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In Patch 4.17, Riot hit the right champions with the wrong changes.

mi ramfan··36 votes·2,695 views

This patch, Riot seemed to do a great job hitting champions who actually needed buffs and nerfs. The problem is, with the champions they buffed, they added power that's unlikely to make any significant difference to their viability. The champions that got nerfed either didn't lose very much at all or got absolutely crippled, with nothing really in between.

I'm not going to talk about the Viktor or Soraka reworks too much here because they're brand new and people need experience playing them before we can pass judgement; I think the Viktor rework looks like a (nearly) straight buff while Soraka's is too different to make a prediction.

#Wrong Buffs at the Right Time

Garen

Garen's definitely needed buffs for a long time, so it was nice to see him getting some for once. However, instead of hitting the area where he most needed help (his ridiculously long cooldowns, especially in the laning phase when his ultimate's cooldown is 160 SECONDS at level 6, longer then the ultimate cooldowns of fellow top laners Riven and Darius as well as that of Jinx's ult. Jinx's ult is especially notable in this case because it deals 50 (+3.75% opponent's missing health) less damage, but has an AD ratio, global range, and can be used nearly twice as often.

Instead, Garen got a lategame buff to his passive, which would be alright if people picked Garen for late game. Nobody picks Garen to scale late game; they pick him to win lane early and have a good contribution to mid game teamfights. Thanks for buffing him, but better late game power on his passive is not what he needed and will not improve his pick rate. Literally all he needs is for his ultimate to have a similar cooldown to comparable abilities that are already BETTER abilities even before considering the cooldown.

Cassiopeia

After her rework, Cassieopeia has largely fallen out of favor due to the massive loss of lane phase power she took in exchange for slight buffs to her already strong late game. With any rework, power tuning is hard to gauge on PBE, so the buffs coming in for her are good. The problem is, while the E bugfix was sorely needed, buffing the AP ratio on her Q (another late game buff) is not going to help much at all. Post-rework Cass only uses Q as a poison-marking tool, since E's mana restore+health restore mechanic means it's never worth it to max Q as a lane harass tool.

Sure, raising the AP ratio on Q helps her damage late game. But even pre-rework, Cass didn't have any problems wrecking people's shit late game. What she needs to be viable in the assassin metagame is some of her old lane prescence back. Maxing E first, all of your damage potential in lane is coming from Q/W->EEEEE, which is very short ranged and leaves you completely vulnerable to hard engage by enemy assassins. Cassieopeia's early harass pre-rework was the only way she could not get wrecked by mobile assassins. She should have gotten base damage buffs on Q or gotten Q's old cooldown back, not an AP ratio buff.

#Right Targets, Wrong Nerfs

Tristana

As a Trist player, she's definitely really strong right now. I'd argue that more of her power comes from the itemization changes then from her kit, because she only gained popularity with the 4.10 itemization changes even though her kit has been largely unchanged for years. I don't mind an experimental nerf to see how it hits her, but the nerf you took was entirely the wrong one. Tristana's ultimate was not the source of her lane power, nor is the cooldown really that important to her power (it's rare to have full all-in trades with everyone's ultimates blown more often then 100 seconds in lane). Increasing her ultimate's cooldown barely affects her power, and she'll still be played just as often because all it does is make it so she can engage an all-in on her terms slightly less often.

Instead of nerfing her ultimate's cooldown, you should have considered hitting ADC itemization; that is the real root of Tristana's current balance issues. If you absolutely had to hit Tristana before addressing itemization again, then you should have changed her Rocket Jump's cooldown reset on kill to 20/40/60/80/100% reset. This would force her to max W in lane to get the full reset before mid game starts, forcing her to choose between early poke and the ability to escape after her all-ins in lane. Now she has to choose between maxing E first (which gives her poke but autoshoves the lane and makes her towerdiving entail heavy risk) or maxing W first (which limits her effective trading to all-ins, allowing AD casters like Lucian or Graves to bully her out).

