Why pick LeBlanc?

YMe·Oct 7, 2014·3 votes·814 views

When you could have Ahri, Fizz, Zed, or Akali? (Who are all far better assassins) Riot removed LeBlancs silence because they say it was impossible to trade with her but what about when Ahri lands a charm? There will be no trading going on there. When Fizz dances around on his troll poll? Nope, no trades going on there either. Zed can use his shadows to make trades extremely difficult to impossible, and trading with Akali can be rather silly as well. AD assassins have more sustain with itemization=less backing after losing trades. Energy assassins have endless resources with the lack of mana.

I really want to pick up and master LB but what makes her worth it over the other assassins?

17 Comments

I Main SwainOct 7, 20143 votes

you pick leblanc because her damage is almost 100% unavoidable. between her point click q, her r, and her quick moving high damage massive aoe w her damage is almost impossible to protect yourself against outside of buildpath and counterpicks. also, her mobility is incredible, she isn't very mana hungry, she has good damage at all points but lvl 1, she has her e for some nice cc, low cooldowns. sure she's squishy, but you have to actually catch her first. people pick her over ahri, fizz, zed, and akali, because her damage is much more instant and she can get in and out at the same time; kinda like zed and veigar had a baby. as for what you said about backing after losing trades, you have to lose trades for that to happen, which leblanc very seldom does against all but tanks and silencing champs (or high high high sustain champs). about what you said about lack of mana, energy is actually a more limited supply than you think because most energy champs spend their full bar with their full combo, and it takes a while to get it back up, so you cant do much after its down. also, leblanc doesn't have much of a mana problem aside from the very start of the game.

going back, about what you said about it being impossible to trade with leblanc vs ahri, note that you said what IF ahri lands her charm? she has to land it, and its really not too difficult to dodge. leblanc can q w you and you cant do crap about it unless shes retarded and manages to get juked out of her massive aoe w. personally, I don't play her literally entirely because I think shes a douchey champ and I don't like playing douchey champs. however, I have been told that she takes a surprising amount of skill, but I would guess that shes one of those champs that just takes a little while to get used to. just my 299999 cents ;)

HeiðrúnOct 7, 20141 votes

Just seconding the whole unavoidable part. Just this afternoon she one shot me with a Rab's and DFG (she didn't use the active). 1356 damage in .94 seconds. She wasn't fed either. Even though she lost her silence, she still does a crap-ton of damage.

I Main SwainOct 7, 20141 votes

to be honest, I feel like it would be a pretty good move to make it so that her w has more counterplay. right now its so fast and has such a wide radius shes basically going to hit you when she wants you on all but the absolute rarest of occasions :/

bad manner kidOct 7, 20142 votes

FireDancer2000 had some great points.

You pick/master LeBlanc because her damage is unavoidable and her passive saves you a lot more than you would think.

The ability to double chain (slow/root) while still having a omnidirectional escape makes her a super safe champion in lane.

In addition, with W maxed, it's quite easy to make people burn their movement spells and return point to escape the opposite direction.

She's a champion that is very deceptive based off your own creativity. Her burst damage when she gets a bit ahead is totally insane and melts anyone you roam on.

I guess if the entire enemy team builds 2 MR items late game you will struggle to assassinate, but her W/R aoe combo is quite painful and offers an over the wall engage and escape.

The Storm DragonOct 7, 20141 votes

Because she has a fun, unique playstyle.

ZeroAnarchyOct 7, 20141 votes

She's also alot more safer than Talon after his nerf.

DunderflumpOct 7, 20141 votes

She's fun, but really bad. Literally no reason to pick her, ever.

TeemoHunter1337Oct 7, 20141 votes

shes good early. her W is still unique. but the one problem i had is when iwas a fed leblanc. and late game whenever i try to assassinate someone i lose 90 pct hp doing so in the process or even a death.

shes really unsafe and a bad pick for mid to late game.

MrBuffingtonOct 7, 20141 votes

Ahri's charm is a linear skillshot, where LB's silence could be easily procced with a QW or QE or QR+any spell for extra long silence; it was basically targetted so you couldn't play against it by just standing behind minions or something, also her W could be used to reach you from very far away (WQE for a very long range silence that is hard to play around).
I personally think Fizz is broken and should be nerfed, regardless he only has his ult as CC, which is a long CD single target skillshot slow/knockup; it's possible to dodge if you play it correctly
Zed doesn't have any CC that makes it impossible to trade against him; his shadows make him tricky to hit, just like LB and her W.
Akali also needs a nerf (and is actually getting one next patch), but she is pretty weak pre-6 and has no true escape, at least not to the extent that Zed or LeBlanc do. She also has no CC

Overall, right now LB is in a pretty weak state, and Riot realizes this (which is why she's gotten smaller buffs last patch and probably a few more over the next few patches). She's probably going to get a minor rework in the future, since her Q now doesn't really add anything meaningful to her kit without the silence. LeBlanc still has all the damage she used to, she's just highly at risk when going in on an opponent; she still has one of the highest (and fastest) 100-0 potential of any assassin (especially early; pre-6 kills with her are common if you know what you're doing), has decent CC with her chains, and is incredibly mobile even at lvl 1. A great LeBlanc can still destroy games with her, though I personally would wait until Riot buffs her to start practicing her more.

Solidair3Oct 7, 20141 votes

Because I am pretty darn good with her and with the new W buff I am pretty much impossible to catch so long as I'm not playing like a fool.

Also, her burst is still insane, so there's that.

YMeOct 7, 20141 votes

Some ideas I had was reworking her passive. Maybe adding to it a good HP and Mana regen after a kill or assist. I'd like to see her as a top tier assassin again personally.

Earl EulrichOct 7, 20141 votes

Because she´s still one of the very best assassins out there, she combines great burst with good CC and insane mobility, allowing her to force a lot of picks if played well. And unlike the popular opinion she actually scales insanely well into the Lategame, a total 3,7AP-ration on her whole combo is unmatched by any other mage.

YMeOct 7, 20141 votes

Can you guys give me some examples of great match ups, even match ups, and bad match ups for her? So I know what to stay away from and what to pick her into. I hear a lot of different things like she's easy to counter pick but no specific counter picks were given. Any tips would be appreciated as well.

I Main SwainOct 7, 20141 votes

well, I bought galio literally for the soul purpose of counterpicking leblanc. kassadin is good, talon, kayle is great, morgana can be pretty good, malzahar is good after lvl 6, before depending on how good the 2 of them are, riven can be pretty good vs her if you know what youre doing. no clue as I haven't seen it but I feel like azir could be pretty good against her. id say she goes even with veigar just because she can insta him as much as he can insta her, tf goes even with her imo. no clue who else she may go even with. shes strong vs swain (sadly, swain main here T_T), and honestly pretty much every other mid laner not mentioned, along with every adc and squishy anyone without good cc or surviving ability.

btw, love the summoner name ;)

YMeOct 8, 20141 votes

When you say these champions are good do you mean good against her or bad against her?

btw and thank you.

I Main SwainOct 8, 20141 votes

the first listed are good against her, the second listed are even, and the last lose to her. honestly, for whatever reason im having a hard time remembering the names of anybody she's good against.