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Let's talk about Twitch

Random Nom·11/20/2016, 5:47:49 AM·3 votes·1,003 views

Hello there. I hope you're having a good day (or night, wherever you are). I just wanted to sit down with anyone and take the time to talk about our glorious Plague Rat and the things to come for him in the future.

So, I'm pretty much a Twitch OTP. However, I care about Twitch as a champion, not as a kit. If you made him a utility support tomorrow, I would probably cry but still play it because I love Twitch as a champ--his quotes and theme make him very enjoyable for me to play throughout the game. As such, I am not going to be talking about how the preseason changes affect Twitch, because there are many other (and frankly, better) players that are more than willing to discuss that, and I'm not here to add to the pile.

However, what we should talk about is Twitch as a champion.

I heavily feel like Twitch's changes removes the uniqueness of him as a champion. Most champions in the game who got changed or reworked this patch still have the same feeling to them regardless of their changes, but Twitch's playstyle has been changed, and that really bothers me a lot.

To show you what I mean, look at the new Q and W. Q is now a longer stealth but has the camouflage effect that allows him to be spotted in proximity, resulting in an effort to balance sneaking up on the enemy and being far away enough to not be seen. W now remains in the area, having the lingering slow and the quick 2 stacks removed in favor of a more zone controlling type spell that punishes players for standing in the area by stacking poison stacks on them.

These changes, however, don't fit with Twitch's old theme. He used to be the sneaky rat who would surprise enemy champions by getting the drop on them when they least expected it, dropped a W to slow them so they couldn't get away, and ulted until they died. It was mostly the same thing in teamfights too! Waiting until the big CC spells died down, getting into a good position with stealth and then opening up on the entire enemy team was a great feeling and one of the main reasons why I played Twitch. These new spells don't respect that at all. Q making you visible removes the fun of getting to an enemy. If they see you, or are even notified of his camouflage by the (rather large, in my opinion) proximity, the ruse is up, and the sneaky gameplay disappears--it becomes a hectic chase between Twitch and his prey where either he does enough damage to kill the target before they get out of range or not enough damage and the target escapes. W being a zone control spell means it's way harder to reliably keep someone in your Spray and Pray range before they get out of the way (from my personal experience, they usually always get away if they have some kind of mobility spell). I mean, he can still teamfight like a boss, but it’s just not the same in my opinion. A lot of my fun with Twitch got sweeped with the changes, the gameplay just doesn’t match with how I wanted to play anymore. I don’t know if anyone else feels the same, but that’s how I’m feeling right now.

I should repeat, this isn’t a “Twitch is weak” post. I’m not the person to tell you if Twitch is good or not. I just don’t like how his identity got swapped, without notice or even recognition (same with Alistar--why weren’t these changes shown on the preseason website?) There’s just one thing I want to ask. Who is Twitch supposed to be? Is he the hypercarry marksman who uses R to explode an enemy team? Is he the assassin ADC that uses his stealth and auto attacks to burst an ADC? Or perhaps a weird mix of both? He used to be the third, which I loved and felt made him unique as a character, but with the camouflage and W changes that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Does Riot not want Twitch to be an assassin? If that’s the case, what happens in the event that Twitch becomes strong enough to get past his Q and W weaknesses and is still able to kill people reliably? Does that make him too strong, warranting a nerf? Where would you nerf him then? His teamfight damage and assassin damage are shared due to the virtue of being an auto attacker at heart, so if you punish his assassinations, you punish his teamfighting as well. It just has Twitch in this weird spot now, whatever you do number wise will change both of his sides, for better or worse.

So, I’d like to ask the League of Legends community how they feel about what Twitch should be, and what his niche should be in game. I feel like the changes removed the niche that I enjoyed, but I might be wrong. Let me know. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the Plague Rat. In the meantime, I’m gonna be tryin’ to figure out this rodent (and finding some new champions in a worst case scenario).

10 Comments

EmittingXs11/20/2016, 6:33:52 AM1 votes

i honestly thinks he's in a much better position. i don't see any weaknesses that weren't there already and at the same time they improved him heavily. he may have changed thematically but he's still himself at the core.

i see his new Q as being great for him but also having counterplay. he's not meant to be an adc that can walk right by enemies unscathed and just do as he pleases. that would be simply unfair. by making him noticeable to enemies, he doesn't come off as overpowered and you now have to maneuver him wisely. also, when he does come out of hiding, if his enemies aren't expecting him, he's still pretty scary.

his new W puts him in a much better position in terms of laning and even team fights. early on, he no longer has a lot of difficulty csing. given the fact that it is an AoE skill, not only are minions easier to farm, enemy champs also lose out in those trades because you displace them. you give them a reason to move, to get healed, to react. it opens the doors for great opportunities. before, you would throw a cask and nothing would really change in terms of reactions and effects from your enemy laners.

what i find even more interesting now though is that he feels more fun to play. there were a lot of things that happened to him that boosted his capabilities and i don't really see anything being crazy overpowered or over nerfed about him. i'd definitely say he's closer to being a pretty well balanced champ.

hsumis1ove11/20/2016, 6:48:43 AM1 votes

So far Ive been playing twitch the same, except riot seemed to nerf his late game two shot potential in favor of a stronger e and thus a stronger early game. I haven't been able to pull off nearly the same 1v5s while being just as fed.

Dracocrash11/20/2016, 9:15:29 AM1 votes

Agreed.

D357R0Y3R11/20/2016, 9:20:01 AM1 votes

his niche is obliterating a team from far away, and secondary killing an adc if he manages to sneak past the team

and it's already working as intended.

GoronMuncherV11/20/2016, 9:51:24 AM1 votes

As a big Twitch player myself; I think he's retained his assassin and teamfight styles with the changes. I can still sneak up and around targets to kill them (but like you said, the change in slow can sometimes be good or bad). I can also still shred entire teams with my ult good positioning near my team or some tight flanking. Like you; I love his character. So if his strength is perceived as too much and he's nerfed again; it'll be really hard.

To sum up; he's still my favorite rat and I await a badass skin to accompany my lvl 7 and growing mastery score ;)

Sylvant11/20/2016, 5:07:49 PM1 votes

i think his key feature is his ultimate, that one trick which turns him into monster for a few seconds. What i dont like is how much he is stripped of everything else, especially lately. No mobility, cc, base ability damage, etc. At least he could use stealth to escape from gank, but this is no more. They took away even this option. He is prolly the most item reliant champion in the game and one with weak early and even late game, because his late game comes when he get enough items and if the enemy is fed, "enough" items can mean full build. He only works great vs lower skilled opponents where he can get fed and obliterate them. Against equally skilled opponent, or even a bit worse, he has hard time because its so easy to counter him in many ways, actually all you need to do is counter his ultimate, by either disengage, cc him, knock him away, exhaust, Yasuo wall, etc, etc, etc, the rest of the time he is just a shadow walking behind his team. He is provided with a great gank tool, his Q, but how to use it when he is so crippled, he can barely solo anyone for his super squishiness. If he has any chance to solo, its if he is fed and ahead with levels, which is hard, close to impossible in regular environment. He is kidna very similar to Evelynn, in this department, since she is also kinda crippled cause of her stealth, but she is still alot more assassin and fighter oriented, while he is a squishy marksmen, who is likely to be behind with levels