I do not want to see him tried to be played elsewhere. He has either an AoE slow or a slightly weaker Blitz hook for his Q, glorified grey health healing for trading in lane, great playing making ability with his camouflage and AoE stun, and his ultimate grants allies kill gold when he does execute with it.
This guy does seem like a very fun and cool support concept!
KingWill074 votesHey I mean looking at his abilities I this champion does seem more to be played in the jungle. As a matter of fact he can even be played in top lane. I mean his name is ripper. The way he looks his saying jungle. Apart from his ult that can give allies gold I'm still trying to find the support in him.
Stacona2 votesThe AoE slows / weakened blitz hook, trading passive, playing making W, AoE stun, and kill gold giving does not scream support to you?
KingWill072 votesI get what your saying bro. I mean pyke is unique. He is the first assassin that can be played as support. Or the first support that can be played as an assasin.
Oleandervine2 votesI get what your saying bro. I mean pyke is unique. He is the first assassin that can be played as support. Or the first support that can be played as an assasin.
Assassin is not a role. It's a class. Pyke is an assassin support, just like Zed is an assassin mid laner and Rengar is an assassin jungler.
KingWill071 votesOk then. Didn't I just say that though. Pyke is an assissin support or a support assasin. either way you want to take it man. Oh dont bring rengar into this because he is dead. I havent seen a rengar in gameplay for a long time.
Azadethe1 votesHe plays like a Talon Mid. And performs about the same as one as a Mid pick. His performances are lackluster as support.
Oleandervine1 votesHe plays like a Talon Mid. And performs about the same as one as a Mid pick. His performances are lackluster as support.
His performances as a support are lackluster because people aren't giving it a chance. They're trying to push him in every other role assassins play, and they try to be greedy and hyper aggressive as a support, so they're naturally doing bad when they get stomped by a cautious enemy. When and if people start actually trying to play him in a support style, those play rates will improve.
Azadethe1 votesAs I've said before, that's probably doubtful. Pyke's Q is extremely choreographed and predictable. You have 1.5 seconds to react to his Hold command because he raises his glowing dagger above his head.
Because of that, I'm pretty sure laners will learn to cope with Pyke more than Pyke will learn to cope with laners.... It's just part of the kit.
Furthermore, I don't know about you..... but when I support, I already pink ward the side bush. I do this because it helps me farm wards, and prevent vision on me from the opposing lane. I use quest/4 wards to control the other bush....
If other players do that regularly, Pyke can't heal or kill wards enough to counter it. If he tries to kill the pink ward, it's always got to be from a compromising situation. I know if a Pyke goes support, I will punish him every single time, especially since one of the most popular supports is 
, which completely counter's Pyke's entire kit (phys damage, so the shield never diminishes, and it will block both the Stun AND the pull). His skills are also linear, which means Morgana on Pyke is like shooting fish in a barrel.
And because Pyke has capped HP, he can't build to counter her damage when he's in her Ult/Q, especially if he has any intention of building up his AD (He could go resist, but a good Morg will third item 
, so that's limited).
Or, just to illustrate how this works 100% of the time:
Actually let Pyke Q you. Black Shield during the process. This will put Morg within 250 range of Pyke. Q Pyke into his E at 250 range (like shooting fish in a barrel). Ult him and move toward him. preferrably a bit toward the side, because linear play always risks an auto attack or two. Second Ult hit kills him.
Furthermore, Morgana has innate heals, so getting off Ult Executes are extremely hard.
Assuming you have a half confident adc vs a half confident adc in lane, there will be 0 hope for Pyke to support in this lane.
There are a lot of counters like this.
You'd have to find some seriously bad pairings for Pyke to be effective. I mean even Nami Q's outrange Pyke's. That's the whole reason Blitz/Nautilus Work. They outrange the enchanters they counter.
Azadethe1 votesHis passive is not good for trading. Bot is the one lane that actually pink wards, and even regular stealth wards prevent it from activating unless he wastes W, which again..... is nulled by being close to an opponent (if you W right next to an opponent after you try to E, it will pop you out of Camouflage)
Aoe stun is limitedly useful. And using it as a stun will usually get you killed, because it's also your primary escape button. If you use it as an engage, you have no out.
Q has a VERY noticeable windup.
Hyperiön1 votesThe AoE slows / weakened blitz hook, trading passive, playing making W, AoE stun, and kill gold giving does not scream support to you?
No, that screams hella good ganking potential. Coming out of the jungle. If Riot wants him in the support role, they are going to have to take away almost all of his scalings and force him into the support role. Which is what they tend to do when they don't get their own way.
