Why do you think Talon was nerfed?

forist·Nov 8, 2014·1 votes·916 views

Since riot hasn't shown any initiative or even response to the questions about Talon's recent nerfs on these boards. I would like to ask the player-base what they think. Why do you think they nerfed a champ who's kit had been practically untouched for 2 years? What made riot decide that a one second silence that had been around for so long had no counter play all of the sudden? Lemme know what you think.

Note: when i say the phrase "player-base" I mean summoners that have both played talon and played against him, I'm tired of listening to people spout about how he had no counter-play or a free silence or had guaranteed kills. I want to hear from people who actually know what they are talking about, and not from people who qq because they got smashed in lane by a better player, but never bothered to learn the champ that they assume is op. If you don't play a champ please don't offer your input on said champion, and before anyone asks, yes I have played a lot of Talon, and do in fact consider him to be my main.

24 Comments

NoMonkuNov 8, 20143 votes

The way it sounds is that you don't want to listen to the "real" reason that it got removed. RIOT has been transitioning out silences from assassins recently, LB being the main one I remember. I felt it was broken though, a Q into chain + another chain = 4 +ish seconds of CC with a silence so you can't even flash or use an escape ability (if you had one) and she would just easy snowball her lane from 0 counterplay.

RIOT has really been pushing counterplay and silences have imo been one of the CC's that has been underrated for awhile. Old Soraka could Silence you for DAYS and will it doesn't hurt auto attackers TOO much, it is basically death for everyone else who isn't tanky. Actually Silences in general have been getting phased out as they are pretty strong. Talon losing his silence was because it was some "invisible" power that could be removed without actually taking too much away from his core gameplay and nerfing his #'s(by this I mean damage). In regards to Talons silence, I never felt it offered too much to stop him from being able to kill me if he was already going to be able to kill me or for me to turn on him after he jumped in and kill him, so I feel this is also a reason why it is gone. Oh, I am an ADC main so I'm speaking of it in most cases going against him as one, as it is my easiest way of thinking about it. He'd either jump me and kill me or I'd survive his intial burst and be able to kite him to death, despite being able to flash/dash away, so it hasn't changed too much except being able to secure those early kills possibly which would allow him to snowball.

My main issue with his E being changed is they haven't given it a new name yet, since he isn't cutting anyones throat anymore -_-.

foristNov 8, 20141 votes

The way it sounds is that you don't want to listen to the "real" reason that it got removed.

Sorry if I'm giving off that kind of vibe. The truth is that I don't understand taking it away from a champions who's kit/role is defined by his ability to silence high priority targets while assassinating squishys. On Leblanc the silence seemed like an extra gimmick, she was mainly defined by her burst and mobility. She could easily move in, stick to a target to get the kill, and then w or r right back to safety. Kassadin followed the same pattern essentially with less burst, but more mobility. But lets also not forget that their silence were like 4 secs long, which is much different then 1 second (4x the length). I think the real issue people tend to ignore with all this counterplay fuss is how long the cc lasts. I can understand someone complaining about a 4 second silence or taunt or supression, but 1 second can hardly be considered long enough to prevent counterplay.

Also, i appreciate your honesty in admitting you don't play talon much, but I can assure you that his silence was a core part of his kit and play style. Lets be real here, we have a champ with horrible mana efficiency, terrible base stats, only one gap closer, and one of the worst passives in the game. His silence was the only reason he was seeing competitive play, but not because he was sleeper op or anything, simply because he had some extremely good matchups against fotm champions like ziggs and zed. So, basically (im assuming) the rationale that these players had in choosing talon was that his silence was enough to validate all of his other shortcomings, placing him in a niche of only being picked as a counterpick/anti-mage champion. Now without the silence he has no favorable matchups which is really sad.

Judging from your example you seem to understand that the silence was just not that overwhelming, so why get rid of it? Now we have a champion who's kit is severely lacking: a recipe for trash-tier placement.

I'm with you on the name change tho, I don't think cut throat fits the skill description any more. How about "generic dash"? Or maybe "Suicide step" "Shadow trip" .... I'll work on some better names later. :D

MarthianNov 8, 20141 votes

1 second is usually long enough for a Talon to get off his kill combo. Just saying.

foristNov 8, 20141 votes

1 second is usually long enough for a Talon to get off his kill combo. Just saying.

