Teemo Changes on PBE: This is the Right Direction
Hello, I just wanted to come onto the Gameplay Boards to talk a little bit about the experimental Teemo changes on the PBE.
When I first started playing League of Legends, and I know this is gonna sound kind of... I don't know... evil? But the champion that actually made me join League of Legends was Teemo. When I first discovered the game, I was used to playing more gritty games where every character was really serious aside from one or two weird comedic relief characters. However, Teemo was different. He was a character I saw and immediately thought "Huh, thats a little strange, but kind of funny." And it turns out, Teemo WAS a pretty strange character. He was hated by many, but his kit was very unique, most notably his mushrooms. He acted as a "trapper" character that kind of hunted by laying down traps and then waiting in his nest for enemies to pass by before spraying them down with poison darts. I loved that play style, as evil as it was at the time. However, over time, it became clear to me that Teemo, while interesting, wasn't a viable high tier pick. While Im not anywhere near a high tier player, I just found it that people on my team seemed to react poorly usually when you pick Teemo. So, I stopped.
These changes coming, however, seem to be adding a LOT of potential depth to the character. While he isn't going to suddenly become Azir levels of difficulty (as the saying goes), they add a little bit of added thinking while also reinforcing the idea of being an expert trapper that waits for someone to pass by before finishing them off with poison.
- Teemo’s basic attacks now deal 8-50 bonus magic damage and leave a Poison DoT that deals 24-180 magic damage over 4 seconds.
- Toxic Shot damage (both the on-hit and the DoT) is amped by 50% whenever there are other Poison debuffs on the target
Toxic Shot is now Teemo's passive, which I have always thought should be the case for many, many years now. The added synergy with the rest of his kit and potentially some team composition synergy is what especially makes me love these changes. The biggest thing about these changes, however, is the effect it has on Teemo's "power curve" so to speak. Since Teemo's Toxic Shot now scales solely based on his level and not the rank of an ability, Teemo can no longer max Toxic Shot in lane and become a lane bully. He is still going to be annoying to deal with in lane, but now Teemo will have to wait till he's Level 18 to be dealing the maximum amount of damage with Toxic Shot instead of Level 9. The "Poison amp" also makes Teemo be SLIGHTLY less of a DPS character, and more of a Burst character since his damage is only maximized when his target is poisoned, so only during a limited window of time.
- Base damage lowered from 80/125/170/215/260 to 70/105/140/175/210
- mana cost increased from 70/75/80/85/90 to 80/85/90/95/100
- AP Ratio lowered from 0.8 to 0.6
- Now is a Poison Debuff
Pretty basic changes here. It does less overall damage, but now amps Teemo's Toxic Shot, making Teemo much more suited for short, burst-y skirmishes than long drawn out fights usually. Not much to talk about here compared to the rest of the changes, but it should be noted that this further pushes Teemo away from being a lane bully since it reinforces that Teemo is VERY reliant on the damage of his Toxic Shot passive, which scales up naturally with levels, so no matter what you max, your damage is more based on your level, not what you max first.
- Cooldown: 40/37/34/31/28
- "After a 2 second delay, Teemo becomes Invisible indefinitely if standing still or in brush, and can move up to 5/6/7/8/9 Teemos while out of brush, but any non-periodic damage from champions will break him out. Teemo can see 25% farther while stealthed. Upon breaking Guerilla Warfare, Teemo gains 20/30/40/50/60% Attack Speed for 3 seconds. While on cooldown, standing in brush will tick down Guerilla Warfare's cooldown faster."
- Stealth duration while moving: 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3
So now Guerilla Warfare is Teemo's E of course. The changes to the way this ability works help TREMENDOUSLY with lowering the frustration of it. The fact that damage will now cause Teemo to leave Invisibility will now remove those situations where it takes about a decade longer to kill a Teemo just because he was able to stand still for 2 seconds. However, this is also a buff to Teemo because it now gives him a decently viable outplay/escape option, since moving outside of a brush no longer breaks Invisibility immediately. The fact they added this to Teemo does WONDERS towards differentiating between a good and bad Teemo, as well as giving Teemo more of an interesting escape plan than just "run really quickly away and maybe stand still and delay if my team is close and can save me." The one thing Im a little confused about here is the "Teemo can see 25% farther while stealthed" part. This just seems... kind of random? I'd prefer it more if Teemo could... ignore brushes while this was active? Or maybe even ignore terrain vision-wise instead? The 25% increased vision just sounds like something that most will hardly notice and will only be useful in very niche situations. If we are going to be pushing Teemo down a more "Trapper/Ambusher" play style, it'd be better to add a way to increase his vision while in the Jungle since that is going to be where he is gonna do most of his dirty work.
- Base Damage lowered from 200/325/450 to 150/250/350
- AP ratio lowered from 0.5 to 0.4
- Mushroom max ammo count up from [3 at all ranks] to [3/4/5]
- Traps now become invisible after 1 second
- Traps can continue to bounce on other traps
First off, I must admit, I am unsure what that fourth change means. When they say Invisible, do they mean that... you can no longer reveal and destroy a mushroom after the 1 second delay? If so, that worries me... a lot. It would essentially FORCE enemies to move around his mushrooms even if they would previously of had the tools to remove them. If Teemo places his mushrooms all over a location, that location will become INACCESSIBLE for enemy champions without taking a decent bit of damage, especially immobile ones that cant dash over walls or blink over the mushrooms to avoid them. However, going beyond that change, these changes are amazing. The damage has been reduced to, of course, further push Teemo to stick around and ambush enemies who wander into his minefield rather than just spraying them all over the map and hoping they kill people. Can they still kill? Absolutely, especially with Liandry's Torment. However, this further pushes them away from doing so, which is nice. The increased ammo count also helps a lot, because it makes it much easier to establish an immediate "perimeter" as Teemo rather than often placing your 3 shrooms, waiting half a minute or more, then finishing up. Funnily enough, however, the BIGGEST change I love with these changes is the last one, where shrooms will continue to bounce as long as they keep hitting other shrooms. Maybe Im delusional, but this seems like a HUGE potential added form of skill expression for the Swift Scout. Establishing "Mushroom Networks" to be able to easily create a minefield sounds like amazing fun and something that would be awesome to experiment with. To those that don't know what I mean, Im talking about having Teemo set up shop in a location and then making it to where, from one spot, he can mushroom down an entire jungle by creating these "chains" of mushrooms that will allow him to put a mushroom at various locations in a jungle from just one spot without needing him to move around and potentially endanger himself by leaving the heart of his minefield. This change is awesome. It really is gonna encourage Teemos to really experiment with their shrooms and really show off their skill with mushroom placement.
So, in the end, I want to praise Riot a little here. Riot may sometimes make some... extremely questionable changes to the game (to put it lightly to be honest), but these changes are changes that I've wanted Teemo to be pushed towards for a long time. They add skill expression, help make him less frustrating even a little bit, and really nail down his place in the roster as a "Trapper/Ambusher" character. What do you all think?
