Top 3 things I think as a Fiora main could be changed to add counter play and increase skill cap

gubigubi·Oct 12, 2015·15 votes·1,948 views

Change the way her Q gets the reduced CD. Instead of reduced CD if it lands. It only should get the fully reduced CD if it kills a minion or procs a vital. Example it reduces Q cd by 60% for vital/kills and 30% for just damage.
Riposte should not block spells that come from directly behind her. I really don't have any idea how this could be made to work from a coding point of view but this is just my opinion that if you riposte in the opposite direction you should be punished for it.
The heal on the ult. Its already being nerfed so I will hold off saying much more about that until I get a feel for how it will play out in live. But I do not believe that such a mechanic should be such a primary focus on Fiora.

41 Comments

Sightless66Oct 12, 20158 votes

Number 1 isn't a bad idea. Could work well.

Don't like number 2 much. One of Riposte's big potential plays should be the ability to take CC from one person and then redirect it at someone else, such as using an incoming Sejuani ult to stun their AD carry. Limiting the potential to do that when enemies are coming at you from multiple angles doesn't seem like a great idea. I'd go with other nerfs before this one.

For number 3, her ult is getting nerfed as you said. It's a pretty significant hit. Might need to go a bit further with the nerfs, but we'll see.

gubigubiOct 12, 20151 votes

Thats a pretty good point on Riposte. Redirecting spells is a pretty neat trick you can do. Probably wouldn't need to change riposte if number 1 and number 3 are done well.

I think after this ult nerf her win rate will go down a little bit but if that doesn't lower her ban rate as well then I think making the changes I suggested to her Q would definitely do the trick to make her not feel as oppressive.

WickedCrowOct 13, 20152 votes

There should still be a degree to which she can riposte though. I can understand if she was being attacked from upper left and redirected it to the upper right, but say she was sandwiched between two champions. She should could riposte towards one, but it leaves her back open, it plays into the Vital minigame. Or, if you wanna get fancy, she could riposte outwards, blocking BOTH champions on the sides, but not being able to attack, giving her a defensive option. Given that she is based on fencing, she would have absolute control in front of her, but giving her that much defensive power all around leaves little room for counter play, which is dangerous on high damage champions.

Sightless66Oct 13, 20152 votes

There should still be a degree to which she can riposte though.

I still disagree. It's not a necessary change and there are better ways to balance her. Requiring her to reshift the exact direction she's facing for the use of a spell isn't very interesting. It wouldn't even work very well because the game has instant turn speeds. I could see this working in Dota, but if a character can turn instantly, you're just making it jankier to use without adding interesting gameplay.

It would be significantly more frustrating for Fiora than it would be interesting for the enemy, and that's not true for balance changes that don't fuck with her mechanic. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it a bad idea.

Even if we had to hit the W, there are better options. Reduce the range a little. Reduce the width. Reduce or take away the damage and slow unless she blocks a hard CC, increase the cooldown, increase the cooldown if she doesn't parry a hard CC. There are so many alternatives, and all of them are better than a facing-based change to riposte.

it plays into the Vital minigame

Not really. Vitals have an absolute direction, and don't take facing into account. If they did take facing into account, they'd be a terribly designed mechanic. It really has nothing to do at all with vitals, or any part of the mechanic. It doesn't make sense.

giving her that much defensive power all around leaves little room for counter play,

I completely disagree. There's a lot of counterplay to predicting her invulnerability timing, spacing abilities, not grouping up, baiting her W out, forcing it out when she can't stun someone important, etc. You have a ton of ways to limit the effectiveness of her W. It's her overtuned stats that leave little room for counterplay. Hit her stats, make her reliant on hitting a good W, and then we're perfectly fine. She's weaker and we didn't have to try to force a really weird facing-based weakness into a 0-turn-speed game.

LankPantsOct 12, 20154 votes

I'm not convinced that Fiora needs a higher skill cap. She's already not easy to play, adding more difficulty to her just seems overkill to me.

ThryaleOct 12, 20153 votes

she's already really high skill cap (and a greatly increased skill floor) with her rework.