If Talon is killing you in one second then either 2 things are happening:

1- you are low on hp and stayed in lane 2- Talon is extremely fed and deserves that kill for being fed (like 95 percent of the champs in this game)

MarthianNov 8, 20141 votes

And if he didn't kill you in that one second, you can't retaliate back since he's out of range by then.

Some Talon players can do his combo absurdly fast.

foristNov 8, 20141 votes

And if he didn't kill you in that one second, you can't retaliate back since he's out of range by then.

Some Talon players can do his combo absurdly fast.

4 words that everyone who plays akali will preach religiously: buy a pink ward..... but seriously that kind of logic only applies to melee champions, but for some reason talon seems to be most effective against ranged mages or adcs, at least according to the player base.

MarthianNov 9, 20141 votes

you can't ward if you're silenced. And considering the speed boost his ult gives him, you're unlikely to catch up to him even if you see him.

NoMonkuNov 8, 20141 votes

I do agree that it could have been left in, but I felt they took it out more so because they are phasing out a lot of CC's from Assassin champions. I do feel like the silence was a big part of his kit, but they took it out because I don't think they wanted champions like him to have it. I remember one LCS game that I think it resulted in a teams win because Talon was able to get his Silence off on a priority target, resulting in their death and giving them the win or maybe it was just a teamfight, but ya, without his silence he doesn't have the same power he has to go up against conventional picks as easily anymore.

foristNov 8, 20142 votes

Hmmm.... so basically that LCS team won because their talon used his ability correctly, making a good play to kill a high priority target? I really fail to see how this is any different from a player playing zed and getting close enough to press r on a carry, auto, w, e, q, botrk, then pressing r again effectively killing the carry and escaping back to safety, but whatever zed's play probably looked 10 times flashier so there's that.

Still working on some new names for talon's e... how about: "shadow toe stomp" or "short cripple" or "Your shoes untied!" or "Stand in front of Talon!"..... I think I'll keep working one those though. -.-

MarthianNov 8, 20141 votes

Because Zed doesn't prevent you from flashing away from him. That is basically THE reason why it was removed: You could free silence someone and they couldn't do a thing to stop your burst or run away.

foristNov 8, 20141 votes

Because Zed doesn't prevent you from flashing away from him. That is basically THE reason why it was removed: You could free silence someone and they couldn't do a thing to stop your burst or run away.

Please, stop calling it a free silence. Talon's cutthroat is not a free skill "RANGE: 700 COST: 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 MANA COOLDOWN: 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10"

If anything zed's skills are much more free, being only limited by cooldowns. So if you flash away from zed when he ults you, what is gonna stop him from using his 2nd gap closer to get in range then slowing you down with his shadow's e or botrk and whaling on you?

MarthianNov 9, 20141 votes

When I say free silence, I mean he clicks you with his E, he blinks next to you, silences you, then proceeds to unload his kill combo, killing you or you can't retaliate back because he ult'd away. 700 range is pretty large (it's bigger than almost every adc's attack range.)

It is the definition of lack of counterplay, and was absolutely no fun to play against.

FeatherztormNov 8, 20141 votes

All assassin's that have had a silence got them removed with riots next step forward in game play, talon was just at the bottom of the list.

foristNov 8, 20142 votes

All assassin's that have had a silence got them removed with riots next step forward in game play, talon was just at the bottom of the list.

Seem like if they had some kind of plan to remove a certain part of the meta they'd at least have ample compensation towards the champs affected. This is exactly the reason we have trash tier champs atm, influencing the meta should not involve nerfing certain champs, it should involve buffing/changing items.

ModKnightsKemplarNov 8, 20141 votes

The thing that brought it to their attention was it getting picked in pros. It was after Voyboy and others started playing it (that was the person I saw play it first, not necessarily the first) that Riot did something about it.