Talon

Contrary to popular belief, Talon really was strong for a very long time. Riot's logic for removing his silence was good, but he needed some kind of compensation for it and got nothing. Let's face it, a 99% slow that only lasts for 0.25 seconds is a joke. ANY CC that lasts for 0.25 seconds is a joke. Talon was the only remaining assassin with a silence, and that gave him an important niche in lane compared to much safer assassin picks like Zed and Yasuo. Now that he's lost the silence and gained virtually nothing in return, I just don't think he's different enough from Zed or Yasuo to be worth picking over them.

Note that I'm not saying that this nerf was unjustified. Getting 100-0ed while you're silenced the entire time is bullshit (which is why LeBlanc and Kassadin lost their silences). I'm saying that this nerf hit the only reason to pick Talon instead of Zed, and should have come with serious compensation with that in mind. Instead, Talon lost a significant amount of power and got nothing in return.

#Final Words

These kinds of changes are bad for the game in the long term. Hitting overpowered champions with nerfs that don't reduce their power is stupid, because you're just going to end up nerfing them again next patch. When you eventually hit the right note, that champion is going to be absolutely crippled because you took away every tiny bit of power they had BEFORE actually hitting the reasons they were popular, leaving them with a shell of a kit bound for a rework. The reverse is true for buffing underpowered champions with things that don't actually help them at all in their current state; when Garen finally gets the buffs he needs (damage on Judgement + cooldown reduction on his ult), he'll be overpowered thanks to the all the buffs you give him while trying to ignore his actual problems.

Removing toxic mechanics from a balanced champion is fine, but you have to give them compensation. It always seems like all the wrong champions are getting compensation buffs, and this patch is no exception; Nidalee got a buff to her Q's AP ratio and a buff to her cougar form W in exchange for losing AD ratio on her Q, while Talon lost A CROWD CONTROL and got absolutely nothing in return.

We're all glad that you're trying to improve League's balance. You just missed the mark on this patch.

37 Comments

Wingling8 votes

Well Garen has problems but not the ones you listed (except ult cooldown). His judgement damage is actually very well tuned, they did a good job of that when they reworked him. They probably want to do more with Garen, but making his passive more useful late game was very low-risk and satisfying, since his passive was a bit lackluster late. The main problems are too much counterplay because his slow cleanse is on Q and if your enemy knows what they're doing they just slow you after you Q and you can't get close (you either walk at them and they walk away, or you Q at them and eat slow), and his W passive gives him so many stats late while giving him almost nothing early (pre-rework his +25 resists let him build more damage early with just a giant's belt, and now he has to build tank items to get that tankiness, it sucks).

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Garen sees competitive or at least high elo play if riot does the following changes:

  • Remove slow cleanse on Q and replace it with X% slow resistance for the duration (I want to say 50% but don't want numbers to be a sticking point)
  • Replace +20% on your bonus resists with something like 10/12/14/16/18(+10% of your total resists)
  • Remove self-slow on E (seriously, Gragas had self-slow for one patch before they reverted that shit)
  • Maybe lower ult cooldown, but straight buffs are potentially dangerous

I plan on making a whole thread about this stuff later once people get a little more familiar with Garen after this patch. I made a thread a month ago where I suggested similar things, and now that they buffed his late-game tankiness the W change is even more attractive. Also, I had an idea where you can't remove his passive while courage is active, which not only makes sense thematically and increases his skill cap at little cost, it helps him a lot with some of your difficult matchups.

redniwediS3 votes

The only thing I can find in your post that I disagree with is the ult cooldown comment at the start. That cooldown is fairly well tuned to allow the ult to have a lot of power while keeping it from being oppressive. If his ult needs any sort of buff it would likely end up being a slight damage increase.

But other than that you hit the nail on the head, particularly with the slows. The +20% resistances is honestly not too much of a problem, as Garen is more than capable of winning early just with his base damage, but that's more a matter of personal opinion than anything.

Wingling4 votes

Yeah, a lot of this stuff is opinion, but I can justify it a bit more as well. The ult is really powerful, but at the end of the day it's still a single-target nuke with the 6th longest cooldown in the game (up there with Amumu, Karthus, and Shen). Even so, I think that changes to the way his slow countering and passive resists work are more important than straight buffs. I agree that even if it sucks the cooldown serves a purpose.

