Teemo: Bringing the 'Scout' to the Swift Scout

KingofMonsters·Jan 26, 2015·2 votes·1,046 views

Teemo is a bit of a conundrum in his current design, and has been a head-scratcher in the past as well. Back during the beta and early days of League, Teemo had some issues with his overall kit that took a while to answer. He had Trail Blazer, there were experiments with increasing his overall field of vision, and even abilities such as his old Scout's Bounty.

Overall, the major issue was 'How can we make Teemo act like a scout'?

It is no secret: Many players hate Teemo. In fact I am fairly sure that many replies that will be brought to this discussion will be 'remove Teemo'. But WHY do people hate him? Well there are many reasons why: He is cute, his voice, his seemingly happy go lucky additude, his multitude of adorable skins. But the two biggest reasons that I feel everyone can agree on would be his ability to just barely be out of your reach and, most importantly, his mushrooms.

It is no secret. Players hate not being able to see dangers, and mushrooms are the biggest culprits of this. You could have just barely survived a team fight, run into a bush to recall, then BAM, Teemo shroom. And this would not be so bad, were it not for the issue of the obscene amounts of damage one shroom could do. This is what has made so many players hate the pseudo-mascot of League, but I feel that this hatred can be soothed with just a few tweaks to Teemo's kit. And what's more, these tweaks would not only make him a more fair champion to fight against, but also make him a blast to play!

Here are the major changes that could be made to Teemo to make him a valued champion of League.

**Considerably lower the damage and slow of his mushroom traps. **While they are still deadly, they should not be the major damage dealer in Teemo's arsenal. This is to offset the complaint of many players that Teemo could get kills (And steal them) without actually being in the fight. They should be used more for their utility, which brings me to the next change. OPTIONAL: Set a cap on the amount of mushrooms Teemo might have out at a time.
Have those hit by Teemo's shrooms be 'marked' for a set period of time. These marks would be the key to Teemo's new kit. When an enemy is marked, Teemo gets an immediate notification of where they are, gets a large speed boost moving to their direction, and also gains a substantial attack speed boost against those hit by the traps. This encourages Teemo to set up his traps in areas that he regularly traverses to, preparing ambushes and scouting around the area.
And finally, add a bonus to the Mushrooms. Whenever an enemy within a radius nearby Teemo gets hit by one of his traps, Teemo gains half a/one second of invisibility. This is negated if he attacks. This does not change his original passive. This would be the big game changer for Teemo. By using his Mushrooms as distractions, Teemo would slip out of the eye of the opponents for a few moments and have the chance to shake off a chasing opponent or get right where he needs to be in a team fight his mushroom initiated. This makes Teemo very slippery, but due to the large damage nerf on his traps, he cannot rely on them to kill his opponents for him.

Overall, the goal of these changes would be to make Teemo feel more like a scout: Slipping in, slipping out, and using ambushes kill his opponents. There would still be complaints about him of course, as there are with any champion, but it would help give Teemo a more active role in gameplay and allow him to be a considerable threat rather than an annoyance. ** Of course these are just some suggestions and gameplay ideas. How would you improve Teemo's kit to make him feel more like a true 'Swift Scout'?

9 Comments

UberAffeJan 26, 20152 votes

I like this Idea, especially in maintaining the utility portion of his shrooms, which is what I use them for (ALL THE VISION!). An Idea you might want to add in to the shrooms to add counterplay, which I have seen crop up a few times:

When an enemy unit is within x radius of a shroom it becomes visible or
Shrooms have a slightly larger activation range and move the activation delay on placement to a delay on explosion after activation ie shrooms are active the moment they are placed, but enemies have a moment to dodge the explosion before it explodes

personally I prefer 2 because that requires more skill to counter play

KingofMonstersJan 26, 20151 votes

I like 1, personally. While 2 would add some nice counter play, it would also mean that anyone with a dash, gap closer, or someone that was even moving fast enough would have nothing to fear of the traps. However, 1 would be great because it forces players to be careful. It gives them juuuust enough time to move away if they see the shroom, but if they are too fast/too focused on chasing they may not notice the shroom until they already stepped on it. It would be a good means to level the playing field against assassins. Plus the surprise bush shrooms would still be viable traps.

