Some Thoughts On Teemo - Turning a Meme Back Into a Champion
I think Teemo is deserving of a rework.
Not because he's a bad champion - he is currently sitting at an overall 52% winrate with a lot of dedicated Teemo mains who have a lot of fun playing him. He might not be doing well competitively and he's not really taken seriously in higher elos excpet for those few die hard only Teemo challenger players, but for the majority of us who are not high elo players or asian demigods it seems to be working.
It's also not because he is a boring champion, the last two games I had with him were really enjoyable. His kit is very simple but nothing can beat the satisfaction of making an ADC with 2/3s of his HP die from a shroom because he dared to move out of his base, while being at literally the other end of the map splitpushing top. Or the feeling when you carefully placed your traps and you suddenly show up right next to your surprised enemy because you are a filithy camper.
It is because he could be so much more. His kit is really simple and lacking some of the more interesting and complex interactions that newer kits have. His character is amazing, but other yordles are looking much more intimidating or awesome because they received a rework that he didn't just because his winrate is relatively stable and because he's not actually broken.
This not only applies to his gameplay but also to his lore and design. He used to be the mascot of this game. The stark contrast of his happy attitude and his twisted character combined with his annoying laning phase even spawned several memes that got him into that position in the first place. But there are champions who took that place and beat him at that - notably Yasuo, Fizz, Ekko, ... I mean, just take a look at the front page of the boards.
I want the little rat to be played again. I want to feel the sadistic satisfaction of being an annoying asshole while looking them in the eyes with my sickening, cute, fluffy smile again. I want to see people complaining about his supposed brokenness on the front page of the boards, just to show how much of a pleb Fizz and Riven really actually are compared to the impersonation of satan himself.
First I want to talk about his kit and what his gameplay fantasy is.
What is Teemo supposed to do in a game? He is THE scout champion. He secures the position of your team, keeps vision on the map and keeps track of the enemy. If you are walking into a territirry that Teemo has secured, you should think about where you are going - and if Teemo is not actually sitting around the next corner awaiting you.
But except for his passive - that is rarely used - and his ultimate, all of his abilities don't really scream "scout" at me. They are all abilities that could easily fit in any other champion's kit and don't seem like they were meant to specifically synergize with everything else. These are the basics. I will now talk about each abilities and their problems in detail:
Passive - Camouflage: When you stand for 1.5 seconds or just be in a bush for half of that amount you will become stealthed until you attack, or move if you are in a bush. When you come out of that stealth you gain 20-80% attack speed ( based on level ) for 3 seconds.
There is one big issue with this passive - it does not really help you as much with killing people because continously autohitting people for 3 seconds will be too dangerous. You usually only Q people followed by only a few autohits and play more of a hit-and run playstyle. You are not really a marksman or a DPS champion, more of a burst champion that finishes people caught by shrooms or your allies.
Just compare him to the champion that does what his current passive wants Teemo to do - Kayle. She has a slow, a heal, a speedup, 100 more range and an invulnerability spell as ultimate to keep her safe while autoing in a fight and apply her ap on-hit.
While the idea behind the whole camouflage camping thing is really nice, it should grant him something that he can make more use of when he reveals himself.
Q - Blinding Dart: The ability is, while being very simple, doing its main job just fine and there really is not that much of a problem with it - it is a single target nuke to burst someone down, kept from being OP like some similar spells in the past by the dangerous position Teemo has to put himself with its low range, just like described above.
The other thing it does is blinding people and that is what I don't like about it. It effectively shuts down 90-100% of an autohitting champions damage for 2.5 seconds while on the other hand not helping at all with most casters. I think that if Teemo would get popular or really good, this is something his balance would be tied to and would make him either under - or overpowered. Kassadin had a similar mechanic in his kit when his Q still had a 2.5 second silence and he could not be balanced because of that, to the point of being pick or ban until he finally got reworked.
W - Move Quick: It makes you fast, double as fast when you activate it. That's literally it.
That is what makes it kind of boring really. Other mobility spells have things tied to it, for example the double-hit interaction that Lucian's E has or the damage and knockup of Seju's Q or literally anything any other mobility spell has.
Another thing that kind of bugs me with it is that his active lasts 3 full second but makes him not as fast as some other mobility spells. With the bursty kind of play style he wants to attack someone as long as he can and then he wants to be out of there instantly, and not have to run for 3 seconds which is a relatively long time in League standards.
E - Toxic Shot: The ability I really have the least to say about, because it is actually an ideal ability.
