Can we rework Heimer's passive (again), to give him more counterplay/interaction in lane?

Yenn··13 votes·9,596 views

He's one of the highest win rate champions in all 3 lanes, ranging from 52% to 54%, because he's so hard to interact with, let alone punish. He only has ~5 losing match ups in mid and bottom lane, while he only has 10 losing match ups in top lane (out of 70 potential match ups). Even if you first pick him, you're probably still going to win your lane.

If you're playing most melee champions, the match up is hopeless. His turrets will poke you down when you try to CS, while he's also moving too fast for most melee champions to engage on. If you do somehow manage to reach him, his stun grenade is impossible to miss at close range. The only melee champions who can actually do anything in these lanes are ones who can dash onto him, burst him hard, and have enough built-in survivability to not die to the turrets. There are very few champions who fit this description, and most of them are the highest performing top laners.

Ranged champions don't fare much better, because most are heavily reliant on skill shots, and he's just too fast to land anything on at mid to long range. It's not a matter of 'aiming better,' because his movement speed is so high that he can easily side step with mediocre reaction speed. Landing skill shots on him generally require a mistake on his part. If he does have good reaction speed, he can also drop a turret to intercept an incoming skill shot that's too close to avoid.

I think one of the biggest issues is the movement speed near turrets, which seems to be a completely unnecessary part of his kit. It allows him to hard push 24/7, because nobody wants to gank him; it's too risky to dive into his turret nest, and landing anything on him when he's moving so fast is too unreliable. It's also incredibly hard to clear the turrets, even as a long range champion, because they have so much health and you generally need your cooldowns to counter his pushing.

Replacing his passive with something else that doesn't give movement speed, or making the movement speed more conditional and not something he just gets for free at virtually all times in lane, would be a good starting point to giving him more lane interaction.

28 Comments

Voluug135 votes

ranging from 52% to 54%, because he's so hard to interact with, let alone punish.

You forgot to mention his 0.5% pickrate. Which, you know, means that like only half a dozen people who have mastered him are playing him, in an assassin meta, where he should be a decent pick anyways.

Z3SIeeper8 votes

1.4% bot 0.8% mid 0.8% top

are the actual numbers.

PS: not saying anything, just that these are the numbers.

Ragnaveil3 votes

Which means if you go against one, they know what they are doing, which makes it all the more harder to beat him compared to someone who isn't a extreme master of heim.

Voluug131 votes

I am pretty sure that if we applied that to every supposedly '''''high skill''''' champions like just about every assassin, there could be a massive flame war.

Despite the fact that Heimer is extremely easy to counterpick, unlike assassins.

Ragnaveil1 votes

I mean, they applied that to Riven and made her easier, and it took toplane half a year of bitching just to get her knees capped correctly ONCE. Heim takes skill, but he isn't complex to the point you need to have godlike mechanics. You're never gonna design a champ to be that. Why? Because then its going to cater to less than 1% of players, even less % than the amount of players in Masters+.

WoonStruck5 votes

Make his passive scale turret/rocket/grenade damage based on level and gut his base damage on everything.

Noraver3 votes

Take away his movement speed boost entirely, and nerf the flat early damage on his turrets so he's not so oppressive in lane (Still scaling back to normal with 5 points).

Give him a fun passive. Something like:

Optimized Turret Defense Upgrades! The first time a lane turret attacks an enemy champion, it launches a blast that deals X additional damage/deals an effect, etc. Can only occur once every 10 seconds per champion, per turret" or something.

Something fun, unique, out of the ordinary, and makes you go "Sweet, Heimer's on my team!"

That might be a trash idea, who knows. Just something off the top of my head to offer up.

Waka FIocka3 votes

my biggest issues with Heim are: his turrets are WAY too tanky and his +ms in them is , like you said, very annoying to deal with. Once he has liandry+rylai you literally just cant go in there. his turrets should not be that tanky. as a support it takes me 5 aa or a ton of mana on spells to destroy from a safer range. it's broken as fuck considering Zyra's plants are either a 2 shot or 1 shot. like wtf

fun fact : heim's turrets 1 shot zyra's plants. :)

Troll Slaiyer2 votes

hes fine. idc about his passive movespeed tho. can change that if u w ant. his E is hard to land, which is what allows the laser beams and rockets to hit u directly. try playing him and landing a perfect E on people. youll rage quit and say "dis champ sucks". or playing in matchups where ur turrets become free gold for the enemy.

long story short, heimer is crap . hes one of those champs that make it feel like a 4v5.

KFCeytron2 votes

Random brainstorm for a new passive: Heimer and his turrets share any damage taken when near each other. Bad idea, or horribly bad idea?

forresto1 votes

that just turns him into a quasi-tank on top of all his other advantages, no thx :3

KFCeytron1 votes

{quoted}

that just turns him into a quasi-tank on top of all his other advantages, no thx :3

My thinking on it was that it would give him more survivability when jumped on rather than relying on popping Zhonya's while his turrets shoot things, but those turrets can have a pretty good amount of health, approaching 700-800 late game. Sitting in three of them would effectively double his health, which is definitely too much. But AoE spells would be more effective, it would allow enemies to take down multiple turrets when approaching only one of them, and he would sacrifice his own health if he wanted to protect his turrets from poke. Maybe it could be a percentage instead of splitting evenly?

