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The Vi "Buffs" on PBE aren't what Vi needs. Analysis inside.

Aella··12 votes·2,110 views

Hi, I'm Aella, mod of /r/ViMains and the Vi Mains discord. Normally we're pretty silent, but with the state of our champion, the previously announced buffs were something we were really looking forward to.

According to op.gg, Vi is currently sitting at around 47.5% winrate. According to lolalytics, her current winrate in diamond+ is also roughly around the same. In every other elo with the highest winrate runes chosen, she's sitting at sub 50%.

On the topic of the recent so called buffs to Vi, most of us that are currently discussing this in the discord all agree that this is a net negative to her. Here is our reasoning:

Vault Breaker (Q)

Cooldown lowered from 16/14/12/10/8 to 12/11/10/9/8

Cost lowered from 50/60/70/80/90 to 30/45/60/75/90

This is a positive, but doesn't really do much for Vi as she maxes this skill first. In a gank you still won't get this off more than once in most cases. The mana cost is nice though because it will allow you to use this more often while clearing. The other side of the coin though is that Vi doesn't actually make use of this for clearing all that much due to the 75% damage on monsters and the risk of getting invaded when your Q is down.

Vi also isn't a good laner, so her mana problems in lane, while important to consider, are not really that big of an issue here.

If anything, the main benefit of this is that you can use Q for mobility more often without worrying about mana, but if you build Triforce, then this wasn't much of a problem in the first place.

Denting Blows (W)

Attack speed changed from 30/35/40/45/50% to 15/25/35/45/55%

This is arguably the biggest issue. Currently, most if not all Vi mains max E second. This change would force a W max second, which is how she used to be played prior to the previous E buffs some time back.

Vi's current clear time with Domination/Sorcery (taking Absolute Focus) and Domination/Precision will end, depending on how much help you get from your laners, between 2:20 and 2:24 on average. This puts her as one of the fastest level 3 clears for any jungler. Factor this into the fact she has a strong level 3 burst combo in Q > AA > E and you get a fairly strong level 3 spike. The thing is, that with this change, her overall clear time will slow down. This makes it so that she's much easier to counter gank, and as such makes her level 3 gank much riskier.

In addition to this, if you max this second, you lower your damage output on priority targets. Due to the nature of the ability, it's more effective on targets with higher HP, while E was better for lower max HP targets. This overall means that her net burst damage is down in the mid game while her sustained damage will be even/maybe slightly higher. 5% more attack speed at level 13 really doesn't do much for a champion who relies on their combo so much.

In addition, based on math, the target need to have over 3.3k HP for a W max first to be better than Q max. So maxing this first over Q to take advantage of the increased attack speed (which is only 5%) really isn't an option.

Excessive Force (E)

Ammo recharge time lowered from 14/12.5/11/9.5/8 to 12/11/10/9/8

Mana cost lowered from 40/45/50/55/60 to 30/35/40/45/50

This change is fairly simple. Allows you to use e slightly more often, but due to the fact that the recharge time different is barely changed and the fact it uses an ammo system, this change won't be felt much at all in the mid-late game. On the other hand, because you're likely to max this last now, the recharge time buff will likely show its use a little bit. Mana I guess is nice, but doesn't really matter mid/late game and early game you have blue on first clear and jungle item after that.

The only real period of the game I feel the mana changes matter are minutes 4 to 7, at which I would say that yes, they are nice.

TLDR: The Vi changes lower her burst damage and slow down her clear, which is one of the strongest parts of her game. This is in return for lower mana costs and cooldowns on abilities she currently maxed first or didn't really need.

Edit: This was posted by the creator of Vi on his Twitter. As I mentioned, the change to base makes scaling AS better on her, but I don't think its that important overall. The passive change is much nicer, though. And the priority to make top lane Vi better is something I can appreciate. But if jungle power shouldn't be changed when she's one of the lowest winrate champions, I'm not really sure how to feel.

Edit 2: Riot Penguin made a post here stating that these are changes to promote top vi and not really to deal with the problems that jungle Vi has. The question here is then what happens if this has a negative impact on jungle Vi, which seems to be the case?

Edit 3: There've been more changes to Vi since, but as they are actively doing more, I'll wait to see. base Armor being lowered is the biggest one I'm against, even if it comes with higher armor per level, since that hurts jungling early, but Q cd has been further decreased and I think it might have hit a pretty big breakpoint where you can use it twice in a fight early now. That's a fairly big deal in my book.

Riot August has a full list of his changes on Twitter and Surrender @ 20 has the new mana per level changes in addition to that (40/lvl > 45/lv). I still think none of the buffs address Jungle Vi in the right way besides maybe the Q CD decrease early, but I'll figure out the rest as I test more on PBE.

14 Comments

JayFoe7 votes

That W change would substantially hurt her early clear, you wouldn't break even on W until level 10 in exchange for 1.5 seconds off E (which would now be maxed last).

