He gave his reasoning that stopwatch becomes available too early when midlaners get level 6 which gives the window for potentially fighting/ganking really short and especially for assassins. I think increasing that window would be better and might help stopwatch become a niche item rather than a “must have solution” to surviving any sort of burst/dive/mistake when everyone has their ultimates.
Quinzley49 votesHonestly it should be removed.
RainbowIcee9 votesagreed, it really should be. It has become a really annoying part of the game. It's cool that they added some defensive item in this damage mayhem but it shouldn't be a must use type of thing.
iDarkWind3 votesThe existence of that item is already dumb, but on top of that, the ADCs can upgrade it to 
.
Ridiculous. No wonder assassins are struggling.
I remenber the old days when assassins didn't even need such item as 
to actual be a treat.
Mr Noggenfogger1 votes"The old days of duskblade" also it's called the assassin rework
Squey1 votesRight now its warping the game in favor of scaling. But if its removed, the game will warp in the opposite way and turn into an assassin meta. Reason is because new runes make survivability a joke.
ForgottenLuck3 votesI personally disagree
PePsiLemoNN4 votes''Rito buff towers I get dived min 0:30''
''Rito delete stopwatch I can't dive''
Barcid1 votesHere's the difference:
A tower can be played around and tower diving should be high risk high reward. Right now it's pretty low risk for the reward and it's almost guaranteed.
Stopwatch is a Zhonya's effect, an effect that generally has its counterplay in teamfighting where your team can position up around the person or force the enemy team to engage on something they're not ready for.
Stopwatch in lane is literally always 1v1 and so is an immediate chance to remove any and all interaction with the user whatsoever. It is an immediate "fuck you" to any and all risk taking. If the enemy has it, it immediately means going in is almost guaranteed to go wrong while that enemy can instead use it to save themselves. This makes the dominant strategy always having stopwatch.
Towers are also readily available to everyone while Stopwatch isn't - you have to invest either runes or gold in it. That's why stopwatch should be deleted.
Recon12123 votesI think it's a neat idea to have a one time use of Zhonyas, but the problem is it way too overloaded. They need to make it an item that only if your champ really needs it do they take it, not this item is to strong not to take. It could be simply a gold thing (like they just did) or they could make it like a channel or a smaller duration than a full zhonyas, but as the state it is in, yeah it shouldn't be in the game.
Charm With parm1 votesHonestly it should be removed.
Agreed, if people want it that bad, they can buy it for 600 gold.
KennysDreamGirl10 voteshow about make it like 10 minutes or something but decrease the duration if you get a kill like the boots
Xerath Aim Bot3 voteshow about make it like 10 minutes or something but decrease the duration if you get a kill like the boots
Or just remove it as a rune. Personally I'd vote for it being similar to Magical Boots.
Admit it, some of the runes are overtuned and game breaking.
Oakleaf Ranger1 votesOne of the player testers said they tried this but it became an issue whenever someone started snowballing since they got access to it sooner and made it so much harder to stop the snowballer since it was a get of jail free card for the few moments players had a chance at stopping the snowballer.
KennysDreamGirl2 votesI didn't think about it that way. Makes sense. Maybe make it not a 2.5 second stasis, Maybe it could be 1 or 1.5
T ºKP Billy1 votesmore like decrease its remaining cooldown if you DIE.
Z3Sleeper8 votesI'm a simple man, I hear stopwatch nerf, I press upvote.
IMAGIRAFFE5 votesyes please because I can't take it anymore with even ADC stopwatch a thing it's hard to get an early lead and push without 2.5 second invulnerability while a turret dive is in progress and we always end up dying.
Tails Doll2 votesDont tower dive then?
Papa Ethan1 votesOr address the underlying problem with towers being too weak.
IMAGIRAFFE1 votesI'm mostly referring to Zed's death mark and Talon's bleed and any other effects that kill champs and not a full on turret dive because Zed and Talon can peace out over a wall.
Malfectious5 votesLol fans are funny...first it's all ...the games to snowbally we need something to stop these 15 min snowballs....so riot is all like here you go guys, we can take the wind out of early snowballs with an out play mechanic. So now everyone is saying omg i cant get early kills and snowball wtf riot????
The game isn't what's unbalanced, it's us [slayer-jinx-catface]
Edge of Daybreak4 votesPlease just do something riot its insane how awful it is to see stopwatch and know you are gonna blow your ult to do basically nothing
grimrookzero1 votesyou do know the watch is there 2 fix the problem of lvl 6 = free kill 90% of the time in mid
2 name a few who hit 6 and just flat out kill u
Charm With parm1 votesyou do know the watch is there 2 fix the problem of lvl 6 = free kill 90% of the time in mid
I wouldn't say malz can falt out kill you from full hp once he hits 6. His ult is fucking irritating, but his full combo with ult at level 6 doesn't do enough damage to 1 shot you, unless he maybe throws in an ignite and throws a few autos at you after the ult.
xelaker4 votesI'd even go as far as 10 min
XxDRAGONsAK47xX4 votesJust remove it
DuskDaUmbreon4 votesWell, sorry. But some of us would actually like to survive in mid once Zed/Talon/Kat/Akali/Diana/Fizz hits six.
I'm almost certain that nearly all of the people complaining about stopwatch (now that it's no longer able to be taken with boots) are either just on the bandwagon, or have never actually faced an assassin as anything but another assassin.
iDarkWind9 votesSorry, but assassins would like to explore their strenghts before being outscaled by mages, AKA bullying and abuse their lv6 powerspike against mages. At the moment, stopwatch is a free pass to the mid game without dying a single time, denying the enemie assassin snowball and make you just scale for free.
