The REAL reason Ivern's win rate is so low...

MrNuclearPumpkin·Oct 13, 2016·23 votes·2,613 views

It's because people keep building stupid builds like this.

Seriously people, On-hit Ivern DOESN'T WORK. It's not even a niche weird gimmicky thing that kinda works, like AD leblanc and full AP tryndamere.

It's bad. Your kit does not revolve around you playing on-hit. You're squishy. Too squishy. I have seen a bunch of on-hit Iverns trying to 1v1 and then just getting beat due to lack of damage/health.

Please people, for the sake of your teammates, don't build that... it doesn't work...

PS. Yes I'm annoyed and rather unhappy. Please don't state the obvious :P

26 Comments

EcchiOtakuTMOct 13, 201613 votes

Like I said a few other times around the place, ivern's W bonus is pisspoor awful.

Ivern does have a few issues:

His early rank CDS(rank 1-4) are too dam high, but I understand why, since they're testing a lot of things on ivern.

E, when daisy's up her hitbox may make you miscast it on her instead of an ally, a simple solution however is removing daisy from E targets and automatically give her a shield when ivern uses E(like annie's shield)

Lastly Daisy's AI is buggy that's fixable through bug fixes.(Also would be great if they decreased daisy's 3rd attack cast range by 150 units she does it too far away constantly)

But ivern's W, I love placing bushes but a personal AA-enhancement just doesn't work unless you can give it to allies like janna/nami/lulu or do multiple things with it such as sona/thresh(thresh's allows reason to focus on playmaking) he isn't a dps champ nor AAs enough to actually get value from it. Thus making W useless early game (I love bushes but it's more valuable to just ignore W until lvl 13 or when you feel baron/dragon sneaks are important). Also I don't agree with taking bushes early just cause there's a cait/reng/nid or other champs who can interact with bushes for more bonuses. They usually can get through the early game just fine without your bush and would only need it later on making W feel even more like an "ignore till lvl 13" skill.

What they could do is just give ivern innate increased range when in a bush/exiting a bush(If they only give the range increase when interacting with a bush ivern can keep his base MR+MR per level) but there needs to be a different bonus for ivern's W esp for his special bushes when allies are in them to actually be a valuable skill aside from bush placement.

People builds are one thing but ivern's misplaced W bonus is wrongfully encouraging it too when again he isn't a DPS champ, he can't do multiple things with it, he can't grant an ally it, nor is he innatey tanky nor AAs enough to get value out of it.

Sorry for the long post, I just feel like ivern's W bonus is more of a "filler" cause riot didn't want to give ivern normal power when they're already testing what if you could give your allies a dash, make bushes, or have a summon that repeatedly applied CC.

DolasaurOct 14, 20161 votes

Also I don't agree with taking bushes early just cause there's a cait/reng/nid or other champs who can interact with bushes for more bonuses. They usually can get through the early game just fine without your bush and would only need it later on making W feel even more like an "ignore till lvl 13" skill.

It's not just special interactions. Enemy ADC is going to get that last hit off for kill as your ADC runs to turret? Bush drops his/her target. Blue side and enemy duo is pushing up and prepping for a tower dive? Put some obvious bushes leading from the Krugs bush, and they have to worry about your jungler counterganking from somewhere they have no hope of warding. (Bluffing or actually prepping for countergank, either works.) Enemy stuns your ADC and he/she needs time to recover before flashing to safety, possibly away from a Nocturne or J4 or other targeted dash you see coming in from your minimap? Bush helps. Want to fight dragon and don't want the enemy to know how many teammates are there doing it? Drop a bunch of bushes in the pit.

Don't look at it like a way to do 20 extra damage on temporarily ranged autoattacks. Look at it as a brand new tool that you need to develop your playbook for. If you come up with innovative ideas, you could be the reason Ivern jumps up to 43% win rate without getting any more buffs. (Because of how his kit requires teamwork, creativity, and nontrivial enemy manipulation, I wouldn't expect it to be balanced for pro play if his overall win rate was close to 50%, personally.)

AwoofOct 14, 20162 votes

{quoted}

It's not just special interactions. Caitlyn starts ulting your ADC? Bush drops her target.

Considering walking into a brush once Cait locked onto you does nothing, that probably doesn't work fyi.

DolasaurOct 14, 20161 votes

Ugh. That change was in 5.11... shows how often I've been playing against Caitlyn recently >.>; My bad. Based on the wiki description right now, it sounds like the only time you can drop her target is during the delay between hitting the button and when the channel starts, which is probably standard cast delay (and so Ivern's bushes would take just as long to appear even if you had 0 ping and 0 reaction time)... Editing to remove that one.

EcchiOtakuTMOct 15, 20161 votes

Even with those ways, it still doesn't provide enough of a concrete feeling to be useful early. Bushes are great and all but just not much impact early compared to an actual bonus it should have, and the bonus dmg to AA is pitiful for a personal buff to a champ who isn't dps nor tanky enough to get off hits to make it worth. I'm not saying bushes are completely useless but it's too niche to be something to say "Wow this is godlike early game" when the users of it aren't really strong enough to abuse it.