After her rework, I went from being able to do moderately well with fiora to utter garbage McFeedsalot in every game I've played her in.

Sire HippingtonOct 12, 20151 votes

she's supposed to, bu honestly isn't. In most matchups, it's just like old fiora, Q in to your enemie, reset your AA with E, get the two E hits off and back off. The passive only is needed later on vs tanks. So the only part of her kit that requires any real skill is her W, which is god damn broken if used well. Vs coordinated teams, it gets hard to do well in teamfights, but that was true for old fiora aswell(unless she was so fed that pressing R was enough)

gubigubiOct 12, 20151 votes

I think that has much more to do with the way they shifted her play style than her being harder to play. I noticed old Fiora players had a much lower win rate than people who only started really playing her after her rework.

spavinedOct 12, 20151 votes

i was a (self-proclaimed)fiora main before and after the rework and the play-style definitely did change extensively while my winrate didnt change all that much (because i analyzed new fiora before i played her) the play-style changed a lot so your hypothesis probably is correct. :D

gubigubiOct 12, 20151 votes

I played a crap load of games with her on the PBE and my win rate is still down greatly from what it was last season. Season 3 54% win rate 18-15 Season 4 63% win rate 65-38 Season 5 54% win rate 49-41 My win rate before her rework was around 58% this season. I'm really hoping to get back up in that 60%+ range next season and hopefully diamond now that I have a better understanding on the proper ways to play her again.

spavinedOct 12, 20151 votes

yea definitely if you play her right and play her well then you will get a high win-rate with her, when new fiora was first released before she was nerfed if you played her well you could win a good 85% of your games but now id say that 70% is a more real number for consistent win-rate with fiora if you play her properly.

Weiner the PoohOct 12, 20152 votes

It's funny u say she has a low skill cap, when she first cam out everyone was saying she was gonna be one of the hardest champs. Also her need on pbe will increase her skill floor and cap by a lot

ThryaleOct 12, 20152 votes

while I don't think her skill cap is low by any means, it certainly isn't super high either. What fiora's rework mostly did was greatly increase her skill floor while only moderately increasing her skill cap.

Dar RaksadaOct 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

while I don't think her skill cap is low by any means, it certainly isn't super high either. What fiora's rework mostly did was greatly increase her skill floor while only moderately increasing her skill cap.

her skill cap against skilled opponents is really high, but her skill floor is pretty high too.

Aceatbl4zeOct 12, 20154 votes

[{quoted}](name=Da Dwagonswayer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=FHiKdGiM,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-10-12T07:33:41.373+0000)

It's funny u say she has a low skill cap, when she first cam out everyone was saying she was gonna be one of the hardest champs. Also her need on pbe will increase her skill floor and cap by a lot

I keep on losing fights with her in lane even if she messes everythig in her kit , wrong dash damage , wrong W , wrong use or her ult not hitting more than 2 vitals , she still kills me even if she is 0/2 after she gets an item. Retard pile of stats .

Dar RaksadaOct 12, 20156 votes

{quoted}

I keep on losing fights with her in lane even if she messes everythig in her kit , wrong dash damage , wrong W , wrong use or her ult not hitting more than 2 vitals , she still kills me even if she is 0/2 after she gets an item. Retard pile of stats .

if you lose fights with all those circumstances you might be the problem.

gubigubiOct 12, 20153 votes

Yeah for sure. Her basic auto attack damage is actually weak if you are not hitting vitals to get the true damage.

AnidanOct 12, 20154 votes

Normally I may agree... but no. Not in this situation. If anyone messes everything up and still win, then that's on you. It was, at that point, your fight to lose, and lose it you did.

Also, she's not a pile of stats. Just a note for you. Someone like Vladimir or old Jax, or Yasuo, those are piles of stats: Fiora has a good bit of mechanics, not stats. Having high base tankiness does not a pile of stats make.