Lack of flat resists doesn't matter much if you were planning on relying on his base damages, but if you want to do something other than tank item rush you're kind of screwed. A lot of Garen's power budget is in that passive, and when you only get 2-3 resists from it without buying items, that's power that you need but can't use. Even back when it calculated from total resists instead of bonus it was OK because then it gave you something without having to spend thousands of gold, but build flexibility was an important feature of the old passive that got completely removed, forcing him into a less interesting, tankier build path. I don't want to be a brick wall, I want to be a lawnmower.

redniwediS1 votes

All fair points. I'll freely admit even back then I played as a brick wall. =)

AmbushIntheDark1 votes

its also important to note that Garen's ult does MAGIC damage. So theres really no reasonable way to build that will make it do more damage.

Wingling2 votes

Actually his ult being magic damage is a good thing. Garen's problems aren't so much with his damage but with his huge counterplay; usually your success has more to do with your enemy's misplays than your plays. Making ult physical would mean that you could do absolutely nothing against someone who stacked armor. Look at Shyvana. If it's done correctly, mixing magic and physical on a champion makes them more powerful, because you can't just buy randuin's and win.

Sire Hippington3 votes

that depends on the potential itemisation of that champ. On most tanky-ad champs, u rarly have the potential to get pen, so mixed damage helps u. Since S3-BC-changes, some chmps with multiple/spamable aoe-ad skills can easilly incloud BC in their builts, Garren beeing one of them Others also have %pen in their kit rather than magical damage, which togerther with BC+LW ultimatly leads to armor beeing a lackluster stat later in the game. Kinda went off-topic here, but my point is that Physical-damage on his ult would probably a good thing, as it would allow armorstacking vs an early-snowballing garren to be more effecktive while it also would buff his lategame as he usually gets BC and with that 25% armor shred.

Sire Hippington3 votes

well, i never have problems with garren beeing to squishy early, even if rushing BC. The active part of his W is really strong if timed well, while the %bonus helps his late quite abit. Giving him flat stats would make his early a bit to strong, unless u start at a rather low value scaling up well with ranks, which would hurt his midgame as he usually skillse E>Q>W, and current W grants nice later for just 1point on without breaking his early Reducing his lvl1 armor and changeing W to %total instead of %bonus might be a way to buff it without influencing the early to much, allowing him to become a bit more tanky without building armor/mr.

From my experience, most people expect to much from that W passive and build prettymuch fulltank and the wonder why they suck in the late. Getting atleast 2 offitems, sometimes 3 works way better for me even with his current W, as his W active grants the most tankiness and scales great with hp(warmongs), and his damage scales really well.

Wingling1 votes

I think that's fair, I mean I still build damage on him but it is very risky, and understand that I'm not talking about just a BC rush, I'm talking about something like brut -> IE with just a giant's belt. That may sound like a noobie build but that's what he could do pre-rework (I remember watching Dyrus's stream once and he said the way to play Garen was to build IE and GA). It was probably too much, but I don't believe that giving his W a flat value would bring his early game all the way back to the OP old days. Keep in mind that he had 25 of each resist by level 9 and now only has 2-3 of each without building items, so making it more like 10-12 without items wouldn't exactly put him back at old Garen levels. There's a reason no one else has boosted resists without a flat value (unless you count Malphite, who has %total anyway). Maybe reverting it to %total would be better, but it still didn't give all that much without items back then, and I only didn't complain about it because they gave the skill tenacity at the same time.

The old passive allowed him to be the only bruiser that could reliably rush a pure damage item as big as an IE, and while you can still get it after two other tank items, it's not the same. Unless I'm snowballing really hard I can't build it at a time when item slots are plentiful, and that's a big thing with difficult-to-build items.

Sire Hippington2 votes

Yea, i used similar builts, and i still use 3-offitems if i snowball(brut>phage>Giants>BC or IE>warmong>BC or IE>GA>TRinity) While old Garren was fun to play, i think he just was to oppresive, especially in the early laneing, while his late was rather lackluster. I think the current Garren is well better balanced, as his early is still strong but not totally opresive, while his late is actually quite strong for an off-tank, especially with the latest passive buffs.