It needs a different passive effect cause the current is useless and bushes aren't really impactful as maxing your other skills early.

crippler38Oct 14, 20161 votes

for the shield thing there's a hotkey to only target champions. by default it's like ` or something but you can change it in the options.

EcchiOtakuTMOct 15, 20161 votes

Oh I forgot about that thingy never got around to putting it on a more reliable key...

Still feel choosing daisy or a teammate to shield shouldn't exist when ivern don't heal+shield or shield multiple teammates tho.

Desolas ArteriusOct 13, 20164 votes

Same thing happened with Bard haha. People built On-Hit or full AP on him. Didn't do too well.

Then they realized he's meant to be more of a utility support with some good active items and a little defense sprinkled in. Now he's doing pretty damn well.

Just give Ivern a month of people figuring him out. He is a pretty unique champion not to mention. So people need to stop playing him like a "mage" or "jungler" and play him more like a roaming support.

Lucky MonikerOct 13, 20163 votes

Speak for yourself, AP on hit works wonderful in top lane vs a lot of meta picks, and full so does work in the right situation, not gonna say it's great but it works pretty damn good

RalanrOct 13, 20163 votes

I've heard AD Bard rules top lane.

Lucky MonikerOct 13, 20162 votes

It's okay, at least from my experience, I prefer AP bard for the burst but that's just me, I've wrecked a few AD bards with various other champs but idk if it woulda been any better if they were AP

Desolas ArteriusOct 13, 20161 votes

Oh I'm not saying AP bard or On-hit bard is extremely terrible. I'm just saying it's not his most effective build path when as a support :P Most bards I see have some sort of defensive item (Aegis or BoC) instead of going full AP burst. Which is what people tried doing when he first came out. Hence why Bard has a pretty abysmal winrate when he was first released. (Plus you're talking about Top Bard whereas I'm talking about Support Bard ahaha. Obviously gonna be different :P)

Not really a bad thing though. This is a normal pattern we see with every champion release that's "different" from the usual playstyles. Usually after a month people figure out how they work, a few numbers get tweaked, and then they hit a more average winrate suited for their difficulty and playrate.

WoonStruckOct 14, 20161 votes

No, it really doesn't.

inplaneOct 13, 20163 votes

I don't get why people build Offensive stats on him. He's a Support Jungler with bucket loads of unique utility, and people prioritize damage? Why not just go tanky and be a complete menace around objectives with all that Brushmaker bs and reverse Thresh Lantern Q.

AlbuquerqueOct 13, 20163 votes

It's not necessarily because of damage. It's because his shield and ult are his most useful abilities and they both scale very highly off AP. If you go for a full tank build then you're wasting Ivern's abilities completely and then you're just a walking target. His shield would block nothing and Daisy would die to a light breeze (well, she already dies way too easily, but without enough AP she'd die even faster than now).

He's different than Bard, because Bard has pretty low AP scaling and it's only on 2 of his abilities, and he gets infinite free scaling from his chimes, so naturally building support and tank items is a smarter choice. But Ivern is similar to Janna I've found. They both need to build at least some AP to be relevant and to make their kits useful.

Mighty MorteinOct 14, 20161 votes

AP Tank is a perfect mix of damage and AP. ROA, Locket, Protobelt, Runic/Cinderhulk for your enchantment, etc. I believe Ivern is best as a mix of the two, not full AP or full tank, because you lose either your tankiness or your utility and damage. Other than that, I love his kit. It is so unique, and playing him just makes your team happier since post 5 your midlaner can always have your second blue and your top or bot (depending on your side) can have your second red. If I cannot gank them, I give them that buff to (hopefully) give them a slight advantage and I ward their river.

ThePartyLeaderOct 13, 20162 votes

I'm playing the only purely support jungler not reliant on damage to clear the jungle. I'll build damage...

CerealBoxOfDoomOct 14, 20162 votes

Ivern how am I supposed to clear without muh nashors?

Blue Moon WolfOct 13, 20161 votes

I have found two really great versions of Ivern . Tanky AP and Full AP. Go with one of those and you'll have a good time... you know, after you learn his mechanics of course :p

dunkeroniOct 13, 20161 votes

Tank Ivern all the way!

SwaggyMcGhee420Oct 14, 20161 votes

Riot should buff his w passive. It's pretty garbage.

StellafreyjaOct 14, 20161 votes

I feel like he's gonna be like release Bard, absolute shit until he receives gratuitous buffs and QoL changes.

MrNuclearPumpkinOct 14, 20161 votes

Holy crap when I made this post I expected like 50 downvotes. :o

runedaraOct 14, 20161 votes

One thing I don't like is that he's melee. I get for impowered attacks but his kit doesn't seem like a melee support to me.

Papa SlothyOct 14, 20161 votes

I don't think it's that, he feels like hes only good at ganking lanes that have a solid lead

FilthyZyraMainOct 14, 20161 votes

Maybe Ivern is a good time to question meta in general. If your jungler is Ivern, he should act like a support. In this way, the bot. support should shift the role to that of a jungler. Bot. support should choose a damage dealer like Zyra, Brand instead of having an AP jungle like Nidalee. Similarly, Bot. support can choose a tank such as Thresh, Braum, Alistar to act as a tank like Gragas. The problem Ivern has is that the team has to play around him to be successful and view him a roaming support rather than a jungler.