I fail to see what trade-offs Jax has now

Riftn00b·Sep 10, 2019·29 votes·12,996 views

He supposed to be a late game champion but his early game is also very strong now. He jumps around the map like mario would, there is no way to escape him or catch him if you cannot chain cc him. His stun has a stupidly high range for no reason meanwhile it also blocks every aa, deals damage and he can attack during the cast. WTF. Couldn't riot make it to be even more overloaded? His basic ms is 447 with triforce, there is no point to flash away if he jumps on you from a mile since you will be stunned anyway. With Shojin he has no cooldowns practically. He deals ridiculously high damage while also very safe due to his self boosts and high mobility.

So what are his actual trade-offs? If he has any...

51 Comments

ZullarSep 10, 201933 votes

Spear of Shojin must be removed. It unbalances many balanced champions.

Kiwi LemonadeSep 12, 20191 votes

It's literally just Spear of Shojin... not sure why the item exists its very far outside the realm of what items are supposed to do, and they've removed items for far less. It is what is making Jax and Renekton so absurdly strong right now, and it is unfair to their opponents but also them - as if it continues their champions will be nerfed, not the item. Removing or altering the spear is the best option as its limiting a lot of design space and overpowered champions that were fine (and only a select few)

PartholonianSep 11, 201913 votes

He can't poke. Lots of champions can hurt you from half a screen or even further, but he MUST get in your face to do anything. Not just mages, but even Illaoi or Mundo can do more damage from range than Jax can.

It's not a huge weakness, especially considering how well he can get in and get out. And I'm not necessarily saying he is balanced overall. But it's something.

He's also not that tanky against people who aren't stunned, even during his ult. If you outplay him, or even just have backup, he can die.

P.S. Are you assuming he has Triforce and Shojin? Then either it's not early game anymore or he's massively fed. Almost everyone is OP when they're massively fed.

Romans VI XXIIISep 11, 20193 votes

But you can massive shut down a jax early and have 2 items finished. But the moment he has tri he can 1v1 any one and many cases 1v2+

Aatrox AirlinesSep 11, 20191 votes

He cant 1v1 someone who has 2 items while he has only triforce unless they dont have tabis or something or unless he pills off an outplay

Romans VI XXIIISep 11, 20194 votes

So let me get this strait. Jax can 1v1 some one that has 2 item advantage IF they don't have tabis? hmmmm makes sense.

Aatrox AirlinesSep 12, 20191 votes

when did i mention a 2 item advantage? plus, triforce is the most expensive item in the game

Romans VI XXIIISep 12, 20191 votes

Read what you said.

He cant 1v1 someone who has 2 items while he has only triforce unless they dont have tabis or something or unless he pills off an outplay

Aatrox AirlinesSep 13, 20191 votes

Boots dont count as items.

Hayaishi2Sep 11, 20191 votes

{quoted}

He can't poke. Lots of champions can hurt you from half a screen or even further, but he MUST get in your face to do anything. Not just mages, but even Illaoi or Mundo can do more damage from range than Jax can.

It's not a huge weakness, especially considering how well he can get in and get out. And I'm not necessarily saying he is balanced overall. But it's something.

He's also not that tanky against people who aren't stunned, even during his ult. If you outplay him, or even just have backup, he can die.

P.S. Are you assuming he has Triforce and Shojin? Then either it's not early game anymore or he's massively fed. Almost everyone is OP when they're massively fed.

Yeah two items is massively fed. Thats his late game now two items

xelakerSep 11, 20191 votes

If he can out sustain your pokey champ he just has to not stand there at level 1 and lose 3/4 of his health...

xDogMeatxSep 10, 20199 votes

wait till you hear "he has bad early game though if you cant beat him your trash" comments coming. i mean if jax has a godly early even though hes a AA champ he shouldnt scale into a late game monster because if oppressive early shouldnt equal late game monster.

Chainman3Sep 11, 20192 votes

Do you think making fun of the comment will stop it from happening? Now i wouldnt say your trash but i would say jax is fairly easy to beat in the early game.

StainIessSep 11, 20192 votes

Heavily depends on who you're playing.

Chainman3Sep 11, 20191 votes

Any lane bully.

StainIessSep 11, 20191 votes

A scaling champ gets beat by a lane bully in the early game? Shocker.

Chainman3Sep 11, 20191 votes

So what are you complaining about? Losing to jax as tryndamere?

