Now, I love playing the little guy, don't get me wrong, but I think he's in a pretty bad place right now. I also think that he is one of those characters where, if he WASN'T hit so hard by the nerf bat, his kit would be too strong.
So let's get some discussion going, how do you think he should be reworked, do you think he's bad right now, etc etc.
He is not enjoyably to have to play with or against.
His kit pushes him away from being an ideal team fighter meaning he is limited in what he is good for in a team fight but he also drastically limits the enemy teams ability to do much in a part of the map without investing heavily into countering his shrooms.
He is unique but unique is not always for the best in actually being a champ people want to have to deal with even on their team.
He's got a binary power eating ult on his kit. Because of his ult and being an old champ, he's got two abilities that are basically passives and the same auto range as Lucian even though he's no duelist, and the same auto range as Sivir, but she has a much greater effective range. Seriously, his ult is completely stupid, gameplay wise. If the enemy doesn't buy/use trinkets, there's no counterplay. If they do buy/use trinkets, you are the one who can't do anything. That's why there was the whole camouflage/invisibility changes. Riot also will probably take a long time to change him because 1. He's popular the way he is 2. He actually works in the lower elos, where the majority of players are and 3. What could replace the shrooms? It really was quite of an ingenous idea for an ultimate.
Piece of shit only exists to irritate the enemy top lamer then make his team lose the game.
He can never be buffed to be on par with balanced champs without a kit rework. His kit is just too simplistic and without proper counterplay to allow to be effective past a certain point.
Q - Point and click status effect with a very generous ratio and range. The blind mechanic straight up invalidates certain auto focused champs entirely with no chance to play around it. W - It makes you move faster. And then you press it and it makes you move faster. This ability is just slightly above being a completely passive ability. Speaking of that... E - Adds an on-hit. That's literally it. Put points into it and forget it exists, and there's almost no difference between how a newbie and a level 7 Teemo use this ability. R - There's a line between "traps" and "this section of the map I can no longer wander through". There is no middle ground here: Either you have vision and remove the traps, therefore depriving Teemo completely of an ultimate, or you don't and Teemo gets to deal free damage even if he's not there. Neither situation is fair to both players.
League used to be full of these kinds of abilities because the Rioters weren't as good at making kits as they are now. If Teemo was a new champion, this kit wouldn't even make it out of the planning phase. (And that's saying something considering some of the abominations that made the live servers in the last few years)
Teemo needs more forms of counterplay than "grab some vision and stay out of Q range" and he needs more ways to express mastery as the differences between a good and a great Teemo is very, very subtle.
As I understand it, the term "tryhard champion" refers to a champion who can run in and smack you to death without having to think about it or already be majorly fed. Tryhards do this in one of two ways. Either by being so tanky that they can turret dive you, kill you, and then walk out without having to setup a dive first (Tryndamere), or by doing so much damage and being so agile that they can just blink in, kill you, and blink out without having to worry about counterplay (Yasuo, Katarina before rework). Teemo was designed to counter the tank variety of tryhard.
Teemo's Blinding Dart is meant to shut down a tank's ability to hit you while turret diving, his poison lets him whittle away tanks from a distance, and his mushrooms are designed to force players to actually think about where they walk. Having said that, Teemo was designed before gap closers became more of a thing, and has less purpose in a meta where AD carries can go top and kite tanks better than he. Teemo is currently below average (hence Riot's buff to him last year), and in my opinion his Move Quick holds the biggest need for change.
I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but I have little respect for people who complain about Teemo. There are several ways to counter him, his mushrooms alone have at least three different methods that even a support can use, and he is both immobile and squishy.
But Teemo can go invisible! Rengar, Twitch, Evelynn, Akali, Kha'Zix, Shaco, Talon, Vayne, Wukong
But Teemo doesn't help in team fights! Fight in the nest of mushrooms he set up for you 30 seconds ago just as you would fight next to Heimerdinger's turrets, Zyra's plants, or Illaoi's tentacles. Also, see Split Pushing.
Whenever I see a character or class in any game where people simultaneously complain about the playstyle being overpowered while also calling it weak and worthless, I know something's up. And almost always that's because it's a playstyle with its own unique advantages and disadvantages that doesn't always run parallel with the established meta. If you want to nerf an overpowered champion, Yasuo, Zed, Camille, Vayne, Quinn, and Tryndamere have been patiently waiting. Don't complain about the guy who's ultimate requires him to anticipate the enemy's future steps.
Looking at him, his entire kit is annoying because there's a lack of transparency. Even if a lot of the examples are really minor, it's his whole kit and people generally encounter him early enough in their league experience for them to learn to hate him. Just look:
P- It literally turns him invisible.
Q-The blind is really annoying. Unlike a lot of status effects, it's not evident if you are still blinded aside from the particles- you're still allowed to attack, unlike disarm, and most people don't obsessively look at the tiny damage numbers that now say miss.
W-Speed from nowhere!
E-You can't tell how much damage you actually will take in the end, because DoT.
R-Invisible traps.
Frankly, I think that his Q needs to be changed to disarm or nearsight, his W needs just a general "less invisible power" (not sure how), and his R needs to have lower recharge time and less damage.
I think they might should reduce AP ratios on his shrooms honestly. Liandrys + his shrooms destroy a lot of health, though I do think his shrooms are also in a bad spot because of control wards. I dislike them, they're basically updated pink wards, with extra cockblock potential. Having a carefully laid trap completely ruined because of 75G is very annoying. If they would remove the trap cockblock on control wards, and lower his shroom AP ratios I wouldn't have much of a problem with things. But as it is one AP Teemo shroom can eat through over half health of a squishy and probably 2/5 of a tank, but can also be completely useless because of control wards/sweeping lens/etc. I like Teemo's move quick. It gives you nice kite potential, if there was one buff to Teemo I would give(after these changes) it'd be to move his toxic shot to his passive, while making his E his current passive with an active allowing you to move around while stealthed for like 2 seconds(also allowing you to invisibly place traps).