I think they didn't want to see him become the new Kass/LeBlanc when they had already worked hard to get rid of that. They wanted to be consistent with their ruling about no silences on assassins; honestly, the decision is more about what they did to LB and Kass than about Talon. I haven't played him since the changes, because I think he'll be weak without it. So, full discolsure, haven't played him since, but I think with a few small buffs somewhere to compensate he'll be okay again.

foristNov 8, 20141 votes

^^ You're on point bro, I can definitely see how this makes sense from riot's point of view, but I just don't think this whole consistency ploy is worth all the collateral damage Talon is getting. I guess they are just doing what they usually do, and ignoring most of the player feedback, which is nothing new. -.-

Sightless66Nov 9, 20141 votes

Why do you think they nerfed a champ who's kit had been practically untouched for 2 years

Other champions got nerfed enough that what used to be a substandard pick became strong. This is the result of game balance that is mainly nerf-focused. Things get weaker, so previously weak things become good.

What made riot decide that a one second silence that had been around for so long had no counter play all of the sudden?

They always thought it was low-counterplay. Talon was just never considered strong enough to justify nerfing. Not worth nerfing something to have counterplay if it's just generally weak. Then, he wasn't weak anymore. Then, he was strong. Then, competitive play. Then, nerfs.

I used to play Talon a bit back in season 3 (I got interested after trying him during League of Cleavers), but I don't play him that much anymore. The thing is, when Talon is fed, it pretty much just meant I could keep snowballing kills, and no one could really stop me. I could just jump on someone and instantly delete them and that person couldn't do anything about it. Hell, given the speed of the combo and the ease of hitting it, their allies couldn't really do anything to save them either. It's about as much of a guarantee of one person being dead as you can get. And yeah, some other assassins can do that, but rarely so guaranteed or with no skillshots or anything that can be dodged (I guess Rake technically can be, but realistically it's pretty guaranteed after you jump in).

He could probably do with a small buff to make up for it. Probably won't get it though. Probably will take a couple nerf rounds to other guys before he's good again. Might not be too necessary though. He still brings other things to the table. Hard to say.

foristNov 9, 20141 votes

I used to play Talon a bit back in season 3 (I got interested after trying him during League of Cleavers), but I don't play him that much anymore. The thing is, when Talon is fed, it pretty much just meant I could keep snowballing kills, and no one could really stop me. I could just jump on someone and instantly delete them and that person couldn't do anything about it. Hell, given the speed of the combo and the ease of hitting it, their allies couldn't really do anything to save them either. It's about as much of a guarantee of one person being dead as you can get. And yeah, some other assassins can do that, but rarely so guaranteed or with no skillshots or anything that can be dodged (I guess Rake technically can be, but realistically it's pretty guaranteed after you jump in).

There's a big difference between playing a champion in ranked vs playing them in normals. Especially regarding snowbally champs, because people are just way more inclined to give up or just not care due to a lack of elo being at stake.

But anyways, I'm not gonna sit here and argue the levels of counterplay involved with a 1 second long cc, because honestly its been beaten to death.... blah blah zhonyas... blah blah quicksilver sash.... blah blah cleanse.... tenacity... blah blah but I wanna build full damage, cuz im the apc mid laner.... qq..... ya know the rest.. If you really did play during the league of cleavers then you know that both that item and talon were nerfed specifically afterwards.

Also, you need to take into account that you were fed... which in almost every champion in this game (especially assassins) means you are guaranteed the kill 90%, but with talon just because he has a silence does not raise that percentage to 100% automatically. yes the nice aoe on his ult and w make them hard to dodge, but not entirely impossible, and if talon wants his full damage to secure kills he needs to be aa/q ing because of his retarted passive. Just saying unless you are super fed, there is no way that a e,r,w combo with talon should be securing kills. The idea behind that stupid passive was that when talon is auto attacking/ qing your team mates are able to help you by shielding or ccing him. The silence only works on 1 person for 1 second. It wasn't op period.

Sightless66Nov 9, 20141 votes

I've never found there to be a significant difference in ranked vs normal. Regardless, most of my experience comes from playing normals, so the comparison to other assassins is perfectly valid because it's all coming from the same area. If assassins are more likely to succeed in normals (which is debatable in the first place), then I should see the same effect for all of them. If one champion is an outlier within the boosted category, then it implies that there is a difference in the champion. I saw a difference in Talon.

