1435 words on Fizz Nerf -- Riot Please Read
Plan of this post: 1). I am going to explain what determines if any assassin is viable or good, in a nutshell. 2). I am going to support my claim with an analysis on previous and/or hypothetical nerfs/buffs with assassins and their corresponding outcomes. 3). I am going to move towards the point of Fizz and relate what I have said to support my claim of why these nerfs are too much. 4). I am going to explain why nerfing Fizz contributes to a larger problem of lack in champion diversity 5). I am going to explain why League of Legends' ability to grow as a game is dependent on multiple things, one of which being champion diversity.
1). Part of being an assassin is dealing a lot of burst damage. If you can't do that, then you aren't an assassin. Another huge part of being an assassin is maneuverability. Assassins are never long range. That doesn't mean they are melee, but if they are ranged they are only mid ranged (like Ahri and Leblanc). There is a good reason for this. Against any remotely good team, a squishy champion will die instantly if they have to sit in the middle of the enemy team for even as much as 2-3 seconds. An assassin can only ever be as good as his/her maneuverability. Rather than emphasize this point through reiteration, I am going to emphasize it through examples.
2). Examples:
If we think back, there was a long period of time where Zed just wasn't played. He fell out of popularity when his ultimate was nerfed. The change was he would no longer be able to instantly switch back to his shadow; instead, there would be a 1 second delay. 1 second is long enough for Zed to get wiped on whoever he dives on in a teamfight, and it detriment-ed his ability to make 1v1 outplays. He started to become more popular when this downtime was reduced to .5 seconds. Zed is not a special case. There are plenty of other assassins that can easily be made nonviable with the right nerfs on their mobility.
Leblanc and Ahri are just two more examples of mid lane assassins. How would Leblanc be, if we changed distortion so that she can't cast distortion a second time until .5s-1second after initial cast have passed. Imagine how Ahri would be if we placed the same limitation on her ultimate.
The very reason Talon has found so much trouble with finding his way into high level play, is because of his lack for mobility. He still has some, so he's not totally out of the picture. Talon's problem is that once he goes in, there's no coming out, and that is every assassin's worst nightmare.
Kassadin is good right now, but that would completely change if his ultimate cooldown were to be compromised. Kassadin also because his ultimate is the bulk of his damage, but he would not be able to come out on top in teamfights or in duels if he didn't have as much maneuverability.
3). Now, let's move to the point of Fizz. Fizz, like any assassin, is only as good as his ability to move around. For this reason, Fizz builds have always been centered around building CDR. Believe it or not, Morellonomicon was never an ideal option for Fizz. The flat mana regen was not as good getting any flat mana, because with trickster costing 130 mana, you don't have time to wait for a bit of extra mana regen. Before, it never gave a great amount of AP compared to other items, and it offered nothing close to a lich bane passive or a zhonyas active. However, it was significantly cheaper than all the other items in the shop and it offered 20% CDR. (I am of course not talking in the context of new morellos as of the mage update). If you watch the rare cases where Fizz was played competitively, players almost always purchased morellonomicon for this very reason. An 8 second cooldown on trickster just doesn't cut it, so the CDR is absolutely necessary. Fizz was not very popular for a long time because of the non-ideal itemization for CDR, which he desperately depends on. Fizz's comeback started with the addition of CDR onto lich bane, and he started becoming more popular with the mage update. After the mage update, Fizz was able to buy his necessary items and still have the CDR he needs. Lich Bane and Zhonyas have always been incredibly core on Fizz. With max CDR on trickster putting it only at a 4.8 second cooldown, there's still a lot of downtime until the next spell rotation. If Fizz is ever to hope to use more than one rotation of abilities, zhonyas is necessary. His damage output is also nothing spectacular, without lich bane. With lich bane synergizing with his passive, he's able to do the damage an assassin should and needs to do. I don't know if you've ever seen an AP Fizz Q without Lich Bane, but trust me, it's not that scary.
4). If you look at competitive play, Fizz is still hardly played. The only reason that Fizz has become more popular is with the QSS change. The difference in Zed's banrate/pickrate between pre-nerf QSS and post-nerf QSS is huge, and the same was true for Fizz when QSS was changed. ADCs not having any form of counterplay to an assassin is kind of a big deal. It's a bigger deal with Zed though, because Fizz can't throw his ultimate through a tank line. The QSS change could be reverted, and Fizz would go back to being a nice averagely played assassin.
The Trickster CD nerf is what's killing him. The nerf is made on the grounds that Fizz wasn't purchasing an early 20% CDR (or more from items) before, when really that's always what he was doing. Now think of where Fizz is now. At max CDR, his trickster cooldown will be 6 seconds long. It doesn't matter how good the itemization is, because his maneuverability and main damaging ability is getting gutted. If Fizz tricksters on top of anyone in a teamfight, he's done. With Max CDR and assuming he always has amagical zhonyas hourglass up, there is still a 3.5 second downtime where an any team can focus Fizz and kill him. 3 seconds is more than enough to focus down and kill an assassin. That's why the zed nerfs with his ultimate, as mentioned earlier, had the effects that they did. Fizz always had to purchase an early hourglass, because if he didn't, there was 4 seconds of downtime where an enemy team could focus him. As of this nerf, Fizz will be lucky to get more than one rotation of trickster off in any teamfight.
5). This is a bit of a tangent and probably deserves a more in-depth discussion than I'm going to give it, but I feel it's relevant. Any Sport or eSport (Hockey, Basketball, Football, League of Legends, Dota 2, etc) are appealing to a large audience because of two things: (1) the raw skill involved with the game, (2) strategy, the variation in the game and the ways it can be played. The first goes without saying, any game wouldn't be fun to watch if it wasn't impressive to be good at. The second is what I plan to discuss.
I admit that I'm not a big sports guy, but nonetheless, I'm going to try to use some hypothetical analogies to help explain my point. Imagine what football would be like if you could only gain a maximum of 25 yards on a single down. Imagine what football would be like, if there were only four different plays you were allowed to run. Imagine what basketball would be like if you weren't allowed to dunk. Imagine what hockey would be like if there was a limited number of shots you could take in a given game. The same point is true for eSports. League of Legends will be stagnated if Champion Diversity remains low in high level play.
Fizz was not even played very much in competitive. Sure, he's received more attention as of late, but nothing compared to other champions like Vlad, Swain, Azir, or Viktor. if anything, Fizz incited change and champion diversity. Players picked up Fizz, and it punished players who continued to play the same do-nothing-but-farm champions every game. To nerf Fizz is to remove one of the champions that incites diversity and deeper thought in champion select.
