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Shaco, Shaco Changes.

MCBlastoise·12/20/2016, 4:26:28 AM·5 votes·1,245 views

Shaco The suicidal nightmare for squishes.

So what I know. (This is an opinion)

Get in, Kill the adc, Get out.

  • The way its portrayed Ok sounds easy. Q in, W behind the Caitlyn , R to get the numbers advantage, auto E to get the kill. "Woah that's some crazy burst man. An Assassin killing an adc. Holy hell that is broken." l
  • What actually happens most of the time

Ok sounds easy. Q in. W behind the Caitlyn , R to get the numbers advantage, spawn on a trap. Throws E to hopefully get some follow up from the team. Jinx is sitting under tower farming. Sona is warding dragon. You die to a suprise LeeSin from the bush. Sona Why are you like this... Jinx All: Report Shaco for feeding. Shaco item 3070 item 3070 item 3070 item 3070 item 3070 item 3070 , Jinx All: Report Shaco for inting. "Dang man Shaco going 0/7/2 by 20 minutes? Shaco is such a troll pick"

A rather accurate representation of the stereotypical Shaco game. But seriously lets talk about whats happening to Shaco. So Shaco when spoken of is either a conversation of how Shaco is such a broken champ and completely snowballs early or how Shaco went 0/10 in their promos and how Shaco is such a troll pick and just shouldn't be played.

Shaco 's supposed problems are his early game, mid game, late game and split pushing. Wait a minute... That's like most of the game tho? Yes so the current "solutions" that I'm interpreting from the changes happening so far (Pretty much Patch 7.1) are Tinker Ad Shaco and his Q to stop him from being so "godly" during the early game. Tinker the scaling for Shacos ap and add ap scalings to his Q and W (Duration) so that he isn't completely useless late game (Idk) Tinker his Ad in general to stop "The almighty split push Shaco". Tinker the jungle to change his mid game. (Altho this isn't directly for Shaco it still affects Shaco like it would any jungler) (I use the word Tinker because I feel like some would debate whether these things are a buff/nerf - Good thing/Bad thing)

Now from the patch notes I've seen for 7.1. Nerfing his base damage on his ult. (Why tho?)

Honestly in my opinion the changes to Shaco are rather unnecessary . When I first saw Shaco I saw a package that was rather unique. It was simply a clown with an inbuilt flash as an intiate/escape, A bunch of traps that cc enemies lightly but enough to disrupt them, A point and click poke/execute, And the ability to create a copy of yourself that explodes on death. Q, W, E, R, Deception, Mind Games and a whole lot of Disruption such as split pushing. Or in other words a nuisance. Its a chore to catch him, Its a chore to even see him, Its a chore to kill him, Its a chore to have no adc for half the game. So. Much. Fun. It was all a game, within a game. You would make the enemy adc/mid laner so paranoid of playing aggressive even in self defense. Because a clown might apear behind them and "instakill them" when realisticly hes been poking you for a while now.

The whole concept was just so fun to use. If they catch you off guard... Q, bam you have 1-4 seconds to process what is happening. Do you run? Do you fight? You notice a movement pattern in the enemy team. W, bam now you not only have vision but you will disrupt them when they go there. And maybe even set up chain disruption and pick up a kill from across the map. Enemy out of your melee range at 10hp (or 10%). E, a spinning blade glides to the enemy and executes them. Or the old shaco E (not that old) where it scaled 100% ap in which it would instakill them. Going into a 1v1? 2v2? maybe more. R, gives you an additional Shaco that explodes on death. Or how I prefer to use the ult as a "Blink and you'll miss it" where you press R as something huge is going to happen like a Lux ult.

It all encouraged decision making for both the player and the enemy team. Do I Q over the wall and burst the adc. To most that is a no brainer. Q over kill the adc, easy. But then the What ifs come such as What if I get CC'ed as I Q, What if they see me, Do they have oracles?, Are they grouping?, Do I have enough damage to burst the adc without giving a free kill?.

And for the enemy team. Do I chase Shaco , Is it a bait?, Is that a clone?, Do I have oracles?, Am I alone?, Are there boxes there?. The thing with this is, in the heat of the moment the enemies (or at least the ones I get matched against) don't think about that. They know how much damage they do. They know how fast they are, the summoners difference, They know where my team is. But never consider that there a boxes in the bush.

But there are 2 things I want to highlight from the 2 previous paragraphs I just made. CC and damage. Shaco has a fear built into his kit but its stationary and not instant. So yea Shaco does have CC. Shaco also has laughable to decent damage on his own and has godly follow up damage/clean up damage. So far I've noticed so many people say that Shaco's damage is being nerfed and nerfed and nerfed. I've seen Ad Shaco's damage be minor to non-existent. I've seen Ap Shaco's damage be decent to minor. And tank Shaco...is tank Shaco. I've seen so many complaints about Shaco being both "so trash" and "so broken".

