Talon Without His Silence

Now, before anything, let’s define Talon. Talon is an assassin who deals large amount of AD damage in a very short amount of time(that damage was reliable, key word “was”). He is a champion that snowballs with damage and mobility. However, his downsides makes him unviable as the skills of his opponents begin to increase. He is a melee champion that requires a AD-oriented build and R&M, with absolutely 0 innate sustain, mediocre range, no built-in escape before level 6, and base damage that is not the highest, even among mages. In lane, he is vulnerable to ganks, and he lacks any real threat to an enemy with over 2/3 HP at earlier levels, making him a relatively easy target to poke for champions like Lux, Orianna, and Syndra. And, sadly, he lacks innate sustain to get him through the pokes. His only option is to outplay, to juke more skillshots than, say, a Yasuo or a Yi. Right off the bat, Talon is at a disadvantage. And the fact that Talon’s damage is only medium-high only makes things worse. Before level 6, him using his Cutthroat to initiate an all-in would not usually end well for him. He doesn’t have the damage, he can’t tank much, and the fact that he is melee means that he would probably have to fight in a creep wave, since most mages would not allow an AD champion to get in their faces without an overwhelming wave. He cannot deal devastating damage during his silence, because he doesn’t have devastating damage. Before six, Talon is in an awkward situation—he can’t poke or all-in. He can only try to survive; In a way, he is really like Kassadin. Then, Talon hits level six, yay. Now, he actually has a way to save his butt without Flash. But stealth is unreliable, because a decent opponent would now your abilities, and buy a vision ward when you try to utilize that 2.5 seconds of invisibility. This doesn’t get better as the game progresses—once the enemy upgrades their red trinkets, your invisibility is basically gone. And then there’s champs like Lee who can reveal you without investing any gold. It is honestly only fair for Talon to be able to disable one champion for one second, so he can actually do something before he gets focused and blown up. Also, Talon is a roamer, and his relied on his silence to engage in the team effort. He could cancel that Fiddle ult with a fast flash-E and vision. He could silence the enemy Lucian so the support can follow up with a CC that actually lasts. He was such a team champion—don’t we like team champions? The most silly part is that Talon didn’t lack, or need counter play. While Talon’s combo is fast, the second part of W and R can always be avoided with flash/innate flash-like spells, or a Phony’s Hourglass. You can ward up, so he doesn’t get fed off ganks. You can also not play like a bronze, hit your skillshots, and back when you have under 1/2 health, so he doesn’t get to blow you up. You can also get your jungle to camp him, so he becomes free gold. In teamfights, a good exhaust will leave him utterly useless. You can begin the counterplay from champ select by picking someone like Diana, or Lulu, or Lee Sin, or just take heal on Orianna and proceed to poke the living hell out of Talon. You can build an early seekers, and take armor in your runes, so he doesn’t 100-0 you until you feed him 15 kills. Talon is a counter pick, to fellow assassins, and to mages who are unstoppable if they don’t get bursted by a mobile assassin that can silence them. How do you actually kill a Leblanc now? Now do you shut down a Katarina now? How do you focus that Lux, when she’s 1000+ units away for the entire teamfight? Last but not least, a sad question for you all. Why play Talon, if you can play Zed, or Leblanc, if Talon doesn’t have anything they don’t have? Why play someone without escape, if he can’t do anything that people with escapes can do? Instead of removing the silence, why don’t we just remove the champion altogether? He has very little point in existing now, aside from cosplaying Altair. Without his silence, he’s even more unviable. A 99% slow that lasts for .25 second is OK, but anyone can flash out of his followups, and his E does not grant a second dash like Fiora’s Q. He was only picked over Zed, because one out his five enemies could not fight back against him for no more than a heartbeat. And I do have ways to make it better. I’m not just raging without being constructive. As my Original Advocacy peers would say, I hereby advocate a two-step legislation to make Talon worth picking again, while leaving room for counterplay. First, we can move the silence of his E to his Q, so that there is a brief window between his engage and his nuke. Now, this would actually take skill to counter. Second, we can give Talon something more reliable than a stealth as escape, preferably as a basic ability, perhaps allow him to return to where he began his Cutthroat, to compensate for the silence removal. In conclusion, Talon is a high risk, high reward champion, and without his silence, his risk had just become infinitely higher. I really hope that somebody from Riot would see this, and at least consider how much it’s hurting Talon to lose his silence. Again, if you remove the silence, you might as well remove the champion altogether. At least, change the name, because a Cutthroat that slows is just cruel mockery. PS: I have reached this conclusion that Talon sucks with seven games, one ranked, six normals, and I only lost one normals(sayin this cuz I don't wanna come off as some salty sissy on tilt). The pain of not being able to kill an Orianna with 400 HP left because she gets to cast her shield whenever is unbearable. Lolking me if you don't believe me. I might be playing at Silver4, but the fact that I stacked Occult to 20 at one point should tell you that I'm only there because I'm inactive.