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Why nerf Warwick???

Nerdvana··3 votes·4,526 views

Ok, so I am sure some would argue that Warwick with new tools in his kit is going to be "better" than live Warwick, but in every imaginable sence of the word, I can only se the rework as a huge nerf. We are talking about a champion with under 2 % pick/ban rate, and while I am confident that will increase from the simple fact that he is going to be a "new" champion, there are several arguments that live Warwick is stronger in every sence of the word than reworked Warwick.

Well let us look at his kit:

Passive (nerf):

Current passive give you 3-16 extra damage on hit stacking up to 9-48 extra damage and heals you. New passive gives you 10-44 extra damage on hit, and only heals you when you are below 50 % health.

So the numbers have less scaling, but the fact you do not have to stack it give you a bit more burst. However the fact that you only heal up to 50 % of your max health is a HUGE nerf to Warwick with the way he works as an autoattacker...

Q (Burf):

The base damage have been altered. The fact that it now scales from AD rather than AP is a small buff, since AP Warwick is not a thing. It also now procs on-hit, which is a significant buff. The fact that it now have a short gapcloser IS a significant buff to his overall kit, but...

The nerfed part is the scaling of the ability. The base % health damage on champions have been decreased from 8-16 % total health to 6-10 % total healh. As well have the healing been reuced from 80 % damage at all ranks to 30-70 % damage healed...

The reduction in mana costs was very needed, but it does not change the fact, that in terms of dualist potantial, new warwick will flat out lose out to live Warwick in terms of his q's damage and healing.

Blood sence (Nerfed):

While live Warwick gets movement speed when in range of low health health targets, new Warwick gets OUT OF COMBAT movement speed. What this meens for Warwick is that:

  1. Any team mate of your target or your target yourself can hit you and remove your movement speed buff making Warwick much less likely to actually reach your target.
  2. Once you do reach and hit your target, you also lose the additional movement speed, making Warwick much less sticky. Yes it is somewhat compensated for by gabcloser on q and fear on e, but I still find it insignificant compensation.

Furthermore the graffics on bloodtrail and as well as it no longer being a toggle ability/revealing your position will make the champion more assesable and beginner friendly. However the experienced Warwick player loses a lot of power from his useage of blood sent.

Attackspeed buff/w (Burf):

While it have become a passive against low health targets, meening allways active is a buff in situations with plenty low health targets, the old activatable would make you an extreme dualist and synergiced amazingly with his passive... I guess if both you and your target is low, that synergy is still there, but initiating a dual full health v full health is no longer a viable option for a warwick against opponents which are currently close to even in dualist potential. I don't consider it a nerf, but it deffo not a buff either.

New ability e (buff):

This is what will give Warwick slightly more early game potential, while also helping you to potentially peal better or split up a team fight. It counters peal really well, if you have the damage to burst your main target, so it is a rather significant buff to his overall potential in ganking pre 6 and in team fights.

ULT (NERF):

Now I do get the fact that new ult will have longer range or at least potantial for longer range. New ult can also be used as an escape tool (for a splitpushing warwick). But the idea with warwick imho is to lock down a priority target and/or kill someone. In this regards his ult is nerfed to pieces:

  1. reliability: The fact that it is now basicly a skillshoot meens that you can easily fail what is still the main part of your kit.
  2. reliability: The fact that it can be body blocked... Well need I say more? As if Warwick wasn't allready easy enough to peal?
  3. lock down: supress duration have been reduced from 1.8 to 1.5 seconds.
  4. Damage: The base damage have been sligtly increased, but the scaling have been nerfed to pieces.

from 200 % AD on live warwick to 165 % on reworked warwick and much more significantly from 5 onhit procs to 3 on-hit procs. Now that meens less damage from the passive and more significantly one on-hit proc effect from the list (Bork, WE, Bloodraiser, red smite, red buff) will meen less damage on the ult. Since Warwick will almost allways ult with red smite, allways have bloodraiser, allmost allways have either WE or BORK and as a jungler often have red buff... Well, lets just say new warwick deals no comparable damage.

So what compensation does new Warwick have for this seemingly nerfed kit?

Early game ganker?