However, i agree on everting W to %total, as it wouldn'T affeckt his ealry to much while allowing him to built a bit less focused on armor/mr

Bharhash1 votes

I did a comparison on Garen's ult with Yasuo's and this is the short of it.

Garen's ult at Rank 1 has a 160 second cooldown and does 175 damage + 28.57% of the target's missing health.

Yaso's Rank 1 ult has an 80 second cooldown, 200 base damage per target hit (So a maximum of 1,000 base damage) + 1.5 Bonus AD scaling, blinks him 1200 units away (Garen's ult has a range of 400 by comparison), and after all that, he's given a 15 second armor shred steroid.

Some folks like to say "Oh, but Yasuo is an assassin! He's supposed to do more damage." Fine. Let's look at Garen's closest comparison, Darius.

Darius' Rank 1 ult does 160 true damage, capable of being doubled on a target with five stacks of Hemorrhage (which is not hard on Darius at all), plus .75 / 1.5 Bonus AD scaling. True damage. And, on top of all that, it has a 20 second recast period if he kills the target with it. Oh, and it's got a 120 second cooldown at Rank 1.

There is no argument for Garen's Ult having the cooldown that it does that cannot immediately be dismissed by pointing to several other champions. Plain and simple, it either needs more power / utility to maintain its current long CD in comparison to others of comparable duratin (Karthus, Amumu, Soraka, etc) or it needs its cooldown sharply brought down.

Remlap12231 votes

Honestly, your buffs make sense. Riot's buffs flat out don't. They basically turned Garen into a Dr. Mundo with a minor in being a burst AD caster. Late game he not only can't be stopped, but he can burst down squishies in no time, and escape any situation now. Ignite and Immobilizes are the only thing keeping him from turning into a Renekton-tier top lane god. We don't need another champion that is like Master Yi: Pick a champ with immobilize or QQ.

Erijian2 votes

Back in Season 1, Garen actually had pure immunity to slows while using Judgment, later changed to incoming slows being reduced by 50% after complaints, and finally being moved to his Decisive Strike as it synergized well with the Speed Boost, but in turn he lost all slow immunity/reduction and instead gained a one-time slow removal. I agree that it loses a lot of its helpfulness at higher levels, as it's easy to bait his Decisive Strike and then follow up with another slow from another source to completely waste it. I think the move would cope better if it removed the current slow effect, then reduced all incoming slows by X% based on the current rank of Decisive Strike, such as 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%. (Though in my dreams the numbers would be 20%/40%/60%/80%/100% to allow him to charge through the enemy team to reach the carry, only being stopped by the hardest of CC.)

In regards to Courage, I just wish Riot would change it back to 20% of his Total Armor/Magic Resist instead of Bonus Armor/Magic Resist. Your idea sounds nice also. The main thing that Garen had before they changed it was, like stated, the ability to be tanky early without having to build armor items, instead getting a Giant's Belt and pure damage. It really emphasized the lane bully side of him, and when Riot changed it they mostly thought on "Sorry Garen, just ~17-13 less Armor/Magic Resist late game" when it really hit him hard Early.

Self-slows are stupid and should be removed completely from the game. From what you said at the beginning of the post, yeah, his Judgment damage itself is alright. It's very unreliable for trades until Rank 3 due to the really low damage output of it, sadly. I think the older Judgment numbers 50/90/130/170/210 (+1.4 bonus attack damage) were better suited for his kit, though. Like you said, you pick Garen for Early Game dominance, and the older Judgment values provided just that. They nerfed his Early game pretty hard when they changed the numbers, but they did make the move more consistent for Mid-Game. Late-game, the old values were capable of more damage output than the new ones. While judgment doesn't really need to be looked at, there are some QoLs that'd help the move out. Getting rid of the self-slow effect is one, letting it do 100% damage to Super Minions instead of 75% is another, and lastly changing how Critical Strikes work with it. I don't mean changing the bonus damage from Critical Strikes, but instead making each Judgment tick have the potential to critically strike, instead of each individual hit.

