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Thoughts on Quinn and potential changes

Craven Corvid··10 votes·1,225 views

Here we go, it's time for another Quinn thread. After playing her for a while now and getting a good feel for the champion, I do think that Quinn is in a pretty okay spot right now. She's a niche pick bottom lane that trades a consistent steroid for massive dueling power and assassination, as well as a strong solo laner depending on the match-up. Hell, she can even jungle, with Valor bringing some scary ganks to the table. However, there are a few quality-of-life changes I'd like to see; nothing that would change her in a significant way, just make her more friendly and intuitive to play. I'll outline the problem areas below in bold, with my potential changes listed in italics, with a list at the bottom for lazy people.

Mechanics: I'll just get the obvious one out of the way first. Quinn's auto attack animation is abysmal. It takes so long to come out, that sometimes you will lose out on easy kills because the enemy flashes out of range. It also makes last-hitting harder than it needs to be sometimes, as the timing becomes all the harder when you have a large wave of minions built up. What's more, I think that** the animation for attacking marked targets is worse**, and almost feels like the auto attacks come out slower because of it. To fix this, I'd like to see *her animation go from point-load-shoot to point-shoot-reload. *Note that this would not make her attack any faster or anything, it would just cause the projectile to come out faster in the animation, and therefore make it a little easier to use and more user-friendly. It would also put her more in line with other marksmen with the attack-move ability. Lastly, I feel like her range is actually good. 525 is fair for what the rest of her kit does, namely Vault.

Passive (Harrier): I love this passive for being unique, but I can't deny that it has some very obvious flaws to anyone that plays a few games with her. As the most obvious, the targeting and range is sometimes a little odd.** It prioritizes Champions when it feels like it, but seems to prefer targeting low-hp minions a lot of the time. In addition, this passive can really hurt Jungle Quinn, as I notice a lot of the time the mark will not in fact target the large monster that I am attacking, but will prefer to target the smaller monsters that accompany it**. This can cause her to take more damage than she should when jungling, and hurts her clear time when counter jungling. To fix this, I ask that her passive's targeting be made a bit more consistent. The priority should be: Last enemy/neutral monster attacked > Nearby enemy champion > nearby enemy cannon minion/large monster > other. Finally, sometimes when Harrier procs, the mark will not trigger bonus damage if you attack right away. This can lead to scenarios when you react TOO quickly to it, getting off only a single base attack before the enemy can get away. I'd like to see it as that the target is flagged as marked as soon as the animation says they are, and that auto attacks already in transit when the target is marked as able to trigger it. This would still give the enemy enough time to react accordingly, and it wouldn't punish Quinn for attacking as soon as she sees Valor swooping down to make the mark.

Blinding Assault: The clipping. Oh god, the hit-box on this ability is kind of janky. Sometimes the ability sails through a tiny hole in the minions and causes you to waste the mana and cooldown. Sometimes it just barely clips the edge of a minion, even though the animation was nowhere near it. Really, all this ability needs is a clean-up on the animation, and to possibly make the hit box a bit more narrow so that it can be more accurately aimed. I feel like the damage could be more evenly distributed on Blinding Assault, though I will cover that at the end.

Heightened Senses: Do you love this ability? Because I love this ability. The** range and cooldown on it are fair for what it does**, and I've never had a feeling of "Oh, if only it reached just over that barrier." The side of it that interacts with Harrier is also fine.** It's a good steroid for what it does and how hard it can be to activate without Vault**, and the massive attack speed boost as Valor is amazing for finishing off kills or demolishing turrets. The only potential change I can think of for this ability would be to have it act as though you activated Harrier upon activating this ability (as in, granting the bonus AS and MS), but that may require testing and make her too strong.

Vault: Beautiful. Low cooldown tool for gap closing or escaping, adds a bit of burst with the Harrier proc afterward, and racks up a ton of stacks for Static Shiv. However, the inconsistency of where you land afterward is a bit troubling.** Landing at your maximum range when used from far away can allow the enemy to escape just by walking away, and landing further away when used from melee range can cause you to have to walk back in to get inside your auto attack range. ** I feel that this could be tightened up considerably. *When used from a maximum range, Vault should have Quinn land at 475-500 range to be better able to follow up the assault, and when used at short range I'd like it to be around 550-575, allowing her to attack if her pursuer continues after her. *

Tag Team/Skystrike: Finally, her ultimate. Firstly, I'd like to address Valor as a whole: He's fine. He's fast, he's strong, he gives Quinn strong roaming/ganking options in the mid game and a powerful escape/chasing tool in the late game. His auto attack animation is fine, and everything about Valor himself is great. As for Skystrike, again the damage portion is in good place as well. However, the cooldown at earlier ranks (particularly rank 1) is way too high. In many games, I only end up using the ability once or twice before level 11, because the cooldown is just entirely too long. It ends at a good place at rank 3, so I'd like to see the cooldown lowered at earlier ranks, but scale down to the same number at level 16.