Makhlas3 votesI'm sorry but you are being stupid. Where is the top lane in this champion?? He cannot build hp and if he isn't a support in your eyes (although he clearly is), then he should be mid. Top lane vs lane bullies would like playing kayn into darius he would just be bullied
Oleandervine1 votesHey I mean looking at his abilities I this champion does seem more to be played in the jungle. As a matter of fact he can even be played in top lane. I mean his name is ripper. The way he looks his saying jungle. Apart from his ult that can give allies gold I'm still trying to find the support in him.
He s incredibly squishy. Provided he has a good leash that soaks a majority of the damage for him, he won't be able to clear other camps with much efficiency because he'd have to back fairly frequently. He'd die almost immediately the moment the raptors side-eyed him, and the Krugs would breathe on him and watch him die. So while his kit looks like it could do well in the jungle, his base stats would ultimately hold him back.
KingWill071 votesWatch a little Youtube players start with e. With that dash stun ability he can clear raptors fast especially when you build CDR. I mean i see the gameplay with Pyke building CDR. Not saying i wont play him support but I am definately gonna play this champ in the Jungle.
Makhlas3 votesGuys, pyke was intended to be a support and if he is played elsewhere I'd consider it an insult to riots design team. If you wanna know why so many people think he should be played anywhere that isn't support is be sure of this: there are very few people who main support. Everyone will claim he is best played in the role they main to use an excuse to Insta locking him on blind pick of day of release but he is clearly intended to be support. The case was exactly the same on Kayn's release - all the mid lane mains claimed he was mid, the tops did the same and so did the jungler. In retrospect, we can all look back and see he was always a jungler. Such is the case now. He IS a support so stop trying to trick yourself into thinking otherwise just cos u wanna play him - if u want him that bad do what I have done over the past 2 years and main support and good luck to all.
Stacona1 votesI think Riot knows that if Pyke can be played solo that he needs a nerf since he is mobile with hard crowd control. So his balanced is being reliant with teammates which makes him a support, also he is not gold reliant with his base stats and not level reliant at all which is ideal for support, plus he scales well with the natural support health-ad items like Frozen Mallet, Black Cleaver, and the obvious support items of Knight's Vow and stuff like that.
Azadethe1 votesHis BEST scaling is 
and the upcoming Spear of Shojin.
ties the Ravenous Hydra in AD..... just a different passive, and no life steal, and no aoe damage.
If you need the slow, it's better, but otherwise it's the same AD, so the Hydra is better.
Spear of Shojin is going to be insane on him since he's a diver, and has the highest non 
AD potential in the game, which increases the flat damage reduction applied to him.
The build I just listed has 305 built in bonus AD, and 70% CDR on Transcendence. That gives another 36 AD. The HP gives another 42.85.
That's + 383.85 just in one Sorcery Rune and itemization. with his base AD, it's between 443.85- 479.85
Now..... I'm personally assuming some rune decisions like Domination/Sorcery, because it makes sense with his output, or Sorcery/Precision (Triumph pairs well with his ult) . That's between another 8.4-12 AD.
If he mains Sorcery, he'll have another 14.4-28.28 AD in Gathering Storm.
If he chooses 
over other boots, that's another 12 AD.
That's.... 532.65 AD.
And that's not the highest build I've come up with (Highest build puts him around 660 AD) but it's the one that's probably the most accessible and useful to Pyke's play.
-If he needs to Wave Clear, Hydra takes care of the fact his kit lacks it, especially if you early build a Tiamat. -Black cleaver is easy to proc 3 stacks on or 4 (auto attack reset, all phys skills) helps shred his opponent enough to get to Ult. Creates sticking move speed while chasing an enemy - Doubles on his W in move speed during its Phage duration. -Duskblade helps him clear wards preventing him from healing on his passive, and is bread and butter to his stealth ganks for that early hard damage. -Essence Reaver, high AD, reliable 20% CDR for more AD, and Essence passive works perfectly with Pyke's Ult..... allowing him to reset all his basic abilities and have a second chance to use ALL his skills, since his R resets by its own virtue. Imagine using W to gank someone, and E to stun them, Q/autos to get them down, and then immediately have W/E back up when he executes them...... if there's another target near them, they are going to die. -Spear of Shojin : Increases Pyke's effective HP pool by reducing dramatically damage he receives. On 532.65 AD, that's 90 damage off all sources coming at him. Given people usually try to gang up on Pyke, that gets increased to a 270 reduction OFTEN. He can literally wade among enemies with it, and get that one kill that results in an execute (which probably also massively damages the people ganking him) and then search out the next execute..... relatively safer than any other defensive option. It means also, in most cases DoT skills won't even hurt him, so they can't stop him from Stealthing/Regening on passive.
