[Discussion] What are everyone's thoughts on Pyke now that he's been out for some time?

He is like most assassins in that he is kind of feast or famine. These traits are emphasized due to being in the support position, where there is a smaller influx of gold. Overall i think he is fine, tho it can feel bad when your Ultimate is down because you kinda stop feeling like you can be useful...which again, is true for a great deal foi assassins as well. So yea.

After the base stats hotfix buff I think he's balanced. I think anymore and he won't be balanced. He serves a good purpose and acts as a good counterpick.

Playing against a good Pyke is like playing against a good Shaco.

I think he is balanced. Higher skill caps than most supports, but has counterplay.

He's godly. Not hard at all to pull good KDAs, and has the best reset buttons in the game. Once players learn not to face tank at low attack speeds, and instead tease and taunt prey, he will be considered a monster.

He is insanely strong as a jungler, and can normally outpace the most toxic junglers, and counters almost all their kits, making him tough to invade. As long as the player is smart enough to keep one of his skills off cooldown to get away, he always has an out.

You can even use Q as an out. I often hook melee champs right over my head when they try to duel.... right as they skill..... so I 1) cancel their skill and 2) put them about 270 range behind me, which puts me in a position where I can either go in again with E, or I can W away and if there's a big chase, can even E before the W, so there's no chance of a follow.

Once you learn all or most of the tricks, he's friggin scary.

Ofc, teams generally rage that you don't treat him like an early game champ when you jungle him.... His first clear, while competitive.... doesn't always put him in a 3 lane gank situation where he can just go lane to lane and harass a whole team like or can.

I do think generally a ton of Pykes choose the wrong runes which gives him the illusion of not being viable. The runes they pick should theoretically be good for him, but the math on capped HP can't be accounted for in Electrocute or even Aftershock. He's actually designed to take a ton of damage. What he's not designed for is taking a ton of damage on tank or damage structures. The only way he's going to take tons of damage, but survive is generally through mobility. If you can go in, take 90% of your HP in damage, and get out, out of enemy vision, you can virtually heal almost all of it back in about 3 seconds, and be right back in the fight.

When I play him like that I often surpass sustain champs and enchanters and heals.... because the passive is just that strong.

I do not like playing him as a support. As support, you generally get into the habit of not csing. Which puts you way behind in gold vs what you COULD have if you were using his kit as a laner/jungler. In other words, you aren't using his utility to its maximum effectiveness as a support. Only when you have a strong carry does he succeed as support. If you play him elsewhere he can be as strong as a Zed.

Since he came out..... I've literally only had ONE bad KDA game, and it was due to a top laner afking the first 4:32, his adc duo insisting we not Remake, and then he came into game and fed a like 0/8. Snowballed the game so fast no one ever got into a good farm situation, and spent the entire game trying to clean up their mess (the adc was also feeding).

His Ult could use a couple slight modifications:

Prevent double clicking (I've had some executes where the skill reset but was instantly recast because of a hard R press double activating it)

Personal annoyance: His ult can be interrupted! I can't count the times I've been CC'd mid ult and died before it landed, even though it's only like a 1 second skill. He'd probably be 51% if his Ult was Unstoppable like Darius's.

His damage output per game isn't that great. Even if you are in constant fights, and doing your job, you'll find you end games with 20k damage when your teammates have 30k. Those 20k counted, but it still doesn't feel that validating. There's a potential ~ 50 damage increase over the course of the game coming to his E, so that might help.

I like him, but lord I hate using his Q. I’m probably just bad, but I’m more used to the snap hooks of Thresh, Blitz, and Naut. Having to charge it makes it so obvious.

He's very fun. Very weird to get used to supporting as him however, as you don't exactly jump in nor stay back and peel, rather you try to hang at a certain distance waiting for an opening. Honestly, he nails the assassin-support mix pretty well.

What I have to wonder is whether Riot planned for him to build Assassin or Tank. He feels so much more efficient in the support role if you just stack resists and CDR and just weave in and out of battle doing disruption duty. His ult also helps him do that by simply making it hard to keep track of him as he resets around the fight. I'm sure if you were to go massively fed you could just go AD, but since you're giving gold to your team anyway, it's not like they'll need the damage while you'll always need more resists.

I think he's in a good spot, but he's very much a champion that wins with player skill rather than the champion. I don't think he should be played over Thresh or Blitz unless you really just prefer and/or are better with the assassin flavor.

The E hitbox is too large, but other than that I don't really mind going up against him if I have to.

I love playing him. His regeneration is way too strong though.

He’s well-balanced, fun to play with and against. The music when he’s charging his hook and you’re low health is really scary.