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How to make Fiora (The Queen of Balance) something you can play against.

Niyumi··2 votes·625 views

So, we all know that Fiora is beyond broken, and utterly impossible to lane against on anything but a super tank that can laugh at all her damage. Is that fair or balanced? I don't think so. I just played a game against her with Gnar, and any time she got within 10 feet of me, she'd fly through the air at super speed, slow me to death, and then beat my face in without ever hitting any vitals (Yeah, you sure nerfed her to prevent that, Riot). In Mega form, she would out-trade me, again, without hitting any vitals. When she does hit vitals, you're just about guaranteed dead, since she chunks you for %HP true damage while healing herself. How do we solve this? Well, I have a few ideas.

Passive: %HP true damage, self heals, free MS... sounds a bit overbearing, doesn't it? If you try to trade with Fiora, she'll just outheal all your damage while chunking you down with %HP true damage that you can't build against. So, I have a few proposals:

  • %HP true damage? No. Take it away from her passive. It can stay on her ult, but make her passive %HP magic damage. This way, you can build against it, and actually win a lane against a Fiora if you play well.

  • Cut the heal down a bit. It's ridiculous to see her laugh all your damage off as soon as she gets a Hydra. Make it a flat amount that's very small -- sustain in lane, not laughing off damage while being squishy.

Q: Right now, her Q is close to fine, but it just does too many things for Fiora. It automatically targets vitals, it automatically targets anything it can kill, it lets her dash through walls, it lets her chase you forever since it has next to no CD if it hits something, and so on.

  • Instead of auto-targeting vitals / things about to die, Q now targets the CLOSEST target, regardless of what it is or where the vitals are. This allows teammates to eat a Q to prevent a vital proc, it makes her have to actually aim to hit you with it in minions, it makes her have to be smart about it, and so on.

  • Damage lowered a bit: Right now, with her passive, E's free AA reset, ult, and all that, her Q just does too much damage. Lower the scaling a bit, and drop the base damage so she isn't such an early game monster.

  • Potentially, only lower the CD if she hits a vital, instead of whenever she hits something. This would make it possible to kite her, and make her have to work for those vitals, instead of having gimmies.

W: W is fine, I don't have many issues with it; it rewards smart play and all that -- BUT, it's too much of a safety net for Fiora, and makes her ALWAYS have the advantage when it's up.

  • If she blocks a CC with it, end the effect immediately, instead of countering every other CC/all damage coming her way (making her invincible to focus).

  • Make a small window BEHIND Fiora, where she can still be attacked.

  • Instead of having her stun you forever and a half because you rooted her, have the duration of her stun be equal to the duration of the CC incoming.

E: So, a free AA reset, a free slow, and a free crit -- all with extra AS. Sounds a bit dumb, huh?

  • So, to make this ability fair, you have to either remove the AA reset, the AS, or the free slow. Removing any one of the three will make this ability much, much more tolerable, and removes a lot of her ability to beat your face in without even looking at vitals (wasn't that your goal, Riot?).

R: So, her ult is mostly fine. It rewards her for being able to out-position and out-play an opponent, but it's too easy to hit all the vitals. During her ult, her vitals deal true damage, unlike her passive, which is magic.

  • Remove the constant MS bonus while near the target (you still gain MS per vital though).

Those are my ideas on how to balance Fiora, and make her fun (and possible) to play against with anything that isn't a super tank (Mundo, Tahm, etc).

26 Comments

Brascus2 votes

Against Gnar? Dude Gnar has some good poke, dafuq are you doing in melee range

Niyumi2 votes

Throw a Q, go to catch it, she lunges through the minion wave and beats me up. Her dash is nearly half as long as your Q range.

Or, I turn Mega, jump her, and have my ass handed to me when I have the advantage. (Was never stunned by her parry, by the way)

Brascus2 votes

Gnars boomerang comes back to you, stay in school man

:T

Niyumi1 votes

Yes, I'm aware of that. Though it doesn't always fly straight, does it? And besides, your Q alone isn't enough to poke her out of lane, since she heals with Hydra.

I only ever died once to her in lane, but no one on my team could fight her at all.

ModWulf Helhammer2 votes

Actually, yeah, it does.

Niyumi1 votes

It actually moves depending on your movement / positioning / angle of your throw. So it won't always fly right back to you.

Neotrixed2 votes

You would have got up votes if you didn't bash on EVERY THING FIORA HAS. Just target 1 or 2 ability's and don't gut them i like how you said the damage can stay on ult but without it it's magic damage, that's a good idea.

Niyumi1 votes

There's gutting, and then there's bringing a champ down to par with the rest of the roster. Right now, Fiora is just beyond ridiculous, and needs some major tweaking.

