Thoughts, Ideas, and Discussion: The Swift Scout
This format will be different with showing an example ability and then sharing my thoughts why I did certain things, discussion about it is up to you in the comments section!
Overall, Teemo has a very unique aspect about him that needs small end changes to feel like an up to date champion and he has things about him that made sense back in the day, but no longer make any sense with all the dashes, jumps, blinks, etc that have been added to the game.
Attack Range: 575 units (current is 500)
Teemo is an immobile marksman, he does not have a dash and should not have a dash, so having only 500 range does not make sense. This makes less sense since Teemo is a traditional marksman, meaning his damage is coming from basic attacks, and does not have range boosts like how Sivir and Xayah work. Lucian has 500 range because he has his dashes and can also reset his dashes using his passive, Teemo does not have this. Kog'Maw also has 500 range, but he has an on-demand ability that gives him 710 range (at rank 5).
Tactical Warfare (Passive): Range: 700 units Upon standing still and not taking damage for 1.5 seconds, Teemo turns invisible indefinitely, he can move around in brush without breaking his invisibility. Not taking damage while moving around in brush will also cause Teemo to turn invisible.
While Teemo is invisible he can see past terrain and inside brush a short distance away.
Upon exiting invisibility, Teemo gains 65% increased total movement speed for 1.5 seconds, this bonus is lost upon taking champion or tower damage. While this movement speed bonus still persists Teemo can enter invisibility instantly upon standing still.
This is turning Teemo's passive into a scouting passive to see over a wall (very close range, it would used for hugging a wall to see past it) and turning his roaming passive into a more notice-able and hopefully appreciated active passive. Essentially the gameplay behind this is Teemo goes into a sneaking around stealth mission (literally) to help him get out his mushrooms.
I think it be cooler to turn his passive and mushrooms to work together to fulfill his Swift Scout theme rather than have his passive give attack speed. Of course he can still do the lay in wait marksman-assassin aspect with someone stepping on a shroom, but I am sure people would like his passive and mushrooms working together more than have the passive give attack speed (which honestly makes it slightly more niche with the attack speed, more use cases being a roaming and getting out shrooms safely passive).
Blinding Dart (Q): Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 seconds (current 8 flat) Range: 750 units (current 600)
Teemo fires a dart at the target enemy, dealing 50/70/90/110/130(+70%AP) magic damage and blinding for 2 seconds, double damage against minions. If this executes the target then 75% of the cooldown and cost is refunded.
This is a two parter:
Thought here is reduce burst damage overall and remove early game abuse of Teemo vs melees. It makes him item reliant so Teemo has to build damage to deal damage, which is fair since that is how other marksmen work. Teemo also has insane amount of sustain damage that he should not have any kind of burst on top of that and Blinding Dart should be used for its Blind. Other thing is 2.5 seconds may be slightly too long of a duration, so a flat 2 seconds instead of 1.5-2.5 seconds scaling may be better with the cooldown changing per rank.
A range increase is to help Teemo get last hits in for the early game and helps him apply the blind to his target, since blinds do not stop movement speed or disrupt this should be fine. Reward on execute is to also help him farm in the early game since Teemo has no skill shots (besides for shroom tossing, but is not relevant until level 11+, also needs level 6 first to have mushrooms) so some way to get to mid-to-late game helps (other hyper marksmen have some way to get farm in the early game).
Move Quick (W): Cooldown: 22/20/18/16/14 seconds (current 17) Passive: Teemo gains (65/)80/95/110/125/140% increased total movement speed for 1.5 seconds upon exiting invisibility.
Active: Teemo gains 250% bonus movement speed that rapidly decays over 3 seconds.
The passive enhances Teemo's true passive's movement speed further, so that is how the passive gets stronger as the game goes on.
The active is changed from 20-56% bonus static movement speed for 3 seconds to a very large RAPIDLY DECAYING bonus movement speed over 3 seconds. This means the active is weaker in terms of overall mobility by a lot, but the initial burst is stronger so it is used to dodge a threatening skill shot rather than grant him a persistent movement speed boost. So the effect ends up being more notice-able and more skill based with being more of a defensive reaction to avoid a skill shot rather than straight up move faster to kite or chase.
So numerically this is looks deceptive where it looks like a massive buff to the active, but it is simply a change to be used on the whim to avoid a skill shot in exchange for a big hit to the active's mobility. It makes the effect a lot more notice-able (and hopefully appreciated) by the player since a lot of people do not appreciate Move Quick's power right now since the effect is strong, but you cannot notice its power.
