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Shaco invisibility power problem

GTHeavy··62 votes·19,026 views

So with the recent update, Shaco is a S+ jungler with 53% win rate, that is SEVERELY annoying to play against if he gets even the slightest edge early. The main problem is his insane pre-level 6 invisibility, whose duration is longer than anything else in the game - all the while having low cooldown, and a blink attached to it.

To specify: Shaco stealth duration is now 2.5 / 2.75 / 3 / 3.25 / 3.5 seconds, meanwhile:

Akali: clear invisibility cloud and location Kha: 1 second invisibility, during ULTIMATE Talon: a few seconds of invisibility, during ULTIMATE Vayne: 1 second invisibility, during ULTIMATE Wukong: 1.5 seconds invisibility Twitch, Eve, Rengar, and Pyke only have camo, and most of them announce their arrival with visual and audio signals way before they are seen.

Pink wards, even if placed, sadly can't cover everything - and Shaco's attached blink allows to approach lane ganks from unorthodox directions.

While theoretically very aggressive warding + defensive turret-hug play would counter this, I can't be bothered to 110% tryhard every game. Not all players are diamond+, and even in plat this feels severely restricted and counter-intuitive to play against. This is one of those "unfun mechanics" that Rito wants to prevent.

My suggestion: at the very least, add a visual/sound notice when Shaco uses blink/invisibility nearby, similar to Pyke. It can remain an invisibility, but this amount of sneak power is unjustified.

82 Comments

Kiwi Lemonade36 votes

You're telling me. He also went from 0.5% PR Support with ~47% winrate to a 2.5% PR Support with a 55% winrate.

Just an 8% winrate jump don't mind me I'm just an invisible clown able to forgo flash take ignite and exh like a Yuumi and still not get punished because there are 20 boxes in bottom lane ready and piping for enemy jungler so I can get a triple.

HA I am Shaco HA3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kiwi Lemonade,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=69zlERjR,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2019-10-17T10:34:33.820+0000)

You're telling me. He also went from 0.5% PR Support with ~47% winrate to a 2.5% PR Support with a 55% winrate.

Just an 8% winrate jump don't mind me I'm just an invisible clown able to forgo flash take ignite and exh like a Yuumi and still not get punished because there are 20 boxes in bottom lane ready and piping for enemy jungler so I can get a triple.

2.5% playrate is mostly his mains, and only some Shaco players will take exhaust on him, others like myself will take flash. Also his boxes are being nerfed, he can only place 3 boxes in lane now, so you can stop crying about this so called 20 boxes.

Z3SIeeper12 votes

Ah yes, the 500% increased playrate of “mains” playing him since the last patch.

Spicy Rice7 votes

Lol, I've seen players with 50k or less mastery saying they are shaco mains or one tricks.

Like. where the fuck were they before this patch? Why haven't i seen a shaco in like 2 years?

HA I am Shaco HA1 votes

{quoted}

Ah yes, the 500% increased playrate of “mains” playing him since the last patch.

A lot of his mains came back because it was what they wanted since his 2016 assassin rework

Kiwi Lemonade4 votes

Support Shaco has (had) no "mains". Maybe 1 person. No exaggeration. Works very differently from top or jungle Shaco. Unless a main is less than 50 games on him in a season.

That being said, I am being so hard on him because if you're taking flash on him as Support you're wrong so rethink your decision - and Its my personal opinion this guy does not deserve to be in the support role anyway. He should be like "Support MF" pretty trash and maybe in the right comp can work but never be mainstream for the health of the game. Yet here he is. He's a fun jungler champion but get him out of this lane.

HA I am Shaco HA1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kiwi Lemonade,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=69zlERjR,comment-id=000000000001,timestamp=2019-10-17T23:23:46.865+0000)

Support Shaco has (had) no "mains". Maybe 1 person. No exaggeration. Works very differently from top or jungle Shaco. Unless a main is less than 50 games on him in a season.

That being said, I am being so hard on him because if you're taking flash on him as Support you're wrong so rethink your decision - and Its my personal opinion this guy does not deserve to be in the support role anyway. He should be like "Support MF" pretty trash and maybe in the right comp can work but never be mainstream for the health of the game. Yet here he is. He's a fun jungler champion but get him out of this lane.