And, besides, nothing up there is gutting at all. It's just rebalancing things and moving things around, getting rid of a bit of the true damage, and making her have to actually work to do well (I know, how HORRIBLE of me to expect people to put in effort).

I suggest reading through it all before saying I want her gutted. ^^

WarlockLaw1 votes

If all of these changes went through she would be a worse version of what she was before, a snowbally assassin that doesn't work vs any coordination. Except now she doesn't have her old ult to deal aoe damage anyway. She would be gutted, unable to kill anyone or anything without her opponent being tiers below her in skill.

Nerf the % max health true damage out of her kit entirely, no champion should be able to do that kind of damage 4 times in a row no matter how much outplay is involved.

If that isn't enough then either increase mana costs or increase the cd of her dash (at minimum decrease the refund amount).

Niyumi1 votes

{quoted}

... a snowbally assassin that doesn't work vs any coordination.

Oh, you mean like Yi, LB, Lee, Eve, Nid, Kass, Veigar, Zed, Shaco, Ekko, Fizz, and, you know, like every assassin out there? Hmm...

She would be gutted, unable to kill anyone or anything without her opponent being tiers below her in skill.

She would have to actually try in order to win. If someone is better than her? She loses! If someone is worse than her? She wins! If the two people are on equal terms? Well, who knows? That would be called balance.

Nerf the % max health true damage out of her kit entirely, no champion should be able to do that kind of damage 4 times in a row no matter how much outplay is involved.

Her ult is not the issue, yet Riot is too blind to see that. She has so much raw damage that doesn't care about her vitals that it's just insane.

WarlockLaw1 votes

{quoted}

Oh, you mean like Yi, LB, Lee, Eve, Nid, Kass, Veigar, Zed, Shaco, Ekko, Fizz, and, you know, like every assassin out there? Hmm...

Only Shaco is comparable here, every other assassin isn't noticeably worse in competitive play

She would have to actually try in order to win. If someone is better than her? She loses! If someone is worse than her? She wins! If the two people are on equal terms? Well, who knows? That would be called balance.

She wouldn't have to try, trying means nothing when your numbers are so low that even playing perfectly will lose you most fights.

Her ult is not the issue, yet Riot is too blind to see that. She has so much raw damage that doesn't care about her vitals that it's just insane.

Her ult is the most disgusting part about her kit, I mark you and kill you (which with her current passive she will) she then heals her team for more than Soraka can? That is most unbalanced thing in the game right now.

Weiner the Pooh1 votes

{quoted}

Oh, you mean like Yi, LB, Lee, Eve, Nid, Kass, Veigar, Zed, Shaco, Ekko, Fizz, and, you know, like every assassin out there? Hmm...

She would have to actually try in order to win. If someone is better than her? She loses! If someone is worse than her? She wins! If the two people are on equal terms? Well, who knows? That would be called balance.

Her ult is not the issue, yet Riot is too blind to see that. She has so much raw damage that doesn't care about her vitals that it's just insane.

Fiora has always had a fuck ton of damage that's why her damage bar is one of 4 ad's that say 10, and what is this nonsense you keep saying that she doesn't need to hit the vitals? of course she does.

Niyumi1 votes

If you're not a full tank, Fiora can just dive you and kill you with raw damage alone, maybe procing one vital in the process. Riot said they don't want that, but that's what we have anyway.

The Sword Saint1 votes

I'm sorry, but sometimes it's just a matter of you lacking understanding of the game or the skill to counterplay.

Niyumi1 votes

I'm sorry, but sometimes, your favorite freelo champion is a lot bit broken, and needs to be brought into line. She's damn near 100% pick/ban for a reason.

The Sword Saint1 votes

I'm sorry, but sometimes - or rather all the time - copypasting someone's post and swapping words in like a child actually doesn't prove literally anything. I'd say try again, but I'm not interested in anything you have to say. One look at your original post makes it clear you don't have a single clue about balance or design as any one of your proposed changes would be a massive nerf and any two of them would make fiora completely unviable.

And no, noone cares if you would rather she be deleted or unviable. Riot already decided where they would nerf her and it's already gone through in the patch this morning.

Niyumi1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Sword Dancer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=967KUA7s,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2015-10-14T16:52:12.438+0000)

... as any one of your proposed changes would be a massive nerf and any two of them would make fiora completely unviable.

That's the idea, you know, to nerf her. When a champion is close to 100% pick/ban, throughout ELOs, there's a reason for it. She is just way too strong, and she has very little counterplay outside of just building pure armor -- and even then, she'll just hit vitals and kill you anyway, 'cause true damage.