Great ideas!

UberAffeJan 26, 20151 votes

I like both options, but again, both ideas are ones I have seen multiple times on different threads, Maybe riot will take note too.

MathbalnaseJan 26, 20151 votes

My proposed changes for some time, numbers omitted because that's the balance team's problem:

base stats: increase to AA range (525? 550?), significant increase to base MS

Innate: AAs inflict mDoT, with decreasing duration as Teemo gains levels as the primary scaling (poorly scaling damage applied over shorter timescales = more dps; no 'up-front' on-hit damage, here)

Q: AA-modifier converts all AA damage to mDoT (think DoT PoppyQ)

W: passive: ignores champion invisibility at short ranges and sight penetrates short distances into brush and around corners active: shed slows&roots, gain %bonusMS and Eve-esque stealth

E: single-target magic damage and vision reduction; target does not gain vision of enemy units solely by virtue of them engaging in hostile action

R: shrooms become visible, invulnerable, and placeable at range; shrooms detonate akin to Cass W, but deal solely %currentHP; shrooms lose their passive vision, but grant vision for a greater duration on detonation (both in aoe and on affected targets) teemo only gains shroom ammo while not within the direct vision of enemy champions

Ardent SpringJan 26, 20151 votes

I don't think the suggested Ulti change solves any of its problems. It is still useless in teamfights. It still sucks for Teemo if his shrooms get killed before they can be effective later in the game or, in other maps, to have the Ulti nullified by a single item without downtime. It is still frustrating to walk into random shrooms or even worse, die to one, while Teemo is halfway across the map and sometimes won't even notice, simply because you have no real method of counterplay.

KingofMonstersJan 26, 20151 votes

I would disagree on the teamfights point. Mushrooms in general are a fantastic initiator as they can hit multiple targets. So long as they are placed well enough, they work just fine in that regard. As for the item nullification, let's keep in mind that the other maps are also a lot smaller and have no wards to use against them. This used to be a problem on rift with Oracle's, but that has since been removed.

And yes, it will still be frustrating to land on a shroom, but it is also still frustrating to land on ANY trap. Cait's included when you hit one that was hidden in a bush. The difference here is that they would not be able to kill you as easily as they could originally. You could make shrooms always visible and unkillable, but then it would just be a glorified Caitlin trap.

Ardent SpringJan 26, 20151 votes

I think Shrooms (aside from that random-over-the-map-triggering) serve little purpose, especially in teamfights. It can be used to help in sieges (both on attackers and on defenders side), as it heavily punishes the engaging team and for the occasional peel. To me it is a win-more skill. If you are in a position where you can endanger a whole team with well placed mushrooms you have most likely the upper hand in mapcontrol and, if this is the case, probably an advance in general. Otherwise the enemie's initiator probably eats most of your mushrooms while the rest of them doesn't really care. Also, lets put The Lightbringer and similar items aside again, as the games main focus is on Summoners Rift, the other issue mentioned still appies. Shrooms will die to one hit in later stages of the game, rendering his entire Ulti useless in an actual fight (sure luring enemies in pre-placed ones still works).
I disagree with your second half. Sure, of course it is annoying to step into a trap, but getting hit by any hostile ability is frustrating to some point, doesn't matter if it is Caitlyn Trap, Mystic Shot, Light Binding or anything else. However, for Caitlyn it is a regular ability with the power of one. Teemo's traps are his Ultimate, so you combine annoyingness with unpredictability (due to invisibility) along with the power of an Ulti. This takes the whole concept two steps further.

The Ultimate needs a complete overhaul and I am pretty sure Riot is aware of this.

UberAffeJan 27, 20152 votes

He does need a Lot of reworking to really be in a healthy place. I just hope that they do keep to the "Scout Code", currently teemo is the only champion who has Consistent vision control. Personally I want them to re-enforce that, it allows for a different play style that you can not have with any other champion in the game right now.

Ardent SpringJan 27, 20151 votes

Yeah, that theme would actually be neat. I think it would be awesome if he could have some more utility overall. Probably turning his W active into a castable short time invisibility (like 1 second or so), along with bonus movement speed could turn out pretty interesting and actually fit his theme and play style.