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Tahmus Kenchington: Suggestions in Tweaking

Sorin Alucard··2 votes·397 views

Hey Everyone! I know Tahm has a low pick rate and okay win rate right now so i seriously hope my ideas are considered by Riot or upvoted by you

I don't know how the rest of the players who use him feel, but I really don't think Tahm's tweaks have quite hit that sweet spot yet. I know, all of you who hate Tahm are like "here we go" lol

Lemme alleviate you all a bit by saying I don't think the tongue needs to be re-widened, or he needs a bunch of dmg piled onto his kit again. I think the shield rework is fine as an idea and it definitely took away from him feeling a bit immortal at times.

I'll preface by saying what made Tahm awesome to play at launch was that he could jg and top very well. His Ult is excellent for roam, and its pretty nifty to have in a jungler's kit.

My biggest beef now is with intention of kit utility vs current game state. Mainly his ult was given a rework only to be immediately overshadowed by a much better, Ryze ult rework.

His damage although making sense as stackable leaves you unrewarded for poke (the grasp trade isn't that great compared to other champs), his atk speed is terrible for applying stacks, he still has no gap closer, and his base auto dmg makes csing difficult. The build pathing feels limited, and since his dmg falls more the later the game continues he's not nearly as enticing or viable as other picks

He isn't like Malphite who balances these stats out by having more spam, a clear power spike, nuke engage and gap closing. More importantly, TahmKench isn't as tanky as other "tanks" in the game considering nerfs to E + Timing

Most Kench builds are sacrificing some kind of tank stat anyway in order to make him solo capable

atk speed, movement speed, and atk dmg are the most frequent ones

I suggest Kench get buffs to movement speed (for jungling) Base Auto-atk Physical Dmg (for early Jungle clear but not much). Base Auto-atk speed (10% --- based off many different rune builds I tested. Its enough to help but not enough to feel broken)

I'm no expert on balancing of course, nor am I the keenest mind on how scaling changes would make or break Tahm, but my last suggestion would be increasing his scaling into late game slightly

My argument for this:

  1. No matter the strength, he'll still be single target dmg with an ult that only affects 1 ally and offers no other stats.
  2. He has no group CC
  3. His ult can be interrupted easily
  4. He has no escape

Q's? Comments? Thanks Guys

More educated opinions always welcome as well

2 Comments

nhpboy2 votes

I like it, but also I would propose that they fix his W mechanics, especially where tahm doesn't eat the target his cursor is set on, but if an ally is in front of him instead it eats them. I don't know if this was intentional from Riot but it is sure as hell an inconvenience in team fights, and honestly no "skill" can really get you around it. A point and click ability should simply do as it should, target the thing it is clicked at, not the ally in front of it.

THE CHANGES SUGGESTED ABOVE I LIKE THOUGH.

I WOULD ALSO like the slight movement speed after swallowing allies in any direction to be re-added. Yes, I know people thought it was op, but I think that if Riot made it like a small movement speed buff when swallowing allies and running in any direction, and then a bigger buff when running towards enemies, that might be balanced, of course it might take some play testing, but right now the W can't really be used as a getaway for both parties, and usually leads to tahm or both parties dying when an attempt to save a teammate is made. Of course, this encourages tahm kench players to save themselves over their teammates, which isn't what a support is supposed to do.

As far as I am concerned, tahm shouldn't be a sacrificial tank and NEEDS more buffs to find his sweet spot.

Sorin Alucard1 votes

{quoted}

I like it, but also I would propose that they fix his W mechanics, especially where tahm doesn't eat the target his cursor is set on, but if an ally is in front of him instead it eats them. I don't know if this was intentional from Riot but it is sure as hell an inconvenience in team fights, and honestly no "skill" can really get you around it. A point and click ability should simply do as it should, target the thing it is clicked at, not the ally in front of it.

THE CHANGES SUGGESTED ABOVE I LIKE THOUGH.

I WOULD ALSO like the slight movement speed after swallowing allies in any direction to be re-added. Yes, I know people thought it was op, but I think that if Riot made it like a small movement speed buff when swallowing allies and running in any direction, and then a bigger buff when running towards enemies, that might be balanced, of course it might take some play testing, but right now the W can't really be used as a getaway for both parties, and usually leads to tahm or both parties dying when an attempt to save a teammate is made. Of course, this encourages tahm kench players to save themselves over their teammates, which isn't what a support is supposed to do.

As far as I am concerned, tahm shouldn't be a sacrificial tank and NEEDS more buffs to find his sweet spot.

This is great insight. He has a really low pick rate. It feels like you need specific builds for him to win against top lane opponents. Even if you do win your lane top or jg, he doesn't have nearly the survivability or damage that he should have to capitalize on that lead because:

If he wins a 1v1, most of the time it costs him a lot of health and mana. (In solo, its better to B instead of pushing in a lot of cases with Kench)

The W prioritization deserves its own post, which I'll make myself after this

Kench really really needs buffs to feel like a champ worth all of the salt he receives.

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