Damage distribution: Quinn's itemization feels like it's in an odd place right now. She has high scaling in her abilities, pushing the player to itemize for massive AD, but the way her abilities actually work push her into a duelist/splitpusher playstyle, and make items such as Blade of the Ruined King or Static Shiv attractive. You have to forfeit either the high scaling or the high duel potential when building for Quinn. To counteract this, I would like to see the base damage on Blinding Assault and Skystrike raised, and their scaling lowered. This would keep her damage roughly the same in the late game, while giving her that mid-game power boost that keeps her relevant when split-pushing with her BotRK.

Closing: I feel like Quinn is a great champion with a lot of untapped potential, if only because so many people are driven away from her being somewhat unfriendly to play. The QoL changes I've outlined above (and will summarize below) are things I've thought long and hard on, and that I think would really benefit her as a Champion.

TL;DR

  • Clean up her auto-attack animation and make it come out a little faster
  • The priority for Harrier marking targets should be redone to be more logical
  • Allow marks to be proc'd faster, to avoid punishing Quinns who react faster than their opponent
  • Clean up the animation on Blinding Assault and make the hit-box a little more narrow
  • Maybe allow Heightened Senses to activate the AS/MS boost, or a lessened version of it
  • Have Vault place Quinn closer to her target after she lands for easier follow-up.
  • Lower the cooldown on earlier ranks of Tag Team
  • Redistribute damage on Blinding Assault and Skystrike to have higher base damage and lower scaling

Feedback on these changes or other potential changes is always welcome. ~~Also, Talon is totally Quinn's twin brother Caleb. ~~

17 Comments

Steelflame3 votes

As someone who likes and plays a decent amount of Quinn every now and then, most of her issues are more "bugs" than actual balance issues.

  1. Her AA animation is very prone to canceling when you are doing the standard ADC AA move AA, which is fine, if it wasn't for the fact, that unlike every other ADC in the game, her animation sound plays BEFORE her AA actually fires. This means the usual ADC move after hearing the sound play is wrong on Quinn, Hell, she can actually cancel her AA's damage after the bolt fires it is so wonky. Fix her AA, and you fix most of Quinn's problems.

  2. Her passive, as you said, can be a bit... random. I've had games where I can land 3 passive procs on a person in under a second before level 6 even (had passive sitting on him, AAed right as it ended, Passive reproced on him, AA again, Vault, AA again. Humorous, considering he was sitting in a 15+ minion wave). I felt sorry for the poor bastard, for he instantly lost lane to pure dumb luck. I've had games where my passive refuses to even target a champion unless there is absolutely nothing else. The fast reaction punishment is also a bit annoying. Only real change to her passive other than a bit more standardized targeting would be having her able to proc it in her Valor form if she transforms while it is on an enemy.

AbodyHUN6661 votes

I just hate it when a fight can be decided by a crit like mechanic like this. I think her main problem is how much damage she does when ahead and how useless her ult is when behind.

HYPERBOLOCO3 votes

I don't really have any issues with these suggestions.

The thing that annoys me about quinn the most is when your passive procs itself just as your using E (vault) . It would be nice if you could stack two passives on a target so you don't waste one due to an inconvenient passive proc.

Deep Terror Nami2 votes

Tag Team is getting looked at for the pre-season 5 patch. From what they had on that article, they might be making her ult similar to the other transforming champions, Jayce Nidalee and so on.

Edit: changed to a different link. The first one only had jungle stuff. Be aware the list is only tentative, and all or nothing on it could go live.

Kingsgrave2 votes

I feel like that is probably going to implemented along with changes to her W and passive. Didn't seem complete.

Drunk Rummate2 votes

Tag Team is getting looked at for the pre-season 5 patch. From what they had on that article, they might be making her ult similar to the other transforming champions, Jayce Nidalee and so on.

Edit: changed to a different link. The first one only had jungle stuff. Be aware the list is only tentative, and all or nothing on it could go live.

There are twitter posts saying the quinn changes weren't supposed to go to PBE and that Quinn isn't being changed

I'd very much like to see her get a quality of life change to remove the bug from her passive (if you vault while passive is up then you lose the harrier proc) and maybe make it so that harrier always prioritizes champions. Other than that I hope they don't change her!

Deep Terror Nami2 votes

I do recall hearing that now, and I didn't really want her to just be the same as them anyway. But ya, she needs some bug fixes and QoL changes pretty badly.