Like i dont get what you're complaining about? 2 scaling champs laning against each other and the outcome of that? Can you be more specific about what you're actually finding issues with?

StainIessSep 12, 20191 votes

My point is that saying he's easy to deal with early game by playing a lane bully is a moot point because the entire job of a lane bully is to win the lane. Even still, my issue is that Jax is much better equipped to deal with lane bullies than other champions of his ilk. In addition to that, any champion that isn't a lane bully, Jax has a significant advantage against. Outside of lane, all things being equal, he is unbeatable in a 1v1, and coupled with Spear of Shojin, his idealistic kit is just disgustingly obnoxious to deal with.

Chainman3Sep 12, 20191 votes

I get what you're saying but i dont quite get what champions you're referring to. Id say champions like GP do really well into jax and have a strong late game and again fiora, jax, riven are all meant to be duelers. Its like saying "nasus shouldnt be able to take towers as fast as he does because its not fair to deal with him and he scales up regardless by PvE'ing". Like champions are designed to achieve certain roles, jax is a terrible team fighter even with spear. As long as you dont allow him to free dive your carry you he dies the problem comes in with the terrible teamfight focus and itemization by players. Most of the time players auto pilot build into 3 crit items regardless of how much armor the opposing team has and then when their team falls behind theyd rather point fingers than actually look at their own build and how it impacted the mid game for their team.

Your key phrase here to look at is "all things being equal", league isnt a game where you can say mid game is equal because most games will have the momentum swinging in one team's favor by this point.

Now if theres champions who are also late game champs who jax does well against who you think he shouldnt do well against by all means list them. "Jax is much better equipped to deal with lane bullies than other champions of his ilk" the champions this refers to. Please dont name auto attack based champions like tryndamere and yorick because both of those are heavily reliant on auto attacks, same with nasus.

StainIessSep 12, 20191 votes

I don't agree that GP does well into Jax. Nevertheless, that's only one champion. My point isn't that Jax shouldn't be able to duel anyone, my point is that he should have some weaknesses. He straight up has an advantage over any other duelist as well.

Not sure why you got that impression from me saying "all things being equal." That wasn't the point of the sentence at all, the main reason I brought it up was to exclude cases where the Jax player is significantly worse skill-wise or is against somebody that is much further ahead.

I'm not claiming that there are late game champs that Jax shouldn't do well against, I'm saying that his early game should be more punishable than it is right now.

Please dont name auto attack based champions like tryndamere and yorick because both of those are heavily reliant on auto attacks, same with nasus.

Well, Jax literally falls under this category too (although not sure how Yorick can be classified as an auto attack-based champion like Tryndamere..).

Chainman3Sep 12, 20191 votes

Most of jax's dmg in the early game is up front. Grasp GP can poke down Jax while sustaining, and if jax every tries to full combo GP, orange and heal jax's burst and you got a won trade because he had to jump into your minion wave which theres a possiblity you have a barrel set up near you. Anyways besides the point. Fiora and riven are both duelists who are stronger than him early and if they use that lead they can duel him until he catches up in items/levels.

" I'm saying that his early game should be more punishable than it is right now." Then who are these champions you believe should be able to punish him. We already excluded lane bullies and you have yet to give me any champions you think he shouldnt do well against in which he does.

Yorick Q is considered an auto that jax can block with his E Nasus Q is considered an auto jax can block with his E i dont know how you play jax against jax I guess blind pick but thats an odd matchup in which the aggressor loses.

Ionian VulpixSep 10, 20199 votes

A real weapon

RαySep 11, 20193 votes

He is absolutely broken, but kept that way on purpose, because a lot of people play him.

This is Riot's policy now. Make monstrosities out of popular champs, so every Silver bonobo feels like TF Blade and cashes in those skins.

We are the ones having to deal with this shit now.

Illidan is HOTSep 11, 20193 votes

I love how low elo players complain about Riven even tho she's honestly pretty trash right now, meanwhile Jax exists and not only is he much stronger than Riven, he also has much less counterplay and takes literally no effort to play compared to her. He's a ball of stats worse than old Fiora or Irelia. I can't understand how these champions got reworked before he did.

Aatrox AirlinesSep 11, 20192 votes

Actually, his laning phase is pretty damn weak. Aside from mana problems, the only thing that screws him over is peel. If he gets peeled off the adc, hes kinda fucked because now leap is on cd and e is on cd. Hes kinda stuck hitting the tank to get his counterstrike back thru shojin but he loses most of his health during that.