"Support Shaco has (had) no 'mains'. " I'm 100% sure it does, there are a lot of Shaco support players I know of, even if they don't play it all the time.

"That being said, I am being so hard on him because if you're taking flash on him as Support you're wrong so rethink your decision." Ok explain to me how I am "wrong" to take flash on him. Flash is by far the strongest sum spell in the game, yes I can take exhaust ignite but then if I use Q to avoid enemy poke, I have lost all of my getaway power.

"He should be like Support MF pretty trash" He was like that pre rework, Shaco mains only wanted his E to be changed to magic damage and get increased damage, instead riot has gave us this entire list of changes that made him very good as support and has caused Shaco to lose 15% ap ratio on his E, gain a broken asf execute, an unfair starting clear and him being viable as support which has caused him to lose 20 seconds duration on his boxes. none of this would've happened if they had only gave us what we wanted.

OuttaVoid1 votes

lmao....im playin bot lane a lot of time now...where the fuk did u see the shaco support mains i am wondering....hardly i have see 1 shaco support bfr his buffs that are just annoying and make him op in a lane that doesnt make sense...

HA I am Shaco HA1 votes

{quoted}

lmao....im playin bot lane a lot of time now...where the fuk did u see the shaco support mains i am wondering....hardly i have see 1 shaco support bfr his buffs that are just annoying and make him op in a lane that doesnt make sense...

Because support Shaco mains are rare, of course you won't see a lot of them. Also when you say he's op in lane, 90% of losses against him are because of the enemy unable to buy an oracle, avoid fighting/chasing him, and not being able to remember where he is boxing.

boricCentaur120 votes

He also gets fucking damage going out of it. Making it more bs. Like if anything shaco should lose damage going out of it.

I wish riot never buffed shaco he needs a full rework.

But yeah adding a pyke type of effective would be nice.

Shameow2 votes

{quoted}

He also gets fucking damage going out of it. Making it more bs. Like if anything shaco should lose damage going out of it.

I wish riot never buffed shaco he needs a full rework.

But yeah adding a pyke type of effective would be nice.

right, every time i play with a shaco they have the highest damage on charts

OtterlyLost15 votes

Its as though I said Shaco would be problematic when they buffed his early game. :/ They should have left the fucking POS clown alone. Mains were winning just fine with him and you had time to work around him early game at least. Now he's just back to being impossible early game with very little to 0 done about his late game. Oh and BUFFED CLEAR TIMES! :))) Because he totally doesn't kill off Jungle champion diversity by his mere existence when he can clear fast and level 2 invade the enemy jungle at their second buff with ignite.

SweedishGunner15 votes

But he had a 51% winrate before he was reworked/buffed, he was unplayable, worst jungler in the game, absolutely useless, gutted... or so all the Shaco mains said. For some reason Shaco mains seem to think he's basically unplayable unless Shaco is one of, if not the best, jungler in the game.

Lazy Grandpa5 votes

compared to riven sure. or any other assassin if shaco mains exclusively can barely reach 51%, why should any other champion in the game have a higher winrate without even being played by mains. just abusers.

btw shaco getting nerfed, the entire map getting changed, jungle exp lowered. shaco is getting both directly and indirectly nerfed.

on the other hand i can't understand why everyone is crying so much over it. same with blitz and garen. it's not like they're fucking autowins.

OtterlyLost5 votes

His mains were not reaching 51% WR's. I remember checking and many of his highest elo players(all who had played him 100+ games and this was early in the ranked season) had 80% WRs on him. The fucker did not need buffs. He was not weak and I know the Shaco Main reddit like to come in with big posts whining about how bad he is to play and then all group up and upvote manipulate it to hell and back ALL THE GODDAMN TIME but just because their echo chamber is manipulating things on the boards doesn't mean he's at all in a bad place.

He is a toxic champion and was finally in a position where, if he wasn't fair, he was at the very least not as common and he could be quietly left in relative obscurity. I was here for season 5. I remember when I went through a stint of play jungle back then and I remember getting knots in my stomach everytime the enemy team had a Shaco. The fucking bastard is the literal definition of a toxic, poorly designed champion and is currently at the very least my perma banned champion.