KONO RUBICK DAOct 12, 20152 votes

her Q mana needs to be increased

the heal shouldn't be removed, riot said more than twice that's it's what fiora brings unlike other mele adc

Sire HippingtonOct 12, 20152 votes

definitly agree, though i'd add:

increase her passive base-damge, maybe add some flat truedamage, and lower the absurd scaleing later on., ad an ad-scaleing to the selfheal
decrease Q and E damage and maybe lower her base ad even further
decrease her base tankiness
add bonusdamage and manarefund vs minions to Q if lasthitting becomes a problem
if she is to weak, add a bit more range to her Q and more early speed for landing the passive

I think one of the biggest problems with fiora right now is that she doesn't rely on hitting vitals at all early to midgame, she just Qs in your face and trades with AAs, winning the trade regardless off hitting vitals. Her ult a 6 also is mostly for the heal, the damage is rather poor for the effort. Come lategame, she still doesn't give a fuck on her passive vs squishy targets, as they die to q+aa+e regardless, while the absurd scaleing on the passive alows her to totally destroy tanky guys, as they usually lack the mobillity to prevent her from hitting vitals, while the heavy scaleing %truedamage says fuckyou to any tankiness they got.

So my approach is to put more focus on vitals early overall, while makeing the truedamage less opressive vs tanks later in the game.

Dar RaksadaOct 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Change the way her Q gets the reduced CD. Instead of reduced CD if it lands. It only should get the fully reduced CD if it kills a minion or procs a vital. Example it reduces Q cd by 60% for vital/kills and 30% for just damage.

Riposte should not block spells that come from directly behind her. I really don't have any idea how this could be made to work from a coding point of view but this is just my opinion that if you riposte in the opposite direction you should be punished for it.

The heal on the ult. Its already being nerfed so I will hold off saying much more about that until I get a feel for how it will play out in live. But I do not believe that such a mechanic should be such a primary focus on Fiora.

her skillcap is fine, I don't feel Fiora is that op in soloqueue at this moment, though I can't speak for pro play. The heal is there to make her useful in teamfights, without it she's just be a splitpush machine.

Riposte is fine in my opinion, though they could remove the damage and the slow if you don't parry immobilizing cc (this would lower her 1v1 potential as it also reduces attack speed, which seems like 'hidden power')

The q change is fine, I don't think it's needed but it's not overkill.

If you want to nerf her just reduce her early damage, remove the AS slow from her w or do what you said about the q.

OverpoweredSoapOct 13, 20152 votes

If anything, her heal should not activate if she dies, or if she dies while the heal is out, it ends.

I kind of feel like this is stupid but it's kind of a counter to riot's logic of the ult. "It's so Fiora's allies can celebrate for her success in her duel!"

Well if she dead, she dead. Don't celebrate that.

gubigubiOct 13, 20152 votes

I don't think there is much celebrating anyways when she wins. From her lore it comes across as a cold victory of honor and nothing to be celebrated.

I would have the heal totally removed if I could. Possibly replaced with an AoE stun. A stunning victory makes much more sense than her motivating people around her. But yeah I agree that it shouldn't proc after Fiora is killed.

DivewingOct 12, 20151 votes

1: fair enough 2: ........wait you don't have to face the proper direction to riposte stuff....?

Sire HippingtonOct 12, 20151 votes

you only have to face the right direction if you want to hit the damage+slow/stun, but you block all incomeing shit regardless of direction...

Dar RaksadaOct 12, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Don Pavoni,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=FHiKdGiM,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-10-12T15:01:05.454+0000)

you only have to face the right direction if you want to hit the damage+slow/stun, but you block all incomeing shit regardless of direction...

it needs to do that or she'll unable to teamfight though.

MelledoneusOct 12, 20151 votes

I was full tank Shen with nearly 300 armor and a lot more HP. Fiora pops one vital and takes 34% of my maximum HP according to Death Recap in true damage. How is that even fair? Her passive shouldn't make tanks useless...

Dar RaksadaOct 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

I was full tank Shen with nearly 300 armor and a lot more HP. Fiora pops one vital and takes 34% of my maximum HP according to Death Recap in true damage. How is that even fair? Her passive shouldn't make tanks useless...

Warning, math inc, if I'm wrong please correct me as that never was my strongest point.

