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Balance aside, is there a problem with adding something to Reksai's Burrow Q?

EnvyDragon··10 votes·1,656 views

Right now she's pretty awesome, yes, but that's mostly because her numbers are too high and people don't know how to deal with her yet. Against competent enemies, she gets kited forever and she has a lot of trouble engaging. She doesn't have anything interesting to do in fights - most of the skill comes from strategic (mapwide) movement, and once she hits teamfights all of her decision-making pretty much amounts to "when do I knockup" and "where do I stand to hit faces."

The lack of skill expression mid-fight makes playing Rek'Sai into a bit of a numbers game. Either she does well and single-handedly wins games, or she gets shut down and can't recover no matter how well she plays. When she gets nerfed, she'll be useless.

One easy place I can see to add skill-expression is on her burrow Q, though - it's a long-range skillshot nuke that reveals targets. So what? It doesn't help you ambush people - once you've hit (and revealed) them, they know they're in danger. You can use it to poke, but that's pretty at-odds with everything else she's meant to do. What's the benefit of hitting a fleeing target? There isn't one. In fact, the cast time makes it HARDER to catch a target, because that's 0.5s in which you aren't moving toward them with your enhanced movespeed.

So right now it's a strong ranged poke on an engage/ambush champion. It feels like it should have something useful, some tangible reward for landing it. "Target reveal" doesn't count. Half the abilities in the game (hyperbole, shut up) have that already.

Ideas?

Give Rek'Sai massively increased movespeed toward targets hit by Prey Seeker. This will make her less kiteable, it will provide her with a REALLY nice reward for opening a gank with the ability, and it makes thematic sense. Hell, the ability's called Prey Seeker. When she finds prey, doesn't she want to charge toward it?

It also gives her a bit more skill expression in fights. Landing a long-range skillshot for bonus mobility is a great way to reward mechanical talent, especially because the W-Q-move-W ends in a knockup.

19 Comments

Feathermane5 votes

Great diagnosis: "Sometimes, people survive an ecounter with Rek'Sai. Riot needs to stop this by giving her a massive speed boost." That is completely unfair to champions like Zyra or Malzahar, and your Ezreals and Lucians will keep on jumping away. These arms races have got to stop, because they are leaving whole swathes of champions on the garbage heap.

EnvyDragon1 votes

That's an oversimplification.

Right now, Rek'Sai is kind of in the Volibear zone. If she hits someone, they die. If she doesn't, she's useless. What she needs right now is a numbers balance (obviously) and a kit tweak to give her more options for skill expression - right now the difference between landing her skillshot and not landing it is roughly 200 damage and nothing else.

Look at the rest of her pattern. Most of her abilities are built around mapwide movement, which is a cool strength - and then when she reaches combat, she doesn't have as much to do as, say, Fizz or Vayne, which is a weakness I'm fine with. But this is what her kit looks like: she approaches combat, WHAM, knocks up 3 or 4 people, WHAM-WHAM-WHAM, smokes them all for a ton of AoE damage, WHAM, bites one of them for a big true damage nuke, all from right in the middle of the fight... and optionally, um... wham, hits somebody for a bit of magic damage from a huge distance away, completely dropping the element of surprise? One of these things is not like the other.

I'd be more than happy to take away at least half the damage on Prey Seeker if she could follow up on it to get into the thick of things.

Zirzon4 votes

I was originally thinking that it should have a slow on it, but I prefer your idea more.

Phero1 votes

{quoted}

I was originally thinking that it should have a slow on it, but I prefer your idea more.

I like a slow better than a speed-up because a slow helps her entire team and not just her.

EnvyDragon6 votes

But then she reaches the target and knocks them up, which helps her entire team and not just her.

If her Q had a slow, she could spam it from Nid spear distance away and be effective without any commitment whatsoever. A speed boost means landing the skillshot makes her engage vastly easier, but it's also something that doesn't help until she moves in.

