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Riot's Meddler is always asking us our thoughts, so here's mine with Tahm Kench

bunny1102·10/25/2015, 3:46:35 AM·7 votes·961 views

First off I want to say that 100% of him as a champion is interesting in character and story. Even his abilities seem like they are fun and interesting; however, his ability to devour an ally is too much.

I'm old enough in this game to remember the original thresh and the ridiculous backlash the community had for his kit being too much. People were going off about how the mobility the lantern was giving was ridiculous and should be removed. It took literally years of balancing to get thresh to a reasonable state and he still is pretty significantly played at a competitive level.

I'm not going to analyze all the numbers, because that's not what i'm here to do. I'm here to express my frustration with Tahm Kench's ability to devour an ally under any circumstance of status to the ally champion (stun, root, etc), for longer than the duration of kayle's ulti, zhonya's, and provide mobility and tankiness. It is just plain sickening and a nightmare to play against.

The phrase meaningful counterplay came up a few patches ago and I want to ask the rioters out there...what is the counterplay to tk's devour?

Looking at similar abilities and my personal opinion of the counterplays associated with them:

Zhonyas Hourglass-Long CD (i think the cd was lengthened recently) and while in this stasis you are unable to move. Kayle's Ultimate - Long Early Cooldown, Somewhat short duration, and one of the key things is kayle itself is a fairly squishy champion so by using her ability on another she is extremely susceptible to being killed quickly herself, also a key difference is she doesn't receive any additional buff when she casts this ability on an ally. Bard's Ulti - It's a skill shot. The champion itself scales super poorly throughout the game. Similar cripple to Zhonya's in that the champ(s) are immobile during the stasis period. Morgana Spell Shield- The immunity to spells is capped at a number of max damage, so in the support position fairly bursty champs can still break the shield and then apply cc and other effects Tryndamere - Only immune to dmg once he reaches 1 hp, fairly long cd's at early stages and still is susceptible to cc. Yasuo's Wind Wall - Was considered ridiculously op for a long time, but was consequently nerfed through cd lengthening and length shortening (irrc?)

In all these situations there is meaningful counterplay, except in Tahm Kench's case. I would like to add im not even complaining about his ability to devour enemy champs, simply the ally.

I know some people will say the counterplay is picking or banning him, but it seems like we have enough champs that are "must bans" then to add another one.

My recommended change to balancing him is to edit the ability so that it can only be used if the champ is below a % hp, or cc'd. You could then make the % hp scale with some ratio of armor, hp, or ap. So that it would read something along the lines of 'Tahm Kench may devour an ally if they are cc'd, or beneath 25% of Tahm Kench's hp.'

This introduces the meaningful counterplay of saying "hey if we're going to kill someone near tahm kench, we've got to take him down to 30% hp then one shot him"

TL;DR I don't like Tahm Kench's ability to devour an ally. Riot asks us for meaningful thoughts, and this was my way of providing it. It's shorter cd than all comparable spells, lasts longer than all comparable spells, and gives TK a buff himself on top of it. My recommended change is to change it to where the allies can not be devoured unless they are below a % of TK's hp or cc'd.

Edited for grammar.

5 Comments

i ate thos food10/25/2015, 5:36:45 AM4 votes

He should be slowed while carrying an ally instead of speeding up,(that doesn't even make sense) and there should also be either a way to get his ally out of his mouth(maybe by cc'ing tahm), or a requirement or restriction for him devouring an ally(extra cd/mana cost)

Partholonian10/25/2015, 1:39:07 PM3 votes

{quoted}

The phrase meaningful counterplay came up a few patches ago and I want to ask the rioters out there...what is the counterplay to tk's devour?

Devour ignores cc on the recipient. It doesn't ignore cc on Tahm. Stun or silence him and then burst down his ally. AoE CC is particularly good since you stop the devour while also locking down the real target. Tahm has little or no answer to a Malphite/Yasuo combo for example -- even if he manages to devour his carry before Malphite reaches him, he'll probably still die to Yasuo's after-ult armor pen, leaving his teammate 1v2.

You could kill him, but since he is tanky, that will probably be difficult to do quickly.

You could play a pick oriented style where you make the enemy move around the map and focus on killing one of the people that doesn't have a demon catfish bodyguard.

You could poke -- Tahm is near useless in a poke fight. He is specifically strong against all ins, so don't all in right away.

If you can flank Tahm, or stop him from getting away after the devour, you can be there when the low health squishy has to come back out and devour is on CD. He's not exactly mobile.

Of course, most of these things are much harder to do if you're 1v2, but it should be difficult to 1v2. I think he's most frustrating to assassins who see an ADC and support together and think that they should be able to ignore the support, blow up the ADC and walk away. IMO, they shouldn't be able to do that, and they should be punished for trying. And the supports that can't currently do jack about a 1v2 should be buffed so they can.

For years people have complained that Thresh was better than other supports. Now we have Braum and Tahm Kench living up to the "Thresh Bar" and people start complaining about them too. Thresh has in fact been nerfed (not that the complainers noticed), but IMO, other supports should be buffed to similar levels. Thresh and Tahm's abilities to save a teammate and possibly punish the player who tried to engage in a way that didn't respect their target's bodyguard are good things for the game. And I hope reworked Taric will make careless assassins cry just as much.

TL;DR I don't like Tahm Kench's ability to devour an ally.

I think it's great. Riot has their reasons for disliking heals, whether you agree with them or not, but devour is a way of saving an ally's life that is completely different than a heal and I have to give Riot a lot of credit for that.

TL;DR respect the bodyguard. Bodyguards that need to be respected are good for the game.

LankPants10/25/2015, 3:40:29 PM2 votes

It took literally years of balancing to get thresh to a reasonable state

He still isn't.

Remlap122310/25/2015, 4:21:33 PM1 votes

Honestly, his devour is my biggest gripe in his kit. Not even the fact that it exists, it's just up way too goddamn much. He can easily go from saving his ally to doing a crazy amount of damage to an enemy in literally no time. Here's my ideas on balancing it:

  • Gut the damage (ok, let's be real here, 32% max HP damage is wayyy too fucking much, especially for an ability that suppresses you). It should do at max the level one damage of one fifth of your health, not fucking a third of your max health.
  • Increase the cooldown to 24 - 21 seconds, and have the cooldown reset on maxing out his passive. So that way he has to choose between eating allies or enemy champions.
  • Scale the mana per level 90-130. Tahm just has way too much base mana, it seems like he never runs out.