Feedback regarding the Singed buffs from a 2mil+ One-trick

I'm going to start this off by saying thank you, Riot. I'm glad that Singed is finally on your radar, considering he's been suffering for a while. The reasons for this I think are already pretty well-known/already have been addressed (indirect nerfs to him hitting his itemization, runes, buffs to lane bullies/ranged top laners being common, etc etc).

In the time I've played Singed, I've played him in anywhere from roughly low silver when I started playing him in Season 4, up to a peak of D3 last season, so I think I can also talk about how Singed feels across most of the ladder.

Let's address the first change: the HP/5 Buff. This change was okay, but not super noticeable. I know it's intended to help Singed in ranged matchups, but it kind of falls flat by virtue of just how susceptible to poke that Singed really is. Singed has no way of farming beyond his extremely short AA range (poison is shorter range, have to be nearly on top of a unit to poison it). Further, given that he must essentially position himself on top of the enemy creep wave to farm, and if he does use his extremely clunky autos to avoid hard pushing the wave, Singed will eat A LOT of poke.

One recent change that impact's Singed's early laning vs ranged was the Dark Seal nerf. Losing 5 AP early off of Dark Seal, 5 off of Ghost Poro, and the earlier celerity nerf losing ~5 AP as well have really hurt Singed's early waveclear and trading potential. Usually into ranged champions, you want to hard push the wave early and GTFO, repeat until you can buy to be able to stay in lane.

While the hp/5 change does allow Singed to stay in lane for slightly longer, Singed still must start the nerfed , because if he tries to start or triple , his waveclear and trading is too weak on base damage values alone. You can't farm effectively or shove to gain priority early in lane if you don't start dseal. Dorans Ring start sucks because it doesn't easily build into corrupting portion, which I would argue is core on Singed early.

To summarize this first point, Singed STILL gets beaten up by ranged champs because he has less AP due to indirect nerfs and can't shove the wave/proxy effectively early, -15 AP from before is just too slow.

The second change now: the W slow increase. This change feels REALLY GOOD. The mega adhesive before was alright, but it was more useful for the grounding to prevent enemies from flashing/using dashes and such to escape. It's a welcome bit of utility, provided you're using Mega Adhesive properly. I see this change as more impactful at higher elo where it will be used to make picks/disengage for teammates vs low elo where they kinda just throw it out whenever they trade.

2nd point summary: W slow increase is good, more targeted towards high elo imo.

Onto the third change: The Fling mana cost reduction. This is a good change imo. Singed's mana costs are extremely heavy in comparison to many of the lane opponents he faces, so being able to get off one or two more flings to trade before having to recall is really nice. His E mana cost is still a bit steep (rank 5 fling costing as much as most ultimates ??) but the early reduction is nice without being an outright buff to its damage or something.

3rd point summary: E buff is a nice quality of life change, not an overt buff that will make him the bronze bulldozer everyone is so afraid of.

Now time for my personal opinion on what needs to be changed to allow Singed to function better.

In a large majority of my games, it feels like enemies will build a small amount of magic resist and can tank poison trail for an extremely long time. This effect is amplified by (which might I remind you was introduced as an indirect nerf to and )

Singed's inability to access magic penetration is his biggest issue. This leads to an unsatisfying pattern of gameplay in which Singed has very little agency and is reduced to a fling-bot and very little else.

My proposal is to give Singed's kit a similar effect to 's Madness passive. For each second an enemy is continuously damaged by poison trail, Singed should gain a small amount of % magic penetration. I would say a 10 second ramp-up is sensible, as Singed's kit is built around extended trades. Ramping 2/4/6/8/10/12/14/16/18/20% magic penetration in my opinion would be a fair change. Looking at the numbers, it's easy to say "wHy WoUlD yOu GiVe SiNgEd 20% mPeN fOr FrEe??" but hear me out:

1. It is % magic pen, so it will be highly effective against MR stackers and less effective against squishier champions
2. Any squishy champion isn't going to be face tanking poison trail for 10 seconds anyway. They aren't the problem that needs to be addressed.
3. Singed can't itemize magic penetration effectively anyway, so there's no worry about other items conflicting with such a change
4. If at any point you disengage and stop tanking poison, the debuff resets.
5. This change is entirely limited to Singed's own kit, so the numbers are isolated and easily tweakable for balancing purposes.
6. It takes 10 seconds to ramp up. That's a long time, especially in a teamfighting scenario where you can just CC Singed and reset the debuff/kill him.
7. Most singed mains would accept a small nerf to poison trail's base damage in exchange for actually being able to fight champions with magic resist.

In all, I really appreciate that Singed is on the radar for the balance team, and I think that the changes we received are a step in the right direction. I still personally believe that Singed could use some more work, but I'm thankful that he's being looked at, and I trust that the balance team will come up with a proper solution to his current state.