Lazy Grandpa1 votes

fair enough, i only responded off of another comment's numbers.

to be honest i don't care about shaco. he doesn't bother me. if he reaches lvl 3 instantly i'll adapt just like how i adapt to worse bullshit. shaco and zed are the assassins i care least about because zed is not hard to deal with unless really fed and shaco is shaco. i'm most worreid about his clone and per accidently killing it getting me fked up by the instant fear. as opposed to literally everything else as a melee.

if you think shaco has toxic design then that's alright. but i find shaco along with zed and talon the least toxic among assassins. you buy red trinket and you counter half of shaco's kit.

if everyone wants him nerfed then fine with me but don't fking pretend that shit like akali, rengar, evelynn, or twitch jungle is better than shaco. their design is way more toxic to me. what does shaco even do? Q in with stealth, put down a box that you can see and outrun it or disarm its fear with red trinket i believe, back stabs you, e's you and at some point he will ult and if you kill the wrong one you probrably die, otherwise he dies and thats only because they added instant proc on the ult boxes.

everyone else oneshot combos you in idk 1 second.

but i'm glad that botlane can get the feeling toplaners have had for 2 years where the jungler comes to fuck you up lvl 2 2v1 to your lvl 1 in the middle of the wave at the first 3 minions. sucks doesn't it? but hey atleast they get it nerfed immediatly

Z3SIeeper6 votes

Yorick had an even lower playrate than prepatch Shaco with about the same winrate but you don’t see yorick mains coming in here crying for buffs every day.

So yeah, fuck Shaco re-nerf him. I hope this will remind them why they originally nerfed his early game in the first place.

Sucction14 votes

Tbf Vayne's stealth isn't really "1 second" when she uses it every other second.

Bârd6 votes

I just want to be able to buy detection to deal with invisible champions.

They can buff the shit out of invis. They can turn every camo into an invis. Fine.

Just give us back pink wards.

MasterDClone1 votes

you litterally get oracles, which decimates invis champs like shaco. In my games i see 4 out of 5 of the enemy team get one and it cripples my team fighting or my ability to get picks

Bârd2 votes

...yes.

Lets balance invis champions around an item that literally doesn't even exist outside of ARAM.

MasterDClone1 votes

what oracles exists outside of aram, oracles lens the trinket? I see people using it every game. whats so confusing

Bârd2 votes

item 2047 is oracles, the hard counter to any and all invisible champions, which was made ARAM only in preseason 4.

item 3364 is the red trinket, which is an active effect (meaning if he tries to jump you it won't be active) with a pretty short range (meaning he won't be in the AOE if he uses his stealth to escape), and doesn't even reveal him if he's in the area, just makes him shimmer.

QancerClown5 votes

at the very least, add a visual/sound notice when Shaco uses blink/invisibility nearby, similar to Pyke. It can remain an invisibility, but this amount of sneak power is unjustified.

He has something like that already. You are just blind.

You Love My Meat5 votes

I made this post a week ago and got downvoted into oblivion

Miudmon4 votes

That's being rather disingenuous. shaco has nowhere near the damage of... well, most of your examples, especially the actual assassins, so he really can't assassinate as easely. to demonstrate with the actual assassins of the group,

**Shaco **at 6, e max, full combo, 30% target with backstab... three aa backstabs and 5 solo box aa's to be generous - 400+1.9 bonus ad + 2.1 ap

In the same/a similar timeframe

Akali at 6, q max, two q's, one double e, two passive procs - **338+3.2 bonus ad +3.2 ap **

Kha at 6, q max, Two isolated q's, one w, one passive - 579+6.6 bonus ad

Talon at 6, w max, one simple qw combo, passive proc - 370+3.1 bonus ad

Pyke at 6, q max, q and e hit - 270+1.6 bonus ad + significant cc

Rengar q max, full combo, passive q, and valuing the auto reset inherint in those as about 75% of an auto attack - **300+1.5 total ad +1.8 bonus ad +65% attack speed for 5 seconds +0.8 ap **

in all cases except pyke, who has pretty damn significant cc and survivability to compensate, shaco plain and simple has less damage in his base kit than the others.

