It was nice knowing you, Xayah
_TL;DR: _The latest changes to Xayah, in patch 7.12, were too much. She basically lost her Q+AA+E combo, lost a bunch of DPS when she uses Q, and as cherry-on-top lost some uptime on W. And she got nothing in return. And I don't understand why, because she didn't seem OP before.
Removing Xayah's ability to attack while using Q obviously makes her clunkier, but that's not always a bad goal. Honestly the Q+AA+E combo was probably too easy/quick and even lacked clarity (you can't see the AA animation). But I have 4 complaints about the surrounding context that make the nerfs too hamfisted overall.
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The cast animation for Xayah's Q is long. It also entirely removes her Q+AA+E combo. It's not just slow; it's not just harder too land; it's downright bad unless you are using it to follow up on a CCed target that's out of AA range. If you're in AA range W+AA+Q+E is a better combo (but still much slower than the old combo). She really can't "fish" for roots any more; she needs setup by her team, or she needs more feathers on the ground. To be fair, this point is probably a good thing overall; but it should have been the only nerf she received.
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The cast animation for Xayah's Q IS LOOONG. It bears repeating because it also has an effect on Xayah's DPS. Casting Q now locks Xayah out of about one whole auto attack (depending on attack speed). Early game that's not a big deal; it costs you less than an AA, which are only worth 70 damage at that point. Late game though, due to all the AS/AD/crit that marks(wo)men get, I would estimate the cost is 300 damage worth of AAs. Now of course, that only matters if Xayah is in range to AA, but still, that's a potential nerf of 50-300 damage to her Q.
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They also nerfed her W cooldown in the same patch. I mean okay, I get it. With the 30% CDR she was getting from Essence Reaver, she had ~50% uptime on her W in the late-game. But nonetheless, I don't think this nerf was nearly as necessary. If the patch only had the first nerf, I probably wouldn't need to make this post.
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Xayah wasn't even that strong? First a disclaimer: I use lolalytics.com and what I see in the LCS for most of my balance info (in addition to personal experience of course). And what I saw was that she was strong in the right hands, but no more so than Caitlyn, Twitch, Draven, Varus, etc. And on average (i.e. NOT in experienced hands), she was rather mediocre. She had a 50-51% winrate on average, lolalytics gave her a gold/plat ranking (aka mediocre), and the pros were picking her sometimes, and occasionally banned her. But she was in no way dominating or crowding out other picks. (Edit: Just checked NALCS stats. Xayah is the 3rd most picked/banned ADC, terrible winrate though. I stand by my point; she's maybe strong but not dominant).
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I know I said I only have 4 complaints, but this one isn't really about Xayah. It's about Caitlyn... She's been the top ADC at least since 7.9 (rip Lucian). Every metric I have available says that Caitlyn is more of a problem that Xayah, and yet she recieved 0 nerfs, compared to Xayah's two nerfs. (She recieved two tiny nerfs earlier in 7.11, but those do not seem to have hurt her much.) Caitlyn is the most played ADC now by far (pro and soloQ; well, technically Varus is played a little more in NALCS, but Caitlyn is banned much more). And she achieves above average winrates in all categories. She IS dominant and IS crowding out other picks. I'll hold back and leave it at that.
I just don't understand why Riot went so hard on Xayah, hitting her usability, DPS, and uptime, all at the same time, AND giving her nothing in return. Sigh... I was really having fun with Xayah, for the two months she's been out. I still will, at least occasionally in normals. But I certainly can't play her in ranked anymore, unless I'm counter-picking Vi or something.
Well that's my soapbox for the year. I almost never make posts like this, but it was personal this time. And while I'm usually on Riot's side, I'm serious when I say I just don't understand why these changes went through without any compensation.
