Zoe's W, How One Concept Can Completely Ruin a Champions Design.

I want to be clear, I am not in favor of deleting Zoe nor am I against Zoe's W. I do not hate Zoe. I think Spell Thief(her W) is a good addition into League; however, I think the nerfs to her W only solve the issue and not the problem. I also want to stress that this post is in no way meant to accuse or agitate anyone. This is not a RIOT ARE INCOMPETENT DEVELOPERS post. I just want to understand the reasoning behind giving Zoe's W a RNG component and why I feel it should be changed.

Also, I feel it is fair to note I am only Gold V. That being said, I do not believe my rank in any way discredits my words. You don't have to have a degree to understand rocket science, or computer science. You just need a book and a very long attention span.

Note--For expediencies sake I will refer to any spell gained for Zoe's W as a Summoner spell.

I can't help but question what the design philosophy behind why Zoe gets freebie Summoner spells during lane phase(and out). I recently played a game as Kassadin against Zoe. It was horribly, I played bad and fed. I am not disappointing in losing per-se, I played like an ape. It was how it started that annoys me.Things were going good in the early game(LVL 3) until she managed to get a Hextect-GLP. I'm like, 'alright it's fine, it's cool, I can deal with this.' In the very next wave she managed to get a Heal. I bring this up because, I can't think of any other concrete example besides Fiora(which is debatable, I understand that) where RNG creates such a hostile environment. With Fiora, counter play actually exist to a reasonable degree, either reset the Vital or hug a wall. Rather than such reasonable counter play as Fiora, Zoe isn't the one to decide whether an engage is beneficial to make, she can just effectively fire and forget with the freebies: Ignite, Exhaust , GLP, Redemption, Protobelt, Cleanse, .etc. Why even think tactfully?

This post is designed to highlight the problems with RNG and how it ruins Zoe as a whole. Also, this is my first post on the boards so bear with me. Who am I kidding, you guys are gonna eat me alive. In any case, criticism is welcome.

Topics I will cover.

1. RNG and Why It Is a Problem 2.Skill Expression and Fairness

2. Conclusion and Possible Solutions

3. RNG and Why It Is a Problem I am positively sure anyone who reads this post has seen the imaqtpie clip about Zoe missing all her abilities and still killing Jhin. Putting aside. Electrocute for the moment, what exactly is the problem with the clip? Why are people annoyed about it? Well I have "researched" that clip multiple times as well as the post that brought that clip onto the boards. I have come to the decision that Zoe's W unfairly tips an otherwise "manageable" kit into a role of the dice or something out of the player's control. This mechanic being in a highly-skill orientated game, creates unnecessary chaos. Playing Zoe in to favorable match-ups becomes even more overbearing. Playing Zoe into unfavorable match-ups can still be a BIG dice roll in her favor. One of the comments I read on the imaqtpie post is that if you can see Zoe has a summoner spell, you should play safe and wait it out. Such "counter-play" is fine if Zoe's access to a Spell Thief spell was between 5-10 and not 40 seconds. A spammable, no cool-down powerhouse spell and the response is to wait it out. Say you do wait it out. So, for 40 Seconds she can control the lane and you wait it out. But Wait! During those 40 **short ** seconds of time, she manages to get yet another RNG summoner spell. Now, that time frame has doubled. and tripled, quadrupled so on and so forth. That is looking at it one way, but what about the other. What if she gets no bubbles? She still has her summoner spells as well as her opponent's to use. This creates a problem. Best case scenario, for her, it's her birthday and you're on the menu. Sanity be damned. Worst case scenario, she goes even, wins the lane, or loses it. Plainly putting the problem, it is unfair to the opponent and causes an unreasonable power disparity. Such a weight placed on an ability hinders the skill expression of Zoe mains and tilts her opponents off the face of the Earth. Perfect lead into my next point.

TLDR: The RNG on Spell Thief creates a large power disparity between Zoe and her laner, largely in Zoe's favor. An entire paragraph in one sentence, imagine that.

2. Skill Expression and Fairness Any one who has faced a Zoe has undoubtably been in a situation where she starts the game with ignite only to get a 2nd ignite or an exhaust during the laning phase. Like clockwork, she hits W and proceeds to run you down, or attempt to. The RNG on Zoe's W removes the desire to think or analyze, only act. A trait shared with most Yasuos and Rivens. You got a free ignite? Run 'em down! Exhaust? Run 'em down! Redemption? Run 'em down bot, hell help bot run 'em down! Do people see the problem? Zoe's problem beforehand used to be her E, she gained CD hitting it on a champion. Long story short, it was fixed. Why was it a problem? Mages/assassins, although not limited to these classes, typically have a spell designed to give them power in the laning phase. Whether it is used defensively or offensively is up to the player. One uses the spell and is rewarded, if used correctly, to gain a payoff varying from champ to champ. Lux's Q, Syndra's QE combo, Morgana's Q provide some examples. Zoe's E was so rewarding that it was over bearing. Power was shifted to her W and now it is too rewarding that it is over bearing and arguably more of a nuisance that pre-nerf E.

TLDR: Zoe's RNG takes skill away from her, rather than she having to critically think when to engage on an opponent with her summoner spells, which creates a reasonable sacrifice, she can get a freebie ignite to control the lane like a brainless ape flinging stool/excrement at opponents.

3. Conclusion and Possible Solutions In conclusion, nerfing Zoe's damage will not fix anything, I cant stress that enough. I left this for the end of the post, but I am a Zoe main, M6. I can only hope this relieve some of the bias people think I have. So, how do we "fix" Zoe? Fun is a subjective feeling, an opinion, non-factual. This post is subjective. Zoe will never be seen as a fun champ to play against for some,which is not her fault nor is it Certainly T's fault or her designers. It is just a by product of the variety of champions in the game. Even the simpliest champions can be hard to learn to play as or against. I am M6 on Ornn and only hit about 20% of his ults, I can't wrap my head around when to recast it. It's as embarassing as missing a WW ult. It's seriously a meme between my friends. I digress. I am not blaming anyone, and I do not hold all of the solutions. I will not be so boisterous as to assume the role of armchair developer. However, I believe you can have "fun" facing against a champs "toxic" kit. Fun, in the way I just used more so means that kit should be manageable for the enemies who face the champ, like Fiora's kit. Zoe's RNG W bubbles inhibit that manageability. I think the power disparity cause by Spell Thief was ultimately an idea thoughtlessly tacked on to Zoe with minor thought actually going into the potential problems it could cause. I propose to alleviate this complex problem by either remove the RNG component to Zoe's W, OR remove the damage from Zoe's W. The latter being more extreme than the former. Another step in the right direction would be to remove the interaction between her having a W spell, dying, and coming back to lane with that same spell. It should be removed on her death.

The primary take away from this post that I want people, mostly those at RIOT, (they are designing the champions) to think about is what exactly makes a champs kit toxic and for people to think critically on what makes it "bad" for the given game. What is the problem and how does one solve it? ---I hope I articulated my points efficiently