GTHeavy5 votes

Him being a better assassin was not my point. Indeed, he does not have that much damage. The problem is preventing his ganks, as extensive invisibility + blink can go around pink wards easily. Basically, if Shaco gets any kind of early lead, you have to stay tucked in under turret in all lanes, with little other counterplay.

CØulrophobia4 votes

Shaco main here. Somewhat unbiased one. I will not lie. Shaco is really good right now, but.

  1. Winrate is slowly going down as people are adapting to Shaco's new playstyle. Support(which I was monitoring) has gone down in winrate by 1.12% It is bound to go down even further as people learn to play against him.

  2. His invisibility isnt the big problem it was before. His Q is weaker than his old Q that had 3.5 seconds stealth level 1 and 150% guaranteed crit. +20% increased if he did it from behind. That would be nuts today. What is problem is his level 3 fast clear and that is getting gutted next patch along with his support builds.

  3. He is losing a lot of his damage lategame so he only has a small window to exploit that. That means Shaco is fighting an uphill battle. It might be easy for him the first few steps, but it gets harder really soon.

  4. Finally his Q is telegraphed. His animation is visible even from fog of war when he Qs.

Ty for reading.

Saezio3 votes

They are nerfing him. You didn't hear?

Póppy Chulo3 votes

Yeah, nerfing his box duration by 20 seconds.

WoonStruck5 votes

He's getting his box duration reduced. That doesn't affect the large majority of issues with shaco right now.

Beacon Academy7 votes

Yes. And as always, Riot nerfed the wrong thing.

Hopefully they'll follow precedence and double nerf, or even triple nerf him, without reverting the first nerf.

Śhunpo3 votes

Actually Kha's ultimate invis is quite a bit longer than 1 second, the tooltip blatantly lies.

ThisName1sDumb1 votes

{quoted}

Actually Kha's ultimate invis is quite a bit longer than 1 second, the tooltip blatantly lies.

Yeah, after it's evolved it lasts 2 seconds and can be cast 3 times during the ult duration. Pretty busted tbh. My last game I played a game against Kha'Zix, it was basically a 1v1 game, both of us were insanely fed. I was playing Garen and built a dead mans so I could beat him in the 1v1 generally, and he kept ranting about how Garen is OP. I mean, he kind of is this patch haha, but I just thought it was funny because Kha'Zix is pretty busted too. He was complaining about me being able to one shot everyone while at the same time he was one shotting everyone on my team.

Crescent Dusk1 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, after it's evolved it lasts 2 seconds and can be cast 3 times during the ult duration. Pretty busted tbh. My last game I played a game against Kha'Zix, it was basically a 1v1 game, both of us were insanely fed. I was playing Garen and built a dead mans so I could beat him in the 1v1 generally, and he kept ranting about how Garen is OP. I mean, he kind of is this patch haha, but I just thought it was funny because Kha'Zix is pretty busted too. He was complaining about me being able to one shot everyone while at the same time he was one shotting everyone on my team.

Difference is Garen is an actual tank. You shouldn't do the damage a khazix does. But his crying is pointless anyways since juggernauts are supposed to win against assassins.

RyzeRework2 votes

Yeah his invisibility is the least of your problems. The problem is his clear with the aoe boxes allows him to level 3 gank when most people are level 1 that's what's strong

VanCanBanMan1 votes

that's why they're nerfing box cd so you can't clear as fast because you have less boxes

RyzeRework1 votes

I kinda like that change. Instead of nerfing his burst and making him just as unplayable as old shaco

MasterDClone2 votes

he has a visual notice lol, also oracles kinda rapes him, just nobody buys it low elo

L Psy Kongroo2 votes

{quoted}

While theoretically very aggressive warding + defensive turret-hug play would counter this, I can't be bothered to 110% tryhard every game. Not all players are diamond+, and even in plat this feels severely restricted and counter-intuitive to play against. This is one of those "unfun mechanics" that Rito wants to prevent.

