Why Teemo Has a Hard Time Being Viable

To get to the answer quickly, it's because he isn't different enough from another on-hit champion named . Kayle has a lot more in-combat use from Teemo overall while Teemo is much more about objective control, but has more counters to his niche. Allow me to explain. DISCLAIMER: I am not saying Kayle is poorly designed or saying she is OP, I am just showing her in comparison to Teemo. Kayle is not all that bad.

Q- Targeted Nuke with Blind Q- Targeted Nuke with Slow and Defense Shred Very similar spells when you get down to it used for similar purposes, being poke in lane that is also often time used to initiate a fight/trade. Teemo's deals a decently large amount of damage with good scaling plus a blind, which is really what makes Teemo really annoying in lane to deal with. HOWEVER, then we have Kayle. Targeted nuke, still, with slightly lower base damage. However, the scaling is arguably much better since it has a 20% AP lower AP Ratio, but also comes with a huge 100% bonus AD ratio as well. The crowd control it offers is arguably not as useful, being a slow, but it also shreds the target's defenses, meaning it has both defensive and offensive uses. Teemo's CC is 75% of the time used defensively so the enemy can't hurt you, but Kayle's can be used both ways due to the flexibility of a slow and defense shred combination. Slow itself can be both offensive and defensive, but the added shred makes it really a general power house spell compared to Teemo's Q. This is also not mentioning that Kayle's is slightly longer range.

W- Speed Boost that is doubled when activated; non-active boost is disabled from towers and champions W- Active Heal and Speed Boost Kayle's, once again, has a lot more put into it. A Heal and a Speed Boost is a lot better arguably than a passive out of combat speed boost and a boost of in-combat movement speed. This isn't mentioning that Kayle's speed boost scales with AP. Now, it does cost more mana sure, but Teemo's has a slightly longer cool down as well. HOWEVER, Kayle can also use her's on another ally, Teemo cannot. The point is, Teemo's W and Kayle's W are much alike, but Kayle's can be used in a much larger variety of situations and on another ally at the cost of a higher mana cost which isn't huge outside the laning phase.

E- On-Hit Magic Damage with Poison; Single Target E- On-Hit Magic Damage; AoE The main reasons both are on-hit champions, we have their Es. Teemo's E is a single target on-hit that applies a poison effect. Great for hit and run. Kayle's E is an AoE effect and makes her Ranged. Teemo's E naturally lends itself to a hit and run effect (which makes me wonder why his passive gives attack speed but whatever), and Kayle's E is an AoE team fight shred monster. Due to the duration combined with cool down of Kayle's E, she can become ranged at nearly all times, but it still has to be balanced as an active effect because it costs mana and has a cool down. It can go either ways here as to which is stronger, but when you get to the technical side of things, it becomes clear that Kayle's E is more powerful. The main reason being is the active portion of it applies spell effects, meaning Kayle get's to have AoE slows on her basic attacks with just a Rylai's, where as Teemo needs a Frozen Mallet and Runnan's for this to happen, neither items giving him any AP to boost his other abilities. To shorten this, Kayle's E is much more powerful.

Then we have the final spells, being both of their ultimates. Neither are alike at all and THIS IS WHERE TEEMO'S NICHE IS AT! If you wanted an on-hit champion, you pick Kayle because she is in a lot of ways better than Teemo at that niche. Teemo is one of, if not the only champion in the game with traps as powerful as his are, since they are his ultimate. His niche is born here. HOWEVER, it has been nerfed a lot over the years. It's AP Ratio has been decreased and base damage decreased. It's duration has been halved as well, meaning you can only get half the normal map control than before, WHICH IS A HUGE HIT! Sure, it has bonus range now, but that ISN'T WHY YOU PICK TEEMO. If you wanted some huge team fight damage over time plus slow, you could easily go to someone that is much better at that, like or . Teemo's is a trap and it's effectiveness as a trap has been nothing but nerfed over the years, making the main reason to choose Teemo over anyone else become less and less. Teemo has a hard time being viable because other on-hit champions are better at being on-hit and his niche has been nerfed SO MUCH. For this reason exactly, Teemo needs to be changed because right now he is in a terrible spot. Now, I would like to say that Kayle is not in the bad here. Kayle is PERFECTLY FINE the way she is (kind of), providing a good niche with her ultimate and some unique gameplay with her E. However, she just outclasses Teemo so much that it makes it hard to argue to pick Teemo over her when she can carry a game so much better, leaving Teemo with his extremely nerfed shrooms. Teemo needs to be changed to help his niche and, in my eyes, will have to abusing a broken item to ever become viable in the game, which is very sad.