They would in no way make her unviable though; Riot wants Fiora to be a high skill-cap champion, who performs well when she outplays and outmaneuvers an enemy -- right now, she doesn't need to do either; her damage is so overpoweringly strong that she can just rush you, hit E, and click you to death, vitals or no. The nerfs / tweaks I proposed would nerf her, yes, but she would still have the same strengths she has now, while relying more on skill and positioning than stupidly high damage.

I'm sorry that I advocate for champs that require skill, rather than just building items and clicking people to death. Call me old-fashioned, but I like challenging games.

Weiner the Pooh2 votes

{quoted}

That's the idea, you know, to nerf her. When a champion is close to 100% pick/ban, throughout ELOs, there's a reason for it. She is just way too strong, and she has very little counterplay outside of just building pure armor -- and even then, she'll just hit vitals and kill you anyway, 'cause true damage.

They would in no way make her unviable though; Riot wants Fiora to be a high skill-cap champion, who performs well when she outplays and outmaneuvers an enemy -- right now, she doesn't need to do either; her damage is so overpoweringly strong that she can just rush you, hit E, and click you to death, vitals or no. The nerfs / tweaks I proposed would nerf her, yes, but she would still have the same strengths she has now, while relying more on skill and positioning than stupidly high damage.

I'm sorry that I advocate for champs that require skill, rather than just building items and clicking people to death. Call me old-fashioned, but I like challenging games.

she has counter play dude, a lot of it. u can reset her passive, you can avoid her q and her w and you can qss her passive and her ult. (armor only counters bad Fioras) the nerfs this patch did make her high skill cap, no more ulting low health enemy to reset fights, to get the full thing you have to earn it that involves going 360° around an enemy while hitting them. and yes you do need to hit vitals to kill opponents its hard to kill people without hitting her passive.

Weiner the Pooh1 votes

Why dont u make it so that her aa's only do 80% of her ad cuz i mean, free auto attacks thats op. oh and reduce vitals from 90° to 45° and she can only proc them with every 3rd aa cuz otherwise its oppresive and make it so her ult challenges on next aa instead of point and click cuz thats also op. make e no longer give attack speed cuz 50% for two aa's is too extreme. q should not be able to cross walls cuz free escapes are annoying, and make it so missing a vital even if its behind them put q on a 60% increased cd. W no longer slows enemy attack speed and E no longer slows either. Reduce her base ms cuz shes too fast cuz free ms on vital hit. Oh and make it so that Q only has a base damage of 10/20/30/40/50 + 60% bonus ad cuz it hits too hard.

Or you could actually learn all of the counterplay she has. Q can be missed and put on a long cd and unlike other spells that count as auto attacks it doesn't even scale 1-1 with total ad it scales 110% bonus ad, it used to be 120% bonus ad also it has its reset function because she used to have a total of 3 dashes(Q used twice and R which bounced 5 times) with a max of 7 jumps. W is a line skill shot and spell shield for .75 seconds(not long at all). E is only 50% attack speed for 2 auto attacks not even seconds two hits. Keep in mind it used to be 120% for 3 seconds and speed her up plus it would reset. R can be qss'd as can her passive and in team fights if she ults you can simply leave the fight as your team peels for you. BTW the heal on her passive is flat. With all her skills its not like they made them from ground up, they had to work with something that would be somewhat familiar to veteran pre-rework Fiora players.

Niyumi1 votes

Way to blow things out of proportion. ^^

I actually enjoy playing Fiora, she's a fun champ. But she just does too much damage while being way too safe. Yi can click people and instantly kill them, but he's very vulnerable to CC and focus. Fiora? You can't really CC her that easily, and she's got a lot of self-healing and movement to get out alive anyway.

Just proposing changes to bring her down to reality, and not have her 100% banned. But no one likes their freelo being taken away.

Weiner the Pooh1 votes

{quoted}

Way to blow things out of proportion. ^^

I actually enjoy playing Fiora, she's a fun champ. But she just does too much damage while being way too safe. Yi can click people and instantly kill them, but he's very vulnerable to CC and focus. Fiora? You can't really CC her that easily, and she's got a lot of self-healing and movement to get out alive anyway. Just proposing changes to bring her down to reality, and not have her 100% banned.

No. What you suggested was a complete gutting. If you've played her you would know that there would be no way to hit someone in a minion wave if it hit the closest thing. W only last .75 seconds, I mean if you cant hold all of your damage for .75 that also stops her dps that's on you. E, are you really going to complain over 50% attack speed for two hits not two seconds, two hits? and if youve played her you would know that her passive heal is flat and along with her ult can be qss'd.