I played Talon after the League of Cleavers ended. I said it was the cleavers that got me interested in him, not that I stopped playing him when it got nerfed. I wasn't just playing him when he was OP. I made this opinion based on play following

Also, Talon wasn't nerfed after the League of Cleavers. He wasn't touched since Season 1. The 4.17 change was the first nerf he had since then. The only other changes he had were bugfixes.

I do know I was fed. The point I'm making is that when I was fed, I had a significantly higher chance than any other champion in the game of just instakilling someone without them being able to react. It wasn't 100%, but it doesn't need to be 100% to be unreasonable. The ult and W are extremely hard to dodge, to the point where I'd characterize it as an unreasonable expectation that anyone will. Given the speed of the combo, including the double autoattack, I could usually blow people up in the time they were silenced, and there is significantly less warning time to give allies the opportunity to apply CC or shields.

There were forms of counterplay. There always are to everything. Nothing ever comes with 0 counterplay. It's a question of how much counterplay something has, and the counterplay was certainly less robust for Talon's stuff than it was for other champions. OP doesn't factor into it. OP is something that applies to an entire champion. Talon was probably OP. That was a low counterplay kit element. It got removed. Now his balance state is questionable.

We've both heard these arguments before. I doubt either of us will be convincing the other. The main point I wanted to make initially was that Talon's nerfs fit Riot's general MO for nerfing. The reasons why he was nerfed aren't very unclear I think. Riot is trying to phase out assassins that can assassinate while their target can't react outside of the most generalized counterplays (build tanky, pray for teammates to save you instantly, etc). He got strong because everyone else got nerfed, which gave them the opportunity to do what they wanted. It's pretty standard fare I think. There may be disagreement on the necessity of it, but the pattern is nothing new.

foristNov 10, 20141 votes

We've both heard these arguments before. I doubt either of us will be convincing the other. The main point I wanted to make initially was that Talon's nerfs fit Riot's general MO for nerfing. The reasons why he was nerfed aren't very unclear I think. Riot is trying to phase out assassins that can assassinate while their target can't react outside of the most generalized counterplays (build tanky, pray for teammates to save you instantly, etc). He got strong because everyone else got nerfed, which gave them the opportunity to do what they wanted. It's pretty standard fare I think. There may be disagreement on the necessity of it, but the pattern is nothing new.

You're right about not convincing me of course, I just can't see how a skill that can be countered by buying a single item or increasing a single stat is uncounterable. It may be riot's perception that they must remove all silences from assassin's, but that is no excuse to gut a champion, because of it.

For instance: lets say riot decides that reset mechanics are too op, and should be removed from all assassins (assassins because well know who gets nerfed in this game). So, they start off by removing akali's reset charges on her ult, thats fine, because i mean she still does incredible damage, and has 3 ult charges, which is more than enough. Then they take kha-zix's reset on his jump, but they justify it with the fact that he has invisibility and a slow for disengage. Next is tristana and her jump cd, but its also okay, because shes an adc and has probably the longest range in the game with a huge escape/gapcloser.

Finally, its katarina's turn, so they remove her passive, and decide she now gets a little move speed buff for 0.5 secs every time she auto attacks a champion as a new passive. Without her passive katarina would be trash, and so they give her a buff that is already in her kit (w) to compensate and just leave her as is. Now, try to imagine how mad katarina mains would be if this were to happen. Well, this is how anyone who mains talon feels atm. "They trashed my favorite champ, but its ok because some nubs were qqing about it for awhile. I'll just accept it, and move on" Yah, right....

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is look at it from the other person's perspective, not only was talon nerfed despite his abysmal pick rate, but his compensation was literally a re-hashing of one of his abilities. Why would this not piss anyone off?? And meanwhile we have so many other champs that are solo que stompers, but they are being ignored.

I don't know i just guess that the nerf was lazy, and unjustified, and it gets on my nerves when anyone comes on here saying that it was fine without looking at both sides of the issue. Anyways, that analogy was just my 2 cents on why what riot is doing to balance thematically doesn't make any sense.

Sightless66Nov 10, 20141 votes

I just can't see how a skill that can be countered by buying a single item or increasing a single stat is uncounterable.

