Lux God6/12/2015, 5:06:58 PM2 votes

There are a lot of other differences to keep in mind between the two abilities, such as:

-Different attack ranges. Kennen has 50 more range on his auto attack than Twisted Fate, and can therefore proc the effect easier -Different proc timers. Kennen needs 5 auto attacks to proc, TF only needs 4 -Different scalings. Kennen's scales with AD, TF's scales with AP -Other effects on the abilities are different. Kennen's W also has an active portion that deals damage to targets in his ult and that have a mark from his passive, TF's only gives some extra attack speed -Kennen's passive proc also has the benefit of adding a stack of Mark of the Storm to his target, a benefit that TF doesn't really compare with except for his Pick a Card's effects.

You can compare two abilties that are similar, but both need to be compared in the broader context of the champion.

Kazaashi6/12/2015, 5:24:22 PM1 votes

I think the difference in functionality ariese from the fact that Kennan can Proc Spell effects and applies a debuff from his W passive, but TF only deals extra damage.

Maybe Stacked deck is counted as an AA empowerment and Kennan's is a spell.

FooDang6/12/2015, 5:58:09 PM1 votes

2 different champs...2 different kits...they are balanced differently...

ElJanitorFrank6/12/2015, 11:33:24 PM1 votes

Kennen's electrical surge applies as she fires the missile from her.

Twisted Fate's stacked deck applies when the missile hits the target.