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LeBlanc's Identity Regarding Her Original Gameplay Designer

Vęrtęx·5/14/2017, 8:07:23 PM·3 votes·681 views

The rework has shifted leblanc's identity to a kiteing, waveclear then roam assassin that has proved to be troublesome regarding solo q and pro play rather than the old iteration of LeBlanc who had clear weaknesses. This has left her with less counterplay and an uninteractive lane after the changes. The original designer behind LeBlanc, Coronach, put power into leblanc's w to specifically not allow LeBlanc to be a kiteing assassin who had little counterplay, "We created Sigil of silence and ethereal chains with two goals in mind. Create compelling choices with mimic and make sure both of the spells made the use of distortion more predictable to fight against and to give strong incentive to not just save distortion to escape." (Follow the link to the original champion spotlight video for the quote). This created an identity of Leblanc bursting onto a champion by using distortion aggressively and not defensively. Using distortion aggressively gives so much more counter play because it puts LeBlanc in danger due to cc. Instead this rework has torn her identity from jump on your face and burst to kite, kite, kite until they are dead. The changes have been toxic to the players that play LeBlanc and the players that play against LeBlanc. Leblanc had clear weaknesses and now the rework has made her a generalist like Ryze, Ahri, Azir. Thank you for your time and please feel free to discuss!

4 Comments

GrievousFetus5/14/2017, 8:12:30 PM2 votes

LeBlanc's rework is a mess. W has been heavily nerfed and is now primarily a waveclearing tool. Before W was intentionally a multifaceted tool that was simultaneously her waveclear, her escape, and her harass and she had to choose which of those things she'd use it for. Forcing her to waste her W on waveclear was an explicit weakness of hers. Now W>Q is her waveclear and designed as such, and her killing power is in her E. She's a kit mage now not a diving assassin. The rework should just be reverted in its entirety (outside of the ult, the clone on the ult is a nice addition that isn't raw combat power, same with her R>R global deception clone).

Sasogwa5/14/2017, 8:31:00 PM2 votes

I agree. But the problem all comes down from whiny players complaining about getting bursted without counterplay. Because the only way to rework a burst assassin without making him unviable is to make him a more cancerous, less "instant-burst gated by CD's, manacost, and ennemies defensive buys", but more about kite, being basically undealable with unless he makes a mistake because way too safe. Or they build tanky (Fizz ) because Riot thinks it's a healthy idea to put delayed burst (but more base damage obviously else it's just unviable) so that our precious adc's don't feel too bad and get oneshot when they have 30 mr and 5 offensive items. Oh wait yeah, we raised that to 39 that's right.

Leblanc WAS fine. Veigar WAS fine. Even Fizz uh.. maybe not. But in any case they had higher CD's, higher manacosts, it used to be much more about mana and cooldowns management (they had large windows of weakness when their cooldowns were down especially old Veigar, basically a sitting duck) instead of just spamming shit on (ridiculously low) cooldown and be a generalist mage with a lot of tools but no real identity. Leblanc had to choose to get waveclear, and that forced her also into aggressive dangerous trades if she maxed W. That brought counterplay, that brought decision-making depth.

But what I'm the most angry about is people who complained back then they get bursted way too easily. Well they could have got defensive items. Burst mages were actually balanced. They also fell off. Maybe not that fun to play against, but I'd 1 billion times prefer getting oneshot or being forced into def itemization, but being able to do something in retaliation, than being kited to oblivion by 3-dashes charm movespeed boost miss cancer Ahri . Or a kiting Leblanc spamming chains and W defensively.

I'd like to add that they are more healthy to deal with if you are a ranged champion (oh surprise no bias at all amirite), but much harder to deal with if you're melee and prone to kiting. Because they don't even need anyone to kite you. And that's VERY unhealthy. Kite is supposed to be helped by supports, not easily doable without any help. I know I am being slightly biased as I main melee champs that indeed get shit on by kiting (Nasus, Jax, Garen, Trynd, even Yi) but enough is enough.

Troll for Trump5/14/2017, 9:35:44 PM2 votes

Honestly, the entire assassin rework was bad, outside of Kata and maybe Akali

Azureee5/14/2017, 8:14:49 PM1 votes

Her W being gutted is literally what is killing the champ for mains I feel. Revert it's damage and focus nerfing other aspects of her kits instead of the iconic W which forces her to go aggressive and enforce a more healthy fun playstyle.