You can say that of pretty much anything. Nothing is truly uncounterable. I don't think that the standard for judging if something is worth removing is if it absolutely 100% uncounterable. However, it is possible for something to have fewer or less robust counters then most other things. For example, if Talon is fed, he can wipe someone out completely unless they build to significantly counter him, and there is a point where the counters aren't realistic. Zhonya's is good for mid laners of course, but it doesn't guarantee anything, and other squishies often can't choose to itemize defensively early or in the midgame without losing a lot of functionality. IN particular, there isn't really an option for itemizing against the silence into massive burst (QSS is not a reasonable option early against someone with no magic damage just to stop a small silence). This is particularly true if Talon doesn't need to completely instagib you himself, and can count on even a slight bit of help from his teammates. This wouldn't be so bad if people could respond to Talon, but the silence pretty much just said that they couldn't. It was low-counterplay. Counterplay did exist, I know that, but it was less robust than every other assassin and for most other champions.

I wouldn't call the nerf unjustified either. His pick rate in higher elos was rising quickly because of his effectiveness and ease-of-use. He was also becoming quite prominent in competitive play. I mean, he was played in the world finals. That does imply that nerfs are not unjustified.

The reset thing you bring up isn't really relevant either. I understand the point you're trying to make with it, but the comparison is exaggerated so much that it falls flat. I don't accept it as a valid comparison.

I'm just not so convinced that the silence is so core to Talon's kit that he's gutted without it. His winrate only dropped 1.5% when it got removed, which is significantly less than it hurt Le'Blanc or Kassadin when they lost theirs. He's always seemed a lot more like the assassin based around AoE damage and near-guaranteed pickoff than he seemed like the silencing assassin. He still seems to be able to do his job satisfactorily, particularly if he waits for enemies to burn skills (like he already wanted to do to avoid allied CC. I'm even hearing from a friend who mains Talon that he's still doing ok. I can agree that the nerf was boring, but I don't think it was unjustified, and I don't agree that the idea of removing silences and hard cc on basic abilities from assassins is a bad idea.

I sympathize with having a champion nerfed. It sucks. I just can't agree that it was unjustified or an unreasonable direction to take the nerfs in. I do think he warranted a nerf, and it does seem like the best thing for an immediate nerf. A redesign would of course be preferable, but it often would be when a straight nerf is used instead.

foristNov 10, 20141 votes

I sympathize with having a champion nerfed. It sucks. I just can't agree that it was unjustified or an unreasonable direction to take the nerfs in. I do think he warranted a nerf, and it does seem like the best thing for an immediate nerf. A redesign would of course be preferable, but it often would be when a straight nerf is used instead.

I don't think sympathy was the object of this thread. First of all, I'll say again I'm not gonna debate counterplay mechanics. They are practically the same for every archetype of champion. Secondly, if you were watching worlds you would have noticed that, with the exception of one player mind you, talon was having an abysmal time. Pawn deserves an extreme amount of credit for playing him so well, despite his very limited abilities, but other than Pawn's games with him, talon had a very bad showing.

I don't exactly understand how my analogy was exaggerated, other than the thought of riot actually nerfing some of its most famous champions, i guess. But anyways, competitive usage should in no way be indicative of whether a champ is nerfed. Lee sin being the prime example, he is picked or banned almost every game of the world stage, and if riot even dares suggest a nerf (like they did recently) his fan-base is up in arms, and its immediately canceled. Also, we can just look at how zed was buffed right before worlds.... coincidence.... ok fair enough, but do you think he'll get nerfed after being such a high priority in many of the matches? Hell no!!! we need our LCS flashy plays!!!

Gonna wrap up this super long comment with the whole good job at reading my comment spiel, but really you focused on the minor issues i brought up without looking for the real point of the comment. Look at it from a talon player's perspective. You have an extremely high risk, somewhat high reward champion. Its not just like every talon player just randomly get fed and builds a shitton of blood thirsters or something. 90% of the time I play talon in a serious match I look to counter build my opponent, just the way they look to counter build me. People act like Talon's power and silence are so massive that they easily mask his weaknesses as a champion, but how can they when hes is legit one of the most transparent fking champs in the game. Oh i wonder what this talon will rush first?? Hmm.... maybe a brutalizer??? Oh look, talon's running towards me, he's gonna use his cutthroat on me, so maybe i should step slightly backwards and time my harass to push him back.... It's ridiculous how obvious Talon's play-style is, because his kit just isn't that good. He's 100% ad, has practically the same hp as vayne, and is extremely item dependent, without a single bit of built in armor penetration or true damage. Its like people want to sit in their lanes focus on farming and just completely ignore what their opponent is doing. That's not how this game works. When you play talon, even with the silence, 80% of his fking play-style is simply knowing the right time to go in hard. If you believe anything otherwise you are merely a casual player not one who is dedicated to this champ. It was so ridiculously obvious how to play well against this champ, that i just pisses me off to no end that anyone would even suggest that he needs nerfs, when there are so many better mid-laners or assassins in this game.