Black Star 12992 votes

Probably not gonna get put in, they said that it didnt fit her style.

Although having that ult change would make Quinn really OP, imagine a ranged master yi who could cast his ult whenever he wanted...

ModWulf Helhammer1 votes

the ult changes aren't being put in, but the range buff and MS decrease are still on the PBE

Konidias2 votes

Eh... I really honestly think Quinn is 100% fine. Let me break down your problems with my own answers:

AA Animation - This is only really an issue early game, and it's really just something you get used to. Later when you get attack speed items, you're AA is so fast that it really doesn't matter at all.

Passive - I think you're mistaken here. The passive DOES in fact target the large creep if you target it first. The problem here is that you are probably throwing a Q into the group, hitting the smaller minions and therefore doing more damage to them than the big one. This prioritizes the passive to the minion with the lower HP. If you start AA'ing the buff minion first, you will 100% always proc it with the passive. Her passive prioritizes closest target, lowest hp target and champs. The easiest way to control where the passive procs is to AA that target. It will 100% of the time proc on the target you are locked on to at the moment.

Vault - It's perfect because you actually have some control on your landing distance. The farther away you are when you Vault. The closer you land to the enemy. This lets you jump some walls by vaulting to jungle minions or enemies. or flip backwards over the wall by standing close to a target and vaulting the wall that way. If you have it at a set distance, this is no longer as easy to perform. Secondly, when you vault off someone they are momentarily stopped and targeted with the passive. If you land the AA, you now have increased move speed to continue chasing the enemy.

One tip with vault. If you feel like the enemy is going to flash away at low HP, then use Ignite while vaulting. This will cast ignite on the enemy to get kills you normally wouldn't have since the enemy will immediately flash away after you vault them, only to die from the ignite.

Tag Team - I believe it's in a good place. It would be nice to have shorter cooldowns at earlier levels though, but it could quickly become OP. Being able to swoop in and gank so often could make Quinn broken very easily. I think maybe it would be nice to have the cooldown reduced the less time you stay in Valor form. So if you pop in Valor form for 10 seconds, the cooldown won't be as long as if you stayed in Valor form nearly the entire time.

This would be nice if you use it in close range on an enemy as a gap closer for only like 3-4 seconds... and then want to use it again before your hair turns gray. Maybe reduce the cooldown if you actually hit a target with E? Kind of like a reset but not as extreme.

Finally, her itemization is okay. You just don't build IE or BT on her. They aren't made for her kit. BotrK is good, LW is good, Black Cleaver is good, Shiv is good... these are your core Quinn items and they synergize extremely well.

Also you should focus on having Armor pen runes over AD runes, because they also synergize far better with Quinn than the raw AD.

Drunk Rummate1 votes

Finally, her itemization is okay. You just don't build IE or BT on her. They aren't made for her kit. BotrK is good, LW is good, Black Cleaver is good, Shiv is good... these are your core Quinn items and they synergize extremely well.

Also you should focus on having Armor pen runes over AD runes, because they also synergize far better with Quinn than the raw AD.

I really disagree with your item choices here.

BotRK is good on champions that need the active to "stick" to their opponent (think Jax, Yasuo). Quinn already has excellent chase and escape with vault and her ultimate so it's a very redundant active for her, and since most of her damage is frontloaded the %current hp active is also somewhat wasted.

Quinn is a pretty bursty champion despite being an ADC.
Note: Harrier has 50% AD scaling.
Harrier, Q, Vault, Harrier is enough to delete, or nearly delete, any enemy carry. As a result you want to enhance that by building plenty of AD and some flat armor pen.
I think you should reconsider the Bloodthirster over the BotRK - 80AD for burst, you get bonus lifesteal from harrier procs, sustain, and a nice shield to initiate with. This item is essential for a split push or duelist Quinn IMO.

Konidias2 votes

I really disagree with your item choices here.

BotRK is good on champions that need the active to "stick" to their opponent (think Jax, Yasuo). Quinn already has excellent chase and escape with vault and her ultimate so it's a very redundant active for her, and since most of her damage is frontloaded the %current hp active is also somewhat wasted.

Quinn is a pretty bursty champion despite being an ADC.
Note: Harrier has 50% AD scaling.
Harrier, Q, Vault, Harrier is enough to delete, or nearly delete, any enemy carry. As a result you want to enhance that by building plenty of AD and some flat armor pen.
I think you should reconsider the Bloodthirster over the BotRK - 80AD for burst, you get bonus lifesteal from harrier procs, sustain, and a nice shield to initiate with. This item is essential for a split push or duelist Quinn IMO.

BotRK is just better overall than BT in every aspect.

