Zoe feels extremely one-note

i cant move wtf··9 votes·919 views

I bought her and tried her in practice tool because I think she's op atm. But she just feels kind of... empty? I get you're supposed to fish for E's and then get the guaranteed Q follow up for serious 1-shot potential but... what else is there? Her gameplay just seems so binary. You either make the pick with some combination of Q/E/R or you don't... then you try again in 5 seconds.

I could be in the minority here but I feel like this is a symptom of her only having 3 abilities. Her W isn't an ability. It has too much RNG and it's either oppressive or non-existent. I think the concept of picking up summoner spells is cool but it doesn't feel like it justifies taking up an ability slot. Maybe it would have worked better if she could only take 1 summoner spell and the other summoner slot was reserved for any she picks up. Then her W could be some kind of mobility spell so that she isn't forced to take flash every game. I don't know, just ideas.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, she's fun af to play and she's pick/ban for me. I just wonder how much of that has to do with how she seems to be a bit overtuned atm.

13 Comments

Bronze 6 Yasuo4 votes

More than Garen at least.

i cant move wtf3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Bronze 6 Yasuo,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Ppaovp37,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-11-25T21:28:42.704+0000)

More than Garen at least.

You might have a case there...

Lord Phazanor 4 votes

Binary champion. Too much mobility. Not fun to play against but the one on your team always feeds. Unbalanceable. Overloaded.

CertainlyT.

chipndip16 votes

{quoted}

Binary champion. Too much mobility. Not fun to play against but the one on your team always feeds. Unbalanceable. Overloaded.

CertainlyT.

  • Too much mobility

Zoe has no escapes...

Call Me Nana1 votes

haven forbid every champ riot releases doesnt have 500 different passives in every skill and they sent out a low skill floor, high skill ceiling champ likeTaliyah not every champ needs yasuo or zed mechanics.

Teridax682 votes

That is not what the OP is saying. What you are talking about is complexity, i.e. the total amount of information you have to memorize, whereas the OP is talking about depth, i.e. the number of meaningful choices you can make. Zoe incidentally is quite a complex champion, as she has a lot of conditionals and mechanics to both her E and W, the latter of which also requires memorization of almost every summoner spell and item active in the game. Just like Taliyah, she also actually has a pretty high skill floor, precisely because of that information overhead and her reliance on mechanically precise combos. However, at the end of the day most of what she does boils down to her ERQ combo, with her W occasionally proving useful, which means she doesn't really have that diverse a set of choices in spite of her hypermobility and RNG.

koshkyra2 votes

if at first you dont succeed

THROW ANOTHER ROCK

Lighten1 votes

Evelynn sorta has the same feel right now too. And this is coming from a 300k Eve main. You either get the cook time on your W and you're behind them because they over-extended, or they instantly back off and you're not able to engage.

These new champions are very binary and have loads of counterplay in the kit, but also feel very strong when the full combo actually connects.

EDIT : This isn't to say I'm not enjoying Evelynn or Zoe, because I definitely am. But it feels like their W's are both very constricted.

Oleandervine2 votes

Evelynn is not in the same boat as Zoe. You do not have to cook her W for Evelynn to function. You can just as easily rush in on your own with Q and E, and then use W, immediately damage them to proc the 60% slow, and murder them with R. Or, you could do what most people do and open with W, Q, E and finish with R. Evelynn's kit actually has a lot more flexibility than people give it credit for because most people forget that W has use outside of Charm.

Meanwhile, Zoe does not have kit diversity. She is a one trick gimmick with trying to kill you with her extended Qs. Q without the extended range does negligible damage. Her passive, likewise is not a very effective tool for dealing damage because it's so inconsistent, and since she tries to operate at such a long range, she's barely able to be close enough to use her autos on you. Her W's passive suffers from this same symptom, even more so because the nature of a speed boost and the Foxfire style bubbles is encouraging her to chase down targets, when again, her kit is far too focused on bursting enemies from a million miles away. Her kit has potential for depth, but released as it is, it's a contrary mess that leaves her with only the Q gimmick. If W had a cast effect without a stolen spell (think LeBlanc R), I think that could go a long way towards making her kit less binary. If they actually did grant W a function, that would allow for them to funnel some of the insane raw power out of Q and E and level out her kit a bit. She's not the first champion CertainlyT has made that was incredibly strong, but also incredibly binary on launch (Darius), and it honestly baffles me as to how she made it into the hands of players without Riot realizing this flaw.

Ifneth1 votes

I agree. If she lands her E, then her opponent is just left sitting there while she fires a Q from downtown to take him out of lane or out of the fight. If she misses her W, then she can poke the enemy a bit, and that's it. It's a completely binary skill check. And because she lacks a W or any damage on her R, those two abilities need to be so strong to make her viable that they feel oppressive when used correctly.

koshkyra1 votes

Yeah you nailed it, she feels "empty" in the sense that she does one thing and if she fails at it she waits till she can do it again.

TengenToppaGnar1 votes

Zoe has a problem of too much of a good thing. She's incredibly strong early, but her plethora of RNG crap and so forth basically makes her garbage late game. All that bursts starts to fizzle, as people get more comfortable with your not so erratic seeming actions.

Honestly, I'm not saying she's weak, far from it, but she's so complex instead of deep, that using her requires a very special kind of player. One who can recall all her bullshit and then some on reflex. She's basically a harder to manage Leblanc and that girl might as well not exist anymore.

SoulTheEater1 votes

Its incredibly tilting to dodge most of the e's she throws out in lane only to get hit by one and get chunked for half my health bar like all the other dodges i made didn't matter, its just her fishing all lane for 2 abilities and if you aren't a mage with mobility it feels extremely frustrating to play against [zombie-nunu-bummed]

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