Suggested Fiddlesticks Buffs

For having a fairly niche play style and therefore limited playerbase, Fiddlesticks play rate is on the lower side ever since the new Jungle came to be. He got some compensation buffs a while back, but Rylai's was also nerfed at the same time, somewhat canceling out the buffs. They helped him, but not nearly enough to bring him to a stable state. These are some suggestions I have to bring him to glory.

Base Stats

• Attack Range: 480 -> 525

Fiddlesticks has a very strange basic attack range that is also extremely low for a Mage or... any ranged champion for that matter. This could see some buffs to make the number like other basic attack ranges and to put him at the minimum Mage AA range out there. Calculated edge to edge, this puts Fiddlestick's AA range at about the same range as Drain.

Q- Terrify

• Now applies fear at the beginning of the cast time instead of at the end

• Range increased to 575 from 525

Terrify is a SLIGHTLY yet VERY awkward spell for Fiddlesticks to use for two reasons. The first reason is that the fear is applied at the end of the cast time, which makes what most would believe to be an instant fear to come after a 0.3~ second delay which can lead to some frustrating situations to where Fiddlesticks fears his target, but then they get off a spell or basic attack before it activates due to the cast time. The second reason it is awkward to use is that it's range is 50 units lower than Drain's cast range, meaning Fiddlesticks has to get 50 units closer to his target to perform the standard Terrify into Drain combo. Making the ability cast at the beginning of the cast time, similar to Veigar's E, and increasing the range to match Drain's range will make it much less awkward to use for our giggling scarecrow.

W- Drain

• Now costs 30 Mana and then drains 10/12/14/16/18 mana per second from Fiddlesticks over the duration from having a 80/90/100/110/120 mana cost at the start of the channel

• Cool Down reduced to 3 seconds at all ranks from 4/3.75/3.5/3.25/3 seconds
• Tether range increased to 900 against Feared targets (normal is 650)

Next, we move to Drain. This ability received an AMAZING QoL improvement in the Mage Update with the cool down change, but it was only a halfway change. A great change to this ability would be change the mana cost to drain over the duration, but still have an initial cost so Fiddlesticks is still punished slightly for channeling it at the wrong times. Also, I find it a little unneeded for Drain to have it's cool down reduced by 0.25 seconds per rank. Just having to be 3 seconds at all ranks would make it slightly more powerful while removing some needless scaling to it. Finally, we have a bigger buff to Drain in that the Tether range of Drain is increased by 250 units against Feared targets (through Terrify). This makes the normal Terrify to Drain combo not interrupt itself since the average enemy champion moves 340 units per second. Fear slows enemies by 50%, reducing this to 170~ movement speed per second. If we include the cast time of Terrify, this means Fiddlesticks will get 1.9~ seconds of Drain on a feared target, meaning they will move about 323 units over the duration of a maxed Terrify. The normal cast range of Drain is 575 and, if the Feared target leash range is 900, this means that the unit will move to 898 units away from Fiddlesticks by the end of the Drain, perfectly allowing Fiddlesticks to drain his target for the full duration of Terrify at least.

E- Dark Wind

• Cool Down is now reduced by 25% if the crow never bounces (9/8.625/8.25/7.875/7.5 seconds base)

This is to slightly buff Fiddlesticks clear time in the new Jungle while also buffing his dueling capabilities against invasions in particular.

R- Crowstorm

• Damage Tick Intervals decreased to deal damage every 0.1 seconds from every 0.5 seconds

Small QoL buff to make the Crowstorm damage more responsive against enemies who enter and leave the area of effect multiple times. I think it would also make the spell FEEL incredibly better to see the enemy's health drained from them in such small yet so frequent intervals.

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This all looks like a lot of buffs, but many are VERY small buffs and QoL changes that don't impact Fiddlestick's main sources of power. It likely needs trimming, so tell me what you think!

EDIT: Since this thread is getting more attention I would like to say that the main buffs here I would like to happen are:

1. The Q Buffs
2. The First Two W Buffs All the rest to me are not necessary, but would make Fiddlesticks much smoother to play overall.