I'm almost certain that nearly all of the people defending stopwatch are either mage or ADC players (copy and paste your sentence and correct it).
INT then ULT9 votesYeah and I'd like to have a chance to kill people when I hit level 6.
Hitting 6 on 
, and ulting to force a stopwatch is such INTERESTING gameplay.
grimrookzero1 votesya but getting a free kill cause of how ez it is 2 hit lvl 6 and ult someone on those champs and many others is INTERESTING gameplay be real people most of you bitching are just made that you dont get 2 insta kill at lvl 6 anymore
Daunt3 votes?? It's already pretty easy to play around the level 6 spike of an assassin. We're in a meta where you can have an exhaust or barrier on midlane, you don't need a stopwatch on top of it. The appropriate thing here to say would literally be git gud.
LegitBacon661 votesYeah you’re right, i definetly don’t main assassins or anything or know how to play against them
Daunt5 votesHello? People have been facing assassins for like 7 seasons now. Stopwatch is completely unnecessary. Your incompetence is another story though.
Xerath Aim Bot2 votesHello? People have been facing assassins for like 7 seasons now. Stopwatch is completely unnecessary. Your incompetence is another story though.
It's a valid point though considering the overall damage output of the game is now much higher. Even more so when most assassins hit a power spike at lv6 and the fact that they also have access to stop watch as well which empowers their kit so much more when it comes to diving etc.
Daunt3 votesI mean, assassins aren't the only ones who have more damage since preseason, everyone does. And they usually don't have access to stopwatch (or at least not anymore) without heavily crippling themselves since other trees offer more for them.
It's easy to play around assassins since they only have a brief window of opportunity to do stuff before getting outscaled. And a part of that window is being cut. Why? Because people are unable to tell when a character is gonna hit 6 even though their own character is on the same exp level as the enemy? Nothing changed in the way people fight assassins, stopwatch is completely unnecessary. The appropriate thing would be to at least put it's availability on 8 minutes.
ModCaptainMårvelous4 votesThe fact that it's free is what bugs me.
Nobody would care if you spent 600g (maybe more) on a one use item. In these cases, it's completely fair. You're paying a huge lump sum early for a single use that can win you a trade you would have lost or cost you the game. Instead, for most characters, it's a free zhonya's at the early game when you're at your most vulnerable, on top of building normally.
Actually, make it inverse: Have the stopwatch start at a 12 minute that goes down by 30 seconds every time you die. Have it take longer, whatever. Just don't make it a free 600g powerspike for starting the game.
KLDRAGON3 votesStop watch is broken when it comes to zed and all those assassins(especiallly zed) when they ult they just stop watch which makes you waste your ult
Squey1 voteszed has always been impossible to deal with unless your on a champ that can poke realy well and from far away, or you have excellent long range wave clear. Having stop watch gives me a chance to not die to his first all in under my turret. Im plat and even a silver zed who missed 75% of his abilites can still kill me with my first purchase arm guard under my tower with little to nothing ican do about it.
Viscâ2 votesHonestly, this item unfair because for example u are taking enemy summoners but if enemy have a stopwatch he can survive under the tower and he can farm..So u can't punish him should be remove from the game.
Raven Redeemed1 votesJust brainstorming here, what if it gave you damage reduction and a slow (like 50 50 or something).
invisiblecat11 votesI thought making the Stasis last on like 1 to 1.5 seconds would have been better off, but I think this works too
Infernape1 votesI have no idea why Riot doesn't get ex pro players to work on the balance/playtest team.
Salamencę1 votesOr not at all
What Is Smite1 voteshow about cutting the time the stasis is active for? On Live servers it's the same duration as 
, so why not just decrease the time in stasis by 1s and make it a 1.5s stasis? It cuts out the seemingly long wait for the enemy to pop out of their stasis, so players will have to be more reactive with it not lasting as long.
Unvictus2 votesClarity is a huge part of why they can’t do that. Everyone is so used to the current stasis timing of zhonyas that if you change the timing for stopwatch it would just cause confusion. They would have to at the very least create a new animation for the stopwatch stasis if they wanted to reduce the stasis duration. There would have to be some kind of a visual distinction between the two stasis effects if their durations are different. I just don’t see that happening honestly.
What Is Smite2 votesBronze Stasis instead of Gold? To show it's worn down ofc, all it would take is a simple pallet swap and for the sound que it could be a shortened hourglass stasis sound. From how I see it the least amount of work they would need to do is recycle Sound and Visual effects with slight tweaks.
Unvictus2 votesIt sounds like a much more simple fix than it actually is. All I know is I saw a Rioter comment on a proposal the same as yours a little while ago and they said that it wasn’t an option.
What Is Smite1 votesA rioter replying to me? Nope that's as big of a Myth as any, the only response from a Rioter I've ever had was from Riot Morello asking what he was up to after resigning from Balance Lead. He moved to R&D department and this was 2 years or so ago.
Jiali2 votesNo he's saying a rioter commented on your idea, not implying you posted it. What you said somebody has already said and has been responded to by a rioter, explaining it is not an option.
ModCaliCoastReplay1 votesI think it needs to be in the game right now, as even though it gives gankers power to drop turret aggro, it also gives gank victims a chance to survive, as well as helping to balance out mid.
But it's a little too good, and it's everywhere.
The 8-minutes nerf sounds legitimate. Or remove the rune and make it cost 450 gold. You can take it first push, but it's a choice and a commitment and a major sacrifice.