Phero3 votes

I'm positive that they had something else in mind for her burrowed Q than what we have now. It just doesn't make sense.

It's as if they discovered, hey! her q is too strong! better make her burrowed q useless, 'cause balance! Why not give it an AP scaling? Cause HIGH AS FUCK.

Right now they should make her kit 1. WORK 2. fit her theme. THEN tweak her numbers.

What we get is a knee jerk reaction instead of a meaningful change.

They won't change it though, some designers put their feet down and claimed her perfect and now we're gonna see her numbers tweaked for years before they start actually modifying her skills.

Spacesuit Spiff2 votes

I like that idea, but I'll add that I'd rather it be "faster movement through tunnels toward a marked target" because currently she already moves so fast in burrow form that pre-placed tunnels don't really feel rewarding aside from getting across walls (which is rarely important in skirmishes). That or I'm bad with her (and I am bad at using her tunnels for anything).

Also, the current function of burrowed Q is to let you facecheck so you don't run straight into 5 people, to compensate for her vision.

EnvyDragon3 votes

The thing is that LOTS of abilities let you check bushes. Pretty much every skillshot in the game lets you check bushes, and some abilities - Viktor's laser, Lux's slow-ball, Syndra's W among others - even reveal the entire bush when cast so you can see inside whether you missed or not.

If Prey Seeker is intended to be used to compensate for the lost vision while burrowed, it does a piss-poor job. Best case scenario, you hit a target and it does exactly what any other skillshot would do - tell you you hit a target. Worst case scenario, you blindfire it, hit nothing, and an enemy you weren't previously aware of (possibly the enemy you missed) sees the projectile and it ruins any surprise advantage you might have had.

Hell, if they made it so that Prey Seeker could be fired shorter range (ie. something like Anivia's Q, where you reactivate to burst it early) it would be way more convenient - I could fire it into a bush without the risk of it continuing on for another mile or so where the enemy jungler can see it.

Faster movement through tunnels seems like it would be a nice buff in general; her E is too slow to be much of a gapcloser right now anyway. But granting it after hitting a target with a skillshot...? I gotta disagree there. Tunnels are there for mapwide movement. Place them properly and you can pretty much ignore map obstacles. If you've placed a tunnel such that it will facilitate a gank, landing a skillshot won't help - if anything, it'll spoil the surprise.

Meanwhile, if landing it gives you a general speed boost toward the target - something akin to Nocturne's fear bonus, which tends to put him around 500MS - then that means you can catch fleeing enemies before they have a chance to really kite you. Mid-fight, it also means you can peg a target on the far side of the fight and have a better chance to reach them before someone bodyblocks you.

I'm mostly thinking of ganking. Most of the time when my ganks fail as Rek'Sai, it's because my target either outran me or just got far enough away that I couldn't reach them before they hit turret - when I reach my target they tend to die. It would be nice if Prey Seeker actually helped me seek my prey.

AtheosisX2 votes

For that change to be implemented (and I do like it conceptually), she will need her numbers toned down. Giving her that ability right now would make her utterly and laughably overpowered.

TotalJerk2 votes

RekSai 's kit more loaded than Lee Sin's. She doesn't need any more features.

On another note: Judging by how her champion spotlight was written, she was specifically designed to have loads of utility and not be as useful in a direct confrontation as a drawback to the strength her utility provides. That fact that her numbers are so high is a result of Riot's tendency to get all derpy with the numbers at launch.

EnvyDragon1 votes

{quoted}

RekSai 's kit more loaded than Lee Sin's. She doesn't need any more features.

On another note: Judging by how her champion spotlight was written, she was specifically designed to have loads of utility and not be as useful in a direct confrontation as a drawback to the strength her utility provides. That fact that her numbers are so high is a result of Riot's tendency to get all derpy with the numbers at launch.

