What exactly is Jax's weakness?

AlterMordred·10/11/2019, 8:06:58 PM·51 votes·16,388 views

It used to be his E cooldown is so abysmally high so you just play around it. Now theres this itemitem 3161, so my strategy was abuse him early game before he has spear since he is forced to max Q or have 0 mobility.

So what do you do?

You buff his Q cooldown from 10 to 8 seconds and now all Jax players max E first then Q. So now his E has a really low cooldown early mid game as well. He is a lane bully at this point. Fuck do I do seriously?

Outscale him? XDDDD Oh or do I kite his...... point and click gap closer OH MY JG COULD GANk his q is also an escape... I COULD ONE V ONE OUtplay his auto dodging aoe stun e that reduces aoe spell damage and increases in damage if minions aggro him..... I COULD JUST BUrst him his R gives him enough armor and magic resist to make him a tank.......

Oh oh heres my favourite one. COUTERBUILD HIM LMFAO, dude literally deals physical magical and true damage xDDD

So, in summary we have a bruiser/fighter champion with no cooldown on a gap closing damage dealing spell, an auto reset procing trinity and an AOE STUN THAT IGNORES BASIC ATTACKS, this champion also has armor and MR with his ult that make tanks look squishy (which they are), to top it all off his R also lets him burst you cause Rdmg + sheen + W damage

Btw all of this and I still havent mentioned his stackable passive that gives him 88% attack speed fully stacked

111 Comments

Magnesium1410/11/2019, 8:13:38 PM35 votes

jaxWeakness.exe not found

DuskDaUmbreon10/11/2019, 8:23:04 PM27 votes

You can't even rely on Jax's player being an absolute ape.

General Esdeath 10/12/2019, 3:47:28 AM10 votes

He doesn't have a real weapon

Soul Dealer10/11/2019, 9:17:01 PM9 votes

We’ll spear and stopwatch are being removed and conq is being turned into something closer to old fervor so hopefully that balances Jax out.

Libido10/11/2019, 10:22:35 PM6 votes

D1 Darius player doesnt know what to do against Jax LUL This really comes to show what Darius players are like.

dontspinbutwin10/12/2019, 4:50:28 AM6 votes

He has a lack of ranged waveclear, and... uh...

Honestly, his biggest weakness is that he can't jump into 5 people and survive (unlike tryndamere, but hes similar to jax in toxic kits). I wish i was being ironic and such, but I really can't think of another way to say it. Best you might be able to do is hard cheese him early, and end the game while he tries to catch up. Champions who have damage sources apart from their body do well from my experience, like illaoi or heimerdinger.

DJisKxng10/12/2019, 1:20:38 AM5 votes

Ranged top

Aminumbra10/12/2019, 7:39:21 AM4 votes

No sustain. No mechanics AT ALL to farm from a safe distance. Poor waveclear, unless he takes a tiamat, which is a weak duelist item, and which delays even more his real core items. Quite a high mana cost on his Q. Quite a high CD on his E. (I'm talking about laning phase. Of course, after lvl 11, most of those weaknesses have disappeared, but if you are facing a lvl 11 with more than 2 items Jax who has not been delayed ... well, you deserve to lose.)

-> You pick something stronger than Jax in lane (pretty much any toplaner), you take trades whenever he doesn't have his E, you freeze the lane as he has no way to farm safely in this situation, you outsustain him by taking short trades if you have Renek/Darius/any champ with innate sustain, you poke him ...

Everyday Legends10/12/2019, 6:34:27 PM3 votes

"Just CC him."

Flawless Fetus10/12/2019, 5:00:36 PM3 votes

He's an S tier laner with a God tier late and mid. His one and only weakness is the ban phase. Fortunately, it's very effective.

Curious Kat10/12/2019, 8:33:52 PM3 votes

Imagine if he had a real weapon.

ODiiiiiN10/12/2019, 11:31:51 AM2 votes

Jax's weakness? This fed = Olaf or Darius or Fiora or a good Garen.

