An analysis/discussion of the Season 7 changes on Caitlyn

Alright. Phones suck and im bored so lets do this.

The Hammer, in brief

Caitlyn was dominating at every level of play due to the rising power of crit in the game and the fact she was the perfect pick in the meta, so here comes the nerf hammer.

They removed her runaans interaction, but little did Riot know that shiv rfc was hidden strong on caitlyn. Thus begun the energized meta.

So riot kept nerfing Caitlyn a few times; eventually they ended up HALVING her AS growth as a final, frustrated measure, leaving her in the gutter at around a 44% winrate and anout 1.4 AS late (and another round of nerfs a patch or two later). Riots response to this is what ill be discussing.

The Numbers Rework

In 7.19 they finally buffed her back by: reverting her AS growth, increased her base as sliiigghttlyyy, lowered her base hp but raised the growth, let her headshot towers, reverted her q nerf, HEAVILY nerfed her trap duration, buffed the scaling, lowered charge rate.

Immediate Effect

Caitlyn instantly shot back up to about a 48-49% winrate, and the nerf to her early game was heavily felt, but welcomed. She was generally quite an ok pick until the s8 preaseason mess, but she recovered and was actually probably the most balanced shed been in a long time. Then riot said lolno and dropped the crit changes on her.

Caitlyns compensation buff from the crit changes So Caitlyn got a compensation buff that made her hradshot a nuke late game. Neat. Also +50 dmg and 3600ish range on ult isnt bad either.

Okay, but what does this all mean and why am I reading

Well, the point of this is to analyze how these changes have compiled up and to evaluate her place at the moment.

So why is she not god tier after all these buffs? This one actually leads up to a lot of factors. The reason she was god tier before, what the meta is now, and whats changed. When caitlyn was great, she was very good at shutting down late game adcs, while having late game presence herself. He could easily dominate the midgame and rotate to other lanes. This has changed because now were seeing more early to mid picks like jinx lucian mf etc. Also, Vayne is busted and can now counter Caitlyn. Yeet.

Another reason is whats changed in her kit. Shes still a snowball goddess, but its much harder to get leads on her now due to how much her ewrly got trimmed. If she doesnt get a lead, shell fall behind the other adcs as she still lacks any steroids or abilities like other adcs mid game.

So this kind of sums up why all the buffs to her havent made her op, it all comes down to Caitlyn being a late game monster instead of a early game tyrant.

But what do the changes have to do with it

Well, first off the hp nerf hurt badly as caitlyns hp regen is only a measly 0.9. Then, they massively gutted the trap duration early so you can just place them under their turret all lane. Lastly, the tower headshots and headshot buffs in general have made her a crit ad scaling monster. Have you seen her scalings? I recommend checking them out.

Anyways, I think this sums up Caitlyn in a nutshell atm and how here changes have morphed her from an oppresive laner, to a late game tactical nuke. Ill def keep adding to this when i get home tho.