Tristana; A Discussion

I want to preface this with, No. I am not looking for direct buffs to my champion. What I am interested in is a redistribution of her power to make her more satisfying late game and less frustrating early game.

Because in all honesty, I feel Tristana's power curve is severely in need of adjustments.

For those unaware, Tristana's current power curve is a U. What this means is that her winrate is best early and late game with her mid game dropping to 45% wr. This is a frustrating position for a champion who is intended to be a late game scaling champion; its frustrating for everyone involved, not even just the people actively playing against her. Let me explain.

Everyone knows how it is frustrating for people playing against her. Tristana has a safe(which is not necessarily bad) lane phase thanks to her jump but on top of that she can also have a very strong one as well. Her E makes it so she can keep the pressure up with pushing and with a good all in support and misplays/steps from her laner, she is absolutely deadly, particularly post 6. As an ADC, she has lots of potential for burst that is only really deployable in a 1v1 or laning setting.

And I can see how this level of early game damage from a champion who scales well would be frustrating.

However, it is frustrating from the position of the Tristana player as well. The fact that her E is always on and always pushing her lane is a paint point for players as well; it means if you're getting camped or shoved in that you can't just farm under tower or freeze your wave. The way her E is currently facilitates that she needs her jump more than ever; pre six, with her current E, she is simply a sitting duck without some kind of safety net like her jump. This is expounded by her extreme reliance, more so than other ADCs, on her support.

She needs an aggressive support who can either zone or set up plays. Preferably both. On top of her E, her range early has already been nerfed severely to be one of the shortest for many ADCs specifically who don't have abilities to make up for it. Sivir, Lucian, and Kog all have 500 range but have the benefit of abilities that give them extra pseudo range(Sivir's Q and W, Lucian's Q, and Kog's W). Other ADCs in the same or similar attack range also have abilities by which they could trade with or, again, give them pseudo range.

525 Range Champions

Jinx: Has Q that gives her extended range and also makes her out range Tristana earlier in the game(maxed first and gives her 700 AA range where as Tristana has to wait until lvl 18 to get a paltry 661) Kaisa: On top of having a worst early in exchange for a better mid and late game(so a real actual curve and not a U or a valley), she also has her Q which has 600 range(so actually nearly as much range as Trist gets by waiting until lvl 18), and her W. Kalista: Has her Q and, furthermore, her jumps to make getting in range relatively easy. Also can use her Q to transfer spears from a minion to a champion for an easy E. Quinn: Her Q. Xayah: Her Q as well as her passive that allows her feathers to go through minions. This allows her to set up her E as well for tons of damage.

Tristana, meanwhile, has only her E for trades; its range is the same as her AA's meaning that once she tosses it on, an enemy only has to walk out of her AA range and it will do fairly minimal damage. It also has a long CD comparatively(14 seconds at rank 5).

So she has no ways of trading in lane and is reliant on her support to do the brunt of the work. Furthermore, her short range leaves her very susceptible to being bullied out as many ADCs can free harass her without any way for her to respond in kind. Compound this with the fact that her curve dips severely in the mid game, it essentially means that she is required to win lane phase or risk being completely useless until extreme late game.

And this is only if she's facing an ADC that is intended to fall off. Compared to other hyper scaling ADCs, Tristana has possibly the worst late game of any of them while also having the worst midgame. If she loses lane due to jungle interference(which is easy to do because she can't help but push) or due to being bullied out(also easy to do as many supports out range her and many ADCs, even other hyper carries, also do to) to another hyper carry, she is effectively dead weight. And this is frustrating.

What I would like to see is her power redistributed. Take away some of her early game power for late game power instead. Rework her E so it isn't always shoving the lane for her and give it some kind of teamfight usability. I would even trade the flat jump distance her W currently has with some kind of scaling jump distance instead if it meant that her early game could be weaker in exchange for a better mid to late game. Because as it stands, she currently has a pseudo weak early, an abysmally weak mid and an "okay" late game, making her frustrating to play and frustrating to play against.