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

Yenn·1/2/2020, 5:24:20 AM·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

WoonStruck1/2/2020, 6:05:22 PM5 votes

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

Voluug131/2/2020, 5:01:57 PM5 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.

Noraver1/2/2020, 4:38:41 PM3 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 FIocka1/2/2020, 9:58:45 PM3 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 Slaiyer1/2/2020, 7:36:00 PM2 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.

KFCeytron1/2/2020, 10:48:36 PM2 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?

3TWarrior1/2/2020, 9:37:37 PM1 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?

Light of Madness1/2/2020, 7:28:10 PM1 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.

PhearBunny1/2/2020, 1:29:37 PM1 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.

Exodus2471/2/2020, 6:55:21 PM1 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.

xDogMeatx1/2/2020, 5:59:17 AM1 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.

5050BS1/2/2020, 7:28:58 PM1 votes

FFS PLZ YES

taleofsonata1/2/2020, 7:46:52 PM1 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.