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The Zoe Q nerf is EXACTLY what they did to Akali's E way back in the day

Caekie·1/12/2018, 10:20:14 AM·94 votes·6,527 views

It fixed none of the issues players had against her, and just made her beyond uncomfortable to play for people that do play her.

For those of you that don't know, Akali's E, Crescent Slash, used to be able to trigger her Q, Mark of the Assassin.

What this did was create a very smooth and fluid trigger pattern as you didn't need to auto attack at all since her attack speed and animation was garbage. You'd just Q them, wait for it to fly, and just before it hits you use R and E to blow it up. You actually did less damage this way but it was much smoother and felt great to play.

After they changed her E to not trigger her mark, nobody played Akali anymore. She felt clunky as fuck to play and her E essentially became a useless filler skill. Some people just didn't even put a point in it opting for increased AR/MR from her shroud. They had to update her R, FIVE times to do some janky as fuck "behind target" placement bullshit to compensate for it. To this day she still feels like garbage to play compared to before the change.

Keep in mind that this didn't change her damage potential at all. Competent Akali players were still able to do the exact same thing but with a slight lag compared to before. People still complained about her damage. But the people that did play Akali dropped her as it just didn't feel good to play anymore. Riot achieved nothing but pissing off devote Akali players.

This change to Zoe's Q is essentially the same thing. People still get instantly oneshotted from a medium ranged Q into a target afflicted with her E anyway. Her damage in her most frequent scenarios have not been addressed at all and this change literally only affects the fringe cases of MAXIMUM range Q's which all but the fewest Zoe players even consistently pull off.

Not only that, but max range Q's require a full 2 seconds of foresight and placement prediction. This made for actual skillful decisions on where to place the shot and hard reading your opponent to predict where they will go.

What this change does is just make Zoe feel terrible to play while not addressing any of her damage issues at all. They've kept the skill floor the same but dramatically dropped the skill ceiling with this update.

To put it into perspective, it is better to simply run with your Q than to use your ultimate now for the purposes of range extension. Your net gain in range is shorter compared to shortcasting it with your ultimate, but you don't lock yourself into place for easy targeting with the inherent demerits of her ultimate. The ability to still use the rest of your things as well as side step completely outweigh the minuscule amount of range you gain when Q is used in conjunction with her ultimate now.

TL;DR :

Riot gutted her usability making Zoe feel like shit to play while addressing none of the actual damage issues.

Novice Zoe players will feel no difference but pro Zoe players may as well play something else.

119 Comments

ThePikol1/12/2018, 10:45:46 AM52 votes

make a champion unfun to play as -> it's playerbase drops -> no need to balance a champion if it's not played much -> profit

AquariusGine1/12/2018, 11:10:23 AM19 votes

Wow, this thread made me really sad. Riot making Akali clunky was such a bad move, they could have just kept her weak and reworked her. I hate it when champions lose their fluidity for the sake of balance.

General Esdeath 1/12/2018, 11:04:48 AM12 votes

Zoe as a champion is a cancerous design, every ability of hers is something Riot changed other champs for at some point in the past.

Q - Nidalee

W - Jax (dodge)

E - Fizz R when it would latch onto people even if he missed but they walked near it. Worst part of her kit, because even when she misses it, she doesn't.

R - Zed Leblanc had delays put on their "return to original spot" skills, only difference is they could control it.

Serika Zero1/12/2018, 1:24:43 PM8 votes

{quoted}

It fixed none of the issues players had against her, and just made her beyond uncomfortable to play for people that do play her.

For those of you that don't know, Akali's E, Crescent Slash, used to be able to trigger her Q, Mark of the Assassin.

What this did was create a very smooth and fluid trigger pattern as you didn't need to auto attack at all since her attack speed and animation was garbage. You'd just Q them, wait for it to fly, and just before it hits you use R and E to blow it up. You actually did less damage this way but it was much smoother and felt great to play.

After they changed her E to not trigger her mark, nobody played Akali anymore. She felt clunky as fuck to play and her E essentially became a useless filler skill. Some people just didn't even put a point in it opting for increased AR/MR from her shroud. They had to update her R, FIVE times to do some janky as fuck "behind target" placement bullshit to compensate for it. To this day she still feels like garbage to play compared to before the change.

Keep in mind that this didn't change her damage potential at all. Competent Akali players were still able to do the exact same thing but with a slight lag compared to before. People still complained about her damage. But the people that did play Akali dropped her as it just didn't feel good to play anymore. Riot achieved nothing but pissing off devote Akali players.

This change to Zoe's Q is essentially the same thing. People still get instantly oneshotted from a medium ranged Q into a target afflicted with her E anyway. Her damage in her most frequent scenarios have not been addressed at all and this change literally only affects the fringe cases of MAXIMUM range Q's which all but the fewest Zoe players even consistently pull off.

Not only that, but max range Q's require a full 2 seconds of foresight and placement prediction. This made for actual skillful decisions on where to place the shot and hard reading your opponent to predict where they will go.

What this change does is just make Zoe feel terrible to play while not addressing any of her damage issues at all. They've kept the skill floor the same but dramatically dropped the skill ceiling with this update.

To put it into perspective, it is better to simply run with your Q than to use your ultimate now for the purposes of range extension. Your net gain in range is shorter compared to shortcasting it with your ultimate, but you don't lock yourself into place for easy targeting with the inherent demerits of her ultimate. The ability to still use the rest of your things as well as side step completely outweigh the minuscule amount of range you gain when Q is used in conjunction with her ultimate now.

TL;DR :

Riot gutted her usability making Zoe feel like shit to play while addressing none of the actual damage issues.

Novice Zoe players will feel no difference but pro Zoe players may as well play something else.