That AS reduction makes up for any advantage a lower Q CD would provide pre-9.

Her early clear would be even worse when she already has trouble dealing with other junglers that are strong at 3.

She would still be 100% invalidated by Janna, Lulu, Morgana, Taric, Alistar, and Tahm.

These are obviously preliminary changes but would do almost nothing to help her out and might make her even worse by hurting her early clear.

Aella1 votes

So we did some testing. Early clear is 2-4 seconds slower depending on path and camp choice. Buff camp buff is looking like a 2 second reduction if you take Legend: Alacrity. Most Vi Mains didn't take this before though. When I experimented with a page that had it, I felt a little weaker early and stronger late. The days of 2:20 clear times though would probably be over.

Pendergast8913 votes

I'm just glad they haven't forgotten about her.

RainbowIcee2 votes

I think Vi is solid her problem is the damage creep. The second Vi goes into someone she get's blown the fuck up. Not only that but her damage isn't high enough to stomp her target before peels. Her engage RN is basically risky. She's suffering from everyone is doing too much damage before i get a good rotation going. Doesn't help at al vs her ult's main weakness which is to follow her target into oblivion.

JayFoe1 votes

This is a big problem for her IMO. In a meta where ADCs kill divers and bruisers in team fights very quickly and shields / disengage are powerful, Vi just doesn't have any good options.

haaaaaaalp2 votes

The entire point of those changes were to help lane vi and they do a good job in hitting what she needs. Lane vi relies on e to trade and the lower mana and cd goes a long way. Attack speed bonus early isn't as important since her trading pattern in lane won't benifit much from it.

OHminus1 votes

Lane Vi can go suck it. What about the rest of us who like to play her in the jungle? This is a net nerf to her in the jungle.

Ahri Baka1 votes

I'd like to join that discord server but I don't know how Mana buffs on her aren't a thing since I usually have blue buff in early and rush Tri Force What kind of buffs I need are more power on Ult and/or Ult Proc her W passive Q cd refund on kills and assists , maybe refund it all or half of the cd . Q slow while casting maybe less or remove it all I'm not saying all these buffs should be added , just saying what she needs , probably 1 or 2 of them will make her better.

Aella1 votes

https://discord.gg/B8QQkpP Theres the link to the discord.

C9 Squeeky 1 votes

I really don't like how Riot is slowly making the game into URF with all the reduced CDs in patch notes

OHminus1 votes

The thing is, these reduced cds do nothing. You max Q first on Vi, and the cd at rank 5 is the same. You're not going to be spamming Q off cd either. These are nerfs in the guise of a "buff" - horrible, horrible changes.

Pendergast8911 votes

It also looks like her base AS has been increased by .02 (from .625 -> .644) and her passive cd was reduced at lower levels.

TeCoolMage1 votes

warning I'm not a Vi player so I'm just guessing on how Vi does her clears based on what the LoL wiki tells me on her abilities

Doing some math with the W changes and base AS changes

possible first clear stats 0, 5.5, 9, 18 or 20 (very off meta) AS from runes 15 or 30 AS from W rank 1 (before/after changes) 0 or 15 AS from starting jungle item 0 to 9.9 AS from levels 1 to 6 0.644 or 0.625 base AS (before/after changes)

0.644 vs 0.625 3% increase from before 0.019 more attacks per second by default, 0.0019 more attacks per second per additional 10 AS

15% on 0.644 vs 30% on 0.625 before changes: 0.1875 more attacks per second (from 0.625) after changes: 0.0966 more attacks per second (from 0.644). 0.1156 more attacks per second from 0.625 0.0719 less attacks per second. To catch up, you need... wait maybe I'm doing something wrong here because apparently you can never catch up? 0.0719/0.00019 (more attacks per second for each additional 1% AS) = 378.4% AS (goes over 2.5 AS cap anyway) Well now we know her AS before and after proccing W is ALWAYS nerfed (makes sense since it's literally half benefit) at rank 1. Not by much, I mean, but still.

HOWEVER! This doesn't tell the full story. Her W is only active for 4 seconds and if I'm reading the wiki right requires three autos to activate. She has an advantage in that her base AS- wait is her E an auto reset

nevermind it's almost always a nerf in terms of auto attacks. I could do the math for when it becomes a net buff if you go through auto-E-auto-E-auto-(W proc) and everything is now on cooldown and you're just mindlessly autoing with nothing to cast. But from what I've heard Vi has a fast early clear so I don't think that would ever happen.

I guess if you split your Q and E points slightly (still put most of them in E) it's a weird QoL change in that you can start a clear with Q-auto-E-auto-E-auto ALWAYS instead of your Q being longer cooldown, which means you just walk up to the camp and activate E (and I don't think Vi should EVER Q mid clear? correct me if I'm wrong) during bad timings.

PokladnicaZla1 votes

Just don't make her too good. When Vi is good she blows up any squishy with not a lot of effort. Can't we turn her in somekind of skillshot? Like Urgot's E?

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