And finally, just revert the Ultimate Cooldown times. 160/120/80 hurt his early game really hard compared to the previous 120/110/100. A lot of people want it to be 120/100/80, which I'd prefer too, but 120/110/100 is a more realistic set to have. They also need to address the bug which causes Demacian Justice to fail to cast if Garen loses vision of the target.

Just my thoughts, and also a few things about what he used to be like. Riot hit him in the kness really hard with the changes they did in regards to his Early Game, which was the best part about Garen in order to try to make him more reliable late-game. With enough effort, I think Riot could get him to be a really great champion again, but it depends on if that's what they're actually shooting for now or not.

buneter4 votes

I did the math on Talon and if you have merc treads or zephyr you have 35% tenacity and you will be rid of the slow in .17 seconds if you have built in tenacity like Irelia and in a teamfight she would have an additonal 40% for a grand total of 75% and be rid of the slow im .07 thats not enough time to give Talon a free slow auto

ploki1221 votes

/r/theydidthemaths #ButItFailed

Tenacity is a multiplicative reduction, meaning that you have to multiply the reduction every time, so 1 * .65 * .6 = .39 or 61% tenactity. That's a 0.0975s (or 0.1s) slow. Also, if you were going for the edge case, you should've included the defensive mastery capstone adding 15% tenacity to the lot for roughly 0.08s duration (66.85%).

In a more standard case, however, you can assume up to 35% + 15%, or 44.75%, for a tank and 0% for a carry (yeah, let's take MR boots against Talon).

sp4413 votes

I'd say that what Tristana needs is a higher cooldown/shorter range on her W at early levels, and lower her Attack Range to 500 at level 1, and add an extra 50 bonus to her passive. Tristana currently has one of the strongest late games due to being nearly impossible to pin down due to two very strong disengages, and huge range. She should pay for that with a pitful early game.

Meep Man3 votes

I personally think the 2% Max Health per second WILL improve Garen's pick rate since the change is big enough to give him an identity late game, which he didn't have earlier. I also don't know what people mean by Garen falls of late game. Yes, he isn't all that good since he lacks mobility and large AoE damage, but his ultimate is highly underestimated. It deals 575 magic damage plus a lot more based on their missing health. He is like an ADC slayer. Now he can not only do that, but can also be on the fields at all times late game as long as he survives a fight, which happens majority of the time due to his W.

Cass needs help.

Talon needed the nerf, but he did need some compensation, I agree. He still is really powerful though.

I can't talk about Tristana since I haven't ever played her or with one.

SnowFall2 votes

Funny how everyone suddenly forgot the "LeeSin most op champion" hype that was boiling around in summer

AbiwonKenabi2 votes

I think you underestimate the safety that Tristana's ult gives. Buster shot is essentially a selfish Janna ult that can keep Trist safe from any early aggression the enemy jungler's ganks may give. Admittedly, Buster Shot is not essential in her lane phase trades, but it certainly helps, especially if a gank can blow it for no cost.

And nerfing ADC itemization, as you suggest, has problems of its own. For one, its not a nerf to Tristana, its a nerf to all ADCs who use the items in question. Kog'Maw is strong right now, no doubt about that, but he's, at the end of the day, in a good place balance-wise. Vayne is also in a rather good place, and Twitch and many other ADCs who have benefited from the ADC item changes. Its much less disruptive to nerf a single champion than to indirectly nerf champions by nerfing their items. If they nerf Trist's items, then we have to look at all ADCs and how they can make them fair.

They also mention in the patch notes that they are aware this isn't going to completely fix Tristana's dominance. I'm sure that means that they are already actively working on a solution.

Nebuul2 votes

Let's face it, a 99% slow that only lasts for 0.25 seconds is a joke. ANY CC that lasts for 0.25 seconds is a joke.

I don't think you understand the point of the slow. It isn't to slow, it's to give Talon a free slow-boosted attack:

Mercy: Talon's autoattacks deal 10% additional damage to any target that is slowed, stunned, immobilized or suppressed.