  1. It's cheaper
  2. You get bigger power spikes faster (you can't upgrade scepter into anything with the BT build, but you can get a cutlass with the BotRK build)
  3. It increases your 1v1 potential against health stacked champs. It lets you 1v1 everyone in the game instead of just the squishy champs
  4. The attack speed increase synergizes with Quinn's kit + her ultimate becomes insane
  5. The life steal is better. Especially late game. source (http://team-dignitas.net/articles/blogs/League-of-Legends/5329/Analysis-of-the-new-changes-to-Bloodthirster-and-Blade-of-the-Ruined-King)
  6. Too much AD is overkill since Quinn can burst down squishy champs no problem (you even said it yourself), but you need something more for the tankier champs
  7. The shield on BT is pretty much useless. With BotRK you get a 10% hp swap which is essentially a shield for 10% plus 10% deletion of enemy HP.

Your defense for BT is that you get lifesteal (you get more with BotRK) and you get a shield to initiate with (the active on BotRK is basically a shield + 10% removal of enemy HP)

Sorry, but BotRK wins, hands down. Once you have that, you have no need for BT over other items.

Drunk Rummate1 votes

I really disagree with your item choices here.

BotRK is good on champions that need the active to "stick" to their opponent (think Jax, Yasuo). Quinn already has excellent chase and escape with vault and her ultimate so it's a very redundant active for her, and since most of her damage is frontloaded the %current hp active is also somewhat wasted.

Quinn is a pretty bursty champion despite being an ADC.
Note: Harrier has 50% AD scaling.
Harrier, Q, Vault, Harrier is enough to delete, or nearly delete, any enemy carry. As a result you want to enhance that by building plenty of AD and some flat armor pen.
I think you should reconsider the Bloodthirster over the BotRK - 80AD for burst, you get bonus lifesteal from harrier procs, sustain, and a nice shield to initiate with. This item is essential for a split push or duelist Quinn IMO.

BotRK is just better overall than BT in every aspect.

  1. It's cheaper
  2. You get bigger power spikes faster (you can't upgrade scepter into anything with the BT build, but you can get a cutlass with the BotRK build)
  3. It increases your 1v1 potential against health stacked champs. It lets you 1v1 everyone in the game instead of just the squishy champs
  4. The attack speed increase synergizes with Quinn's kit + her ultimate becomes insane
  5. The life steal is better. Especially late game. source (http://team-dignitas.net/articles/blogs/League-of-Legends/5329/Analysis-of-the-new-changes-to-Bloodthirster-and-Blade-of-the-Ruined-King)
  6. Too much AD is overkill since Quinn can burst down squishy champs no problem (you even said it yourself), but you need something more for the tankier champs
  7. The shield on BT is pretty much useless. With BotRK you get a 10% hp swap which is essentially a shield for 10% plus 10% deletion of enemy HP.

Your defense for BT is that you get lifesteal (you get more with BotRK) and you get a shield to initiate with (the active on BotRK is basically a shield + 10% removal of enemy HP)

Sorry, but BotRK wins, hands down. Once you have that, you have no need for BT over other items.

The article you linked referenced a 15% lifesteal BT. It was written about a month before the patch released bumping BT up to 20% and increasing the shield duration substantially. BT is hands down better lifesteal and sustain than BotRK at 20%. It also scales with crit unlike the BotRK passive. Tanks are not dangerous when you have a BT for lifesteal assuming you kite properly. Really the only thing you have to care for is an assassin, and a BT shield will help you as much or more than a BotRK in that sense.

And if you build BotRK on Quinn you're sacrificing 65 flat AD which is about 200 damage your first 2 harrier procs alone not including the potential for crit damage. And you're giving that up for an active that will deal about 100-170 damage on a fairly long cooldown and possibly a little more damage on your first few autos versus maokai or mundo.

So no, BotRK does not win hands down. It's certainly up for debate at a bare minimum.

bad manner kid2 votes

Adding anything to her kit would make her an absolute nightmare to lane against. She is what she is unless they rework her completely.

They didn't take the time to correctly code her passive or Vault, and her ult has so much counter play that it may as well have rng damage.

I love the champion but compared to the QoL level of Lucian, she's a pile of pick up sticks.

junglerboy162 votes

This man deserves a cookie item 2010 .

But seriously, Riot should do basically everything you have outlined. I don't play Quinn, and that mostly has to do with these issues you have listed. Otherwise, her kit looks super fun to play and like it would be really amazing if not for the clunkiness.

Adalore2 votes

The grand majority of my issues are indeed with passive iffyness and auto canceling.

I also remember having my passive proc on E misbehave and dump it on a minion when I targeted a champion.

I would totally welcome the passive procing to be allowed sooner.

The madness of Quinn's programming must be impressive to keep envoking these issues.

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