Niyumi1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Da Dwagonswayer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=967KUA7s,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2015-10-14T17:09:15.541+0000)

... would be no way to hit someone in a minion wave if it hit the closest thing.

Exactly. You wouldn't be able to fly in, poke for 10% of someone's HP, and fly out; you would have to be smart about it and wait for an opening... you know, like every other champ.

...W only last .75 seconds, I mean if you cant hold all of your damage for .75 that also stops her dps that's on you.

And as long as her W is up, she has the advantage in any fight, regardless of how low her health is, regardless of how much damage you can do, all that. Fizz and Vlad have "can't touch me" buttons as well, but they have drawbacks -- Fiora's has none. She's immobile for .75 seconds, but you can't touch her or you're dead -- even if you have full HP.

... E, are you really going to complain over 50% attack speed for two hits

Not two hits, three. Four, if you count Hydra. FIVE if you count Q. Riot doesn't want her to just kill someone without procing vitals, but this ability is the main reason she can. AA>>Hydra>AA>E(Reset)>AA>AA>Q>AA>R>AA>Q>AA>AA>E>AA (final proc)>AA>Hydra>AA>Q>AA... if you're not dead yet, you're Trynd or Kindred.

Nothing is gutting her. They're just bringing her down to reality.

Weiner the Pooh1 votes

{quoted}

Exactly. You wouldn't be able to fly in, poke for 10% of someone's HP, and fly out; you would have to be smart about it and wait for an opening... you know, like every other champ.

And as long as her W is up, she has the advantage in any fight, regardless of how low her health is, regardless of how much damage you can do, all that. Fizz and Vlad have "can't touch me" buttons as well, but they have drawbacks -- Fiora's has none. She's immobile for .75 seconds, but you can't touch her or you're dead -- even if you have full HP.

Not two hits, three. Four, if you count Hydra. FIVE if you count Q. Riot doesn't want her to just kill someone without procing vitals, but this ability is the main reason she can. AA>>Hydra>AA>E(Reset)>AA>AA>Q>AA>R>AA>Q>AA>AA>E>AA (final proc)>AA>Hydra>AA>Q>AA... if you're not dead yet, you're Trynd or Kindred.

Nothing is gutting her. They're just bringing her down to reality.

So should every other champ whose dash carries them thru minions get nerfed too? 10% is not all that much thats 100 dmg if they have 1K hp. With W If shes almost dead and your full hp you'll still have the advantage, what makes you think every single Fiora is god like with there W's? Her W isn't all a free win ability. what is Fizz's drawback to his untargetability? it costs mana? he has to choose between a long range hop or an aoe slow? The attack speed is only two hits no matter what way you try to spin it. Using it as an aa reset is a bonus but its not broken. so many champs have an aa reset even Mundo got one. Btw that combo is wrong. R has to go first then you aa the first one E -> rotate either side Q to their back then aa again to the remaining side.

Fiveofswords1 votes

so you think fiora is insanely op. Riot balancing team apparently does not think so. Im going to trust the balancing team personally. If you know better abotu balance than them, then you should go take their job.

heres a logical fallacy: 'I dont know how to fight fiora, therefore it is impossible to fight fiora'

seems to be what you are basing your entire argument on.

It seems you were specifically playing 1 champ: gnar. Maybe fiora is a sort of coutnerpick to gnar. Maybe not...maybe you just got outplayed.

Of course if you fed her early, then there really is nothing you can do because shes in the process of snowballing. Maybe you continued to feed her, maybe this contributed to your team losing. But the first mistake was the big one. your probably missed some opportunity, made a bad decision, etc, whatever.

You can either try to figure out how it happened, or you cna jsut assume that fiora is op, riot cant balance, you never make mistakes, etc.

so then instead of complaining just 1) stop playing lol or 2) play fiora and get a bunch of free wins

Niyumi1 votes

As far as I'm concerned, Riot's "balance" team has a collective IQ that makes a stick look intelligent. There are so many things wrong in this game that they blatantly ignore or make worse, it's just not even funny.

I know full well how Fiora works; I have rank 4 mastery on her, I've laned against her dozens of times, and there's just no way you can beat her in lane unless you have a CC that she can't parry. Then, and only then, can you stand a chance.

I've played many champions into Fiora, never fed her, but yet she still wins lane and annihilates everyone else on my team (seriously, I can end laning phase with 0 deaths, yet she'll have 5-10 kills). There is nothing to counter her with short of targeted nukes from a mile away, but she can just dash to you anyway.

Weiner the Pooh1 votes

So you're saying she should only be allowed to do damage if she hits in certain areas? Even if the damage she's doing is with normal autos? I mean, she is a melee add it would make sense she can do damage with her autos.

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