Camaro56903 votes

a quarter of a second, 1 autoattack if that, yea thats sooo awesome......

Nebuul1 votes

Look at it as an extra 10% AD ratio on the ult.

Rew7111 votes

I'm not sure that, that is best. It should be a 0.45 seconds so he can reach them incase of a flash. Remember he uses mana.

But Garen though. They do need to buff his Ultimate. Make it at first 125 damage then increase it to 170 and 215 to compensate for it not getting any bonus other than missing health. This attack would be an amazing finishing move if the bonus was larger but even against foes with lots of health, his Q would deal a small to at least as much or more than his ult would.

Garens kit though seems fine for early and late to me.

Nickolias1231 votes

Actually, no. His passive only give 10% damage to his AA's, not abilities

Nebuul1 votes

Right, so you get an immediate auto attack after using this ability. That auto attack will be boosted by 10%. Since auto attacks are 100% AD ratio, it is effectively a 10% ad ratio boost.

PerishSoftly1 votes

Actually wrong. You get a 1.1 AD ratio on his next attack only. What you said initially was that you get 10% extra damage on the ult which is wrong. You do not get bonus on your AD while attacking, you simply do bonus damage on the attack. Therefore you don't get say...15 bonus AD on attack so you scale your abilities; you keep your 150 total AD but your attack does 165 damage.

Nebuul1 votes

Look at it as an extra 10% AD ratio on the ult.

Note the "look at it as" portion. Meaning when all is said and done, you will do an extra 10% AD damage to your target because of the ability. I'm only pointing out that the extra .1 ad ratio is the reason for the slow.

The Yetii Rider7 votes

0.25 seconds is just long enough, but against any champion with even a hint of Tenacity the slow will go away before Talon lands his auto.

SouledOne1 votes

BUMP THIS!

MrBuffington1 votes

I've left my opinions regarding Tristana and Talon in numerous other threads over the weeks; I'm seeing similar ideas expressed in OP and in comments so I won't go into too much detail about them.

I just wanted to pop in to say that while I don't know how the Soraka changes affect her at large (I only played one game with her before the rework, and just played one game with her after rework), but I wanted to say that she's a heck of a lot of fun, imo. It's a little harder to get the root on E off than I would like, but most everything else in her kit feels nice; my only concern is that my ADC will go too ham because they think I'll just heal them (it drains your HP pretty quick if you don't have an opening to land Qs). Not quite sure how she'll handle herself in a solo lane, but I'll be trying it out; you'll definitely need more damage sources on your team since she only has one damage spell, but she seems to deal okay DPS for that one spell, and it heals her too, so my guess the strategy still is to outsustain your opponent instead of going for solo kills.

EDIT: Solo lane Soraka seems to do alright; she's not going to put out a ton of damage late game, but her heals are amazing. She counters Karthus pretty bad, just ult whenever he ults, AoE silence wrecks his Q DPS. Probably the same as old Soraka, but still works here. Takes a while to get the hang of landing Starcalls, but once you do it's pretty hard to poke you down.

MinByul1 votes

I've played with nearly all of the new champ changes and my friend got slapped with the others. We agree these were not the best choices. I DID play the new Soraka. Want a healer mage that can kill herself healing and not heal at all once her health is too low? Want a healer mage that no longer can pop you a quick mana boost? Or how about one that could scare off enemy champs with an ability rain like Starcall so you can get away? Then DON'T play Soraka because she's super squishy, her new starcall only hits single targets and is easily dodged and her once handy mana pop no longer does that and doesn't do didly to adc champs. In the end you are forced to run away from your team, build health regen and tanky and forget even bothering with any AP at all which knocks out her heals even in ULT form. It was the ULTIMATE FAIL.

Battlecast Sona1 votes

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I played Soraka pretty extensively on the PBE and have given her some tries in the game now as she is. Being able to hit even one person with Starcall and heal up to 150~ health per starcall... In teamfights you can stand in the back and spam starcall to keep health up while constantly healing every 3 seconds. You just can't stand behind people and ignore the fight until you give someone a burst heal and 80 armor. Also, removing grievous wounds with Wish is a HUGE deal, especially against characters that can easily apply it to multiple people (MF comes to mind) or teams with multiple ignites. Overall they were huge buffs for Soraka - I think the health cost on her heal might need to be a flat cost rather than scaling, but other than that it's a very good change.

