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The community was wrong about Soraka and Janna.

Mârty·11/27/2014, 7:48:25 PM·3 votes·1,220 views

JANNA

Since the pre-season 4 changes, Janna's passive was shifted from a global 3% ms aura to an 800 range 5% ms aura. After a few months of the community complaining about her (perceived) low power level, a common suggestion was to increase the passive range because "800 is too low for an aura, make it 1000!".

Alongside more interesting buffs (Q changes, ultimate responsiveness), the aura range was buffed to 1000 range. Since then, she's gained massive popularity. The aura range buff was by far the worst possible buff for Janna. Riot directly increased her totally hidden power, and instantly made everyone who picks Janna just better. The Q changes and ultimate changes had a much higher impact on skilled Janna players.

With the meta shifting to a jungle/support roam play-style, Janna's passive is just far too much power for zero effort. I'm convinced that a huge portion of her power budget is hidden in her passive. Personally, I'm super curious to see how hard her win rate will tank if she didn't have a passive at all. However, I'd like to see a modified passive that encourages player skill and kit synergy. I have a rough design that I'd love some feedback on, with my main goal being removing free power on her kit and creating opportunities for players to earn that power.

**Tailwind - Changed **

When Janna casts a spell, the residual winds create an aura (<800 range) for 3 seconds that grants herself and nearby allies 4+(0.0075xAP)% bonus movement speed

This is actually a huge nerf to the typical Janna player. Having a permanent, free bonus movement speed aura has so much hidden power behind it. 5% movement speed is the difference between arriving to a fight just in time, and arriving too late. Those instances tip many games towards the Janna players, regardless of whether they or anybody else in the game was conscious of it. This is just poor design, to have so much power in something that requires zero interaction or input means any player who selects this champion will find themselves conveniently in time for a fight.

Shifting it to an in-combat aura (or if she really wants to spam spells, she can roam with it too) while also giving it some scaling makes for a more interesting (but far weaker) passive. She now has a more specific power - in a fight, or when escaping, her team gets that movement speed. Outside of those scenarios, she no longer gives her entire (nearby) team over three quints worth of free stats.

Howling Gale

Mana Cost Reduced to 90/95/100/105/110

With chalice being hit, and this new passive hitting her general power level, this is definitely a good opportunity to allow maxing howling gale second to be an option. Currently, maxing Zephyr second/shield second is pretty much required within the support role. She simply does not have the mana regen, in any case (especially with season 5 chalice nerf) to satisfy that ridiculous 150 mana cost at level 13.

Monsoon - New Effect

While channeling her healing winds, tailwind's passive movement speed bonus is doubled.

For context, with 400 AP, Janna's passive will give a movement speed boost of 6% for a few seconds whenever she casts a spell. While channeling her ultimate, this would be boosted to 12%.

This is that cool synergy I was talking about. This gives Janna players another benefit to consider when choosing to channel her ultimate. She now gives her team a pretty nice movement speed boost, plus a heal, if she chooses to channel it. A channeling Janna is extremely susceptible to death however, and because she has to channel for the double movement speed effect, she'll never actually benefit from it on her own.

It's thematically appropriate (Woo monsoon winds you can run faster now!), and solidifies her play-style of disengaging winds.

SORAKA

As I had predicted, increasing the heal range has made Soraka extremely frustrating to play against.

The most common complaint about Soraka has been her heal range is too low. I'm very disappointed that Riot caved in and buffed it. Regardless of the power the took out of another spell to allow for it, overall Riot took away from her gameplay and interactive healing and pushed her into a more passive play-style that only focuses on positioning.

Since the changes, the amount of fun I've had playing Soraka has definitely gone down. I went from sitting in a dangerous position, dodging skillshots/AoE and using Equinox carefully, to starting a fight off with Equinox, and then sitting in a super safe position spamming heals and landing a Q on their front line.

Laning against a Soraka is extremely frustrating now, and laning as a Soraka is extremely boring. Because of her new heal range, she no longer is open to harass from the enemy laners. She can now sit as far back as she likes and just spam her heals, and maybe walk up to land a Q every now and then. There's just no opportunities to engage on her. Increasing the cooldown of Equinox just made her far more scared to ever try and walk up.

I really, REALLY want to see the heal range reduced back to what it was. She used to have the tools to play dangerously and survive. Now, she has to essentially run away the second she burns Equinox, and abuse her new heal range.

Changes I'd like to see to Soraka:

Starcall

Projectile speed normalized (Not sure if this has already happened?) Cooldown increased to 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 Sweetspot slow changed to 25/30/35/40/45 + (0.06AP)%*

It'll be slightly easier to land at max range, and as a trade off the cooldown has been increased. This punishes her for missing the spell, and gives her opponents a slightly bigger window of opportunity to react to a low health soraka.

Astral Infusion

Range reduced to 450

Without Soraka having to expose herself in a teamfight to pump out heals, Riot makes her a very frustrating champion to play against.

Equinox

Cooldown decreased to 22/20/18/16/14

This is simply a case of giving her the tools to survive her dangerous encounters. It forces her opponents to play around it, but in exchange, she's an easier target.

Overall, this shifts Soraka from the currently brainless play-style she has now back to the exciting, high risk high reward playstyle she had pre-patch 4.20.

I'm excited to hear everybody's opinions and feedback.

8 Comments

eztarg3t11/27/2014, 9:23:10 PM3 votes

I find it really odd how you said the community's input was wrong about Sorakas heal range and that Riot should not have increased it...only for you to go right around and use the very community to back your argument about her being boring/ frustrating. Your argument isn't really strong when you just labeled your source unviable. Further more, your "valid" information is only, what, a week old(?). A week after Sorakas rework, people claimed she was ruined. A useless champion.

I'm sorry, but your argument is pretty unreliable and more of a knee jerk reaction in my eyes.

But I will pretend that your source is very secured and trustworthy. This is the preseason, the best time to actually experiment with a champions build. If what you say is true, it won't be hard to rectify the problem and put her healing range back to its original state. They are already tweaking her health regen and her ap ratio on healing herself with her W in an attempt to make her more interactive. Like I said, the preseason is the best time to try these things out without fear of extreme repercussion.

Also her fixed attack speed on her Q did not go though.

zions eyebrows11/27/2014, 8:16:19 PM1 votes

It's not so much that they're overpowered, rather they're extremely annoying to play against. They're the biggest cockblockers in the game and can completely nullify anything you do, no matter how well you play it. That being said, Janna actually takes some skill to play so I don't consider her as bad as Soraka. The "machine" thing Riot tried to do with her Q and W was definitely a step in the right direction, but it really doesn't make her any less "anti-fun."

As far as Janna goes, she'll always be a strong pick due to the inherent utility in her kit (as long as Riot doesn't try to completely gut her of course).

Eleshakai11/27/2014, 9:12:13 PM1 votes

Janna's at a perfect power level right where she is. 1000 range is not a long range, overall. The reason Janna is a strong pick is that the game still revolves a lot around protecting high output adcs. Janna is the queen of protecting ADCs, so while the meta revolves around them, she's strong. Once the meta shifts, she'll go back into relative obscurity. She'll likely never be WEAK, but she won't be a top pick anymore.

Soraka's a hard one... she's got some REALLY defined weaknesses and you can abuse them pretty hard.... but she also has some pretty amazing strengths. I think right now her kit sin't tuned quite right - not that she's OP or UP but that she's strong in some of the wrong places.

Done2511/27/2014, 9:17:53 PM1 votes

If they have to nerf Soraka, I would much prefer they nerf her heal range.

As for Janna, I really like the passive + Monsoon interaction.