I just want to note again that it is not used as a DPS tool as often as it is for being proced about 1 to 3 times combined with a Q to burst a target and then let the DoT tick it down, especially the higher the elo gets and the less people give you the opportunity to continously auto people at Teemo' short range.
R - Noxious Trap: The bread and butter of his kit. I don't have to explain to you what it does, you definitely ran into one of those in your lifetime.
Still: Some problems with it. First problem is the low throwing range at early levels. Teemo is the Swift Scout and his Ultimate should be his Scouting tool - instead, especially at early levels, he puts him in too much of a danger to be able to place them sometimes and you might have to check with wards first. This is ironic because you are using wards to do the job that the spell is kind of supposed to do instead.
Another thing is that it can be countered by the fact that tanks exist. Teams don't have to worry about shrooms if they are coordinated and smart and just let the big boy walk ahead and walk into traps that will do peanut damage to him, even with Liandry's and especially when the tank has some kind of heal in his own or one of his ally's kit or a Warmog's to heal up again. This is one of the reasons why he is so non-existent in competitive play.
Now here's my idea for reworked version of the abilities:
Passive - Camouflage: If Teemo remains stationary for 1.5 seconds or stays in a bush for half of that amount, he will become stealthed. When Teemo gets crowd controlled, uses an ability or basic attacks a target ( or starts to move while stealthed in a bush ) the stealth effect gets broken and Teemo gains the Element of Surprise. Element of Surprise: For the next 1 second Teemo will gain 100% bonus movement speed and his next basic attack within 7 second deals 40-180 ( based on level ) ( + 40% AP ) bonus magic damage.
Q - Blinding Dart: Range: 580 Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 mana Cooldown: 8 seconds ACTIVE: Teemo shoots a projectile at a targeted enemy, dealing 80/125/170/215/260 ( +80% AP ) magic damage and applying nearsight ( the same debuff thing that Grave's smoke screen and Quinn's Q apply ) for 0.75/1.0/1.25/1.5/.175 seconds.
W - Move Quick: Cost: 40 mana Cooldown 20/17.5/15/12.5/10 Seconds PASSIVE: Grants Teemo 25% movement speed. When entering combat, this effect will be on cooldown for 5 seconds. ACTIVE: Teemo dashes 300 units in a targeted direction and gains the Element of Surprise.
E - Toxic Shot: PASSIVE: Teemo's basic attacks deal 10/20/30/40/50 bonus damage and poison their targets, causing them to take 3/6/9/12/15 ( +5% AP ) every 0.5 seconds for the next 4 seconds.
R - Noxious Trap: Range: 900 Cost: 75 mana + 1 mushroom trap Static Cooldown: 0.25 seconds Mushroom Trap Recharge Time: 30/25 PASSIVE: Teemo stores a mushroom trap periodically, up to a maximum of 3 store at once. ACTIVE: Teemo tosses a mushroom trap on the ground which stealths and arms itself after 1 second, lasting up to 5 minutes. If an enemy steps on the mushroom trap, it detonates, slowing nearby units by 30/40/50% for the next 4 seconds, poisining them, causing them to take 2.0/2.25/2.5% ( + 1% for every 100 AP ) every 0.5 seconds for the next 4 seconds and granting true sight of them for 10 seconds. When a mushroom trap detonates, Teemo gains the Element of Surprise Mushroom traps have 6 health, can only be damaged by champion basic attacks and take 2 damage from ranged and 3 from meele basic attacks.
With the changes of above, all problems Teemo has right now will be tackled.
With the reworked element of surprise buff, his passive will fit much more with Teemo's playstyle than the current attack speed buff.
The nearsight mechanic on the Q will be much easier to balance than an actual blind.
His W being a short jump and granting him the passive buff will give him much more mobilitiy - but in a much shorter window of time. It'd also be much less generic.
His E stays largely the same except for ticking everey 0.5 instead of every 1 second.
Lastly, his Ultimate needs a little more text to cover because it of course is the most important spell. The range is set at 900 at every level so that it can be better used as a scouting tool. Instead of giving sight of a small radius around it just like a ward, it instead will reveal enemies hit by it like a caitlyn trap. Lastly, to deal with the problems of tanks the damage would be changed from a flat value to %maxHP damage to deal with the problems of tanks, to make them feel a bit more worried about walking into shroom ( note: I kind of don't feel really good with the new values because I rarely dealt with %maxHP values before ). And lastly, Teemo will gain the Element of Surprise buff to reward Teemo for reactionary plays with his shrooms and intelligent planting.
I would love to type so much more but I really need to sleep now. I'm excited to hear opinions and criticism on the rework idea, especially from those people who consider themselves Teemo mains.