Proposed Nerf to the Kench @Riotmeddler

Grimmrock·Oct 27, 2015·11 votes·760 views

I think that what's making TK so overbearing in his lanes is the frequency at which he is able to eat people in fights, currently, I see TK eating high priority targets 2-3 times per fight, making it difficult to say the least to gain an advantage when games revolve around taking out these targets. to that end I propose this nerf:

Tahm Kench's Devour has an internal cooldown of 6 seconds on when he can eat champions. allied or enemy, that resets on eating a different ally or enemy.

much in the way that rek'sai isnt allowed to have a spam knockup, I think that to bring the kench in line, he needs to be unable to spam nom. regardless of how nummy something might be.

9 Comments

WookieJesuzOct 28, 201511 votes

And one more thing, when he stuns somebody from his Q, it consumes the stacks.

lakeyja900Oct 28, 20152 votes

Just to clarify: Are you proposing to add this to his nerfs or are you saying that's what happens right now? Because if it's the latter you're wrong.

Axis the DragonOct 28, 20153 votes

It's most likely a proposed nerf. And in all honesty? it's warranted. Q Stun -> Devour is a huge amount of single target damage and CC (iirc it's longer than an Ashe arrow)

PartholonianOct 28, 20151 votes

This would make Q stun almost completely useless though. Even if devour is currently on CD, you probably STILL wouldn't want to sacrifice a full stack just for a short stun, it would be better to wait out the CD so you can use the thing you actually built stacks for.

If you're seeing multiple devours in the same fight then you're seeing really long fights. Although increasing its CD by ~2 seconds (before CDR) across the board might be worth looking at -- it doesn't destroy his identity and probably isn't a massive overnerf like most people's suggestions (including Q stun consuming stacks, sheesh).

Another possibility is combining a CD increase with half CD on minions and/or buffs to the effect of spitting out minions -- most people hardly ever devour minions right now because it's so unimpressive compared to devouring champions, making the tradeoff more even would give him a bigger menu of choices with more distinct flavors (while at the same time being a nerf to repeatedly devouring champs, the most obnoxious thing about him from an enemy perspective).

...in pro play, though, even a single ally devour is fight turning, so I don't know if a CD increase would be significant.

Ulquiorra995Oct 28, 20151 votes

Still, stacks last pretty long, and both abilities that exploit them apply hard CC without consuming them. And with rather short CD and potent slow on his Q it isn't uncommon to see Tahm Q>AA>AA>Devour a target, and, by the tame he spits them out, Q is up again so he can immediately stun them afterwards. This is flat out a death sentence in any skirmish, and makes him win any lane trades by default. And playing him since release, I can say that it isn't hard to pull of at all - I rarely get out of a fight without at least one enemy Devour. Any weaknessess he might have can be remedied through items (try kiting him through item 1305 item 3742 , and killing him is not an option due to sheer amount of durability he has ).

Also, remove MS buff on ally Devour when running away. It is enough that he can save an ally from any stupid mistake they might make and that then you have to burn through two of his HP bars to get to them - why do you also need to have a hard time catching up. to him.

Spizzle9000Oct 28, 20151 votes

Yeah, it could be a bit like how Yasuo can't spam his dash on people cause then no one would ever escape him. Perhaps the cooldown on enemy champions can lower with rank?

SpecterVonBarenOct 28, 20151 votes

Except his Q and W are the only abilities he has to effect a fight. Tahm rarely get to use their lit for more than just getting places faster (Using it to gank or flee rarely comes up and when it does, the long delay often makes it easy to get away or screw them over) If he couln't use his W often then he'd just be a Q bot.

ErockandrollOct 28, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Except his Q and W are the only abilities he has to effect a fight. Tahm rarely get to use their lit for more than just getting places faster (Using it to gank or flee rarely comes up and when it does, the long delay often makes it easy to get away or screw them over) If he couln't use his W often then he'd just be a Q bot.

Personally, I feel like the minion cast is a little under utilized. (cause the other forms are OP.) Go ahead and increase the CD, but I think they should promote his minion W poke with a Mana/CD refund. This would encourage a little more poke from his kit. and not be completely reliant of swallowing champs.

Also, get rid of that MS buff on ally cast. (at least when moving away from enemies) It's not very nice that you (not only nullify one kill on one of your allies, but basically don't put yourself in harms way to do that.)