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I love that you nerfed Ornn, I hate how you did it.

Anonagon·2/23/2018, 12:00:49 AM·72 votes·4,107 views

Ornn at launch was one of the most skill-intensive tank champions in the game. Every update since has chipped away at that, leaving him just as annoyingly braindead as his cohorts.

A lot of changes have been made to Ornn since release, many of which could have arguable positive or negative effects on his difficulty, but today I want to focus on just a few changes he's received that have made Ornn a significantly simpler champion.

7.17 Sept. 1st Hotfix

W Range and Width increased by 50
W self slow reduced

These changes made Ornn's positioning when casting his W much less important, and made landing the important final spurt much easier.

7.20

R2 cast time removed.

This was massive. I know it definitely "feels" better to use now, but it also means that Ornn no longer has to predict his enemies movements in order to land R2, and dodging it basically requires a dash or flash.

8.2

Ornn no longer is unstoppable during W

While the other changes dropped the skill floor, this one lowered the skill ceiling. No longer does Ornn have the ability to "dodge" CCs with his W. Him being unstoppable during his W was a cool, thematically relevant mechanic that good Ornn players could use in ways bad Ornn players wouldn't think about.

8.4

E damage increased, now can only do damage once.

While its nice that they are lowering the overall damage of the ability, this change just makes it so bad Ornns who only land the charge will be doing more damage. It took skill to land both the charge and the knockup, and now good Ornn players who could do that won't be rewarded for it.

All in all, while I'm glad that he's been getting changes, I'm annoyed at how they continue to lower both his skill floor and ceiling. When Ornn was revealed, I was excited to see what I thought was a new direction for tanks, with higher skill requirements, and more rewarding gameplay. But after all these changes I worry he won't feel any different from any other top lane tank. I don't feel like any of these more difficult mechanics have been problems for Ornn. I don't think they were the reason he was weak at launch, and I don't think they were the reason he was broken a few patches later. It just seems like these mechanics have been sacrificed for nothing.

47 Comments

Tychusfindlay9182/23/2018, 2:42:53 AM32 votes

He's not wrong people. I fucking hate tanks nowadays but he's not wrong.

Onotori2/23/2018, 7:56:05 AM12 votes

That's why people said Ornn was so weak at launch though, because he took a functioning brain to play well, where most League players lack one. Since this game is F2P, you can't have champs with high skill floors, since they're just not lucrative at all. So, they've been slowly buffing him and taking away any skill behind his kit to make him more broadly playable, while keeping him from becoming broken.

It's just another reason why I wish F2P never caught on.

ModAcademy Kayn2/23/2018, 3:48:44 AM6 votes

I hold the opinion that it makes no sense for a tank to have the ability to dodge CC. Someone like Sivir or Nocturne, makes more sense as they need to be consistently attacking to do their job. Tanks don't need to, as they work with their abilities.

Salron2/23/2018, 7:13:13 AM4 votes

*sees title* Yeah I agree

{quoted}

Ornn at launch was the most skill-intensive tank champion in the game.

no

DingDongDanger2/23/2018, 6:25:04 PM3 votes

Honestly this last patch is what tilted me the most about the Ornn changes. He's a tank, I DO feel like in exchange for receiving a shield on his W and just overall having high cc and survivability, he shouldn't be able to half health someone just by running into a wall with his E. Now mind you I am NOT complaining because I think he is OP. He is my all time favorite champion and is without a doubt one of the more difficult ones to play correctly, but I still felt like YES his damage was a bit high for a tank.

Now my biggest complaint though is on his W. They added 4 seconds which is quite a large increase on the cooldown of his W and decreased the time brittle lasts by half. Considering how easy it is to actually get an Ornn to miss his ult by using a simple cc, it is unfortunately also very easy to CC him through the 3 seconds that brittle now lasts for as well. To me these changes actually make him, not necessarily harder to play... but now a bit too risky. I feel like with him now it's like, if I engage and I use my W and E I NEED to make sure it counts because my W won't be off cooldown for a good while. It makes landing everything properly on him more important.

He's definitely not a champion I want to see made braindead because everytime I did something correctly on him it actually felt rewarding. I think the only thing I can't agree on about your post is his W being almost impossible to dodge. It's really not. When I face other Ornns, I simply walk out of the way. Once Ornn is locked into his W he can't change directions and I found that I can literally just dash or walk away from it.