No. The fact is warwick still have no aoe to clear his jungle, meening he needs a tiamat asap. The attackspeed boost he used to get activatable is no longer there and his sustain from passive and q have been reduced. Optimal strat will be full clear, back and get tiamat. By the time you are in ganking position you'll likely be 6 with a less reliable engage.

Teamfighter?

While I would argue Warwick have been improved as a teamfighter, the viable build for Warwick in terms of him being a teamfighter would be close to full tank... Buuuut, compare him to other tank champions in the game: Poppy, Maokai, Gragas etc. He still just does not have enough in his kit to be viable. Other bruiser champions like Hecarim, Lee Sin, Vi, Shyvana among others have more in their kit for a team fight thn new Warwick does and the sad part is he propably doesn't even comfortably beat these champions 1 v 1 anymore.

Assassin?

No way. As in analasis above, Warwick have LOST damage and stickyness on top of reliability of his ult. If you wanna go assassin Warwick, I would pick live Warwick over the reworked one any day of the week.

Splitpusher?

Maybe. While he have lost a lot of his dualist potential, he might still be strong enough to be a viable splitpusher. As a splitpusher he have lost tower damage (from w active) and he have lost dualist potantial as mentioned. However, new warwick IS a lot more likely to escape a gank, not only can he fear any opponent close to him for disengage, he can also potentially ult to safety. The lack of waveclear can still be solved with a hydra, so I do se more potential for splitpushing on new warwick, that is if you have a lead. Old Warwick would dual anything on even, new Warwick, not so sure.

Now the final point of this analasis, with a nerfed kit in terms of both damage, sustain and reliability is Warwick then buffed significantly on base stats to compensate?

Well, the sad answer to that question is no.

At rank 18:

Live Warwick:

2259 health 120 AD 85.4 Armor

Reworked Warwick:

1995 health 109 AD 78.4 Armor

Riot thinks he might be "a bit" overscaled??? In that case current Warwick is the most OP shit in the game.

12 Comments

Bandle City3 votes

Umm... the reason Warwick is down on sustain now is because his e grants him 40% damage reduction for up to 2.5 seconds before the fear proc. So if you build red smite and a phantom dancer, WW can now have 80% damage reduction in 1v1's which is actually kind of OP in my opinion. He's going to play a bit different but I don't think he's in as bad of a spot as you seem to think. Not to mention that he's still only on the PBE which means they can still tweak his numbers before he goes live.

Nerdvana1 votes

True they can still tweek his numbers, but he'd need significant buffs to be at the strenght level of live warwick... even if he does get a 2.5 secon damage reduction to compensate a little for his nerfed sustain (and damage)

ThugWalrus2 votes

I disagree. I think you underestimate the value of having play-making ability in a kit. Live Warwick has an extremely linear kit and is basically a ball of stats. You just stand there and ult someone, if you manage to maul them to death then you've served your purpose, but if not you become perhaps the most garbage champ in the game.

The rework gives him a gap closer on his Q, that can either be used quickly or held to put you behind the enemy. Besides the obvious power of a gapcloser on a champ like warwick, you can also use the q now to dodge skilshots from other champs and just move around more in general.

The new W gives something to Warwick he's never had, a CC ability that isn't on a super long cooldown. You can combo his fear with a Q to get AOE fears off. Again it's just a lot of outplay potential whereas live Warwick just runs at you in a straight line without ult and hopes you cant kite.

the new bloodscent is GLOBAL and provides movement speed at ANY RANGE. It can also be used on full health targets when activated so it's not just a mindless dead ability with no interaction, it actually has the potential to provide something to his kit at any point, not just when weakened enemies are around. Again this provides him options and outplay potential.

The ult may be a nerf overall, but the old ult was just frustrating and you couldn't have that on a modern (aka decent) champion without massive complaints. Still though the new ult is not linear, it gives WW options (like attacking from FoW from unexpected angels).

Simply quoting the numbers around the abilities like you have done is misleading. Champions have power in their kits for a number of reasons, and damage isn't the only factor. If they changed Yasuo's E to have more damage, but it could only be used on champions, everyone would recognize that as a nerf, but by your logic having more damage would be a buff. Warwick gained the ability to make plays and provide meaningfull power to his team outside his ult, which is worth a reduction of raw stats.

Nerdvana1 votes

You do make some very valid points.