I really disagree that her kit is overloaded at all, actually. Three of her abilities do damage and nothing else, two of her abilities are designed for map movement, and her burrow/unburrow does stuff that mostly only matters to the Rek'Sai player (except, of course, for the knockup).

Yes, it definitely looks like she was designed around being able to pick her battles and do plenty of things other champions can't do, at the expense of in-combat interestingness... but I'd argue that adding movespeed toward a Prey Seeker victim is part of the utility more than an in-combat thing. You could certainly use it to stick to a target, but with its long range you'll mostly be using it to open ganks and ambushes. You see a target moving with Tremor Sense, smack them with Prey Seeker, and - if it's an enemy you think you can win a fight with - you rush in and mess them up before their team can come in to save them. Then you tunnel the hell out of there.

Rek'Sai's whole thing revolves around reaching a target, knocking them up, and doing as much damage as possible in that opening window to secure a victory. Once her innate damage is reduced (and it will be) she'll need every advantage she can get to keep the fight in her favor and make use of that window - the longer the chase, the more chances the enemy will have to trap her or bait her, and I feel she should be rewarded for landing that long-range Q with a quicker engage.

Leti the Yeti1 votes

well as a savage beast, dont expect her to be very complex...

CaptanKrushnKill1 votes

Ok, so... burrowed Q is used to let Rek know which enemy champ that circle truly is. It's used to let Rek know if a camp is up, since the Jungle indicator is a red herring many times. It's used on the 3 minions of a wave that are farthest from you to get their attention, and group them up. It's used to secure ganks/kills from a crazy angle that no way would the target see coming. It's used as poke Rek's support mechanism. it's used on enemies that have gone into the fog of war. It's a way to use Expose Weakness.

I would make it's Aoe component larger, and I'd make it so an enemy damaged by it retains a permanent debuff vs Rek. But as-is, it's a useful tool.

ImHerVoice1 votes

reksais kit is shit Its utter shit. It just has high numbers to make up for its shit ass kit. and then when they're balanced she'll be shit. She has literally 2 damage abilities. 2 Damage Abilities. Just 2. You get literally nothing besides attack speed from her ult and thats MEANINGLESS because her Q gives you 2.5 attack speed for 3 autos(i think it does, like jayces W or w/e... actually idk that for sure... maybe its just increases attack speed for the 3 autos) Anyway... Her kit sucks. Its great at not dieing. But at doing anything besides that it flounders around. There are already better knock up tanks like j4 or nautalis or alistar out there. Yes she might do miore damage than any of those three but she also is a melee

Sightless661 votes

and thats MEANINGLESS because her Q gives you 2.5 attack speed for 3 autos(i think it does, like jayces W or w/e... actually idk that for sure... maybe its just increases attack speed for the 3 autos)

It doesn't actually. No boosted attack speed for her Q.

chumbler1 votes

I say buff the AP ratio on her burrowed Q. If you want to play submarine commander with her, you should be able to and have it be effective. Take the numbers from elsewhere in her kit, because lord knows they're way too fucking high everywhere else.

tainteddaze1 votes

you can't kite the bitch any way only thing it will do is make her borrow even more gay to face she gains movespeed as it is why she need to gain even more move speed on top of it.

Flemman1 votes

Well, this is a strange question, you can't really ask if there is a problem with adding more stuff in a kit witout regarding balance in the same time.

For me, adding something to her q would be kinda difficult for the simple reason it would make this spell a new "pre nerf" void spike. (aoe spamable long range with utility and damage)

I'm more for waiting the next patch to see if the actual pbe nerf hit her hard or just balance her back in a healthy spot.

The "go in go out" champ are the hardest to balance for riot, overload their kit early is not a good thing (the argument to do so because she has only 3 damage ability isn't one, some champ has only one damage spell and are fine :p)

Madra1 votes

I think if she hits someone with prey seeker she should be able to hit Q again within 3 seconds to jump towards them, gain a shield, and then have the first auto attack do additional true damage based off of the target's missing health.

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