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It's been 880 days since Heimerdinger last received a direct balance change..

InSingedWeTrust·3/31/2017, 4:09:54 AM·18 votes·4,187 views

So lets discuss the state he's currently in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l8ionO3x40

Overall Winrate (According to Champion.gg) - 48.41% Top and 48.57% Mid. That puts him in 42nd place of 57 top lane champions and 33rd place of the 44 champion mid lane pool according to winrate. He's also in 3rd place for the worst champion in each respective lane in regards to overall ranking. He was initially pushed out of mid lane because of his poor performance and exiled to top. He's now at the bottom of the rankings for top as well. So what gives?

Why is nothing being done about this? He was literally played in that one LCS game and never seen again. Lots of Heimerdinger's core items have been changed/reworked in the past season(s) and he continues to suffer as a result.

item 3060 - AP removed/HP removed/MR aura (which buffed his turrets) removed, and health regen modifier removed. item 3512 - Overall nerfed as far as range goes/pushing power slightly stronger. item 3116 - AP and HP values nerfed, item made cheaper.

Aside from that, the metagame has drastically changed from when Heimerdinger was only slightly a troll pick, not even beginning on the defects of his kit.

AD itemization has improved, items like item 3155 are actually solid purchases and ensures favorable trades. Better itemization across the board for the majority of mages, excluding Heimerdinger. Buffs and higher visibility to champions that inherently counter Heimerdinger. Mobility creep combined with slowly increasing damage mitigation/healing, CoTC, shields, items like Redemption (which 1 shot Heimer turrets.) Junglers are stronger more early, stopping Heimer from ramping up early. Increased sustain by the way of Dark Seal/Corruption potion starts, Heimer's presence as a lane bully is weakened. Tower aggro changed in a stealth nerf. In S5, you only drew aggro from turret beam attacks, not the regular attacks, which made diving much less risky.

That, combined with Heimer's already problematic kit. Heimer's turrets are literally paper, the AP to HP scaling years ago was a band-aid fix. Now that majority of champions have some kind of AoE ability, it makes Heimer's turrets more susceptible to being accidentally cleared in the midst of a teamfight. In the midst of Riot's "end of all hidden power" campaign, they forget that Heimer doesn't really have a meaningful passive.

I've already typed more than I originally planned, but I just end with one question, for anyone on the balance team... Are you guys willing to take a look at the Donger (including some of his numerous unfixed bugs?)

EDIT 4/4 : We did it, bois!

**"Stretch goal for 7.8: Heimer

No details yet on possible changes and there probably won't be anything on PBE for a little bit at least, we're hoping we'll be able to put a bit of time into Heimer though.**

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/02tamZoa-quick-gameplay-thoughts-april-4?show=flat

71 Comments

chipndip13/31/2017, 4:10:45 PM7 votes

Heimer's kit is non-interactive, semi-autopilot, and fucking toxic. Yeah, Riot ain't touching it with a 10 foot pole.

I never understood online games with "beast tamer/mechanic" classes. Those classes are always so fucking cheesy with their auto-pilot shenanigans. You'd think this game, of ALL games, would know better. This is me saying this coming from DFO.

doubleguac3/31/2017, 4:37:25 PM5 votes

You can tell there's a problem with Heimer just from looking at what he builds.

He's supposed to be a mage, isn't he? I can't remember the last time I played against an AP heimer. In those rare occasions when I see him at all, he invariably builds tanky split push and just mindlessly shoves lane the entire game.

Thematically, it seems like he's supposed to be a champion who excels at fortification and defense. But the incredibly low range on his turrets makes him way worse at holding objectives than champs like Lux Ziggs Viktor, who can poke and wave clear from a mile back.

What he's actually good at is:

  1. discouraging bruisers from diving... but he doesn't burst fast enough to discourage assassins, and he doesn't do enough DPS to really discourage tanks until late game

  2. mindlessly shoving lanes

  3. scoring a double kill when he gets ganked between the levels of 6 and 11

  4. initiating fights with his giant AoE ult stun

I don't think this is a healthy or thematic list of core strengths for him.

InSingedWeTrust3/31/2017, 3:24:58 PM3 votes

Help the Dong!