In an ideal situation. Ap Shaco should be good at burst, strong ap, disruption, surprise. Ad Shaco should be good at burst, strong ad, consistent damage. Hybrid Shaco should be good, stable, decent, consistent damage. Tank Shaco should be good at disrupting and sticking to targets. So if the team lacks : Ap, Ap Shaco should be a strong, fun option. Ad, Ad Shaco should be a strong, fun option. Front lines, Tank Shaco should be a strong, fun option. And if the team has a bit of everything Hybrid Shaco should be the icing on the cake.

Each variable of Shaco or version of Shaco has its own kick in terms of damage, effectiveness as a team, effectiveness in skirmishes and survivability. Each one being pretty self explanatory. Damage:

  • Ap Shaco should have hard hitting abilities, weak to decent autos and be somewhat effective during skirmishes and team fights. Mainly being the use of his abilities since that's where the scary part of Shaco will be specializing in. How ever being rather weak / squishy.
  • Ad Shaco should have hard hitting autos, and weak to decent abilities and be deadly during skirmishes and team fights. Mainly being his autos since that's where the Shaco will be specializing in. How ever being rather weak / squishy.
  • Hybrid Shaco should have decent damage and survivability in everything. A jack of all trades. Not excelling in anything but at the same time not being weak in anything. Since Shaco won't be specializing in any area it would be a jack of all trades.
  • Tank Shaco should have minor damage overall but have strong presence in skirmishes and team fights due to his survivability since Shaco would be specializing in Armor, MR Health.

To summarize from what I've experienced with Shaco, he is fun, can be played many ways, is hardly banned, is talked about negatively on most forums. And now that he is being changed which is debatable whether or not its for the better or the worst.

Additional Note: If some rioter sees this could you explain what Riot is trying to do with Shaco . Do you guys have more plans for Shaco or are you guys just toying with him. Regardless of the answer. Are you guys planning on nerfing him to the ground, bringing him to his prime/ better than the previous versions of Shaco, removing Shaco?.

If all this is confusing/unclear/a headache/waste of time to you here's the whole thing. I've mained Shaco for a while and I've stated what I thought about him and think about the character in general. I've also mentioned a few versions of Shaco that I have seen come into play and what I think about them. and I'm wanting to know the future/ the path Shaco is taking.

Additionally. Should I find a new main. Shaco Jhin Zilean Annie Leblanc Mordekaiser TwistedFate Fiddlesticks

Vioalla my first post, opinion.

5 Comments

PrinceOfStorms12/20/2016, 4:30:48 AM1 votes

The reason why Shaco got the huge nerfs that he did is because he could one shot from stealth. It's the reason why Rengar got changed. So it was either the damage goes, or the stealth on Q, and riot went with the damage.

VoraciousX12/20/2016, 5:15:46 AM1 votes

Nice post, though I do think AP Shaco should also be considered to have more "outplay potential" since his boxes are deadly when used as AP and running into a swarm of boxes with fear after fear after fear + really high damage can be really fun/really good when you can actually bait people into said traps.

{quoted}

The reason why Shaco got the huge nerfs that he did is because he could one shot from stealth. It's the reason why Rengar got changed. So it was either the damage goes, or the stealth on Q, and riot went with the damage.

His ult had nothing to do with one shotting from stealth though, the only way that blows anyone up is if they actively try to kill it, they're half health, and you're full AP. It has nothing to do with his one shot potential despite it doing large amounts of damage, it's extremely situational and not really reliable.

WarHero5412/20/2016, 11:34:07 PM1 votes

RIP any sort of early game sustain if you try to lane top. Shaco players have such a hard time laning early game as is. Now there is no chance for them. Guess I have to try even harder to make it work. Its literally adrenaline inducing to even keep the max skill cap of shaco up every game. Now that I finally made ap shaco top lane work so well and I get punished with this nerf. My beef is it takes a bunch of skill to use him and yet there are so many more bursty op champs in the meta right now that are way more deserving of a nerf than shaco.

WarHero5412/20/2016, 11:57:33 PM1 votes

In an ideal situation. Ap Shaco should be good at burst, strong ap, disruption, surprise. Ad Shaco should be good at burst, strong ad, consistent damage. Hybrid Shaco should be good, stable, decent, consistent damage. Tank Shaco should be good at disrupting and sticking to targets. So if the team lacks : Ap, Ap Shaco should be a strong, fun option. Ad, Ad Shaco should be a strong, fun option. Front lines, Tank Shaco should be a strong, fun option. And if the team has a bit of everything Hybrid Shaco should be the icing on the cake.

This isn't a reality as Riot over the years has taken it upon themselves to make champs less diverse in building the way you want. Watch when they really come out with the rework of shaco its either going to be ad or ap scaling only. Just look at how many potential hybrid champs got reworked to be either ad or ap scaling only. Its only a matter of time till they make Shaco not fun and take away the player's choice to go ap or ad.