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With preseason coming up, Riot should take a look at stealth as a whole

Wingling·8/14/2014, 12:34:13 AM·9 votes·805 views

My problem? Stealth detection:

I'm tired of Riot treating stealth detection and ward clearing as the same thing. This has been the case since beta. Not only does it completely throw off item balance (what is the gold value of "activate to completely negate a single Akali shroud"?) but it perfectly fits Riot's definition of a hard counter. There is nothing you can do about a pink ward or oracle in the middle of a teamfight, so stealth effectively doesn't exist during teamfights past a certain ELO, and stealth champions are all warped because of it. This is why Rengar is so frustrating; he's been balanced around the fact that he needs to be able to walk over a pink ward and not care. Akali can't use shroud in a fight, so she has to be able to dash all over the fight instead. And it's not a huge stretch to imagine a Kha'zix succeeding in a game without ever pressing R (yes it's a powerful skill, not saying it isn't, but it's more of a bonus that he can't always count on). Other champions are also affected to varying degrees, but I think these are the best examples.

What I think should be done:

preseason patch X

  • Oracle's lens and pink wards now only detect wards and traps (and Evelynn?)
  • Hard CC breaks stealth (or some other soft counter)
  • Every stealth champion nerfed to compensate

I want to see posts all over GD by bronze people that you ruined Akali with the nerfs, and then watch a sweet clip of a challenger player outplaying an entire team with shroud plays. I want to see Kha'zix really need his stealth at all points in the game. I want to see a Rengar that can't reliably one-shot a carry but that has to either keep fighting for that extra bit of damage or save ult to gtfo (you know, like they said Rengar was gonna be when he was released).

tl;dr stealth detection and ward clearing are not the same thing and this has caused way too many problems

10 Comments

67chrome8/14/2014, 3:43:04 AM5 votes

tl;dr stealth detection and ward clearing are not the same thing and this has caused way too many problems

You make a pretty good case for that being a problem.

However, stealth also causes champions an extended time where they're untargetable by all point-click mechanics, causing skillshots to be the only thing capable of damaging them. Even when you know exactly where they are.

Which, I feel, is the bigger issue with Stealth. You're pretty much giving a wide range of champions what's effectively Fizz's "untargetability" mid playful/trickster, but for 6, 8, 10, 12 seconds at a time. And without offering info on exactly where it's user moved to during that time.

If it were only a matter of invisibility, well, you still have the issue of ganks with 0 warning being a thing with stealth.

I don't think ward clearing is the only problem with stealth - it's how the mechanic is implemented as a whole. There's very little interaction it provides, hardly any nuances, hardly any synergy with much of anything. it just prevents a champion from interacting with pretty much everything for a set time, so it forces awkward and brutal countermeasures like stealth detection to have much of a place. It's not like the stealth in Metal Gear Solid where literally everything interacts with it (and you can still get shot).

skippersd8/14/2014, 12:30:43 PM4 votes

OP's idea that hard CC breaks stealth would mean that if i KNOW where the enemy champ is, i can CC him, and bam, he's visible. The problem is 1v1. If you have a champ with point and click CC (say Irelia) and you go against an Akali, you can't stop her invisibility in an 1v1 situation. That means, now instead of stealth being useless in teamfights, it becomes instawin in a 1v1 if the enemy lacks AoE or skillshot hard CC (and that's pretty much true for 90% of the non support champions.)

I agree that Stealth needs a rebalance, since as of now, it's either silly (say twitch) or pretty much useless (akali).

I believe the following as a general rule would work out: -No stealth that allows free movement can be longer than 2 seconds. This means that Vayne. Kha, wukong can remain the same, so can Akali and Teemo. -Stealth has 2 levels, Stealth as of now, with any invisible champ, and "Shrouded" like Eve's stealth. That Stealth can be seen by champions and wards, but only if you are within a certain range. Twitch's Q, Eve's passive, and Rengar's ult would fall into this category. Teemo's shrooms would also work with this mechanics (only the detection range is not Eve level, but something like a flash range). -OP's suggestion, Hard CC breaks stealth. (I mean Stun, Supression, and knockup)

mk DILLY8/14/2014, 4:52:31 PM4 votes

Honestly, stealth is my least favorite mechanic in league of legends as a whole. It is horribly unfun for everyone other than the person stealthed. Who doesn't groan inside when they see the enemy team pick an Eve or Rengar. Akali is the only champ it kind of works on because even though you can't see her, you know she's there. I really wish they had never of implemented something that clearly doesn't belong in this type of game.

My suggestion is other than Akali, to make it more like stealth in a first person shooter. You can still see someone predator style, but you might totally miss them if you aren't paying attention. Meanwhile, they don't show up in normal warded bushes and their icons don't show up on the mini map when stealthed. They could even buff the different stealth champions to compensate.

Earl Eulrich8/14/2014, 10:54:18 AM2 votes

While I agree that the stealth-mechanic really needs some change...I´m not certain if it´s the right thing to make it a guranteed thing, as it might be somewhat balanced in straight 5v5 fights, but will lead to very abusable roaming/brawling patterns most likely (and twitchs roaming already is highly abuseable due to the way too long duration on his stealth). Having hard-cc disabling stealth however would make sense...someone being pinned to a wall suddenly turning invisible just doesn´t feel right.

I personally though would want a more itemization-focused solution...e.g. the old lightbringer had been a great item to work against stealth-champions (on-hit-vision), but it had some pay-off in terms of dps-efficiency.

Angry Monster8/14/2014, 12:41:47 AM1 votes

its not going to heppen

Flying Buntcake8/14/2014, 12:42:29 AM1 votes

Yay for people thinking about stealth and its current flaws

Black Klansmen8/14/2014, 5:56:53 PM1 votes

if you ever play a stealth champion you realize how easily it can go bad. i don't necessarily think that stealth is fine how it is. but for the most part its the champions themselves that need reworks not stealth in general. u know if rengar is there so u can group up. he thrives in 1v1 so don't allow that to happen. akali invis is used just for re-initiation which there is nothing wrong with except for akali being too strong just lets you skate past wards the reveal distance does need a increase but its not like you have no warning and in turn as stealth as escapes just use hard cc all you need to beat stealth is be aware and ready for it