I do see what you mean though... I won't give up on him though, I still have hopes he'll keep a decent skillcap and won't become Nasus level of braindead get 20k stacks and 1v5. In fact I'll be honest, I'm amazed they focused on Ornn this patch and not other champions that people have ACTUALLY been complaining about like Vladimir. I don't know though, I'm still fairly new to the game so I know there is a buttload I haven't seen and don't know (Account is old but never started playing until now because of friends lol).

I also see people complaining that Ornn falls off late game, I don't actually feel this with him in the slightest. I play him support so my goal isn't kills, it's properly setting up team fights for everyone else. When I've finished building as Ornn I go full CD/HP and armor/mr and how often I can use my CC's in a team fight is absurd. If I land my ult I can literally secure the teamfight as a win.

SettDownShutUp2/23/2018, 9:49:44 PM3 votes

They got rid of the unstoppable effect? aw that sucks. That was really cool =(

Raiyza2/23/2018, 3:05:24 PM3 votes

It's the same way I feel about Twitch. Oh look, you nerfed his late game damage.....

ON THE WRONG FUCKING ABILITY.

Troll for Trump2/23/2018, 8:49:09 AM2 votes

I'm annoyed at the idea of a tank being able to outtrade bruisers early on and outscale them in relevance lategame

GGLineaR2/23/2018, 8:29:11 PM2 votes

His damage and shield numbers were just too damn high.

What is it with Riot and always side stepping the problem?

Chembaron Yamada2/23/2018, 5:35:56 AM2 votes

Help me out here, how is being unstoppable during W "thematically relevant"?

leakinb2/23/2018, 2:52:28 AM2 votes

He is still doing too much dmg btw

The Ecdysiast2/28/2018, 5:14:23 AM1 votes

What about him requires more skill than other tanks? The one game it takes to learn the timing on his ult?

I'm just confused as to how you think he ever required much skill to begin with, and how these nerfs supposedly lower that requirement.

KoKoboto2/23/2018, 6:48:04 AM1 votes

I love you man

Iota Theta2/23/2018, 4:31:50 PM1 votes

He really became busted between the reliabilty buffs and the change to W’s damage. A full W plus brittle proc post change dealt almost as much %max health damage as a full Sej combo. The rune changes might not have helped much either, given the way he can work with Aftershock (unless you go for the long range R engage).

They’d be better off reverting him back to before 7.20 at least. Was a lot more balanced and was more able to be balanced then, unlike the supposed Ryze/Azir issue we now have.

P0IS0N IVY2/23/2018, 9:53:22 PM1 votes

I agree with everything except the R2 comment. I feel like before, it made his ult feel awkward to use. With the change, it takes away that awkward timing moment, but still forces you to predict where to bump the goat, as the travel time isn't terribly fast. If Riot wanted counterplay, a more reasonable change would be to remove the castime, but give the goat an equal amount of "turning time". This would remove the clunkiness of the casting R2 but still reward for good prediction.

As for the other changes, they never should have gone through. Riot should have solely altered Ornn's numbers instead.

rhuntern2/23/2018, 11:02:51 PM1 votes

I agree with everything here. Ornn is absolutely still fun to play, but so much was removed without actually changing his problem; his damage. They should have tackled the damage on his W first, before touching the unstoppable. From there, let it sit for a bit and see how it works. I feel like after a W nerf, in terms of damage, he would have been absolutely fine.

I hope they pull a Rengar and revert that change :/

Chromatic Eagle2/23/2018, 11:18:54 PM1 votes

How would you nerf him without making him easier to play?

oortoomeebreesuu2/24/2018, 2:11:16 AM1 votes

ornn has great ideas in his kit, and they are removing the great ideas and keeping the shit ones (no recalls to shop, spammable wave clear becoming the norm

like OP said, removing any version of skill expression that he MAY have had, even if it was too strong in it's previous state, that comes from a lot of things. Why doesn't the fact that he always has an item advantage come into consideration, due to the fact he never leaves lane? Would Ornn still be overpowered with his cc immunity, if they had only the CD nerf? Would he still then be too strong? It's a combination of things, and IMO this is hitting him where he needs it least. Should have BACKLOADED his charge damage, make it MORE rewarding to smash into terrain. That was literally the design of his champion, he has a very obvious "wombo" with the pillar->charge. that was the thing, they made him like that to do that intentionally. Why remove this functionality and keep his BRAIN DEAD PERCENT HEALTH DAMAGE SO HIGH.