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Why Hecarim is not fine even though he performed well at LCS (long!)

Kowe The Ewok··4 votes·2,118 views

I'll splitt this topic in 3 parts:

  • 1.) Why he did perform well at LCS
  • 2.) [Background] The meta within which he was released and what changed
  • 3.) His issues today

1.) Why did Hecarim perform well at LCS?

Hecarim has 2 strength when being played as a laner:

  • 1.1) The mechnics of his Q allow him to attack champion without drawing creep aggro
  • 1.2) While he isn't a good tower pusher and also mana hungry in terms of wave clearing (spamming Q), a >single< Q per minion wave allows his creeps to apply good pressure for low mana

Hecarim was chosen as a Zed counterpick. Why is that? I'll not start the wether (/how) op Zed is topic here. Let's just accept that he can 100-0 A LOT of champion even with defensive items. Hecarims unique combination of spot-on short duration sustain, CC and common bulky build path allow him to survive Zed much better than most champions. As mentioned in 1.) he can trade relatively well with champions who are meele, yet no commited DPSers at early levels (since creeps do a lot here). At the same time 2.) allows him to withstand Zed's pushing. As a conclusion: Hecarim is NOT a good all-round laner (he'll get destroyed by any ranged champ), but a wisely chosen champion for the Zed matchup.

So, why did Hecarim perform so well at his LCS game?. It's easy, he managed to get a tripplekill early on by cleaning up the leftovers of a drakefight. Getting a tripple so early in the game boosts any midlaner, especially if played by one of the best players there is.

Ironically enough he was not able to carry when he alread was sitting at 11 kills. Even though their team won they still lost fights while severely ahead in kills. They even lost a base turret until objective control won them the game shortly after.

Conclusion: Hecarim's success was a mix of being a very specific counterpick and a strong early lead due to drake-fight-clean-up-kills.

2.)[Background] The meta within which he was released and what changed

Hecarim was released as a dedicated jungler, at a point of time where

  • The jungle was easy
  • 2x gold per ten (5 gold per 10) items were meta on junglers
  • Of which one build into Shurelia's, a removed item relatively similiar to Rightious glory but with longer active duration and great mana sustain
  • The other one build into the old Randuins which also used to give cooldown reduction

As a result of the unique environment the meta created new junglers were released with:

  • 2.1 Either bad base stats
  • 2.2 Or poor damage on abilities
  • 2.3 Or long cooldowns.

Hecarim actually got hit by 2.2 & 2.3 BIG TIME.

Another important aspect is the removal of Force of Nature, a tank item which granted a ton of magic resist, HUGE health regeneration and a lot of movementspeed (not difficult to tell why it was removed, though loved by the community).

Upon his release Hecarim was the most mobile champion ingame, his kit was well rounded and even though his base values were even at point of time undertuned, the jungle itemization was simply spot on. Item wise he couldn't have wished for more.

His passive was designed with the synergy of Force of Nature and Shurelia's in mind.

**3.) His issues today **

Hecarim's issues today are a direct result of how the meta and the itemization changed.

  • Shurelia's got removed
  • Force of Nature got removed
  • Gold per 10 items are not viable in the jungle anymore
  • Randuins does not give CDR anymore
  • Randuins does not build out of his jungle items anymore
  • Mana sustain in the jungle has been worsened
  • The jungle difficulty has been significantly increased
  • Still low base stats / ability values

Hecarim however has not been updated appropriately. He got a small buff to his mana sustain on Q to be decent in the S4 jungle, however his W got gutted since it was considered to strong in organzied teamfights.

So what is the result of the above factors? Hecarims (jungle) items lost their keyfeatures,

  • mobility
  • gold efficiency
  • CDR

Hecarim now needs even more items to gain his primary stats while the costs for these stats have risen and - taking aside that he was created in a double 5/GP10 meta - junglers in this S5-preseason have horribly reduced gold income. If that wasn't bad enough - the mana and health sustain yet again have significantly worsened.

Furthermore his whole kit has become outclassed and outdated. He lost his spot as the #1 mobile champion long ago, second duration on 24s cooldown with speed that has to ramp up (average 40-something) is just horrible these days. Just take Udyr for comparison: 35% with close to permanent uptime +15 flat from his passive and as many stuns as he wants. Don't get me started about Rek sai. Her dash+AoE knockup are even better than Hecarim ult these days since knockups are not effected by Tenacity. Did I mentioned that she is (basically) ressourceless and has much better self sustain?

One has to be fair so, in REALLY, REALLY, coordinated teamfights Hecarim's W is really good (for 4 seconds...).

However - with all the mobility introduced he especially lacks one thing: Stickiness, the ability to stay with his target. Ironically the champion who used to be the most mobile of them all gets kited into oblivion and beyond these days. This is without considering that he is one of the worst bruisers/tanks in terms of DPS trades.