My subsequent thinking on it was that this would basically be a passive for his Q, not for the champion himself, so it shouldn't be his passive at all regardless of strength. \o/

xDogMeatx1 votes

i seen u didnt mention nasus or vlad? besides those 2 i believe he is too fast but once you break his turrets (in general regardless of champ choice) he is easy to catch (in general regardless what free damage from turrets we are talking about his move speed here) all you need is adaptive helm and his dmg goes out the window.

WoonStruck1 votes

{quoted}

i seen u didnt mention nasus or vlad? besides those 2 i believe he is too fast but once you break his turrets (in general regardless of champ choice) he is easy to catch (in general regardless what free damage from turrets we are talking about his move speed here) all you need is adaptive helm and his dmg goes out the window.

What about vlad? His sub-200 base damage at rank 5 abilities? His less than sub-50 healing before level 9? His barely palatable scaling now that all of his ratios have been nerfed?

If everyone in this meta weren't glass cannon, vlad wouldn't even function. That's why people find him frustrating. Nobody builds defenses.

Build a single MR component in lane and he can't fight you at all without a significant lead.

xDogMeatx2 votes

{quoted}

What about vlad? His sub-200 base damage at rank 5 abilities? His less than sub-50 healing before level 9? His barely palatable scaling now that all of his ratios have been nerfed?

If everyone in this meta weren't glass cannon, vlad wouldn't even function. That's why people find him frustrating. Nobody builds defenses.

Build a single MR component in lane and he can't fight you at all without a significant lead.

im talking about the healing on vlad counters heimer till when he has his powerspike to counter him since hp = ap he can go adaptive helm to get some damage/resistance then go whatever items counters the in game threats.

WoonStruck1 votes

Nah heimer absolutely dicks vlad into the dirt early. You wouldn't want adaptive anyway. Definitely SV and afk farm, but it still sets your power period back 10 minutes, which usually puts your damage behind the hp/mr curve for the game, meaning no snowballing if the enemy team is half decent.

I don't think anyone would go adaptive on Vlad. Ever.

xDogMeatx1 votes

{quoted}

Nah heimer absolutely dicks vlad into the dirt early. You wouldn't want adaptive anyway. Definitely SV and afk farm, but it still sets your power period back 10 minutes, which usually puts your damage behind the hp/mr curve for the game, meaning no snowballing if the enemy team is half decent.

I don't think anyone would go adaptive on Vlad. Ever.

sometimes resisting the damage is better then healing.

PhearBunny1 votes

i feel like it isnt hard to deal with Heimer tho? Its hard to all-in him/gank him/kill him. But i dont think hes hard to deal with...hes just a safety pick. Its pretty easy to poke out turrets.

Ragnaveil5 votes

Unless you are melee, which you'll end up with tons of holes through you before you kill all of his turrets.

Yenn2 votes

{quoted}

i feel like it isnt hard to deal with Heimer tho? Its hard to all-in him/gank him/kill him. But i dont think hes hard to deal with...hes just a safety pick. Its pretty easy to poke out turrets.

It's not. Vel'koz's win rate against Heimer is consistently 40-43%, and there are only a couple of champions who can 'poke out' the turrets better than he can. It takes at least two spells to kill one turret, and he'll position them in a rough triangle to either side of the minion wave, such that you can't hit more than one with a single spell, unless you want to put yourself in a bad position to target it. You also need some of those cooldowns to wave clear, plus it's a mana sink.

On top of that, Heimer doesn't need his abilities to clear the wave. If you use two of your cooldowns to clear a turret, he has a window to just walk up with his movement speed and dump W + E on top of you from close range, since half your kit is on cooldown. Even if he only clips you with the edge of a rocket, he'll still win the 'trade' with most champions.

There's also the issue of the grenade speed. Unless you have a dash/flash ability, it's actually completely unavoidable if he gets closer than slightly above auto range. To sidestep the stun of a grenade centered on you, you need to move ~200 units (probably actually more). If you have 375 movement speed, moving 200 units takes ~0.53 seconds. His grenade can travel 636 units during this time, so if he's closer than that, there's no way to avoid it even if you react instantly.

Once he gets to late game, a well placed R + W is a straight one shot to any carry at ~1000 range, so he doesn't fall off after his extremely safe early/mid game, unless you have one of the few champions who can dive and burst him.

The entire problem with him is that he's braindead levels of safe and doesn't fall off, like most champions with similar safety do.

PhearBunny1 votes

{quoted}

It's not. Vel'koz's win rate against Heimer is consistently 40-43%, and there are only a couple of champions who can 'poke out' the turrets better than he can. It takes at least two spells to kill one turret, and he'll position them in a rough triangle to either side of the minion wave, such that you can't hit more than one with a single spell, unless you want to put yourself in a bad position to target it. You also need some of those cooldowns to wave clear, plus it's a mana sink.