I mean..... you can build defensive HP items for different effect combos. Nothing wrong with 
as a tank build vs champs who can outrun you. But the output will be less, and the survivability not much greater. Penetration makes most of that useless.
Stacona1 votesBuild items that can support, so Black Cleaver, Frozen Mallet, and Knight's Vow are his core items.
Other items are Dead's Man Play for the play making, Frozen Heart, and Wit's End since he autos a lot and grants the MR shred.
These are just a few examples.
Azadethe1 votesHe will be a minority role as support. guaranteed. Q is too unreliable. Passive Heal is too unreliable. E is self killing because most positionings will only stun one champ, and the other will kill him. His kit is literally like playing Zoe support: can set a an adc up for kills, but really unreliable because minions block the angles.
Zerenza2 votesI think he has the potential to be a good Jungler but we'll see for sure if he's viable elsewhere when he releases on the PBE.
Stacona2 votesI made sure his passive read as enemy champions only. So no, and his Q should have a long cooldown like blitz because it has a pull on it.
Zerenza1 votesWell, his passive will be useless in the jungle but if you offset that with Life Steal then it doesn't matter much since most jungler's don't have inherent sustain they just rely on Life Steal to save them and kiting. Evelynn is the only jungler that can stand still and regen her health after a camp, only up to about 35-40% but still.
Also his Q has a wind up time so it's cooldown won't be rediculously high, it could also have a lower cooldown if you tap it instead of hold it. We don't know yet, which is why i said we wait until PBE release.
Azadethe1 votesYou can get Evelynn to heal about 49% HP early in the game, 100% late game.
Azadethe1 votesHis Q cooldown gets down to 4.8 Seconds. Nothing like Blitz's cooldown at all. And his has a windup which is visible and obvious.
Stacona1 votesThat just means it is not a one for one better, they both have their own strengths and trade-offs. Blitzcrank gets his mana shield, Pyke gets a better grey health mechanic that procs slightly different to Tahm Kench.
Blitz gets movement speed and attack speed while Pyke gets movement speed and camouflage.
Blitz has a spammable, low cooldown, single target, melee range knock up and double damage attack. Pyke gets an AoE stun (same cooldown as Taric without acknowledging Taric gets to reduce its cooldown with his passive).
Gold sharing champion kills like a glorified relic shield is probably the most unique thing about Pyke, first support that gets an execute ability and resets. I am sure Riot will make more supports with some kind of reset mechanic in the future as well than just Pyke.
Malix Farwin1 votesI think he has the potential to be a good Jungler but we'll see for sure if he's viable elsewhere when he releases on the PBE.
Your long cooldowns early just mean you will have slow clears and will be invaded easily so you will be massively behind.
Azadethe1 votesIt's not as bad as you think. The damage on 
was increased a lot and heals more than it used to.
had 10 damage added to it (albiet it lost some attack speed).
All you have to do is get one clear, and get a 
or 
, and you'll clear like any other jungler.
5050BS2 votesHe is the same as J4 is a Support....
Makhlas1 votesGuys, pyke was intended to be a support and if he is played elsewhere I'd consider it an insult to riots design team. If you wanna know why so many people think he should be played anywhere that isn't support is be sure of this: there are very few people who main support. Everyone will claim he is best played in the role they main to use an excuse to Insta locking him on blind pick of day of release but he is clearly intended to be support. The case was exactly the same on Kayn's release - all the mid lane mains claimed he was mid, the tops did the same and so did the jungler. In retrospect, we can all look back and see he was always a jungler. Such is the case now. He IS a support so stop trying to trick yourself into thinking otherwise just cos u wanna play him - if u want him that bad do what I have done over the past 2 years and main support and good luck to all.
Azadethe1 votesHe's really not a support. He literally plays very much like a Talon, and usually will build the same items as well. His early game laning is very similar to Talon, with medium range aoe clear, but risky trades. His cc kit is rather mediocre and risky as a support and hitting Q enough to actually contribute is a chore in support. It's like taking 
as support: Desperately hope for minion clears so you can line up a hook/shot, but at the same time, your adc doesn't coordinate and the other laners know exactly what you're doing because the dagger above your head on charge up is a clear signal to back off......
Also, most duo lanes can utterly punish Pyke for going in to either 
or trying to go in for Q or E. 
for example will just destroy him at early levels if he tries to assist farming.
Mid he only has to deal with one damage dealer, and usually can use his W to sustain. Support he has to deal with 2, who often completely deny him use of W to heal up.