I was almost ready to agree with you, until I read this part. If you think those things you mentioned constitute "110% try-harding" then I have to question whether or not you actually belong in plat. These things aren't difficult, nor are they restrictive. They are things you should be doing EVERY game, whether you're against Shaco or not. In ranked matches especially, you're expected to "110% try-hard" every single game. You did a good job of listing some of Shaco's current problems, but then you ruined it all when you basically said "Yeah, I COULD counter Shaco, but I'm too lazy, so Riot should nerf him instead". It's not only horrible reasoning, but you're also implying that playing the game properly is unfun, which is the kind of thinking a bronze player has. And Riot shouldn't balance the game around what bronze players think.

GTHeavy1 votes

Fair enough on the "I should definitely try-hard in ranked" part. But this still does invalidate his problems.

Packun Flower2 votes

I just want to point out that Shaco does in fact have an indicator when he uses his Q. Though its not a very good one.

When Shaco Q's you will see a small puff of orange smoke where he was standing from when he Q'd. this smoke can be seen even if he is hidden in bushes or the fog of war.

Like i said its not a very super helpful indicator but it is there.

GTHeavy1 votes

Well, thank you. It's something. Although I would find it more intuitive if the indicator was more visible, since usual Rito practice is to shout about everything in huge red letters.

Hazardus ducees2 votes

I think Shaco could easily be beaten into a B rate pick if oracle would pick up shaco through q, r and his boxes instead of completely disappearing from the game/map.

Crescent Dusk1 votes

Like Yi, they keep going and buffing the early game of hypercarries. Who could have thought buffing the early game of strong late game champs would be a problem.

MasterDClone1 votes

they nerfed his late game in favor of his early game, also he was never strong late game.

Crescent Dusk1 votes

{quoted}

they nerfed his late game in favor of his early game, also he was never strong late game.

Oh, please, peddle this crap somewhere else. Shaco was one of the best scaling assassin jg's late game. Only Evelynn rivaled him.

MasterDClone2 votes

in what way, all his damage was out of abusing items, his scalings were decent at best. Evelynn Ekko Khazix Rengar litterally all have better late game than shaco did in terms of damage, on top of that aside from eve all their early games were either on par or better than shaco's.

Crescent Dusk1 votes

{quoted}

in what way, all his damage was out of abusing items, his scalings were decent at best. Evelynn Ekko Khazix Rengar litterally all have better late game than shaco did in terms of damage, on top of that aside from eve all their early games were either on par or better than shaco's.

All the ones you used rely on ult to do any burst at all. Shaco's engage is a fraction of the cd. And abusing items is what hypercarries do. Ekko jungle has be a constantly nerfed anomaly much like Camille jungle.

Kha'zix and Evelyn have significantly weaker early games around contesting crab since they can't take ignite like shaco can. As Kha'zix and Evelynn your entire existence before lv10+ revolves around praying the enemy Yi/Warwick/Volibear/Pantheon/Xin Zhao/Udyr does not find you while invading your jungle. Shaco simply drops boxes around points he can get engaged on and blinks out with stealth on a significantly lesser cd. Chasing a half decent Shaco around the jungle is a fool's errand.

Rengar is virtually a kamikaze assassin with a terrible late game if he didn't get fed to hell by overextended idiots. Once he's used his ult to engage on a target he has no escape whatsoever and with his usual build he doesn't have the staying power to not get deleted, which is why he's called the lesser Khazix's, who at least has his multiple stealth charges and leap, even though they're considerably longer cd than Shaco's toolkit. Shaco deletes half your health from stealth and doesn't even require you to be isolated to do so, while having multiple escape options and a betetr version of leblanc's clone.

HA I am Shaco HA1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Crescent Dusk,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=69zlERjR,comment-id=00160000000000000000,timestamp=2019-10-19T04:03:07.667+0000)

All the ones you used rely on ult to do any burst at all. Shaco's engage is a fraction of the cd. And abusing items is what hypercarries do. Ekko jungle has be a constantly nerfed anomaly much like Camille jungle.

Kha doesn't need ult to oneshot, Rengar doesn't need ult to oneshot, Eve doesn't need ult to one shot and neither does Ekko. Kha just needs isolation for a MASSIVE damage increase on his abilities, Rengar can hide in a bush which is basically everywhere, Ekko doesn't require anything, Eve can pop out of infinite stealth and oneshot you with mage itemization.

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