The Real Problem with Tristana

EDIT: Thanks everyone for the (mostly) great discussion. Ghostcrawler has made some comments on Tristana, which I think are very valuable, if you haven't already seen them I would take a look. What I took away from his comment was that Tristana lacks a meaningful weakness in that 1) Itemization has improved her mid-game significantly, and 2) Lane bullies (Lucian) were changed so they're not as oppressive in lane. This has made early game easier for all hypercarries, which is also why Kog'Maw is powerful now as well.

While I still think itemization can use some more improvements, it doesn't seem like this will solve the problem completely. Ghostcrawler mentioned he thinks Lucian is in a good spot right now, so it looks like lane bullies aren't going to become strong again, so nerfs to Tristana seem inevitable in order to restore her weaker early game while maintaining her strong late game. I still stand by my argument that Tristana's kit had nothing innately unhealthy (at least in comparison to the rest of the ADCs), and that itemization (and Lucian changes) are what caused her to rise in power, though in order to keep up with the shifts in the game, Tristana will probably need to have some changes to match changes to Lucian, etc. On the topic of ADC mobility/self-peel, Ghostcrawler has mentioned that ADCs as a whole are more slippery than they should be, so I expect changes on this front will affect all ADCs, not just Tristana.

My non-expert opinion is that a nerf to Tristana's base range (while increasing the range gained per level) would allow Tristana to have more weakness early and mid game, while still maintaining her strong late game. Rough numbers I was thinking of were, 500 base range, +12 range per level - 1. She has 500 range at lvl 1, 548 range at lvl 5 (basically on par with most other ADCs), and 704 range at max level (almost the same as her live value). This puts her at greater risk when CSing early, making it in turn more difficult for her to reach that 2 item power spike and her powerful mid-game.

EDIT2: As far as itemization is concerned, I still think there are some changes that could be made. While there is more diversity in different build paths for ADCs than before, about half of the ADC pool (Ashe, Caitlyn, Jinx, Sivir, Tristana, Varus, Miss Fortune, Graves, Draven) rushes IE first, where there could still be potential first buys in BT or ER. Some of these champions used to rush BT because they scale incredibly well with AD (Draven, MF, for example). I don't know about a direction here; part of me feels like making IE even more cost prohibitive would make it more efficient for other champions to buy BT or ER (maybe MS), and only champions that really rely on the crit chance/damage to hold out for IE; on the other hand, it's already the most expensive item in the game, which makes it seem like there's a more fundamental balance issue.

#Introduction In this post I will argue that it is more the itemization changes to ADCs that are responsible for Tristana’s rise, than Tristana’s kit as a whole.

So, I’m sort of a Tristana main, more or less have been since I started playing (about a year and a half now). I’m by no means a professional player, but as far as comfort and knowledge with the champion, I’d say I have a pretty good understanding. What’s been irking me recently is all these calls for Tristana nerfs

but MrBuffington, Tristana is so OP

Yes, she’s very powerful right now. I won’t deny it.

Her kit is so broken omg

#NO

I haven’t been part of Boards for long, but every now and again, whenever I see a new meta champion rise, there’s a corresponding rise in “QQ champions have abilities” threads I see pop up. I personally think I’m better at understanding this game than actually playing it (I’m more interested in understanding the game than actually gaining elo or whatever), so I’ll usually try to pass on what I know/what I’ve heard smarter people say (pros, coaches, etc.), but Tristana is a champion I know well (and also know a bit about from the aforementioned pros/coaches), so I want to make a post about it.

If you take a look at Tristana’s changelog, you’ll notice that she hasn’t seen many major kit changes since 2009. She received minor buffs in season 3, but still eluded mainstream play for the most part. She had some buffs in season 4; still little changes in play. Honestly, all that really changed for her in this time is her mana costs, and, as a champion that relies almost 100% on auto attacks, this doesn’t matter all that much. Her R range actually got nerfed to scale with her passive, instead of having a flat 700 range. Since her rise to power, she’s actually gotten her W and E nerfed; still popular.