StainIessSep 11, 20191 votes

You didn't even explain how his laning phase is weak other than saying he has mana problems which already is pretty ridiculous considering his W costs 30 mana, meanwhile the other spells which cost more mana are the ones he doesn't spam. Fail to see how he has a weak laning phase when he has a low cd gapcloser, auto attack reset which can be paired with his ult passive to deal substantial burst damage and his passive + E which allow him to duel extremely effectively as well.

The weakness you mentioned is literally shared between all bruisers.

Aatrox AirlinesSep 12, 20191 votes

the mana problems i mentioned arent present in the lane, they begin to emerge once he gets shojin and starts spamming everything on cd and ends up running out of mana after like 5 seconds, hence people running either biscuits or manaflow band.

as for his laning phase, hes weak simply because he doesnt yet have the stats to smack you with. jax becomes an actual champion only after completing triforce.

StainIessSep 12, 20191 votes

Yeah, and he shouldn't be able to spam that shit so much anyways.. The counterplay to him shouldn't be to wait unitl he wastes mana by spamming his basic abilities mindlessly. Do you see the problem with that? A Jax that knows how to play the game maybe wont spam that constantly and use his abilities effectively.

That is just plain stupid. Don't bring up the "doesn't become a champion" nonsense, Jax is perfectly capable before building Triforce, what the hell. An example of somebody fitting that description of not being a champion is pre-6 Kayle. His base stats are more than enough, not sure what you're talking about. Not only that, he gets free damage off of his ult passive in addition to stats from both his ult and passive which is quite sufficient I'd say.

Aatrox AirlinesSep 13, 20191 votes

I didnt mention anything about counter play. Im saying that the tradeoff he has for high damage, durability and mobility is how he spams out all his mana in one fight.

And yes, he is weak early. He gets beaten early by anything thats not called mordekaiser and thats the consequence of multiple things:

conqueror is ass early
he requires items
his r proc is not enough if you have enough braincells to walk backwards a little bit when hes preparing to jump on you with 2 ult stacks.
125 auto range doesnt let him trade autos early

StainIessOct 1, 20191 votes

And I'm saying that's hardly a tradeoff when efficient use of your abilities in a fight can avoid that.

I have no idea what you're talking about. He doesn't get beat by every other champion other than Morde early game, that is just straight up false.

conqueror is ass early Many top laners use conqueror. It doesn't matter if it's weak early when he can stack it faster than most champions.

he requires items Most champions top lane are item-dependent as well.

his r proc is not enough if you have enough braincells to walk backwards a little bit when hes preparing to jump on you with 2 ult stacks. Not enough of what? Free damage? He doesn't 'prepare' to jump, it's instant and seriously that isn't even an argument. It's not about "having enough braincells to walk backwards" when he gets the proc literally every two auto attacks at no cooldown. Interrupt your farming as a melee champion to run outside of Jax's auto attack range every time he auto attacks a minion twice in fear of him getting off his ult passive.

125 auto range doesnt let him trade autos early Huh? That's the standard melee attack range, is it not?

Sire HippingtonSep 11, 20192 votes

Jax Imagin i head a real weapon... item 3161 ohh, there it is!

preternaturalSep 11, 20192 votes

bro bro the trade off with jax is that you don't get to have 5 of him on your team. it's a massive nerf bro, the only thing keeping him balanced at this point. if rito release OFA expect him to be gutted just before it goes live.

EphixusSep 11, 20191 votes

Runes and some items are making these champions disgusting abominations.

ZaFishboneSep 11, 20191 votes

Play vayne into him. Or play him into a vayne. Then tell me if you still can't see his tradeoffs.

RekSaiiSep 11, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Play vayne into him. Or play him into a vayne. Then tell me if you still can't see his tradeoffs.

He gets your condemn and then just jumps on you because his leap is a shorter CD than your CC.

Surprise surprise.

Daddy AntsSep 11, 20191 votes

{quoted}

He gets your condemn and then just jumps on you because his leap is a shorter CD than your CC.

Surprise surprise.

Condemn = 20 second cooldown and is maxed last.

Leap Strike = 8?

ZaFishboneSep 11, 20191 votes

The problem is that counterstrike has 16 secc cooldown. Without countertstrike, if jax leaps at vayne she just thumbles away and starts AAing him.