The end

I do have idea for improving him, but I won't list them here. Simply because people have different ideas and people who would otherwise agree with my analyzation will disgree with my ideas for him.

I would suggest that we use this post as a base to discuss possible improvement for him.

Cheers, Kowe

EDIT: Another important issue (raised by "Knight Devout" within this topic) is how the amount and powerlevel of slows changed over the seasons. Slows are not special anymore, they are given to new - and reworked - champions on regular basis and often come at higher power those of older champions had (e.g. Sion's new 60% slow). Both, amount and power of slows have a direct influence on the viability and effectiveness of Hecarim's passive ability.

14 Comments

Knight Devout3 votes

I'd like to discuss something , since you seem to also like Hecarim a lot. For me the nerfs that made Hecarim less fun to play were the cooldown nerfs on his already long W and E abilities. Now, I understand why you want W to have a long cooldown, since Hecarim already builds CDR and a teamfight where Hecarim could use Aura of Dread twice was a teamfight where he was unlikely to die.

In short , the regen from W creates nice opportunities and then it needs to have a long cd. But his E? For a champion whose trademark is mobility, that cooldown is pretty hefty. It makes him a boring Q-Q-Q-Q-Q machine and little more.

Kowe The Ewok1 votes

I complete agree.

I already have called it several times before. The long cooldown, low duration as well as the speed windup itself baffle me. The knockback sounds like a plus, but make it really situational, it's much more difficult to use than Udyr stun - yet not really that much more effective. And the "buff" they gave his E was a joke - apparently he is supposed to be able over small edges if attacking a wallhugging target - I have NEVER seen that work ingame. (It requires your opponent to be horribly out of position and you already have to be god damn close to the wall else pathfining will make you run around it)

I completely agree, his trademark used to be and should be speed. If the want they can take his E and replace it with Udyrs, anything is better than this...

Also his passive should be looked at, with the removal of said items (especially FoN) it took a large hit. I don't want to ask for too much, but in addition his bulk or damage have to be upped in order to compete with champions like Udyr and hell, even Sejuani!

P.S: Yes, I use the Udyr comparison a lot - mostly because he is the most mobile speedboost based (so no rek Sai) champion in the game and features great clear, great sustain, great bulk, great dualing power as well as the ability to stuntrain whole teams (which alone is worth as much as an ultimate if you ask me).

Knight Devout2 votes

IMHO there are 2 changes that should be made to hecarim:

  1. The E Spell-Devastating Charge needs a much shorter cooldown at rank 5, for the aforementioned reasons (namely, it has enough counterplay without reducing so much the availability of the speedboost).
  2. The extra ad from the passive is a little underwhelming, as , since most champions have slow in their kit, hecarim is bound to be slowed when the teamfight start. Something like a lingering AD bonus when reaching a peak of mobility would be more appropriate.
Kowe The Ewok1 votes

That's very true, I totally forget to raise that issue with everybody having slows these days.

Kalgash2 votes

You are forgetting the completely confusing nerf to his ult.

Meep Man2 votes

I definitely believe he needs buffs to the areas mentioned here! He is pretty weak right now, but works well only in specific situations. He needs CD buffs to his E and/or some way to stick to his enemy without blowing his ultimate.

(For all those hardcore ponyman players that still want him to function and want to play him, I recommend getting items that fill in the holes that are currently what needs helped for him so...

item 3709 item 3800 item 3042 item 3065 item 3143 ( item 3117 or item 3047 or item 3111 )

However, this does not make up for his overall outdated kit and lost identity. He still needs a lot of gold to function and can't hold himself up without items to fill in the holes.)

ValyrianBlade2 votes

Why does everyone posting about hecarim claim his e is on 3 seconds duration.

It seems everyone other than myself makes these posts about hecarim bit doesn't actually play him (or at least pay attention).

HECARIM'S E RAMPS UP MOVEMENT SPEED OVER 3 SECONDS BUT LASTS FOR 4 SECONDS. The last full second stays at the full +75% MS. Since it starts at 25% bonus, the average over 4 seconds is 56.25%.

Further, with each rank the cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds, from 24 sec at rank 1 to 16 sec at rank 5. With 40% cdr that 16sec becomes 9.6sec. Given that his charge lasts 4 seconds, hecarim is capable of charging 41.67% of the time. That IS pretty mobile.

I'm not saying he doesn't need buffs. The w buff is great in my mind because it means I can actually choose to max e second over w more often (btw I've watched top tier Korean challenger play hecarim and he already chose to max e second over w last season). You upgrade w when the increased Max healing can be used on each w cast, so by increasing the cap you can afford to upgrade it less often.

Note that I'm not saying hecarim doesn't need buffs, and I strongly agree with a lot of your analysis, but when every hecarim buff post I read says his e only lasts 3 seconds and sucks because it needs to ramp up, when it actually has an extra full second at max speed, all I can think is riot reads the post and discredits it thinking you must not play him because you don't even know how his ability works so why should they listen?

