Evelynn: Why she is so difficult and how to make her more popular

Hi all,

I’m an Evelynn main with 350k+ champion mastery and I’m currently Gold 2 and 77. best Eve EUNE.

There have been many questions about why she has a 10/10 difficulty rating and what about her is it that makes it so difficult to play.

Personally I think she is a relatively easy champion to pick up and you can utilize her in a good way in say Bronze – Silver, even though she is an early game jungler. However when it comes to master her she is insanely difficult. In higher divisions where people know exactly what they are facing you’ll have problems.

So why is Eve so difficult? First of all, and please let this sink in: She is a squishy, melee mage with no gapcloser and no hard cc. Her only soft-cc (a 2 seconds slow) is on her Ultimate (which has a very high cooldown early). So, even though she has her stealth, she has a „bad kit” for an assassin in terms of assassination and getting out alive.

Second, due to her permastealh for balance reasons she has pretty bad stats and scaling. Unless you are fed or ahead in game you practically cant 1 vs 1 anyone. She is squishy as fuck and her damage is just ... oookaaaay.

Third point is, that her core items are pretty expensive for a jungler (I think Rylize is core). Same goes for Gunblade if you intend to go hybrid. Her Jungle clear speed is not really good, also she has a very high gank potential, which means you spend most of your times ganking anyway, not farming. In the end, unless you are successful, you end up having little money: And you need both damage and sustain.

Her kit is nothing spectacular: Hatespikes, good damage over time, but you have to stick to your target for at least a couple of seconds to make good use of it. Her W – good, but still would have prefered a gapcloser / stun. Her E is her only burst. And her R is very situational. You can make very good use of it in certain situations (can be game changing), in most situations however its not that strong of an ultimate: You cant kill anyone, hard-CC anyone and the plus HP barely makes up for her missing sustain.

Her stealth mechanic is not easy to use. Of course you have permastealth, but its only good for engage. It is useless in combat and you have no way to activate it during combat. There are many counter plays to the stealth of hers and a better player always has enough time to react on her (700 range is more than caitlyn range) – remember, she has no gapclose or stun, she needs to walk to you.

Last but not least, she is an early game champion who does not scale well into lategame. You kind of have to win the earlygame. Also she falls off pretty hard. Once behind, she is completely useless due to her lack of CC, sustain and of course damage (if behind).

I’d also disagree with the fact, that she isn’t hard to play mechanically. True, the combos and skills are simple in mechanical sense, but positioning, the correct use of your W (dont forget the refresh), hatespikes to lower W cooldown, ravage / spikes / sheen rotation, etc. are what makes the difference between a good Eve and a not so good one.

Oh, another one! Ever played Evelynn, snowballed hard but still lost the game? Well, one may say it’s due to your own fault not building good enough on your advantage. That in fact may be true. But it’s also fact, that it is harder to actually „carry” a game as Evelynn, than with let’s say an equally fed Riven, AD Carry, Renekton, or whatever. She is simply not the type that goes in 1 vs 5 and kills them or eliminates everyone from distance with decent protection. A fed Evelynn is not nearly as terrific as other champions.

Evelynn is often praised for her amazing ganks as she can bypass vision. But people don’t realize, that there are certain lanes, which are almost ungankable for her. Remember: no gapcloser or hard cc, squishy and you must be able to stick to your target for a couple of seconds to make any significant damage. Just to name 1 example per lane: Ezreal bot, Janna support, LeBlanc mid, Skarner Jungle, any tanky / bruiser / mobile toplaner. They really need to make BIG mistakes in terms of positioning, overextending, etc. In comparison to Shaco, who can „outplay” you during ganks, Evelynn mainly needs to utilize on your mistakes, which becomes more and more difficult the higher you rise in ELO.

So to sum it up, I think Evelynn is a very difficult champion, not because of her mechanics (which aren’t that trivial either) or complexity in her kit, but due to her nature itself. Overall, I think Eve in her current state is more or less balanced in the hand of a good player, maybe even a bit OP in lower ELO (if you choose to invest 15 - 25 hours initially to pick her up) and definitely UP in Gold – Platinum for the average non-main-Eve, and again balanced in Gold – Plat for an experienced Eve. Probably UP in higher ELO as she is barely picked there, although I personally know several Evelynn mains who were able to reach high Diamond / Master mostly playing Evelynn only.

Nevertheless, even though I think she is not that bad, only „difficult to play”, I believe she could have some buffs without making her actually OP, only let’s say „more of a viable choice”.

I’d not „rework” her kit, as I think it’s absolutely useable, despite of some flaws it obviously has.

Possible improvement ideas:

I assume skills / stats / scaling are not changed. I’d recommend following changes (buffs) to her existing state in order to make her a more popular and viable pick.

Passive: Give her a minor scaling flat movement speed bonus when she is unrevealed (not in stealth): +5/10/15/20 flat movement speed on lvl 1/6/11/16. This will make it easier for her to engage, disengage in case she is exposed. Also it synergizes with her +% movement speed on her W. In case she enters stealth mode, she will lose the extra movement speed.

Q: Hate Spike is a wonderful spell which I think is balanced. As of now, hate spikes prioritize the last enemy hit. This itself is good. But make hate spikes also prioritize champions over monsters / creeps. This is more of a „bug fix”, than a buff. I think its not logical for an eve to chase a champion within hate spike range, but hit a minion instead, just because it was „the last enemy hit”.

W: In a „frenzied” state you tend to ignore the damage. Therefore as an additional passive effect, give 1% total damage reduction per skill level. That is on skill lvl 5 you’ll have all damage decreased by 5%. As this is normally the last skill to max, the damage reduction will help her scale better into late game without improving her early game.

E: For the duration of the attack speed buff (but not on the first 2 initial strikes) Eve should also deal 1% of the total enemy’s health as true damage with each auto attack and heal for 1% of own total health per AA hit (should only work with champions, not jungle monsters). This should make her at least a bit more viable vs. Tanks, more rewarding for sticking on the target (not just let hate spikes do the work) and increase her very bad 1 vs 1 potential.

R: Additionally, should have 100 / 200 / 300 flat (non-scaling) magic damage distributed among all enemies hit. E.g. if you are lvl 13 Eve and hit 4 enemies then you’ll do 200 : 4 = 50 to each enemy as flat magic damage. This should be calculated after the % health damage. This should make her ultimate more lethal (as normally you cant kill anyone with it), also improve her 1 vs 1 potential (less people hit, more damage). So on lvl 16 if you go 1 vs 1 and ult the enemy you do 300 flat magic damage.

Personally I think these buffs are relatively minor by themselves, however are quite good if applied all of them (I don't think she’d be OP though, only way stronger than she is now).

If you disagree with above, no problem, this is just the way I see it. I respect everyone’s opinion.