This THIS IS WHY LOW ELO PLAYERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FUCKING COMMENT ON BALANCE.

Because they LACK GAME KNOWLEDGE. Why? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? "Nobody plays Akali anymore"............... right THEN WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT???????????????????????

http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=tf+blade

Explain??????? And he isn't the only high tier masters and challanger, Akali player.

Ok, now lets go back to what REALLY pissed me off from this post from an obviously very low elo player with absolutely no clue on the game mechanics. Yes, Akali used to be able to trigger her Q mark with her E. And now does it only with auto attacks. What did this do??????? What is different between auto attacks and abilities??????? come on, come on, use your fucking brain!!!!!!!

AUTO ATTACKS GET MINION AGGRO. If Akali before would get even a slightly lead, she could zone you just AS HARD as phanteon does. Why DOES THIS SHIT MATTER? Because if you GET MINION AGGRO, the ENEMY MINIONS WILL ATTACK YOU!!!!!!!! So, YOU WILL TAKE EXTRA DAMAGE FROM THE ENEMY MINIONS!!!! What else does this shit do?????? YOUR MINIONS KEEP ATTACKING THE ENEMY MINIONS WHILE THE ENEMY MINIONS ARE ATTACKING YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, if you Q + aa trade................................................. your lane will ............................... wait for it....................................... PUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, the enemy would have the lane push againts them if they choose too, and they can farm or get exp safely.

Meanwhile, when she could proc her E with her AA, she could still do the extra auto attack to do what you call "more damage" or 'the same damage as right now', and it didn't make her more clunky or anything compared with today. IT JUST MAKE IT SO SHE DOESN'T JUST SHIT ON YOU THE MOMENT SHE GOT A SLIGHT LEAD ON THE GAME. THEY MADE AKALI LESS SLOWBALLY. THEY MADE AKALI HAVE MORE FUCKING COUNTERPLAY.

God this pissed me so much. Look over what lane control is before you make statements that ARE IN DIRECT CONNECTION WITH IT. That's what happened. AKALI DIDN'T LOSE OR GAIN DAMAGE, SHE GOT COUNTERPLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

/rant over learn to play >.> and you are going to get shitloads of upvotes simply because you cater to this board's confirmation bias. I hate you.

Hibeki1/12/2018, 5:28:32 PM4 votes

Wow a certainly T champion being overpowered and then getting nerfed into unplayability because they arent possible to balance? This hasnt happened before..

Darius Zyra Kalista Yasuo

Tykenn1/12/2018, 12:39:51 PM4 votes

I've made a post similar to yours, and you have worded the same thought much better than I ever could. Thank you for that, I hope this gets more up-votes so someone at riot can see the upset.

Poske1/12/2018, 7:23:03 PM3 votes

Yes because getting hit by her q from fog of war without warning was healthy

OR sorry there was 0.025 Sec warning useful

I also dont see correlation with akali and zoe but whatever

xGunna11/13/2018, 4:16:51 PM3 votes

i played zoe a lot and noticed that the previous patch DIDN'T APPLIED THE QQR COMBO DELAY AS SAID IN PATCH NOTES OF 7.24b

now in patch 8.1 they applied THE PREVIOUS NERF + the new nerf which is the delay of her FIRST q speed so you have to wait for the Q untill you hear that sound and then recast it

now the qqr combo is laggy as fk they mad zoe clunky to play

i would rather nerf her Q damage then making her clunky and laggy as fk to play with

but anyway i still 1 shot top laners because zoe now is bad versus ranged mages like lux or vel koz cuz she can't land her qqr combo against them very fast so she is predictable therefor i only play her in top lane and shit on all of them

Ifneth1/13/2018, 8:08:18 AM3 votes

I disagree with the OP. I finally feel like I can counterplay Zoe. That bubble was way too easy to land for the reward it granted.

Poppystar1/12/2018, 10:58:27 PM2 votes

I always feel heartbroken when champions lose their fluidity or playstyle just after people have gotten used to playing them. Those that love the champion and play them every day feel discouraged because they feel like they have to re-learn all the skills and combos and play-style after they finally just finished learning them. This happened with Taliyah's w (seismic shift i think its called) which used to be a somewhat difficult skill/mechanic to master but was extremely rewarding. A small portion of people complained about Taliyah's strength and difficulty and then they completely did away with her double cast, slapped a vector casting on it and called it a day. This upset a ton of Taliyah mains and some struggled for months unlearning and relearning. Changing Zoe's an aspect of her Q's playability versus just changing the damage seems foolish to me. Why create this fun amazing champ with a learning curve (which is good, not everyone wants to point and click stun. people want difficult champs to play) and then take away their fluidity? Just nerf her damage like everyone has asked. Make her point blank Q damage not scale so much with AP, make her longer distance Q deal more like the original plan was supposed to be. Her numbers are just off.

rokarion1/12/2018, 5:49:57 PM2 votes

Yeah, they just made her less fun without fixing the one shotting. Is her R literally the worst ultimate in the game now? No damage, locks her in place, has a delay, doesn't amplify her q damage much... If you want to nerf her damage, nerf her damage. Nerf her e or w if you want. But don't straight up make her unfun to play. Maxing paddle stars and timing ult were the best thing about this champ. Now they feel like shit.

Junkο1/12/2018, 2:25:43 PM2 votes

This has been Riot's way of balancing for forever.

Remember Nidalee nerfs? Remember Kalista? Remember Azir? Remember Zed R change? Remember Rengar? Etc.

And it has always ended terribly. Except for Kalista she had it coming.

Jun Long1/13/2018, 2:51:22 AM1 votes

Riot nerfed Zoe's Q? I still get booty blasted from it.