So yah I don't believe nerfs done to a champ simply because he's becoming popular are justifiable. That's like riot saying: "Hey people are starting to play this champ more, but we don't like him..... Let's nerf him, pass it off as a small nerf, and then we won't ever have to see him again in our game." yay Hooray for balance!!! >:D

Sightless66Nov 10, 20141 votes

Your analogy was exaggerated because you're trying to argue for the removal of things completely core to a champion's design. This is not true for Talon. I do not buy for a second that he is completely and utterly reliant on the silence in the way a champion like Kat is reliant on the resets. Bull. Shit. There's also no similar argument for it on a counterplay level. Besides, when they do nerf Kat, they do what's on the PBE right now and nerf the ult cooldown and damage. Moving on from that....

When you play talon, even with the silence, 80% of his fking play-style is simply knowing the right time to go in hard.

That was actually a point I tried to make earlier. This part hasn't changed with the removal of his silence. This is part of why I don't think Talon was so negatively affected by the nerf as some people say he was.

It was so ridiculously obvious how to play well against this champ, that i just pisses me off to no end that anyone would even suggest that he needs nerfs, when there are so many better mid-laners or assassins in this game.

And this is where I can't agree. These are two separate things. He may have been easy to play against, but playing him and using him right was also not difficult, and he was also highly successful even against players who knew how to play against him. I don't agree that there were many better mid-laners and assassins in the game. Numerically, he was strong because of how many other assassins and mid-laners got nerfed. This was not a nerf to a weak and unpopular champion. This was a nerf to a strong champion who was quickly raising in popularity. Just being simple does not mean that a champion can't have too much power.

And finally, I do think this was pretty much a "small nerf". He can still do his job perfectly fine; he just has to wait a bit more before going in, but since as you note that's already what he does, it really doesn't hurt that much. It was a nerf to a strong champion.

Finally: You should know that they did nerf Lee after the initial nerf suggestion, they just didn't rework him (although I do agree that Lee deserves more swift kicks to the teeth than he gets, he tends to be the exception instead of the rule regarding champion nerfs). They have also said that Zed is likely to get nerfs in the early preseason, and they're waiting primarily because the lower jungle pressure might allow more immobile mid laners who are good against him to be played more because they will fear ganks less. There is nothing special about Talon's nerfs. Talon is not being bullied. His nerfs are perfectly standard.

Edit: There is one more thing I thought of. There is a difference between positional and in-action counterplay. Most things have high positional counterplay, meaning that your positioning relative to theirs can prevent their action, but not all champions have high in-action counterplay, meaning that one champions get in range of each other, they can respond to each other's actions. Talon had normal positional counterplay (he certainly isn't so screwed by it as things like immobile bruisers, tanks, and he was in line with many other squishies), but he had virtually no in-action counterplay. That's just another way to explain the idea that Talon had pretty much the same general counterplay most other champions have, but without much specific counterplay. I know you probably still don't agree, and you don't have to write another explanation of that if you still disagree (I know it's nothing new, just a reexpression), but it might useful to help you understand the other point.

foristNov 11, 20141 votes

Ok, fair enough.... we'll leave it to the really good talon players to decide. I don't consider myself good, since i only main him and am low gold elo, but I have a feeling that I understand this champ way more than anyone who plays him casually, and that's why I can't understand your opinions on him. They just seem blatantly wrong to me. Which is fine, people can disagree... that's what forums are for, I was just kind of hoping for more than 2 other people's opinions on this thread. Both of them seeming highly inaccurate, and ignorant to me.