Pyke has one of the most easily dodgeable kits in the game.
Q, easily dodged.
E, easily dodged.
R, easily dodged.
Q is as any line attack with non-instant movement speed is.
E has a delay, a clear indicator, and requires himself to be in risky positioning.
R is an X. It's size isn't that impressive, and it's an X. You don't even half to get out if range, just between the lines.
His ult is an execute. Especially since the new patch, it deals minimal damage. He can barely hurt you with it. Below threshold is death by execution, above threshold it just tickles you. You can heal after his animation starts and get back above threshold. It happens all the time, even just from lifesteal.
Pyke can't get more hp. Most defensive items are trash on him because without the HP they lose so much gold efficiency, and without HP gains armor/Mr is only so effective anyway. Plus the 14 to 1 hp to ad conversion is so minuscule that getting ad from hp isn't a thought people have when building him. The sustain from Pyke's W is his only real defensive option. Without it he'd be nothing; unplayable.
Pyke isn't going to get your hp low enough for execution by himself. His kit outside ult is utility; 2 CC's and his sustain, with minimal damage. His execute will kill you, sure, but only if his team did the rest of the damage first.
In short, he's not really an assassin, because he can't assassinate. He's just an executor.
He even has voice lines when he dies in a 1v1 to remind the player that he's not supposed to be able to 1v1.
"I work better with a crew." "Needed more hands." Etc.
Pyke is hands down the most gold reliant support in the game.
Without the ability to raise your hp if you need extra defense you have to be able to buy more armor/mr than other supports. Because of his lethality scaling you want to get all 3 lethality items. He doesn't have any defensive skills for use on allies so if you want/need something like that you have to get an item for it.
On top of all that, picking Pyke into a team is a composition choice to have a support with less support utility as a trade off for increasing your team's gold advantage, but Pyke needs his own gold to pull that off.
As a support, he's not getting much cs, so he needs his ult gold to compensate.
Now, personally, I'd prefer he had less gold gain for the team on his ult and a more effective kit, but I also want him to be more or less cemented as a support instead of being able to solo lane.
At any rate if you're having trouble against Pyke supports here's 3 tips for you:
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Since he's so dodge-able, take something that can dodge easy. You could be Ezreal and just never get hit by any of Pyke's abilities, for example.
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In early/laning phase, hurt his adc, not him. He can't do anything without them, and he can't defend them (in the sense of defensive things like heals and shields). If you make them back or die, you are now 2v1 and that 1 is useless while alone.
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As I said before, he's no tank. He's as squishy as they come.
"He has high base stats."
Yea, and that's it, since he can't build any more hp and the effectiveness of building armor and MR is limited by that. Squishy AF.
So once your far enough into the game that you can do more than just a little poke, just kill him. You can kill him before he can escape and heal so easily. And once he's dead, he can't ult you.
