A nerf to Tahm Kench that doesn't hurt his top and jungle

Jbels·Oct 20, 2015·3 votes·785 views

So I was thinking that alot of people seem to have a gripe with the fact that Tahm's W presents too much safety in alot of situations, and although I won't call the Kench broken, or even way overpowered, I will agree that this makes Tahm feel a bit...unfair, in situations where you landed your CC and the other ADC doesn't have to care because Slurp "Run away to safety!"

So I propose this. What if Tahm's W's cooldown was increased by a bit, but whenever you eat an enemy champion, a minion, or a jungle monster, the cooldown is reduced to normal levels. This would serve to nerf Tahm's support role without touching his jungle or top lane. Does anyone like the idea of this change? Riot? Can I get a word on it?

P.S.: I am a Tahm Kench main with almost 30,000 mastery points on him, so this is not a QQ thread, just a hypothetical quetion

10 Comments

JbelsOct 20, 20152 votes

Anybody? I'd really like to hear feedback about this

LeprechaunJinxOct 20, 20152 votes

I don't think that solves much of the issue since Tahm already only gets to use his devour once maybe twice per teamfight. All a cooldown increase would do is hinder him in back to back engages but he'd already be cutting it close to when it's coming off cooldown anyway.

Focusing on his W is certainly the way to go to nerf support Tahm though since affecting his E would be too impactful for his other roles. My proposition is to reevaluate the speed boost Tahm gets when devouring his allies and possibly remove the boost when running away from enemy champions. As it stands, using Tahm Kench as an engage seems relatively balanced in terms of how survivable his allies will then be, but his disengage abilities may be a bit too strong since he can already protect his allies from so much even without the speed up.

THE RlVER KlNGOct 21, 20151 votes

Tahm is a low-mobility ball of health. At max rank he gets like a 25% boost when running away, which is even less than an Augmented Siphon Power. Removing it entirely would be overkill and cripple his ability to safely shepherd high priority allies from point A to point B, which is the whole theme of his kit.

THE RlVER KlNGOct 21, 20152 votes

pokes head through crack in the door Hi, I'm a Tahm Kench main with 100k+ mastery points. The reason Tahm is allowed to have so much single target utility is the fact that he lacks (dis)engage of any kind. This means he's good against the odd Thresh hook or Morg binding, but he can't swallow his whole team. So a Malphite, Sejuani, or Amumu would be good if youre having trouble catching him and his carry. draws head back through door

JbelsOct 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

pokes head through crack in the door Hi, I'm a Tahm Kench main with 100k+ mastery points. The reason Tahm is allowed to have so much single target utility is the fact that he lacks (dis)engage of any kind. This means he's good against the odd Thresh hook or Morg binding, but he can't swallow his whole team. So a Malphite, Sejuani, or Amumu would be good if youre having trouble catching him and his carry. draws head back through door

Damn, son? 100K+?! I hope to get that many points down the line, you must play him all day every day o_o

SaltyKrackaOct 20, 20151 votes

I think they are probably going to need to kill the movespeed boost. As it is now, a well played TK absolutely shuts down any engage whatsoever if he happens to be nearby.

THE RlVER KlNGOct 21, 20151 votes

While simultaneously lacking any of his own.

A Loyal SupportOct 21, 20151 votes

all they have to do is nerf his damage. someone that tanky with such good CC shouldn't have such obscene damage and dueling potential. i don't mind if he does decent damage, but his damage is simply too much,

Binxy PrimeOct 21, 20151 votes

I think if they increased the damage on the later ranks of his q wihle lowering the slow duration that would do a lot to make fighting him feel more fair, he would poke harder but he couldnt permaslow you when he is ahead and it would make it more difficult to eat opponents while still keeping his ability to disengage (which is his main strength) in tact.

I think he is a very reasonable counter to all in and pick comps and I don't see a reason that niche shouldn't exist. The only problems I have with kench are when you get hit by a single q and dont have a dash ability and its litterally impossible to escape him or anyone he is with until you die, I should at least have a chance to sidestep it after being hit by it once.

ZT XperimentorOct 21, 20151 votes

Franky I don't think he's too powerful to need a nerf, especially compared to other supports of the 'protective' variety (braum, soraka) ; he's only got 1 ability specifically designed for it, while braum/soraka have 2 (braum has 'stand behind' & 'unbreakable' while soraka has 2 heals). I'm not counting stuns or body-blocking as nearly every other support can do both. And top lane he still suffers against champions with reliable poke (teemo, pantheon, ext.), but he only excels against all-in attempts. He's one of the more balanced champions upon release in a long time. However if he's nerfed, this post seems to be the only good compromise, as most others are just rage posts saying to gut him.