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@RiotRepertoir Leblanc in her current state

Mr Broken Wings·8/17/2015, 11:54:38 AM·24 votes·8,129 views

http://champion.gg/champion/Leblanc

I know here is an assasin circlejerk and this thread will get downvoted from salty bronze people who still think leblanc is "broken OP LELELE xDXDXD" but I wanted to ask riot for their opinion on leblancs current state. So we can see that leblanc currently is at 43.8% winrate. Her playrate went down from 10% to 4%. And her winrate NEVER ever hits 50% even from mains who have 125+ games on her. Can we admit that riot overnerfed her? Like this statistics talk for themself. I know her laning is frustrating and everything and everybody hates it when leblanc is fotm but she IS in need of change. She is horrible right now, like REALLY horrible. Champions like ahri with 54% winrate while having a casual playerbase ( http://champion.gg/champion/Ahri for reference) are considered balanced but leblanc needs to stay in her current state? I kinda feel that riot simply overnerfed leblanc because of the gigantic circlejerk about her and I wanted to remind riot that they did a mistake balancewise with her. ..... I hate leblanc like everyone else but I dont think her team should suffer from her pick as much as it does right now. Currently if you want to lose a game activly in champ select you pick leblanc, that just feels a bit unfair for the playerbase that enjoys that champion. I suggest buffing her lategame/midgame teamfighting somehow and it would be great if riot wouldnt give her more power in laning to prevent her from being a very very frustrating lane opponent. .... And everybody who thinks that winrate doesnt matter, hitting nearly 40% winrate with 0 pickrate speaks for itself. @RiotRepertoir @Meddler

34 Comments

RiotRiotRepertoir8/17/2015, 4:47:49 PM12 votes

She may have been overnerfed, and I believe there are W speed adjustments in on 5.16 PBE at the moment.

That said, she historically falls into that Azir, Ryze, Kassadin, etc. category of champions that is balanced for higher levels of play when their solo queue win rate is in the ~45% range. This isn't to say that any of these champions must be weak; it's more that their performance dramatically increases with skill level and/or player experience, to the point that if they were balanced around a 50% win rate for all players, they would be 56/57%+ for experienced/skilled players. Most recently, we saw this on Ryze, whose experienced win rate jumped up above 60% by some measure despite being ~50% in solo queue at average elos.

stuartk118/17/2015, 12:00:17 PM11 votes

LeBlanc's play pattern before the nerfs was quite toxic, with little counterplay. But after the nerfs, she didn't have much of a playstyle to lean back on anymore. She would need more changes than Riot would really want to do at the moment (with Worlds coming up in 2 patches). When she is strong though, she ends up being oppressive. She had her time in the spotlight, and now had her time in the gutter.

LankPants8/17/2015, 2:08:11 PM6 votes

Leblanc needs a rework. She's overnerfed ATM but honestly needs to be. She's absolutely horrible to have to play against and when she's strong she's way too oppressive.

bad manner kid8/17/2015, 2:19:52 PM4 votes

I'm a long time LeBlanc player and I recall before the small rework buff (when she got fotm.) everyone just said "Oh she does a ton of damage but her CS sucks and shes too risky late game."

That was with silence, "full movement speed distortion," and roughly the same burst output.

I think her identity was best kept as a zero counter play poke champion. However, with the option to do 2 Ethereal Chains or 2 Distortions, it makes her incredibly safe providing she didn't blow her ult on a botched assassination.

I think if they restore her mobility and consider a short silence, they can look at nerfing her root tether's cc. A lot of her escapes and team play involve rooting people forever, but people get so caught up about a 17/0 LeBlanc bursting them that it often gets left out of discussions.

Edit: I was taking a crap and had a good idea for a rework;

What if we port everything people hate about LeBlanc onto her ult and nerf her primary abilities?

Sigil of Malice: Reduced damage on consuming it Distortion: Slower dash Ethereal Chains: No root

Mimic: Sigil of Malice: Silences the enemy for 1 second, more damage. Mimic: Distortion: Blinks to enemy Mimic: Ethereal Chains: Roots enemy

Just a interesting thought, didn't really think too deep into balance. Many of the "toxic" components left from her rework were because any combinations of her abilites blew you up without her losing any form of CC/mobility.

Linna Excel8/17/2015, 5:05:53 PM3 votes

My biggest problem is when she's okay in terms of winrate, she has too much kill potential while being too safe.

Mafia LeBlanc8/17/2015, 1:11:00 PM3 votes

I main LeBlanc, and all the nerf did to her was allow me to actually play her again.

She is a champion who sports horrible win rate %'s for anyone with under 70 games on her. I think champion.gg showed a chart where her winrate increased substantially for people with 100+ games on her.

