Can we make Trundle more fair to play, and to play against?
I'll preface this by saying that, after having played a good amount of all three positions where he's viable, I'm biased towards top lane, if that can help to understand my statements. Obligatory TL;DR at the end
#His kit doesn't offer a lot of chance at skill expression
I get that there are champions who require less skill to play, but look at Warwick or even Garen; even though they are ridiculously easy to play, you can tell the difference between a good vs bad Garen/WW by how they use their abilities. Trundle doesn't have any of this, which results in him being either meta or bad (and who honestly wants Trundle meta?) His skill ceiling has to be one of the lowest in the game, and isn't very far from his skill floor. I'll put it this way : What are you more scared of, first time Trundle or first time Riven? What are you more scared of, 100th time Trundle or 100th time Riven? Or this way : someone is good at Trundle because he's good at the game, but not vice versa.
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His passive is uninteractive. What's sad is that it has so much potential to help his tank-buster theme and be actually impactful, but instead it reads : play the game, heal more than other champions.
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His Q is simple, but I don't have any complaint since it's his core ability and it should be simple and easy to use by itself (think Pantheon Q, Ziggs Q, Gangplank Q).
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His W is problematic in a way that there's very little thought process while using it. If you're fighting/escaping, use it in the direction you're heading, that's it. It's not necessarily a bad thing, his w is "fine", but I feel like it could give more things that just combat stats (things like unit collision immunity).
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His E is fine, it's not that hard to use but you can tell the difference between a good vs bad Trundle by how they use it.
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Like W, there's again almost 0 thought process as for using his R. Here's a little guide for what goes through a Trundle player's head as for using R. It's straightforward, even more for an ultimate. It's strong enough to be an ultimate but it should require some thinking prior to using it or at least some way of being "go big or go home", as in be rewarding if you fulfill some conditions (think Illaoi's ult for example. By itself, it deals something like 200 damage AoE, but she's rewarded for using W multiple times). I've done it often, but using ult to tank some extra damage and escape feels wrong. It's like if Riven ulted to get a bigger shield to tank more damage and escape. It feels so wrong.
#His kit has some flaws that deserve attention
- His E is too powerful by itself and is what restricts Trundle from being a solid champion
Susskind and KiNG Nidhogg are the best 2 Trundles in NA. Susskind plays him exclusively Support, and KiNG Nidhogg mostly Jungle (E max only) or top as offrole, with a standard bruiser build.
Trundle support should be nerfed to unviability. Keeping a champion viable in more than 2 roles is the proof that he's either completely broken or he's underperforming in at least one role. In Trundle's case, the statistics speak for themselves. Trundle was never intended to be a support and his utility is ruining top lane. Here's another explanation I gave in a dialog a while ago :
So you seem to not want Trundle to be viable in three lanes, so he is not balancing nightmare as you suggested. Which 1/3rd of the Trundle players you wanting to remove them from being able to play there main champ in there main role?
Definitely support, I said it and I'll say it again Trundle was never intended to be played support. He's a fighter with fighter tools, his E is what makes him viable support. I'd nerf it and spread the loss of power into other parts of his kit tbh. Trundle top and jungle are much closer in playstyle to each other than to Trundle support, it'd be much easier to balance Trundle around top and jungle than say, top lane and support.
If his E is too strong, then Top lane Trundle is viable but Support Trundle is a top tier support. It's also played because he doesn't need to do anything special to make use of his passive (see my first point in section 1), which is why I'd find it appropriate to give him a passive that forces him to auto attack to get the most out of it. Either that or nerfing his E, one of the best non ultimate abilities in the game, and spreading the loss of power in other parts of his kit, as I already mentioned in the quote.
- His kit is too simple to be balanced without feeling unfair to play against
I'll start by asking : who wants Trundle to be meta? Last time he was (5.24), he was nerfed shortly after (6.1). Take this coming from a Trundle main. His current iteration should NEVER be meta. If he's too strong, you can't shove him out of lane because of his passive. You can't win a trade because he steals AD (and gains 2 to 4 long swords by pressing Q). You can't escape because of W + E. You can't fight him because he steals your tankiness.
Let's exclude pick rate for this example. If old WW has 50% winrate and Bard has 50% winrate, is it the same 50% winrate? No, obviously. Old WW's abilities were easier to use while Bard's are much more complex. Old WW had less counterplay so a good amount of the 50% wins felt unfair for the enemies, while a good amount of the 50% losses felt unfair to the WW player due to having less potential in his kit.
Back to Trundle. Trundle doesn't have 2 abilities and 3 passives like old Warwick, but his kit is simple enough (see section 1) to be classed in the same category of unfairness as old Warwick, only to a much lesser extent. But still, I'd love to see some mechanics added to a simple champion.
Here's what I've been working on in the last months if anyone is interested.
TL;DR Trundle's kit is too binary to be meta. While facing him, you don't have a lot of options to counterplay him. I'm suggesting to add small changes that would make him less frustrating to fight, thus making him an healthier champion.