So first of all regarding blod sence I did comment that is had become more assesable and beginner friendly by not revealing your position and also by the visual grafics... I think the fact that it will now be global is a little less significant for the experienced warwick player since rank 5 e currently have a 4700 range. What I think is more important is that it'll only be out of combat movement speed on rework.

I do touch on the fact as well that his new e ability will give him a better team fight (allthough he does lose the ability to buff adc with attackspeed) and that he'll be a safer splitpush option thanks to his new kit...

However as a ganker, live warwick is as you call it a ball of stats, he hurts a lot point and click. I doubt very much reworked Warwick will be able to get off more succesfull ganks, partially to reduced sustain, partially to less reliability and partially to just being that much weaker on stats.

Finally compare to competing champions like top tier Vi and mid tier Nocturne.

Vi ult, point and click disposition, stronger cc than supress, gabcloser with hard cc and a big bursty aoe ability to not be tiamat dependant. Nocturne have the range on his ult without the movement speed, like warwick he have a fear and he's more reliable with ult.

Compare to Rengar:

He have stealth as well as movement speed on his ult, his jump on you is also point and click (since it's an auto) and he will all but one shoot squizies with 2 damage items. He have cc immunity, a massive heal and a skillshoot root in his kit, which is on a lot shorter cd than warwicks "ranged cc".

I just think whichever role you are trying to fullfill, there are better simular champions in the game than reworked warwick, whereas old, liniar and boring to most people Warwick actually had something. He was a ball of stats, that you never fight alone in melee unless you wanna intentional feed and his ult was a dead enemy on impact early on with follow up and if he builds damage the follow up was no longer needed.

Did/does he do a lot? Hell no, but live Warwick is still a unique champion. Does new Warwick do more? YES, but he can be compared to a bunch of champions that just does more (and have more damage).

One thing they could do to make new Warwick a situational pick is to give him true vision on bloodsented enemies, so he'd be a counter for stealth champions (kind of like reksai) but with a very different kit to reksai.

ThugWalrus1 votes

Old Warwick is literally outclassed by 95% of junglers in the game. You don't need to look further than his pick and win rate to see that, so I disagree that he "has something" (by which I assume you mean a niche). The only thing that makes live Warwick unique is his simplicity, that's it. Need a point and click ult? Vi. Honestly even Malz is probably better than Warwick. Need a tanky champ that is going to maul you to death? I'd rather have Udyr. Hell I'd even rather have Nunu to give me attack speed since at least Nunu is good at taking objectives.

Obviously we haven't seen the new Warwick in action outside of PBE, but I definitely think he'll have a unique role. I can't think of another jungler with the ability to "hunt down" champs for lack of a better term. This will allow him to be in positions to gank a lot faster than most of his counterparts. He'll also be a good disrupter champ, diving into the enemy team with an AOE fear. The disrupter role is currently probably better filled by Hecarim so maybe Warwick will be outclassed, but now at least the people who like Warwick's theme will have a fun and (presumably) balanced champ to play with, as opposed to the undertuned, snorefest that is live Warwick.

I Ping Only1 votes

What? You go from being an actual useless champion that farms all game and does nothing to a champion that has slight impact in a game is definitely a buff.

Nerdvana1 votes

IMO he goes from a champ that farms till 6 and pop out for a 100 % sure kill every 90 seconds to a champ with no reliable role at all. He goes from strongest dualist bruiser to unknown on that front.

Kissmysausage1 votes

well, I like to think of him as an anti-tank, tank, imagine a tank with a tank as a weapon

Akenero1 votes

Check again Specifically at low HP. He's getting a massive buff with this overall

Nerdvana1 votes

yeah he is buffed below 20 % hp... but if below 20 % hp he'll get bursted anyways.

Meep Man1 votes

Blood Scent got buffed, excuse you. It now works globally and is always active. The lost in combat movement speed is compensated by his Q getting a dash mechanic and his E gaining crowd control.

Nerdvana1 votes

leaving it active was allways an option and 4700 range feels pretty global allready. the new activatable bloodmark is a buff, but the fact that it's out of combet move speed will still make warwick much more interceptable and since he is nerfed on burst damage the gabcloser and fear is not enough to compensate in terms if stickyness.

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