NorthenWolf1 votes

He is right you know, the only reason why i picked talon is because i can defeat those assassins like zed, yas, akali, kat, but now that the silence is gone, i dont think you can beat zed with talon anymore. It was already hard enough as it is, with that guys ult too. I guess maybe increase the duration to .4 and increase q damage. maybe.

JustBoneBrook1 votes

Well i dont agreed now garen is to tanky late game with the passif! so strong and garen is support to stay and farm.

12tales1 votes

Tristana's ultimate was not the source of her lane power, nor is the cooldown really that important to her power (it's rare to have full all-in trades with everyone's ultimates blown more often then 100 seconds in lane). Increasing her ultimate's cooldown barely affects her power, and she'll still be played just as often because all it does is make it so she can engage an all-in on her terms slightly less often.

This is a playstyle thing as much as anything. I've encountered Tristanas that use their ultimate literally every time it's off cooldown just to force their lane opponents to back sooner. A 300 damage point and click nuke is pretty damn strong, and you can put a lot of pressure on your lane opponent if they eat that more than one before backing. I believe that Irelia and Talon can use similar strategies.

YGW Caspie1 votes

There is a lot of ways to balance champions and I do think Riot needs to explore some more alternative ways, but I don't think small nerfs/buffs are that bad. I think part of the reason Riot actually does these small buffs is to remind everyone that these champions still exist and may already be potentially awesome. Take a look at Talon for example, he went from a niche pick to a competitive pick with very little changes. So, why did Talon all of sudden become good with so few changes? The meta shifting to assassins certainly helped but it was also partly that he became flavor of the month and I attribute part of that to these small changes that remind everyone about X champion. Imagine if Yorick received a small buff... you would probably hear about how annoying as hell he is to lane against followed by Rito pls, even if the buff itself was fairly insignificant.

The removal of Talon's silence wasn't the problem and most people agree it needed to go. The problem was the lack of compensation but either way the removal of his silence at the very least created a discussion about better possible alternatives. That being said, I do think Riot should probably do a better job at showing that they are listening and also being more open to the community because not all our ideas we offer are bad. I know that it is very unlikely to balance something perfectly on the first try but I also know that some of these changes could have been a lot closer than they are.

Tristana got her ult cooldown nerfed and although you look at it as unsubstantial or the wrong direction I would disagree. Her ult used to be 60 seconds flat at all level, increasing the cooldown allows for a better window of opportunity to take advantage of and is a step in the right direction. The other change I personally would have liked to see this patch would've been a knockback range decrease on her ult.

Example: Knockback Distance: 600 / 800 / 1000 -> 600 / 700 / 800

A 1000 unit knockback is absolutely crazy and there is no reason she needs it when she already has a 900 range jump. That is my opinion though and that's the beauty of discussion since it allows everyone to brainstorm and come up with great ideas. Now if only Riot would show that they ARE in fact listening we would be more willing to have these discussions and feel like it's not just a waste of time.

As a side note, it's not a question of whether or not Riot listens and more a question of how they show that they are. By not replying or very briefly replying to these discussions they show externally that they aren't that interested in our ideas/discussions even if the opposite is true. In my opinion showing who upvoted you on these boards would be a step in the right direction, and it would feel very rewarding if/when you get upvoted by a Riot member. Just an idea though...

The5lacker1 votes

People keep thinking that LB and Kass lost their silences because it allowed them to 100-0. But they seem to forget that that is literally the entire, 100% stated goal of assassins. The problem with Kass and LB's silences was that they were targeted harassment abilities that completely blocked any attempt at counter-harassment. Talon didn't have that problem. His silence was a non-damaging dash that required follow up.

A smarter nerf would've been a reduction in Cutthroat's range. Force him into a higher risk situation rather than make him worthless.

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