P.S. No one ever claimed Kayn was a mid. They just admitted he could be versatile in roles. If he went Mid vs a mage, he was guaranteed to get Shadow assassin fast. If he played top, he could guarantee an early Rhaast. But 80% or better of the players were playing him jungle..... Pyke is gravitating Mid.
Stacona2 votesPlayed him on PBE, he plays like a hybrid of blitz and leona honestly. His ultimate feels very Darius ult-like, but the gold sharing mechanic makes a ton more sense for it, especially as a support.
You also just described every melee support vs ranged support match up. Getting close to him however is like getting close to a blitz or leona, he applies the same kind of pressure those champions apply in lane.
Azadethe1 votesHe doesn't even come close to Leona or Blitz in pressure.
They both follow up their gap closer with extremely strong CC, AND have tanking aspects to their kits. Blitz also doesn't put himself in jeopardy to do his job. He stays back where he belows, and brings one target to him, which is often dead before the person he didn't pull (if they choose to) arrives and attempts to save them.
Rocket Grab is instantaneous, and has a range of 925.
Pyke's pull is 1.5 seconds of windup, puts his glowing dagger above his head, and is only 650 range at its extended range. And even then..... it's not followed by a knockup, and Pyke is usually 250 range away..... which means he has to blow his E just to stun. Adc has further to go to abuse the pull/stun, and Pyke has no kit left at that point.
Leona actually has several things that make her vastly different:
And no lol. 
Insanely tanky, Stun, Knockup/Knockback in BASIC kit, as well as routine unconditional heals. FAR stronger lane control than any of the three you mentioned at low levels, and the Knock BACK is a perfect disengage.
1100 range pull (omfg), Passive immobilize, % HP based Shield, huge aoe slow, Knockup and stun ult that can't be avoided by traditional means.
And the kicker: ALL OF THEM CAN BUILD HP, so their dives LAST LONGER.
If Pyke dives, he's dead. Not enough CC, and not enough early damage to actually shorten those dives. Can't use heal when seen.
Oleandervine1 votesHe doesn't even come close to Leona or Blitz in pressure.
They both follow up their gap closer with extremely strong CC, AND have tanking aspects to their kits. Blitz also doesn't put himself in jeopardy to do his job. He stays back where he belows, and brings one target to him, which is often dead before the person he didn't pull (if they choose to) arrives and attempts to save them.
Rocket Grab is instantaneous, and has a range of 925.
Pyke's pull is 1.5 seconds of windup, puts his glowing dagger above his head, and is only 650 range at its extended range. And even then..... it's not followed by a knockup, and Pyke is usually 250 range away..... which means he has to blow his E just to stun. Adc has further to go to abuse the pull/stun, and Pyke has no kit left at that point.
Leona actually has several things that make her vastly different:
- Her skills augment her ally's damage. That's why getting caught = you probably are going to die.
- She has relatively short cooldown stuns that can be used 2-3 times per fight, as well as a semi-global ult to throw up a strong entire fight presence. She also gains Armor/Resist on W. Unlike Pyke, She can actually follow through her ganks.
- Leona usually takes Aftershock. I seriously doubt Pyke will.
And no lol.
And the kicker: ALL OF THEM CAN BUILD HP, so their dives LAST LONGER.
If Pyke dives, he's dead. Not enough CC, and not enough early damage to actually shorten those dives. Can't use heal when seen.
I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me that Blitz doesn't have to use Q and E for his combo, like Pyke would? Blitz has to blow half of his kit to solidly CC someone, just like Pyke.
Azadethe1 votesBlitz's combo doesn't put him is a risky position. It also does a lot more damage, which generally guarantees kills.
The Opposing adc has to travel 200-425 range just to catch up to blitz if he pulls a support.
Blitz also has a substantial HP pool, and tankiness.
Smicroonde1 votesComplaining about Pyke support being op while every damage dealer in bot now does better. New support meta, new league meta. I read lotta posts where people say " I like how RIOT changes the game XDXdxdxDx" now the meta changed, enjoy the brand support and eventually some velkoz/pyke.
Azadethe1 votesSorry. He's going to end up about 60% of the time in Mid, 3% Jungle, and 36% Support.
IcyPepper1 votesI do not want to see him tried to be played elsewhere.
Well that's no fun. Outside of abuse cases, I like it when people are creative and make off-roles work (like the occasional Sona mid or Soraka jungle in the past)
OrthMitch1 votesThis is a 50 50, we has good ganking abilites like camo and q hook, and if your ally is low get them an assist and execute with ult and you both get money. Makes it easy to snowball lanes so maybe jungle and support Just my opinion