A Marksman Analysis
What should Marksmen bring to the table?
Marksman, like any other class, should bring a clear set of strengths a team, and have well defined weaknesses.
Strengths
- High sustained damage
- Objective taking ( wave pushing, tower sieging, boss killing )
- Good Range that rewards proper positioning and synergizes extremely well with their high sustained damage.
- Decent sustain via lifesteal
Weaknesses
- Squishy
- General lack of utility
- Susceptible to being dived
- Reliant on teammates
- Easily punishable for bad positioning
- Weak early game
Marksman in their current state.
Marksman currently fulfill their goal in what they should bring to the team. They deal a lot of damage from range, take towers and bosses with ease, however their weaknesses are not impacting them enough as they should be.
To start, their squishiness is being downplayed by many pseudo-tanky effects.
provides 12% damage reduction from whichever enemy champion was attacked most recently.
provides 12% damage reduction whenever they're near their support.
delays damage per second received by 33%.
From this, their susceptibility to being dived is currently lacking. Many Assassins struggle to burst down a Marksman in teamfights, as most Assassins rely on burst damage and small windows of opportunity. Yet it is currently lackluster versus % damage reduction and shields, which greatly reduces both burst damage and windows of opportunity. This largely why Kha'Zix has been one of the few Assassins that have excelled, with his good balance between burst and sustained damage.
Furthermore, Marksmen are hitting their mid game power spikes relatively early for a class that becomes more and more dominant as the game progresses. This is largely due to Patch 7.9, where a large amount of changes were introduced to Critical Strike Items. > Crit is an integral part of traditional marksman itemization but it’s been underperforming for a while. We’re giving marskmen earlier access to their one-and-a-half item power spike (Infinity Edge + Zeal, generally) while also sharpening the identities of each Zeal upgrade.
3. Suggested Changes.
Item Changes
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Revert the cost reduction. This would shift their midgame power spike to a much healthier position, as it is the single most impactful item in regards to ADCs. -
Reduce the duration on of the passive to 5 seconds and the damage reduction to 8% for ranged champions. For such a strong passive, it lasts far too long for ranged champions, who can reset the timer with ease.
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Reduce the % of damage delayed or change the damage healed to be over time for ranged champions.
Champion Specific Changes
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Shift a small portion of the bonus damage on Spinning Blades to scale off of critical strike and or attack speed. This would bring him more in line with other Marksmen, who have been changed from scaling off of attack damage and slightly reduce his damage when rushing a lifesteal item. -
Increase the mana cost of Yordle Snap Trap by 5. Decrease the amount of active traps allowed at earlier ranks to 2/2/3/4/5 (currently 3/3/4/4/5). This would force her to more carefully manage traps and to choose between having a hard hitting Q or having more traps at early levels. -
Reduce the bonus range on Spray and Pray at early ranks to 250/275/300 (currently 300 at each rank). Possibly increase cooldown at lower ranks to 120/105/90 (currently 90 at each rank). This would reduce his teamfighting effectiveness at early levels without hurting his damage or gimping his late game dominance.
Potential New Item for AD Assassins
Placeholder Name 60 Attack Damage 20 Lethality Unique Passive: Grievous Wounds - Dealing physical damage to an enemy reduces all healing they receive by 40% for 5 seconds. Unique Active: Placeholder Name - For the next 5 seconds all damage you deal bypasses 60% (+ 5% per 10 lethality) of enemy shields - 90 Second Cooldown.
Build Path:
+
+
+ 425 gold. Total Cost of 3200 Gold.
Assassins are supposed to keep Marksmen in check, and they have been struggling to do so lately, this item would help them do so.