Thresh Nerfs and buffs list and discussion (TLDR Included)

Hey guys and gals,

So i saw a post about Thresh regarding his pick and win rates getting a decent amount of attention which called for him to be nerfed. So i thought i'd do a bit of research into the history of his nerfs and buffs over the years (which are shown below):

Patch Notes 1.0.0.154 Thresh released.

Patch Notes 3.06 Death Sentence BUFF: Damage increased to 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 from 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 Passive moved to Flay

Flay NERF: Damage reduced to 65 / 95 / 125 / 155 / 185 from 65 / 105 / 145 / 185 / 225 Now has Death Sentence's previous passive (bonus damage on basic attacks)

Overall Q buff by 40 and E nerf by 40, so damage unchanged.

Patch Notes 3.10 General NERF: Base Health reduced to 500 from 541 NERF: Base Armor reduced to 12 from 18

Damnation BUFF: Souls now always grant 0.75 Armor and Ability Power instead of starting at 1.0 and granting diminishing returns per soul collected

Overall early tankiness nerfed and scaling increased.

Patch Notes 3.12 Death Sentence NERF: Cooldown increased to 20/18/16/14/12 (from 18/16.5/15/13.5/12) BUFF: Cooldown now reduced by 3 seconds if Death Sentence strikes an enemy

Flay Passive basic attack "wind up" damage now only grows when Thresh's basic attack cooldown completes

Overall Q CD nerfed but rewarded with successful play.

Patch Notes 3.13 General BUFF: Attack Speed per level increased to 3% (from 1%) BUFF: Thresh's basic attack wind up is reduced by 0.25% per 1% attack speed, rather than the standard 1%

Overall harass buff, and AD/AS thresh Buff (off-META buff)

Patch Notes 4.1 R - The Box NERF: Delay on wall formation increased to 0.75 seconds (from 0.5 seconds)

Overall R nerf (more counterplay)

Patch Notes 4.2 General NERF: BASIC ATTACK RANGE :: 475 ⇒ 450

Overall harass nerf (compensation for earlier AS buffs)

Patch Notes 4.4 Passive - Damnation NERF: SOUL DESPAWN RATE: 15 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds

Less time to pick up souls, more risk attached to collecting souls

Patch Notes 4.13 W - Dark Passage NERF: "NEW" NO GROUP FARES: Now only shields the first ally to be near the Lantern. Thresh himself can still always receive the shield.

R - The Box NERF: "REMOVED" YOU'RE STUCK IN HERE WITH ME: The Box no longer deals additional damage to opponents when they break extra walls beyond the first. Extra walls still apply half slow duration.

Moved Utility to single target on W and nerfed damage on R to single targets

Patch Notes 5.16 Basic Statistic Compensation BUFF: HEALTH GROWTH: 89 ⇒ 93

Overall increased tankiness

Patch Notes 6.13 Passive - Damnation BUFF: NEW SOUL OF THE LORDS: Epic monsters now drop two souls

W - Dark Passage NERF: REMOVED AP RATIO: 0.4 ability power ⇒ Removed BUFF: NEW SOUL RATIO: Now gains +1 shield per soul collected

Overall Passive and W scaling Buff.

Patch Notes 7.9 General BUFF: HOORAY: Champions who previously gained no magic resist per level now gain 0.5 per level

Overall increased tankiness.

To summarise: So As you can see, Thresh has received his fair share of nerfs and buffs over the years. To summarise:

• His tankiness was nerfed early on and later brought back with damage creep in effect i think this is ok.
• HIs attack range has been shortened but AS increased for compensation.
• HIs Q CD has been nerfed but he is rewarded with successful hit rates.
• His lantern has been nerfed utility wise ITO not being able to shield his entire team which is justified, but his lantern shield scaling has improved.
• His E has not really been touched ITO nerfs and buffs (with the exception of bug fixes) and does not deal damage unless you are building damage on him.
• Finally his R damage has been nerfed to only deal damage on one instance.

TLDR: IMO Thresh seems balanced ITO numbers with the exception of the CD on his Flay (E). Changing the CD to work like his Q CD could be a possible solution (higher CD in general but CD refund for successful flays). ALso with the improvement to support items over the past few seasons he has really started to take advantage of those items . Another case of items affecting the strengths of champions. I think if Riot were to nerf his numbers into the ground, it would not affect his play rate just for the fact that he is so fun to play. (looking at this guy ) A lot of people find it frustrating to play against Thresh because he has a combo that can lock you up for a long time, he can engage from far, and has really good peel for his carries. This is Thresh at his core.

From this I can only deduce that a change to Thresh needs to be made in the form of a mini rework in order to work the frustrating aspects out of his kit. Maybe make the way he locks you down have more counterplay than having anyone who gets caught burn flash instantly. IDK it's all just my opinion but I'd like to know what people think.

Thanks for reading.