Diving fighter rework: Mocking shout is a false choice and violates several Zileas' Anti-Patterns.

Critkeeper··6 votes·1,218 views
Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns - League of Legends Community

When you look at diving fighters, please consider replacing Tryndamere's mocking shout.

In order to deny the slow you have to turn around, but doing that would bring you closer to the Trynd slowing you.

The AD reduction skews matchups that should be harder for Trynd and is a ton of hidden power.

The ability itself just functions as cheap glue that holds together the rest of his kit. Tryndamere's success or failure being tied to a single ability like that effectively makes him extraordinarily one dimensional.

So the point of mocking shout is just to make the rest of Tryndamere actually functional. But if you think about it for a moment, there are a ton of ways to do that-- some better than others from a gameplay point of view and most better than mocking shout as is.

I know alot of Tryndamere players probably don't think there is anything wrong with mocking shout, but there is. It basically limits the strength RIOT can put into the rest of Tryndamere's kit because mocking shout offers no real option to the enemy when Tryndamere is strong. If it were replaced with something that had meaningful counterplay, the rest of Tryndamere's kit could be made stronger without pushing him over the top because opponents would have ways to play around him even when he is strong.

Imagine if Yasuo's windwall were replaced with mocking shout and the rest of his kit was given absurd numbers to make it work, how one dimensional and boring he would be-- in the matchups he wins he would just slow you and chop you down. Windwall is what makes Yasuo interesting because of how it interacts with his high mobility. I'm not suggesting we give Tryndamere a windwall, or that windwall is any less frustrating to play against than mocking shout-- in fact I think they are about equal in that regard. I'm saying that even if they are equal in frustration, windwall atleast makes it so that yasuo isn't so god damn boring.

Depending on the ability that replaces mocking shout, that means Tryndamere's "success story" doesn't have to involve using mocking shout and killing someone who has reduced ad and is slowed or die trying 100% of the time-- he might be able to contribute in a different way or engage differently, so he could have greater depth and be more interesting to play as and against because he wouldn't be so one-dimensional anymore.

I'm assuming the same people responsible for the mid year mage update will be responsible for the diving fighter update, so tagging to get some traction:

@Riot Stashu @RiotRepetoir @20thCenturyFaux @RiotScruffy @Statikk @Riot Axes @Guinsoo

8 Comments

Goosetard2 votes

Interesting take on a champion a lot of people find frustrating and un-fun. Mocking shout is probably the last thing people point fingers at. +1

Abyssphere2 votes

This is a great thread, I never thought about the false choice that Mocking Shout presents you with before. I'm not certain that Riot considers Tryndamere a diving fighter as I feel like they consider bruisers and melee ADCs to be separate beasts, but this would definitely be a great ability to get rid of if Trynd did get changes.

Quepha2 votes

Tryndamere is a light fighter, not a diver.

Ralanr2 votes

What's the difference? I'm curious.

Quepha2 votes

{quoted}

What's the difference? I'm curious.

They build mainly damage instead of a mix of damage and durability, usually because they have some kind of defensive steroid that makes tank stats obsolete. For Tryndamere that would be his R button, Fiora has Riposte, Master Yi has repeatable untargetability with alpha strike in addition to meditate.

Ralanr2 votes

Ahh. Ok that makes sense.

That's also probably why it's so frustrating for them to build items like titanic and deadmans on top of 2 damage items. Combined with their defensive steroids it becomes a nightmare.

Funnily enough, it's probably a really bad idea to build anything else besides damage on Tryndamyre since he's meant to make the most out of his ult.

Kyunsei1 votes

He might be turned into a diver next class update.

BadmoonBC2 votes

The one champion I see so many complain about but I never had an issue with is trynd He's really not that good... At all..

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