Basic attacks and Riposte.png Riposte against a Vital deal 3% (+「 2.7 + (0.1 × Fiora's level)% 」per 100 bonus AD) 2.7+1.8=4.5 32-3=29 29/4.5=6.44 6.44*100AD = 644

she had 644 bonus ad? I find that hard to believe, she probably hit two vitals in a row (one normal + one from ult directly after) for which she'd need 322 bonus ad which is actually doable if she builds glass cannon.

You didn't specify how much hp you had, so comparison to other champions is hard.

MelledoneusOct 12, 20151 votes

Well, it was approximately (as I recall) 884 HP she took. It legitimately said "34% true damage."

I'm not making this up. Her ult did less damage than her vital strike.

AnidanOct 12, 20153 votes

That's not possible as all the ult does is create 4 vitals - exact same mechanics as the vitals themselves.

Dar RaksadaOct 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Well, it was approximately (as I recall) 884 HP she took. It legitimately said "34% true damage."

I'm not making this up. Her ult did less damage than her vital strike.

the ult does not do damage, it spawns vitals that let her do damage, she probably hit one vital, ulted, then immediately hit the vital again (her e is an aa reset so it's not too far-fetched). She'd have to be full glass cannon though, I'm sure most ad carries, like jinx or draven with 322 bonus ad ( item 3035 item 3072 item 3031 item 3139 item 3046 item 3006 *?) would do similar damage in two hits, even accounting for armor (after pen).

*I'm not saying that's a great build on most ad carries, it was just a build that got close to the required ad to pull off such a stunt. I think it even falls short some ad so just give them a janna shield or somesuch.

MelledoneusOct 12, 20151 votes

She had no armor penetration.

Dar RaksadaOct 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

She had no armor penetration.

she didn't need it because she had true damage, she probably had no/only a little crit as well. My point was most glasscannon carries shred tanks kinda hard, especially when tankbuster is one of their main points. It also remains a fact that she couldn't have done 34% true damage with one hit and that her ult doesn't do damage by itself (it doesn't even give an assist by itself)

MelledoneusOct 13, 20151 votes

I think she might have hit a vital then hit the one that popped up right after in the same place. That's another problem I have with Fiora: her passive. It's cool and all, but it's up so often it completely zones most top laners away from farming. Sure, I can bait every Fiora and his mother to lunge at me and miss the vital, but seriously. I walk out of the passive range and lo and behold another one shows up. I think they need to decrease the charge rate on vitals so that she's not always strong against you, but still has that reliable poke and can be played around.

therealdragonOct 13, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Well, it was approximately (as I recall) 884 HP she took. It legitimately said "34% true damage."

I'm not making this up. Her ult did less damage than her vital strike.

I don't doubt it. Problem is, death recap is screwed.

I've legit watched myself get q'd, w'd, then ulted by a cho'gath all over about 5s. I go to death recap:

Q:28% dmg w:22%dmg R: 35%dmg

Then another instance, I escape from a teamfight for about 5s. Jinx zap, global ult, or any long range skillshot kills me-

X Skill: 100% dmg (218)

gee thanks death recap.

ModAttysu The PoroOct 12, 20151 votes

I highly agree with this post. Take my upvote.

http://i.imgur.com/EBZzLca.gif[/img]

JavazonOct 13, 20151 votes

Sounds like a bit much

gubigubiOct 13, 20151 votes

Yeah for sure, ideally only 1 or 2 of these things would be needed. If all 3 were done then she would definitely need buffs in other aspects of her kit to balance her out. I was just suggesting some Ideas that could nerf her while also increasing her skill cap that would not effect people playing her correctly.

JavazonOct 13, 20151 votes

The W idea is really good. Issue I see with the Q is if you say catch the adc out but the proc doesn't apear where you need it to, then that just adds in even more random. I suppose most of the time it wouldn't effect her if she has ult though.

Kinda big early game. nerfed q=no wolves tp start. stuff like that.

gubigubiOct 13, 20151 votes

Nah you can actually start E against wolves and clear them just as well. You got o lane at level 2 anyways after you get them cleared and will have Q by then for lane.

kJsOct 13, 20151 votes

Or Riposte needs to block just one spell or ability not everything. Double its animation rate to not ruin her mobility and buff Q's CDR that it gives every hit.