On top of that, Heimer doesn't need his abilities to clear the wave. If you use two of your cooldowns to clear a turret, he has a window to just walk up with his movement speed and dump W + E on top of you from close range, since half your kit is on cooldown. Even if he only clips you with the edge of a rocket, he'll still win the 'trade' with most champions.

There's also the issue of the grenade speed. Unless you have a dash/flash ability, it's actually completely unavoidable if he gets closer than slightly above auto range. To sidestep the stun of a grenade centered on you, you need to move ~200 units (probably actually more). If you have 375 movement speed, moving 200 units takes ~0.53 seconds. His grenade can travel 636 units during this time, so if he's closer than that, there's no way to avoid it even if you react instantly.

Once he gets to late game, a well placed R + W is a straight one shot to any carry at ~1000 range, so he doesn't fall off after his extremely safe early/mid game, unless you have one of the few champions who can dive and burst him.

The entire problem with him is that he's braindead levels of safe and doesn't fall off, like most champions with similar safety do.

Ive been OTPing Noct top for like 2years now, so the only time i encounter Heimer is in the top lane, but he has never been a problem. Reflecting on it now, Noct does have good tools for dealing with a Heimer lane tho. 1: I can aim my Q to poke Heimer+ 1 or more turrets. 2: i can position myself to last hit turrets and get CS in one autoattack with Umbrablades. 3: I can spell shield his stun when he see's me going in to CS+finish off a turret or two.

Exodus2471 votes

Hes a cheese champ, if you seriously cant deal with heimer with either abilities that fuck or move his turrets, or point and clicks that go around his turrets, then you deserve to lose lmao. Ive picked heimer into darius before (a hard counter to him) and ive lost because he KNOWS not to fight me unless my spells are down or if a jungler comes.

xHeimtechZX1 votes

{quoted}

Hes a cheese champ, if you seriously cant deal with heimer with either abilities that fuck or move his turrets, or point and clicks that go around his turrets, then you deserve to lose lmao. Ive picked heimer into darius before (a hard counter to him) and ive lost because he KNOWS not to fight me unless my spells are down or if a jungler comes.

Heimerdinger isn't really a hard counter to Darius. I know it says that on some sites, but as someone who mains Heimerdinger and Darius, Darius could win if he plays it smart. Heimerdinger's damage mainly comes from his rockets. Darius has high base HP regeneration so he can simply outsustain Heimerdinger, which is one of Heimerdinger's win condition (keep pressuring the lane and denying cs from the enemy while staying safe doing so, kills are nice but not necessary). A Heimerdinger simply cannot kill Darius who isn't running into his turrets. The only thing is the lane is going to be a bit boring because you have two lane bullies, but Heimerdinger is more of a defensive champion that has a long range poke and Darius is an aggressive lane bully that can't really do anything before lv.6. Darius can just start with 3 rejuvenation beads to mitigate the poke, rush Mercury Treads, and then grab + ghost on Heimerdinger who is squishy. item 3211 is also good on Darius. Since Heimerdinger's main method of killing is kiting around his turrets, it'll be harder to kite Darius when he's using ghost. Heimerdinger will need to try land his grenade perfectly to stun him before he gets hit too hard by Darius. If Darius gets too low on health, he can Q to heal. Top lane Heimerdinger isn't really amazing either, tho I do play him top sometimes, and chances are, the Darius is being played at top. So....I would say its mostly a skill matchup. There's room for error for Darius. I'm um...also really bias so I just find Darius and Heimerdinger just easy to lane against since I know what they do. So yes, I've won against a Heimerdinger in lane before as Darius. The counterpick part is really just Darius not being able to snowball so early, at least without lv.1 bush cheese or jungler ganks. Although, funny enough, jungler ganking Darius or Heimerdinger isn't usually a good idea lol. They're both really good at 1v2.

Exodus2471 votes

Well im not disagreeing with you, but ive come to find in my experiance that he is sort of a hard counter since a LOT of darius i see take ghost and go for early cheese, and end up getting fucked. I never ment its a TRUE counter, but a hard counter to those who dont play smart.

Light of Madness1 votes

Pick syndra or use ur brain.

People want to just go all in and when it does not work they cry. He is a zoning champ he will creates a safe zone for him, do not enter there or destroy it first, sorry if your assassin cannot enter and kill everything. He can control 1 part of the map not all of it.

5050BS1 votes

FFS PLZ YES

taleofsonata1 votes

I mean heimerdinger is just great against cheese comps and cheese champions such as divers, hard engage bruiser assassins. Just bring back poke mages into the meta, or poke XXX class and he'll be out of the game. Or just pick Syndra lol.

3TWarrior1 votes

you sure it's not that people have a 1/50 or less chance of encountering him at all?

who do you know how to play against better? the champ you see every 10 games? or the champ you see every 50 games?

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