Knight Devout2 votes

Because ramping up opens for more vulnerability as you are easier to hit while trotting at low speed, especially against aimed skillshots. Because , as you rightfully stated, E is only satisfying at 40% CDR rank 5, but is harshly cooldown gated before that point. Which then leads us to another topic, itemization. Now, the brutalizer enchantment for junglers (warrior) allows hecarim to wrap in 10% CDR and 10 armor penetration, which is insanely good for a single slot.

Anyway, let me tell you, as someone who used to enjoy hecarim at its very peak. You know when Hecarim was considered OP and deserved nerfs? "Muh FoN! Shurelia!" Yeah, true, those were strong , but he also happened to have a certain kit in a certain time frame.

Before the Botrk tuning, (i.e. when botrk was released), we had a severe problem with countering health stacking. At that time, I recall even seeing some diamond adc picking warmog over ga as a survival item. After the resistance penetration switch from flat before % to % before flat, people started picking health before resistances as it was more effective.

Then , of course, pro players caught wind of something. Hecarim at that time built spirit visage on top of a better spirit of dread that granted 30% healing at rank 5(up to 36%). Also, people didn't build resistances, but flat health. This meant that , when going resistances, hecarim could heal for almost full health in a teamfight. Kid you not, once I was trying a dragon steal, 5v1, Ziggs launched a Mega Inferno Bomb, and the damage on 5 people healed me for over 1200 health. So, they nerfed Spirit of dread. And then the cd. And then the E cd. And then the ult damage. And then they tuned botrk and people started to pick armor again. And then Kha'Zix and Vi came out with their mobility and damage/cc.

And then Hecarim started to fall behind.

ValyrianBlade1 votes

You clearly didn't even read my post.

I AGREE WITH ALL OF THIS.

I'm simply stating that every single one of you is WRONG about his e. The duration on his e IS 4 SECONDS NOT 3 SECONDS.

That is the only criticism I'm pointing out, and I'm claiming Riot isn't going to listen to people complaining about a champion needing buffs (even though the points are very valid) when you egregiously misstate how one of his skills work (rather than ramping from 25 to 75 over 3 seconds then dying, it ramps from 25 to 75 over 3 seconds then stays at 75 for a second, a full second at 75% increased MS is a HUGE difference).

Knight Devout1 votes

But I never said that E lasts 3 seconds. P

ValyrianBlade1 votes

True, but the op did as his first comment in the section of hecarim's issues today under "kit outclassed and outdated".

My point to you about not reading my post was directed at my last 2 paragraphs.

Knight Devout1 votes

So you agree that, while not directly nerfed, even W nerfed was nerfed by the meta returning to a more resistance focused approach (and that makes thus Hecarim profits less from spirit of dread)?

because that's a point that no one consider , but that I think it's crucial for hecarim's balance.

ValyrianBlade1 votes

Well w restores health based on a percentage of damage received by nearby enemies.

Thus, hecarim always is better off building resistances over health personally, as he'll restore more effective health if he has resistances to make that health last longer.

Similarly, hecarim is worse off if opponents build resistances over health, because they'll take less damage and he'll heal less off of them.

That said, we're in a meta where penetration is becoming really popular, which helps damage against stacking resistances more than health (specifically last whisper and void staff being core on almost all carries).

I think I agree though, hecarim's enemies being able to prioritize resistance over health with no consequence to their optimal build hurts hecarim's w.

That said, hecarim's role is to dive the back line with his r to engage, the carries he's attacking should not have much resistances - it would depend though whether you're receiving healing from your carries damaging their front line or not (is their front line closer enough to their back line for you to get both) - I typically ult to behind their back line so the answer for me might be "no".

I only started in April of this year though, so I've never experienced old hecarim's power, I've only read threads like this to get a feeling for it - so I can't fairly comment on the size of this affect.

stealthstyle752 votes

I agree with everything mentioned in this post so far but right now I believe the biggest concern for Hecarim is his E. Being a champion that is known for his speed it's really sad when 60% of the roster has ways to escape from him with either a weak cc or a dash. His knockback is also extremely annoying knocking them AWAY from Hecarim even if you land it right when they dash/blink during your animation. Although lowering the cooldown on his E would solve this problem it could potentially make him over the top as another godyr, so you might only want to slightly tweak the number by 2-3 second shorter. My solution for his E is speeding up the charging attack animation similar to that of godyr and letting his E either cleanse slow like Garen or put him in a state similar to Master Yi where he can not be slow for a certain percentage. -> 10%,20%,30%,40%,50%. This would allow him to chase down champs that would usually escape with slows but allow champs with harder cc to get away. This will also address his weak passive some of you mentioned so that he could utilize his increased ad during his charge. These are just my 2 cents concerning Hecarim in his current stage. He's my favorite champion and I hope Riot will buff him somehow to put him up to par with the rest of the casts.

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