Thoughts on Volibear.
I'm copy pasting this I said on another thread. so sorry for being abrupt and not doing introductions etc. Please voice your thoughts on volibear as a whole. Even though I might strongly dislike something about volibear you saying what you like about his current skill could be seen and worked on/retained IF riot finally see volibear could use a buff, rework, or relaunch.
His issues are his kit overall is in a weird place, functioning but weird.
Like udyr does what volibear wants to do Q(entirely bear stance), AS given from W without the execute(Tiger), AoE from Ulti and E (phoenix except the chain distance).
His passive is amazing but he doesn't have real tools to stay an "aggro-magnet" once he uses Q tbh, unlike Udyr he can't keep using Q on different targets.
His Q is pretty decent except he's still kitable like most, going back to udyr though, he can't retry in quick succession and even referring to garen, he can't do it for free due to having mana.
W, AS granted works in combo with his ulti but otherwise it's really a waste of space since there's nothing in his base kit that needs AS. You can bring up his W's 3-hit but ok? He uses Q+2 AAs now execute can be used, AS for no reason if ulti is down. For example rammus, he has bonus dmg on AAs which is amplified when W is on, him having an AS steroid works cause it's his base kit that functions with it.
E, Only fears winions and monsters, decent for jng but for champs it just slows only if you can get in range int he first place.
R, Honestly does not work in conjunction with his base kit at all aside from the AS boost. And even then it does nothing to keep him an aggro magnet or catch thing, and it's not even on a rank 3 blitz/lux ulti tier CD.
Honestly Volibear has always been in, I wouldn't say a conflicted mess because unlike old urgot he doesn't have conflicting issues. But voli's entire issue is he's only a wall, that can sometimes deal a tad amount of damage which isn't even higher than a normal bruiser/juggernaut or as powerful in sustain dps as skirmishers/Dueling bruisers(divers).
He needs a relaunch but noone really knows where the focus should be.
Passive is obvious to keep
Q could be fully changed into something to retain the MS steroid with less downtime and retain CC or given a gap closer or maybe a combination like volibear starts with a MS steroid until he lands the attack but the attack itself is a gap closer kinda like ivern's Q without the enemy being rooted. However that's too strong, either way current Q has too much of a downtime to do anything udyr can't do.
W- The execute is fine but the AS is wasted since again there's nothing in his base kit that requires AS, if his ulti were a base ability maybe the AS would be fine but right now it's useless. Maybe replace W with his ulti weakened and it passive grants AS if you really want to retain his ultimate and AS. But IMO it'd be better to just shelf both his AS and Ultimate seeing as how even with it he doesn't do more damage than duelist. It ruins his threat generation entirely.
E- Honestly it's only purpose is to help catch someone if you're slightly in range of them. And helps jungling. It needs to be fully scrapped for a different way for him to jungle thus him actually catching someone can be more enforced (I think keeping his Ultimate as a basic ability, passively giving AS would already allow him to still jungle thus E can be fully scrapped for a new ability
R- Make a basic ability instead with the AS passively granted from it.
Basically: Passive entirely should be retained
Q needs major overhaul for lower downtime if failed to do anything or some more impactful way for a larger scale fight because being able to only affect 1 person then do nothing is useless for how volibear is.
W- Execute can be moved to something else but maybe making Ultimate his new W(weakened of course) and keeping the AS passively is far better plus he'd still be able to jungle
E- Fully scrapped, it's only a useless bandaid fix waste of budget to catch people and jungle.
R- Changed to W, thus open to be a brand new ability.
As such E and R are now empty slots for new abilities, Q just needs to have less downtime or be possible to affect more people. (One example, maybe Volibear STAYS on all fours, thus all that he flips have their own individual CD like udyr's Q/Yasuo's E. Thus volibear can influence more people during the duration of Q, and maybe even flip the same person twice if they stay in range over the duration.)
I can't possibly say what E and R could be, but seeing as how people are use to volibear having an execute his ultimate could probably retain that in some way. But I am heavily against E staying AT ALL. Since he'd already have jungling power due to his statikk shiv-like W which grants AS and functions like kayle's W without being ranged ofc.
Zilean wasn't necessarily wrong imo, just wrong words. Volibear shouldn't have been implemented into league the way he was, because while his kit didn't conflict with itself, he never had anything to truly keep him in the game aside from his passive and Q. AS is useless if there isn't something innate in base kit to make it valuable, and his E was again a band aid to help jungle which didn't do anything to catch someone unless you were already at your target.