X GataDelAsco X10/12/2019, 12:50:36 PM2 votes

Jax "Imagine if I had a real weapon"

Jerry SeinfeId10/12/2019, 3:32:53 PM2 votes

egg

Sirsir10/12/2019, 1:21:59 AM2 votes

It used to be his early game.

Used to be.

inuitmailman10/11/2019, 11:20:24 PM2 votes

Jesus is usually the answer I’ve heard :’( /s

Summoner SpeII10/12/2019, 5:13:35 AM2 votes

1 malphite e removes 2.5 seconds of jax autos and is my prime counterpick, also i never lose to jax as first pick gangplank unless enemy jungler dives me early and sits in my lane and if i lose the lane or fight it is because i played like a boosted animal or got camped to death (i would lose to any champion if i got camped to death under my tower)

Jeanne fan club10/12/2019, 5:13:20 PM2 votes

If the top laner doesn't show up to lane, jax cant get free kills off of him. Or just ban him. Meaningful counterplay doesn't exist here, its pretty much just bring 3 people to deal with him or just pray that he makes too many dumb mistakes before he hits late game (about 19 minutes)

Cdore10/12/2019, 6:15:40 PM2 votes

Jax's buffs have been to deal with two issues, caused mostly by Riot:

  • More ranged matchups than ever before.
  • CDR being prevalent on a lot of champs, so increased mobility is needed to catch up.
  • The game being a lot faster, so if you have one Q per fight, you're pretty much a feast or famine champ.

I don't agree with the buffs, but I know why they did it. This is really just the continuation of the melee vs ranged design we have had since season 1. Riot has been trying to keep their casual base happy, but it absolutely destroys the fundamental game design required to ever make this problem fixed. there always has to be a cost and downside to every design, but atm, this game has so many cases where some designs are OP or broken cause Riot doesn't want certain playstyles to not feel fun.

Ranged adcs are one of the most popular. Riot nerfed adcs early game a while back, where for a moment, we had top laners going bot lane and adc mains crying about their class being broken. In reality, this was one good fix, but the problem is that Riot did not follow the fix up by nerfing the mobility across the board.

Adcs caused mobility to be increased. Mobility caused anti mobility options for ranged to be increased. Increased anti-mobility options (either get out of jail mechanics or more mobility), led to even more mobility.

An ever lasting cycle with no end. A band-aid upon band-aid. The solution to all of this, naturally, is to suck it up that some of your playerbase will be upset, and to gut all of these fixes. Give ranged inherent weaknesses that makes it a choice whether to pick one or not, and at the same time, make melee have some options to punish positioning, but not enough to where they can keep diving like Irelia or Jax.

This is really the same stuff me and many others had been saying, even back during the game's early days, especially when Riven started to appear.

CrownClownBuilds10/12/2019, 8:45:22 PM2 votes

I was thinking about this for a while now, and I think I've found the perfect balancing item for Jax. Unique passive, Spellblade. It is used by Sheen, Triforce, Lich bane, and Iceborn Gauntlet. If there was an added effect of Spellblade where only the empowered attack cannot be dodged, then Jax would easily be balanced. There are many toplaners and mages who use Spellblade through Lich Bane or Triforce. Of course, Jax would still be able to dodge ordinary attacks, but if just that one hit every two seconds is guaranteed to hit, then it allows some counterplay where Jax isnt entirely invincible. Champions like fizz, Ez, Fio, Camille, Dar, etc would be able to still land some damage while not entirely ruining Jax as a champion. Thoughts?

PhantomPrankster10/12/2019, 2:16:03 PM1 votes

thats kinda the whole point of jax... hes a champion that is too fucking strong.

Daddy Ants10/12/2019, 10:30:14 AM1 votes

item 3161 already confirmed to have big changes incoming in the preseason.

Hopefully it weakens him.

PerfectPower10/11/2019, 11:18:03 PM1 votes

You beat him in lane and he becomes irrelevant. Stop complaining about game mechanics if you're below Master