Toxic Shot (E): Cooldown: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds; Cost: 50 mana; Range: 1000 units Passive: Teemo deals 10/15/20/25/30(+45%AP) bonus magic damage on-hit, this can critically strike. Teemo injects a Toxic Dart into his targets on-hit for 4/5/6/7/8 seconds, stacks infinitely, duration cannot refresh.
Active: Teemo activates all Toxic Darts nearby, flooding the target with poison dealing 10/13/16/19/22(+15%AP) magic damage per second for every Toxic Dart that was in the target for the next 4 seconds.
This is placing Toxic Shot to be about having Teemo to commit to his target and avoid hit-and-run scenarios by having the damage scale with his attack speed. Also reducing his base damage and link them with damage values of crit chance, attack speed, and ability power will help him not be so oppressive against melees in the early game and have him rely on damage items for damage, keeps his scaling and tunes him better at the same time.
So appreciation change is moving the poison from an always active value to avoid hit-and-run play styles so Teemo has to commit for his damage, this helps when playing against Teemo, makes him less oppressive vs melees in the early game. The other half is having the poison not always on helps Teemo to siege towers and with a stacking mechanic allows it to be used to execute targets when they run outside of his attack range (but still in range for the ability), the stacking mechanic allows for the poison to feel a lot more notice-able (even if it reduces his end of game damage by a lot, but an appreciation change feels better for the player and playing against Teemo).
This can work as long as omni-vamp exists otherwise a change is needed to add some kind of life steal to the kit itself for an ability power marksman to work out. The idea is Teemo has an extremely high on-hit AP ratio with crit chance, but the attack speed/crit items does reduce his total AP that he can have. So really the base value increases with ability power rather than bonus attack damage.
Noxious Trap (R): Cost: 60 mana (current 75); Range: 500/700/900 units (current 400/650/900) Passive: Teemo stores a mushroom every 30/25/20 seconds, up to a maximum of 3/4/5 at a time.
Active: Teemo tosses a mushroom to the target location, which arms and turns invisible after a brief delay, remaining in play for 300 seconds which grants 400 (current 212.5) range of vision. If a mushroom lands on an already existing mushroom is bounces 3/4/5 Teemos further.
If an enemy steps on a mushroom it will explode, applying Noxious Poison against struck enemies for 2.5 seconds which slows them down by 50/55/60%, grounds, and applies True Sight. Whenever Teemo attacks these targets he gains 30/40/50% bonus attack speed for 3 seconds.
Noxious Poison against struck minions and monsters deal 100/175/250(+70%AP) magic damage over the duration, struck champions below 40% health are dealt 250/400/550(+100%AP) magic damage over the duration.
The change is have the mushrooms act like better mini-wards with a better vision radius and grant a stronger slow with a ground to increase their area control power, but can no longer damage CHAMPIONS until they reach below a certain health threshold to keep that land mine aspect. Champion damage is much higher, but they can only damage within an execution range which means most mushrooms won't deal any damage, so the net average is less direct damage overall. This is a change needed because getting chunked out from an invisible trap never feels fair, but the land mine aspect I feel is still healthy for the game and can offer a fun mini-game for the opponent and Teemo with creating the map as an actual battle ground.
Now the mushrooms are about having either Teemo or an allied champion nearby to capitalize on someone walking over a mushroom, or use them to keep an immobile marksman safe through the vision and slow rather than rely on on-demand movement impairing CC or mobility spells. So the CC duration is much shorter for a better slow and a ground for very effective death shrooms so they can keep their threat that way rather than through direct damage, so stepping on a mushroom and an enemy is right there can lead to your death, especially with Teemo's invisibility passive.
Teemo's bonus attack speed is moved to here and applies when he attacks targets that step on a mushroom since the mushrooms being for kills make sense and it involves Teemo being active with his mushrooms for their kill potential, which is what we want. Remove "free" damage and move Teemo's damage into active damage will have him feeling fair to play against since his damage is obvious of where it is coming from, Teemo himself. Of course mushrooms inflict crowd control so his allies can be the damage source, but giving a champion helpful tools for their team is fine and allows them to be useful before Teemo gets his items to become godlike strong for the late game.
Basically mushrooms will be more healthy for the game becoming an utility ultimate and where their damage is giving Teemo some wave clear and only damaging champions directly when they reach a low health threshold for that land mine mini-game. Better to fear direct mushroom damage when low on health than ALWAYS fearing mushroom damage, because it is not fun to always live in fear, but winning the battle and then watching your step is a completely different story.
