Boards›Gameplay

Clunky champions *looking for others opinions, not a salt post*

Better Jungler··12 votes·928 views

Do you remember when Akali akali's E would proc her mark?

It was strong, but at the same time it made her kit feel much more fluid than it does now. When Riot changed it to make her E no longer proc the mark, they took away the fluidity of her playstyle. Now instead of q r e.. its q r auto e. which makes her assassin-like burst take a full second longer depending on attack speed. Not to mention that one rotation won't do the trick, so you have to pull this off 3-4 times to kill even a squishy target. In a teamfight setting, adding 4-5 seconds of "Autoattack time" is really holding her back from snowballing like other champions.

I get the overall point, but we then look at Katarina katarina and see a completely different path. She is slightly less fluid I'll admit, but her damage is unchanged and her resets are really strong. She doesnt have to auto between daggers, and she doesn't "mark" her targets anymore. Her burst window is the quarter second that takes her dagger to hit the ground, and theres even ways to skip that animation as well:P

some other champs that were made clunky:

  • Rengar Rengar, I was a Rengar main back in s4 and loved his kit. I didn't feel like I had complete control of every game, but I didn't feel like it was sink or swim either.
  • Leblanc Leblanc, Leblanc was my first champion ever in league. I will be the first to admit she had a BULLSHIT kit. (distortion, ult distortion, distortion, ult distortion) But the reworked Leblanc just feels terrible to play. I don't have another word for it other than "Clunky".

I get the need to change some stuff around when things get ridiculous. (Akali could potentially run through an infinite number of targets if they came one by one, and sustain herself while killing them, Katarina can hit r and kill 5 people before they have time to react, leblanc had literally 5 long distance flashes.) I just don't think that making the champion less appealing to play is a good balance strategy for this. That swimming Q from Rengar is the strangest ability I've seen in any game.. Its like a small dash forward, but the animation makes it feel like you're stunned.. and its so small that you might as well walk. It's just.. strange.

[zombie-brand-mindblown]

Am I alone in thinking these champs are clunkier than their previous models?

8 Comments

Kloqdq6 votes

I think it's a good and bad aspect of what is and isn't clunky.

Talon and Katarina, playing off of what Spideraxe said, feel organic. They are clunky in a way and have delays but it feels natural and despite the first couple of games, it starts to flow quite naturally.

Than you look at Rengar or LeBlanc, who are very clunky. Unlike the two examples above, they don't have an organic flow to them that fits into a more natural delay, but rather they have very clunky designs in them that do not play up what makes an assassin or champion like them fun. LeBlanc's damage bulk is pushed completely on her passive cook timer. It forces you to basically stop playing to wait for the timer. It isn't organic like say Katarina's Dagger which is similar in the way you need to wait. Unlike Katarina, LeBlanc is asked to stop doing anything and is mostly punished if she does. This could work on a mage or someone who pokes and will naturally have these delays due to their kit but LeBlanc doesn't have this. It feels forced.

The same goes for Rengar. Old Q was a increase of damage when you pressed it. It felt quick and responsive and it flowed with what you were doing. It didn't stop you from playing the game. Than you get the new Q. It is the very definition of clunky. It stops you, forces your actions and doesn't have flow to it. It isn't a great ability because it forces your actions.

This is the problem with modern assassins. When the clunkiness is organic, and plays to the flow correctly, it works. When it forces a person into waiting or forcing their actions, it feels bad and doesn't work. This is part of the reason why people like Kayn but don't like Evelynn. Kayn has delays to him but he has a natural flow to these delays. He doesn't feel clunky and you are mostly in control, even if you have several small delays to your actions. Evelynn on the other hand feels bad because of range and the timer on her W. She feels helpless and clunky.

That's at least my thoughts on it. When it is done right, it is good, when not, it's bad.

OyddAWqJ5r2 votes

There's a certain fluidity and champion defining beauty to it though in my opinion.

Leblanc isn't simply awkwardly waiting for her passive cook timer. In the meantime she is kiting her opponent in a way that feels downright like she's mocking their inability to respond to her, which fits her character archetype perfectly. It's more like she's dancing around them than simply awkwardly waiting around until she finally does damage.

As for Rengar maybe it feels awkward once again on the attacking end. But from the receiving end you have a stab kitty slicing and stabbing you repeatedly in a manner that feels absolutely ferocious. No one sits there and thinks "look at this clunky rengar slicing and stabbing me slowly to death", no, they are thinking "JESUS CHRIST HE'S SHREDDING ME!".

My opinion on the matter anyway.

Kloqdq2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sleeper Cell,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NIucyshE,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2017-11-02T07:01:06.654+0000)

Leblanc isn't simply awkwardly waiting for her passive cook timer. In the meantime she is kiting her opponent in a way that feels downright like she's mocking their inability to respond to her, which fits her character archetype perfectly. It's more like she's dancing around them than simply awkwardly waiting around until she finally does damage.

Being forced to just auto-attack and not cast abilities because that could lower your DPS is clunky as hell. Now if the passive encouraged you to rapid fire spells like LeBlanc can than I could see it working. Q, W and E can all be rapidly cast together with R onto any of them to make some sick plays but the passive actively asks you to not do that. It forces you to slow down to get the damage rather than just spreading it out in an organic fashion. It's for all purposes, a bad design and doesn't fit well with what LeBlanc players loved about the champion. Being tricky and quick. I know this update pretty much killed LeBlanc for me.

As for Rengar maybe it feels awkward once again on the attacking end. But from the receiving end you have a stab kitty slicing and stabbing you repeatedly in a manner that feels absolutely ferocious. No one sits there and thinks "look at this clunky rengar slicing and stabbing me slowly to death", no, they are thinking "JESUS CHRIST HE'S SHREDDING ME!".

This brings up a good point but a champion should feel good for both players in the interactions. No matter what, if one player doesn't feel good about the interaction but at the cost of another player feeling good, it's a bad one. It's why Yasuo or Fizz can be so infamous because the player in charge feels good but the other side feels bad. Sometimes you can slightly imbalance it such as in a bully lane but normally if it's a heavy imbalance, the design is a failure.

That's more or less the problem here. Both these updates fail in capturing what players liked about these champions and pushing it further while offering organic counter play. It is clunky and feels bad to play these champions even when you one-shot or do big damage. You just don't feel good about the interactions you are having. The player response will vary of course but it still comes at the cost of one player or the other.

Spideraxe3 votes

Some of the champs I agree on have lost a lot of their fluidity, I'd personally prefer organic delays to a champ's rotation rather then an artificial one like Leblanc's passive cook timer

Better Jungler3 votes

Agreed. It just doesnt work for the assassin type class.. Make them do less damage if you have to, but dont slow down their kit/rotation.

Bronze 6 Yasuo1 votes

No. They all have toxic kits and no.

Better Jungler4 votes

eyy living up to the yasuo player stereotypes.

Dr Dog1 votes

they will probably have to change akali after preseason, the only reason how she is is fine rn is because you take aa speed in your runes to make her auto go faster, but now that you wont be able to do that (thx riot, i definitely wanted less creativity allowed in the game)

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Better Jungler

Please don't buy the new Blitzcrank skin...
Concepts & Creations169 comments
264
votes
I feel like everything does TOO much damage.
Gameplay147 comments
148
votes
I'd be so down for a League MMO.
Story, Art, & Sound94 comments
137
votes
A personal Vendetta proclamation against Meddler.
Memes & Games63 comments
103
votes
Riot can we please get more emotes on the wheel? Here I even designed it for you.
Concepts & Creations72 comments
92
votes
The problem with blue essence for a reward...
General Discussion44 comments
88
votes