Daddy AntsSep 11, 20193 votes

{quoted}

The problem is that counterstrike has 16 secc cooldown. Without countertstrike, if jax leaps at vayne she just thumbles away and starts AAing him.

AGAIN

Condemn is a 20 second cooldown.

Counterstrike's stun radius is a lot larger than Tumble's range.

Play the champions you're talking about before commenting.

Vayne does NOT beat Jax.

TailypoSep 12, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Condemn = 20 second cooldown and is maxed last.

Leap Strike = 8?

A fight between vayn and jax ain't gonna last 8 seconds. Does anyone play this game?

Daddy AntsSep 12, 20191 votes

{quoted}

A fight between vayn and jax ain't gonna last 8 seconds. Does anyone play this game?

Jax will literally counterstrike, dodge the entire of Vayne's W damage.

Then kill her in the stun.

Daddy AntsSep 12, 20191 votes

{quoted}

A fight between vayn and jax ain't gonna last 8 seconds. Does anyone play this game?

Also let's be realistic, Jax leap cooldown is 0 due to item 3161

ZaFishboneSep 11, 20192 votes

That's how it would work if Vayne had to go into the minion wave to farm. But she can just stand back, keep AAing either you or the minions, and condemn you either the second you get to close, or the second she sees you readying counter strike. Also she has a mobility tool on a 4 to 2 sec cooldown. And an ult with invisibility and that reduces tumble cooldown. And you aren't at a level where you can kill her in 1 stun even if you catch her. It doesn't matter that leap strike is on a 8 secc cooldown, counterstrike is on 16 secc, almost the same as condemn, and is also maxed last, right? Try keeping up with that with a single mobility tool. Against a Vayne player who isn't a r%%%%%, I mean.

LostInTheDark07Sep 11, 20191 votes

{quoted}

That's how it would work if Vayne had to go into the minion wave to farm. But she can just stand back, keep AAing either you or the minions, and condemn you either the second you get to close, or the second she sees you readying counter strike. Also she has a mobility tool on a 4 to 2 sec cooldown. And an ult with invisibility and that reduces tumble cooldown. And you aren't at a level where you can kill her in 1 stun even if you catch her. It doesn't matter that leap strike is on a 8 secc cooldown, counterstrike is on 16 secc, almost the same as condemn, and is also maxed last, right? Try keeping up with that with a single mobility tool. Against a Vayne player who isn't a r%%%%%, I mean.

Let s not forget about Jax Q s range if he got flash and Vayne got flash too she won t ever escape just because he can flash after she flashed then Q on her while counter is active and is GG the ridiculous amount of dmg he does in that time is enough to delete her. This champion is broken af and RIOT doesn t want to nerf it at all. We saw in the final G2 vs Fnatic what a monster can Jax be.

Daddy AntsSep 11, 20191 votes

IT'S A ME

MARIO

TorklSep 11, 20191 votes

Jax is only strong with a fully stacked passive, basically any bruiser can just go in and claim him if he doesnt have his attack speed up..

StainIessSep 11, 20191 votes

Not that difficult to stack it when you have an auto attack reset on your W on a low cd and also gain attack speed with your passive as you keep stacking it up.

Jeanne fan clubSep 12, 20191 votes

The bounty system obviously

LovelleSep 12, 20191 votes

I find it hilarious how easily he procs Conquerer. Without that rune, he probably wouldn't be half the problem he is currently.

Statically, his early game is average at best. It's just that he starts hitting critical mass before he even reaches 2 items. That's pretty much how all the hard-scaling champs are now. IMO runes are largely the blame for this, along with defensive scaling being practically non-existent. Currently, defense is only good if there's damage attached to it, which is a huge problem.

The tanky champs that typically counter him in teamfights/skirmishes can't stay alive long enough (unless they manage to get fed early), giving him practically free reign to helicopter+leap frog his way to victory.

The KombinatorSep 12, 20191 votes

He should be buffed, because it's still possible to counter him with mages. We should increase his jump range to 700 at least. Maybe more.

ZoeeeeSep 12, 20191 votes

I played as varus vs a fed jax jungle. I hit ult e and enough autos to bring him to 25%, he used e plus q and i died within the stun duration. Even if I had qss it wouldn’t have mattered.

item 3161 needs to be gutted. Jax has a real weapon finally. Also Renekton .