She is 100% fine. Trust me.

Only Play Darius8/17/2015, 5:33:50 PM3 votes

Because she is the definition of anti-fun. It doesn't matter her winrate, when you start seeing LeBlanc every 2 or 3 games it already gets to be enough because she is infuriating to play against. She is fine right now.

Dextix LT8/17/2015, 5:56:30 PM2 votes

Find how to make her nontoxic to play against and then i will be ok with that. But while she still is one of the most toxic champs to play against, no.

RottedApples8/17/2015, 8:11:42 PM2 votes

I don't think leblanc is in that bad of a place though. I really enjoy playing her and while i wouldn't be against seeing buffs I don't think she really needs them.

The first few times I played her I had no idea what I was doing and basically spammed my buttons but after a while I figured it out. I learned to try to aa>w>aa>w back maybe aa again if i am still in range for a good early lane trade. Her w is pretty strong and I think the aoe is bigger than the indicator. Ludens is really nice since she moves around a lot with w and uses her spells a lot. I know that mimicking chains is usually the strongest mimic, even if it may not do the most damage (which it almost always does) it still leaves someone rooted for a much longer period of time if you split them up properly, which gives you more time to kill them. I know lb has level 2-3 kill pressure in lane.

I feel like pick rate is strictly due to tank meta, she may not be doing well against them since she has no % hp, is an assassin, and wouldn't build liandries. People are probably therefore shying away from her and when she gets picked she may not be winning as much because of this.

Of course you can't attribute a winrate that low to tank meta but if tank meta stopped it might bounce back a % or 2.

sp4418/18/2015, 1:07:10 PM2 votes

The problem is that when Leblanc is strong, she's absolutely miserable to play against, due to her incredibly high burst damage and being damn near uncatchable, not to mention her ridiculously long tether.

Honestly, I'd say that the only possible way she can ever be balanced is through a rework.

HaugheyPuck998/17/2015, 5:35:23 PM1 votes

Honestly, when I look at a champion like LeBlanc I have a habit of comparing her to other champions that have somewhat similar mechanics/abilities. Take her W for example, why is it fair that LeBlanc gets two dashes that she has ample time to be able to swap back to either of them and has no delay before she can instantly warp back, when Zed's most recent nerf made it so he has to wait a second before he can swap back? Especially since after Zed ults, you immediately know when and where he is going to reappear and where he is going to swap back to (assuming you had vision of him before he ulted). Or how about how she has the ability to chain and root 2 enemies at once, yet her chain has double the range that Karma's does before it breaks.

When they made that change to Zed, it felt like they were addressing the issue with that particular type of mechanic, and LeBlanc always seems to be the exception to that rule.

Now I know you can make arguments about how certain mechanics are more powerful on some kits then others, but her particular mechanics are what makes LeBlanc so frustrating. "But she can delete me in like 2 seconds!" Big deal, so can most of the other assassins in the game. But when it gets to the point where she Distortions over a wall while being chased and ALMOST NEVER has to worry about her pursuer flashing after her because she can either swap back immediately or use her ult to distortion over a 2nd wall, then you start to realize how she gets away with shenanigans that MECHANICALLY have been very finely tuned on champions with only half of her power.

If she can get away with that much, there has to be some drawbacks somewhere. I'm not saying I want her gutted, just with more of an emphasis on counterplay around her.

Craft Zeppelin8/17/2015, 12:36:34 PM1 votes

Well historically leblanc always is nerfed within seasons and make a godly rise when the seasons start crushing newbies.

LoquaciousKumqat8/17/2015, 3:24:34 PM1 votes

It's because you are all playing her wrong. She's clearly an ADC.

lDontLiftIcarry8/17/2015, 5:07:02 PM1 votes

Leblanc is the epitome of a gutted assassin.

W nerf after all the nerfs were just nails in a coffin waiting to be dropped into the ground and burried for years.

The likliness they ever actually make leblanc playable again is so far fetched.

Thats the same chance they'd bring back piost stun removal eve so I can actually play AP evelynn with deathcap+lichbane again like I used to enjoy in season 1/season 2.

DeynaTaggerung8/17/2015, 5:29:27 PM1 votes

Some ideas I have or bringing leblanc into a playable state without making her op would be:

  • making her q do a channel interrupt(like what kassadin has)
  • Make the second half of her q do different things when procced by different abilites. If hit by an ult sigil then lots of extra damage, if broken with her w then low extra damage along with a slow, if with her e maybe a half second charm? these are just ideas but having some incentive to besides extra damage to break the second part of her sigil. This might also give her interesting interactions when she uses different combos.
  • Increasing her w speed may help or just make everyone hate her more