The reason for her power is actually the itemization changes to ADC in patch 4.10, which, consequently, is the patch Tristana received some buffs, so the confusion is understandable (she received mana cost buffs and nerfs to her ult range; it scales with her passive instead of having flat 700 range). What happened was; Bloodthirster had it’s stacking passive removed, and IE got a damage buff. Where ADCs could get 100AD off a BT, they can now only get 80. Coupled with that, IE has the same AD, plus it gives crit chance/higher damage per crit. Essentially, this damage replaces or even surpasses the damage that the old BT would offer. Moreover, BT got nerfed, making IE the overall better first item, which is why you see champions like Caitlyn and Jinx, who used to rush BT, now rush IE. This did two things: Make champions who can rush IE first very strong, and make champions who relied on BT (especially the old stacking passive) weaker. Why Tristana is so good is because she uses IE better than most other champions; without this, she goes back to being how she was before the itemization changes, that is, she’ll be hardly played in professional. She has a great AS steroid allowing her to use that extra crit chance/damage, as well as the range to use it. This is why Tristana is powerful.

#Counterarguments

1. What about her E?
2. If you compare base damages of her E with any other ADC’s poke-type ability, you’ll find it deals about the same damage lvl 1 (~80). Moreover, Tristana’s E falls off hard mid-late game as it has no AD scaling (which pretty much every ADC has). In fact, she has no AD ratios whatsoever, so this applies to every one of her abilities.
3. But she gets resets on her jump
4. Jinx gets resets on her movement boost (which is free, btw) with every kill/assist and every tower kill/assist. Sure, it’s not a jump, but this also lets Jinx orb-walk while she’s repositioning herself, ie. she never stops dealing damage. CDR Graves/Lucian can get their dash up every few seconds (Lucian’s is free, and Graves has an AS boost he can keep on permanently with this build due to the CDR). Vayne gets a dash (that stealths with ult) every two seconds (and also deals extra damage and procs silver bolts). Draven gets a reset on his AS/MS boost with every axe he catches.
5. But she gets self-peel on only a 60 second cooldown.
6. Caitlyn can self-peel with her dash+slow (~a fourth-to-a sixth of Tristana’s cooldown), and with a well placed trap. Vayne has self-peel that stuns on a third-to-a fifth of Tristana’s cooldown. Draven’s Stand Aside can peel for him, not to mention he outdamages pretty much every champion in the game (Draven with IE effectively deals ~4x damage with each crit spinning axe).
7. But the range…
8. Tristana has 703 range (only at lvl 18), which is the highest base range of any champion. Two other champions can situationally out range her; Twitch with his ult, and Kog’Maw with lvl 5 W. Jinx has roughly the same AA range with lvl 5 Q (700 range). So yes, this is a strength of her kit; what people tend to ignore, though, is that this is her absolute range, meaning, unless she’s within range, she can’t do anything to you (unless she jumps in, which is super risky given it’s on a long cooldown. If she doesn’t get a reset, she’s dead, and considering her only burst is a DoT spell in E, and her R, which shoves her target out of her range, neither of which have AD ratios, if she can’t for sure kill someone with that burst, she’s dead, since she’s no longer in range to auto them. Not to mention her spells are magic damage, and Tristana only has base damages and builds no magic pen). Almost every other ADC (and many champions in general, for the matter) has some basic ability to deal damage from range greater than Tristana will ever have. Exceptions include Vayne (who has tons of mobility to compensate) and non-traditional ADCs like Teemo.

#Conclusion/TL;DR Hopefully I’ve been able to show that there’s nothing innately/uniquely OP about Tristana’s kit, more it’s how that kit synergizes with IE that makes Tristana so powerful. ADC itemization has been a problem for a while, and even with/because of the changes in 4.10, it’s still a problem (as I’ve also heard from many pros/coaches/etc). We've seen Tristana nerfs in 4.14 and it didn't curb her popularity, and, short of completely gutting her, I doubt continued nerfs will have much effect. Once ADC itemization is balanced, I predict Tristana will come to a healthier playstyle naturally.