Chønklord3/31/2017, 4:58:35 AM3 votes

I think if they just buff the towers a bit, maybe scaling hp/armor/mr whatever, he'd be in a better place.

l Dárius l3/31/2017, 4:26:19 AM2 votes

you play ad dinger now

Eedat3/31/2017, 5:50:51 AM2 votes

880 days? PSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

MonkeyKing 1094 days baby

FirewaterDM4/4/2017, 11:25:02 PM2 votes

Would love a response but as a low elo heimer player (most played season 6 and season 7 to this point if including my heimer only account)... the champ is the worst in the game- he feels worse than even aatrox at this point.

He wins 0 lanes in top or mid lane. Melees ruin/auto kill turrets after their first back if they get MR. Junglers if competent will auto win the lane as long as they don't donate double buffs + 2 kills at Level 4-11

Every mage ruins him Every tank outscales him/they ignore turrets after 1st back. ASSASSINS are the best bet for you to win lane, but even then being super-fed doesn't matter unless you are like 7-0 and sometimes it won't matter (you can't solo-carry as heimer even in silver/bronze) Even after nerfs- banner-zzrot are still the best build turrets are paper- like they are useless after the first few levels since they get 1 shot and/or stop doing damage unless fed passive doesn't really matter

Only benefits is that your objective control is pretty awesome...but Heimer needs help badly.

TornadoRush4/10/2017, 11:18:57 AM2 votes

As a former heimer main, I was excited to come back to him. In bronze, he is very strong, not many know what to do against him and unless you specifically counter-pick someone against him or 3-4-man gank him he is in a great spot. The problem for me starts showing at later stages of the game - his kit is favouring objective control and mind-less pushing, and at the times I did NOT do that i scored easy dragons solo or baron with just one or two teammates, because his kit is so much in favor of single-target dmg. A huge drawback to it is that if you are against an assasin you lose a lot of meaningfull stats by buying zhonias. its not a bad pick, definitly essential during late-game, but you lose way too much compared to other mages if you rush this item. Maybe in low ELO his kit is great, but plat+ he starts being really bad, because his turrets can be so easily shut down, and therefore you lose a huge portion of your damage. IMO his kit needs slight tweaking. Nothing huge, but one example of things they could do is make his turrets stationary with a hit-system, like zyra's plants mentioned somewhere here, and maybe give them some more interactivity with the other turrets. No idea what though. That about wraps up my opinion on the current state of the Dong-Lord. Long live Heimer.

Carrie Pigeon3/31/2017, 5:13:20 PM2 votes

Another thing to note is that Range itself can counter Heimer. A majority of range champions can counter Heim as they can simply auto attack from outside the turrets range the only exceptions to this are Level 1 Gnar (Who can use his instead and will outrange them as he levels), Urgot (Who can Q instead), Graves (Again Q to clear), Karthus (Q), Vladimir (Q And E and can also sustain the damage back up.), Morgana (W), and Thresh.

As far as melee matchups go Tanks have a major item against Heimer which is Banner of Command. There is nothing Heim can do to prevent this from shoving down all 3 of his turrets and forcing him to tower (Note: Zz'rot will not help Heimer in this case as Zz'rot minions do magic damage). The only possible thing he can do is build Banner himself but odds are is it will be taken down faster as you're probably facing an AD champion.

Other Melees fighters who can't viably build Banner have access to Maw of Malmortious, Edge of Night, Hexdrinker, etc items that still benefit them greatly while making sure they'll win the lane.

Aldarhk4/2/2017, 1:53:00 AM2 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyMrMcbctPc

Literally doing troll videos because can't climb to diamond with Heimer because you rely on your team to win, even if I go 3-0 and first blood turret and sets enemy top laner 50 cs behind, if my team isnt winning I cant carry them. Heimerdinger has only lane pressure, mid-late game he suffers unless superfed. If I get behind or ahead in top, it has little impact on the game overall. I still get the frequent solo dubblekill on top lane though, but most junglers in plat dont even try gank me anymore.

The Deckowner4/2/2017, 9:54:41 PM2 votes

On op.gg Donger doesn't even have enough games played to have stats...

Malfectious3/31/2017, 4:36:58 PM1 votes

I love Heimerdinger...He is very usable at the lower levels. The big problem is, if you actually make him any stronger he will be over the top.

Troll for Trump3/31/2017, 7:37:07 AM1 votes

Ok, Banner and Zzrot weren't even core on him; that was something new.

He needs to be a mage again.