So after just doing Pyke, I realized how ridiculously long this was, so I'm just gonna list out Pyke. But I wanted to provide a full breakdown, so here is one. This type of thinking helps learn the ways to manipulate and beat your opponent.
I personally hope Riot keeps making AD based supports. It's really no different besides the fact that now a supports auto attacks matter, which most AP based champions get a buff too anyways. I'll break each champion down as to why they work.
Preface
People tend to get really freaked out by the concept of having more than 1-2 passives and 4 basic abilities. So, when people like Yasuo, Pyke, Senna, Jhin, Lee Sin, etc. are introduced, they feel their kits are extremely overloaded. The thing is that the walls of text are made so that a certain playstyle can be reached, otherwise that playstyle would never be achievable.
- His kit has a ton going on, but that's because of what he is supposed to do.
[in order of abilities Passive - Ultimate]
Pros:
Large HP Regen from champion damage
Can reliably discern where enemies have vision
Bonus AD.
Instant single targeted slow or a single targeted channeled pull that slows enemy upon hitting.
Movement speed steroid that grants camoflague.
Can be used to proc passive while still being in proximity of combat.
Dash that allows to go over terrain and is followed by an AOE stun for any enemy behind him.
A blink to an enemy that has the potential to execute, reset, and grant bonus kill gold.
Has an indicator on enemy HP bars to indicate when they can be executed.
Can ignore shields if they are within the execute threshold.
Cons:
Only gets the HP Regen from champion damage, meaning turrets, monsters, and minions don't provide the grey health.
Melee range auto attacks allows for easy kiting or harrasment in a lane with a guaranteed 1 ranged enemy with potential of 2. If enemy had vision of him, he doesn't get to Regen the HP.
The grey HP only converts some of - not all - of his HP to grey HP.
The grey HP has a cap.
Can't grow his HP pool in ANY way.
Channeling the pull is very telegraphed, slows him, and can be interrupted like any other channeled ability.
Both forms are skill shots.
Supplies ample warning of him in the area by providing an audio queue and a visual queue. If the enemy is below the execute threshold, they get an even greater audio queue.
Decaying movement speed boost.
Enemies within his detection radius remove the camoflague, causing him to be seen by them.
Must place himself in a place that is risky for any assassin in order to provide the stun.
Has to use his most reliable source of escape to place himself in the center of danger.
The stun has a delay, allowing for reaction timing to dictate if it lands or not.
Dash can be interrupted.
Skill shot.
Non-traditional shape with not much room for error in placement.
Awkward delay that allows for reaction time to negate its effect with healing, invulnerability, untargetability, dashes, blinks, and potentially just walking out of it.
Not executing doesn't reset, provide gold, or deals the full damage.
Blinking into an enemy expecting them to die and then being surrounded leads to a very vulnerable assassin.
Skill shot.
Overall
As with all champions, they excel at a certain thing. Pyke is extremely good at setting up picks and spreading wealth, potentially even killing the entire enemy team if left ignored. But if he does not have a dominating presence in the game, then everything he does can lead to his death. An assassin that is supposed to be in the middle of the fight is very dangerous and hard to pull off, so he needed something to allow for team fight survivability (passive and E). He needed to be able to have an AOE presence (E and Ultimate). What he doesn't do well is 1v1 unless he is ahead, but who doesn't? Late game Pyke loses a lot of power because the stage of the game means he can be blown up the instant he enters the fray. He doesn't actually do much damage if you check the graphs at the end and he can't solo kill unless extremely ahead.
Pyke is an assassin that thrives on setting enemies up to take damage from allies and then finishing them off, which means he needs to get into the fight first, survive, and then end it. That balance of initiation, killing power, and vulnerability is an extremely hard line to walk, but it is an amazing concept and should not be easily disregarded or else we are left with heal bots, shield bots, and damage sponges, which can get pretty stale. I really hope Riot can keep finding ways to blend playstyles without damaging the integrity of what the role is supposed to do.
- AD spell caster that hits HARD when he does and still has reliable damage when he's on cool down, but is very slow in execution, preparation, and telegraphed in a ton of aspects.
- AD/AP spell caster with heavy hitting ranged abilities, but her auto attacks are tailored to be slow, less crit damage, and require two on the same target within a short window to stack her passive. Keeping the distance between her and the enemy is crucial, or else she is easily killed.
- Can disrupt the enemy by reliably harassing them and providing buffs to a single ally, buy has a passive that is only effective by becoming vulnerable to enemy engagement, is completely vulnerable without an ally nearby, and loses a lot of power in her kit when not attached to an ally.
and build damage and play like an adc.
supports. Good times.
